Stimulus-Response: The Experiment Continues

[Matt165]

Hi GG,
When my W was still at home I noticed that she hated when I would GAL. She even told me that one of the "reasons" she had to end the M was because I didn't do enough "on my own" and I should go out without her more often. So, when I did that she would get upset by it! Wonka said this is because when the MLC is miserable, they want you to be as well. To them it's just not "fair" that you have fun when you are causing them so much pain. Even after her leaving, if I brought up something I did that was "fun" she felt the need to say "When I get settled in my new place, I'm going to do fun things too!" (nanny, nanny, boo-boo!). Just yesterday when I picked up my D14 I was smiling and upbeat and she seemed upset at this and hurried the process up almost running back to her car to get away. (I know she wasn't in a hurry because she was upset that Sam's had closed before she got there and wanted to shop!).

I know my W is still depressed and I know how she hated it when people around her were happy when she was at her worst. One of the reasons I stopped doing things "on my own" was because I felt bad leaving her miserable at home! Like Raine says it doesn't make sense the way they feel, how even though they were the ones to leave, they feel rejected by us. The whole GAL, detaching, 180 thing is such a balancing act. Not enough is bad, too much is bad.

Keep experimenting GG. Only you really know what is right and what works against you.

[Wonka]

A clarification is in order:

Wonka said this is because when the MLC is miserable, they want you to be as well. To them it's just not "fair" that you have fun when you are causing them so much pain.

You're pretty close, Matt. Cannot expect you to remember my exact words.

While I was in my MLC, I was miserable and depressed. When Ms. Wonka did her GAL stuff and being happy, it got my nose out of joint because why should she be having fun while I'm so damned miserable??!! So we say things or do stuff to knock them down a peg just to make ourselves feel a bit better about our circumstances. It is not because you are the cause of our pain. Not the case for nearly all of MLCers.

You never are THE CAUSE of our pain. It is all internal. Sure, we finger you as the root cause of our pain because why else are we feeling so damned miserable all the time??!

You are tangible...so we assign blame squarely on your shoulders and we FLEE from the fire not realizing where the real smoke came from. We're dang good at running away!

[Matt165]

Sorry about that Wonka! Didn't mean to put words in your mouth! My sincere apologies!!!

[Wonka]

GGG,

1. When I end first/walk away first... this seems to come across as rejection and shuts him down.
I've replayed a few conversations where it sounds as though I've shut the door on further contact:
"Well, talk to you tomorrow, I guess. Bye."
"Is there anything else? I've got ---blank---to do." (Walking away)

Now I see where he would have kept it going had I not shut the door in his face.
We're having a nice chatty phone conversation and I'm thinking, "End this first!", so I sort of shut down and sign off...
It was only later that I realized I was shutting it down, NOT him.
I think he'd keep it going but for the fact that he believes I don't want to.

So I'll have to play with this and see if it changes.

How do you think you could change/influence this dynamic? Perhaps let him know gently as in "I'd love to chat with you all night. I need to tend to the animals (or whatever task you need to take care of). We can do this again tomorrow (or some other date/time). "

This will let him know that you're not shutting things down and making him aware that you do have to attend to "life" stuff.

2. He is acting as though I have DUMPED HIM.
So much of how he's acting is saying that I have rejected him... and he's just making the best of it.

If I remember correctly, you stated in one of your earlier threads that you threw H out of the house when you discovered OW. In a twisted way, you did reject H. We all get that you had very valid reasons to do so...that was your boundary. I think one can have no OW boundary while living in the same house.

You might want to brush up a bit on Raine's thread and rip a page or two from her playbook when she told H that it was up to him to decide to move to the master bedroom from the couch. In other words, you will need to figure out a way to gently lay down the crumbs so H can find his way to the front door of the Hansel & Gretel house.

In our previous R, I was always independent, busy, had my own friends and my own fun. So this is not a 180 for me. IT's MORE OF THE SAME.

I have to be careful that I don't give the impression that he's irrelevant.
Because he's not.
I honestly think I'm coming across as intimidating and unattainable.
Especially in his lowly state.

I want to caution you that you would want to be your true authentic self here. If this is who you really are, then I wouldn't change this aspect just to appease/please H in mollifying his own inadequacy. I am guessing that this particular trait is what initially attracted H to you, right?

