My example show that clearly enough, but maybe the other statement is also true. You know how they say "Smile and the world laughs with you", to which I add "Frown and the world laughs at you". I do find it's true. If you smile, it's hard to feel sad. You don't even have to feel happy to start with, but if you plaster a smile on your face, especially if it's to show to others, before long it affects your mood.
Another example of this is that if you do tender things for your wife, it affects how you feel about her. Last evening W and I sat together and watched TV, there was a movie on called "After Hours" (Martin Scorsese). It was a very interesting movie. Anyway, we sit together at one end of the couch, and that hasn't changed, but last evening I put my arm around her a bit more closely, and ran my fingers along her arm, just idly, and I started feeling the love I have for her in a way I haven't felt recently. I continued to do things like that... I gently massaged her right shoulder with my other hand, ran the backs of my fingers along her neck, just ever so gently, but not demanding, not sexual, just as if we were newly dating and I wanted her to know how I felt about her, but at the point when you're dating where you don't know each other well enough to make assumptions. Right back to basics.
Anyway, my point is, the very ACT of what I was doing was generating tender and protective and loving feelings in me. In her, too, I think (I hope). When we went to bed, her kisses were warmer and more numerous, and she said ily. I'm sure she meant it, also.
I'm beginning to see how very far there is to go... I don't think I had a very good idea about that before, but instead of depressing me, it makes me feel more hopeful, because it may mean I've crested a bit of a hill or something, and now I can see more of the terrain ahead. That means I've moved forward.
OTOH, I overheard W talking to the EAP service yesterday when talking about setting up counselling, and I heard her saying she feels she needs "a few sessions" to figure things out. I am less and less hopeful that C will make much of a difference, and I'm beginning to think that MOST counsellors do more harm than good (see Michele's "When therapy hurts" forum).
