Calibri (3)

[Sotto]

Hi Calibri, so sorry to read this update. Your sitch reminded me of a chapter I recently read in MHDLMAHTSE (Andrew G Marshall.)

The chapter was about H's saying one thing "I want to work on our M" and doing something else "online dating." - and then not being able to explain why, but saying he loves you etc. He says there are 6 reasons why H's behaviour makes no sense.

1) He doesn't have the 'tools' - Men are brought up to 'act' rather than 'examine their feelings.' And so feelings are often suppressed, denied. Ideally men need to listen to their feelings and work out the complex brew of emotions within. But, rather than do this, many either walk away, medicate or just get angry. (so I think the gist is he can't explain why, because he may not really know.)

2) He's lying to himself. A's cause lies - to your partner, and often to yourself. If your H is routinely lying to himself (and you and possibly an AP) how can he begin to know what he wants.

3) He's a people pleaser. He'll go to great lengths to make others happy and avoid conflict. Thereby denying his own needs, and not being kind or considerate to himself. So, whilst he might agree to have NC with other women, he's susceptible to contact from them, which leads to a cup of coffee, etc, etc.

4) Modern technology - it's easy to type first and think second. Much easier to get 'thrills, affirmation etc' remotely/electronically than if you had to go out to the phone box on a freezing January evening - or work hard to rebuild your M.

5) Shame - It's a toxic emotion and we'll do almost anything to avoid it (different to guilt, where you acknowledge you shouldn't have done something and make amends. Guilt is about the behaviour, shame is about your persona.) Shame can lead you to feel you are unlovable, so we try and avoid it with 3 tactics - justifying ourselves (I was only looking...), attacking (you shouldn't check up on me) and closing down (to block it out.) So, what do H's do? Go online to flirt with women and prove that he isn't unlovable.

6) Fear - H's are dealing with multiple, overlapping and competing fears. Frightened of being depressed, losing you, alienating kids, critical parents, missing out on 'saviour' OW, being able to pay bills etc. Why not just face the fear? Read back over point 1 here. When someone is frightened of making a mistake, they try to keep their options open - kick the can further down the road, hoping something will change or feelings may become clearer.

I have found the AGM books to be helpful alongside MWD's. His approach is very similar to what MWD recommends. There is also some advice on how to combat the above, so if you are interested, let me know and I'll post further.

Toots x