Although I don't want to be in the "friend zone" forever, if he doesn't feel comfortable around me as a friend now, if he doesn't spend quality time with me, how will he ever remember all the best things about me and about the bond that we share?

That sort of friendship is what draws back the MLCer back into the home. Let's face it...the sex drive drops to near zero. I remember feeling numb and not feeling it "sexually" for Ms. Wonka even if I had my own OW. That is our wacky worldview at that stage.

You would want to keep the door open and ajar for H. Keep going, GGG! You're doing really, really well.

[Wonka]

Sorry about that Wonka! Didn't mean to put words in your mouth! My sincere apologies!!!

You didn't and never did. Sometimes when I try to recall some words from other DBers...we do our best to get it right. No worries, Matt. I knew exactly what you were striving for here.

[GoatGal]

Thanks, Matt and Wonka,

It's good to get feedback right now because I feel like what I'm gleaning from my experiment might fly in the face of DBing!

Somewhere in my gut, though, I am seeing things a bit more clearly.
I often have some real blind spots and that worries me because I miss important things. A lot.

GGG,

1. When I end first/walk away first... this seems to come across as rejection and shuts him down.
I've replayed a few conversations where it sounds as though I've shut the door on further contact:
"Well, talk to you tomorrow, I guess. Bye."
"Is there anything else? I've got ---blank---to do." (Walking away)

Now I see where he would have kept it going had I not shut the door in his face.
We're having a nice chatty phone conversation and I'm thinking, "End this first!", so I sort of shut down and sign off...
It was only later that I realized I was shutting it down, NOT him.
I think he'd keep it going but for the fact that he believes I don't want to.

So I'll have to play with this and see if it changes.

How do you think you could change/influence this dynamic? Perhaps let him know gently as in "I'd love to chat with you all night. I need to tend to the animals (or whatever task you need to take care of). We can do this again tomorrow (or some other date/time). "

This will let him know that you're not shutting things down and making him aware that you do have to attend to "life" stuff.

I think you're right on the money here. I need to be busy, NOT PURSUING, not waiting around or hanging on his every word, but at the same time letting him know I am not avoiding or rejecting him.

2. He is acting as though I have DUMPED HIM.
So much of how he's acting is saying that I have rejected him... and he's just making the best of it.

If I remember correctly, you stated in one of your earlier threads that you threw H out of the house when you discovered OW. In a twisted way, you did reject H. We all get that you had very valid reasons to do so...that was your boundary. I think one can have no OW boundary while living in the same house.

YES!!! He was actually upset when I told him to get out.
I did that when he served me with D papers.
I did throw him out five months prior to that when I found OW, he "ended it" the next day (I think it was done) and allowed him back.
But things between us were horrific.
I was psycho. Really out of my gourd with shock and grief.
It didn't go well.

I didn't throw him out when he filed, just when he served me.
I said: "Get help, or get out."
I still mean that.

He hadn't wanted to leave!
He had a GPS on his phone, was really transparent.
Boy--did I ever blow it!

When I kicked him out the day he served me, he even said that his shrink was "right". "He SAID we could never live here together!!!!'"

(Seriously. Did the man ask his psych if HE thought we could co-exist peacefully? Because he told me that he thought there was no reason why we shouldn't. WTF????)

He was angry, as if somehow it was MY FAULT for not being OK with being served and living with him as though he hadn't ripped my heart out.
As if it shouldn't change a thing between us.
I think that's been his plan all along, just to keep me around, but put some serious distance between us for however long he felt like it.
I still believe the D was a gag order from H, and something he did to prevent me from doing it to HIM.
Now he can't back out without losing face.


He served me after a discussion of "Fault Divorce".
That's something I could have done in our state with proof of his adultery.
I would have been done with him in 90 days flat, drag OW and co. onto the stand. Real ugly and he couldn't do a damn thing about it.


I believe he filed as a counter-measure, and never would have done it if I hadn't threatened the other, nastier option first.
He initially said several times that he did NOT want a divorce.
I kept threatening... and there you go.

So yes. On some level he DOES feel rejected.
He is angry that things worked out this way.
That he's not at home, that I threw him out.
Ridiculous, I know, but true. He wants me to feel sorry for HIM having to run back and forth to keep up his responsibilities.
This comes out in little things like wanting to put the Netflix on "MY" credit card because I get to watch it and he mostly doesn't.
This is stupid because all our accounts are in both our names, and he pays for all of them! This is just the one card that has me as "primary".


You might want to brush up a bit on Raine's thread and rip a page or two from her playbook when she told H that it was up to him to decide to move to the master bedroom from the couch. In other words, you will need to figure out a way to gently lay down the crumbs so H can find his way to the front door of the Hansel & Gretel house.

Thanks, I have been doing that! There are some real similarities and that's where I started to realize that maybe my approach was a bit off.
All the stuff she said about how he needed so much reassurance.
That all rang true for me.

In our previous R, I was always independent, busy, had my own friends and my own fun. So this is not a 180 for me. IT's MORE OF THE SAME.

I have to be careful that I don't give the impression that he's irrelevant.
Because he's not.
I honestly think I'm coming across as intimidating and unattainable.
Especially in his lowly state.

I want to caution you that you would want to be your true authentic self here. If this is who you really are, then I wouldn't change this aspect just to appease/please H in mollifying his own inadequacy. I am guessing that this particular trait is what initially attracted H to you, right?


YES---AND NO.

It attracted him to me as a life partner, but my independence is something I felt threatened him on another level.
Supposedly, this desire to be close to me, yet not be in control of me, and not wanting to be vulnerable to me, was a big part of his ED with me.

It's easier to "perform" with someone you don't care about, feel superior to, and with whom you can control the level of interaction.
(As in OW and porn. Low-no expectations. I'm real, I'm a keeper, so I'm a lot harder to get close to. I could hurt him because he's VULNERABLE to me, and he hates that. This is why he has SAID he prefers to have physical relationships with people that are not close to him. It's not so SCAREY. Ugh. )

So with me, it was a kinship of one kind, with a repulsion on the other.

You'll have to take my word on this. It's been an ongoing discussion for decades by now. He just was never willing to do anything about it, instead I guess I put up with it.

But it's NOT a 180 for me to be out GALing and having a PMA.
I've always been like that.
I never needed a man, never clung to him.
THE OTHER WOMEN IN HIS LIFE DID THIS. NOT ME.
OW did too, I believe.
They were needy and damaged, not R/M material. I am.
On the other hand, he didn't respect them, which is why he could use them sexually.
Me--not so much.

See the problem here?
I never felt like I needed someone to complete me or make me happy.
I think that's attractive to him, while also being threatening.
So there's a fine line to walk between being independent, but also soft and feminine and vulnerable.

To be honest, I don't have a problem cultivating my more "feminine" and submissive side.
I tend to be a "take charge type" (like that's not obvious ) being direct, opinionated, smart, jumping right in.
I'm not the type to hang back and wait for the man to make the decisions.

But, hey. I watched the "Millionaire Matchmaker'!!
According to her, I have too much "Masculine Energy", which can be a real turnoff to the less assertive men.
Or a turn-on. Guess it depends on the guy.

But it would not be a bad thing to soften up some, you know?

I do notice when I modulate my speaking voice, softer, quieter, higher pitch, I get a different reaction from EVERYBODY, not just GUBU.

As I said, with the Asperger's, all my social skills are LEARNED anyway.
So at this point, my "authentic self" socially speaking, is moot.

I am the collection of people skills I have learned over the years, this is just one more thing to master when called for!

That probably sounds weird, but it's no different from what I've done my whole life. Learn what makes other people comfortable, how to interact more effectively, what annoys people, what they like...
I thought I had it down pretty well, but this aspect of my social personality can be improved.

And it doesn't mean I have to stop being ME, it just means minding my body language and what comes out of my mouth more closely until it becomes natural.

My whole life... has been this. ^^^

And now I feel sad that I've had to live like this and I usually don't feel sorry for myself in this way.
But writing this is kind of getting to me... I feel sorry for that little girl on the playground who had to learn how to act normal so she could have friends.


At least at this point, it feels natural and it feels like "me". But it didn't always.

Although I don't want to be in the "friend zone" forever, if he doesn't feel comfortable around me as a friend now, if he doesn't spend quality time with me, how will he ever remember all the best things about me and about the bond that we share?

That sort of friendship is what draws back the MLCer back into the home. Let's face it...the sex drive drops to near zero. I remember feeling numb and not feeling it "sexually" for Ms. Wonka even if I had my own OW. That is our wacky worldview at that stage.

I think so too, Wonka.
I can see that he wants my support and friendship. He is EXTREMELY sensitive, and I can see where this sensitivity has played out in response to things I've said and done.

I never saw my H in this way before, so it took awhile to unravel what I thought I was seeing.
Now I get the vulnerability and fear... he does NOT want to be rejected.

I am NOTHING like his mother, nor am I like the nuns who raised him in the orphanage.
But there is some stuff he says and does that I swear feels like he is responding to those women and not to me, funny Goat Gal.



You would want to keep the door open and ajar for H. Keep going, GGG! You're doing really, really well.


Thanks, Wonka.

Sometimes I wonder how I'm doing, but at least I had sense enough to trust what I was seeing as I kept documenting my results.

They say "Do what works."

So that's what I'm doing.
It's still DBing, just with a little tweak because my squirrelly amoeba is particularly spooky!

-----GGG

[GoatGal]

And now I get this long email asking silly questions about things he already has the answers to.

I KNOW that he does!

So I'm just answering, matter-of-factly, as if he still has a brain....

I guess it's an attempt at connection, or he really did forget EVERYTHING we discussed over the last week.

---GGG

[Wonka]

And now I get this long email asking silly questions about things he already has the answers to.

I KNOW that he does!

So I'm just answering, matter-of-factly, as if he still has a brain....

I guess it's an attempt at connection, or he really did forget EVERYTHING we discussed over the last week.

---GGG

Ah...here's another rude awakening for you...MLCers have Swiss-cheese memory. They do forget things. I know for a fact that I am unable to recall some stuff that happened while in my MLC. sigh

[Wonka]

GGG,

This caught my attention big time!

I am NOTHING like his mother, nor am I like the nuns who raised him in the orphanage.
But there is some stuff he says and does that I swear feels like he is responding to those women and not to me, funny Goat Gal.

As you know, our FOO issues do influence and shape us. However, learned behaviors can be unlearned. They don't have to be a life sentence, ya know.

This is very interesting. For the most part, nuns represent the most repressed model in organized religion and sexuality isn't brought up...if ever! Only if to make babies.

I do wonder if growing up in that environment made H seek out porn subconsciously as a way to work through his repressed sexual feelings because he didn't have any healthy models growing up on what constitutes a healthy relationship.

For eons, we're taught not to masturbate or take sexual pleasure in lovemaking for the pure pleasure of it instead of the procreation business. Goodness! No wonder the lot of the HuMan race is seriously messed up!

What do you think, GGG?

[GoatGal]

I think there is a lot of truth there.

The nuns also used to tuck the kids in tightly at night with their hands ABOVE the covers to prevent any sinning...

H has had claustrophobic stuff ever since I've known him; "weirdnesses" about the window being cracked, covers not too tight, don't touch him when he's sleeping, there's a whole lot of stuff.
Can't breathe, feels stifled, trapped.
----------------------------------------

Add to this he got adopted at age five, immediately had his name changed, had surgery on both eyes where they also "restrained" him from scratching his eyes by putting his arms in long tubes so he couldn't touch his face. For weeks.

Then his father dropped dead in front of him, a stroke in his late 40's.

After that, H was alone with his mother, who had to go to work full time and he was left as the "little man" taking care of everything at home, dishes, laundry...
It was just the two of them, and he was a very good son to her.

He did a lot for me that he used to do for her, and I know that's how he shows his love.
Mom was a good woman, but worked hard to provide for him. She was MIA a lot.
Early on he had to learn to soothe and parent himself.
He learned that people are unreliable, they leave you, they hurt you.

No role models of love and marriage, no physical affection, he was alone most of the time. He doesn't remember any sexual abuse, but certainly there was physical punishment and outright emotional neglect.

Surely he has attachment and intimacy issues. We've talked about it. He knows it.

I get all this. I've always known about it.

THIS IS WHY I ACCEPTED SO MUCH OVER THE YEARS.

His cheating on me was the final straw after I made concessions out of love and understanding, on things I would have liked to be different.
I felt like I was the one paying...all along.
And now he wants me to continue to pay.
At least that's what it feels like.


He knows he has "issues", is pretty clear on what they are, and that they ruined our marriage.

I would love for him to be brave and finally face things head on.

---GGG