...and another WAS

[Pyrite]

Thanks Cadet. Im still waiting on delivery of DR. Should be at my other home when I get back from my week with the kids

[TenBook]

Great post rppfl, thanks for helping me out.

Pyrite, I've met you before. Guys like you show up on the board on a regular basis. And Mr. Bond and others try to pull out the mirror, try to show you a true reflection of yourselves. Some of you get angry and leave. Some of you get defensive and ask the Wise Ones to stop posting on their threads. A few of you actually listen and make the changes. I admire those guys a great deal.

Pyrite, we all care about each other here, and everything posted is with the best of intentions, but sometimes it's hard to hear. I urge you to set aside your pride and your ego and listen. You have nothing to lose. Relax, slow down, use your considerable brain power to reflect. You have everything to gain.

[Miman2]

Great post rppfl, thanks for helping me out.

Pyrite, I've met you before. Guys like you show up on the board on a regular basis. And Mr. Bond and others try to pull out the mirror, try to show you a true reflection of yourselves. Some of you get angry and leave. Some of you get defensive and ask the Wise Ones to stop posting on their threads. A few of you actually listen and make the changes. I admire those guys a great deal.

Pyrite, we all care about each other here, and everything posted is with the best of intentions, but sometimes it's hard to hear. I urge you to set aside your pride and your ego and listen. You have nothing to lose. Relax, slow down, use your considerable brain power to reflect. You have everything to gain.

I guess I'm guilty of this too. I haven't asked anyone to stop posting and it seems hard not to get defensive about some things. The forum medium seems to sometimes inherently cause some misunderstanding. But yeah I think generally we're all cheering for the same team here.

[MrBond]

"She was domestically challenged, again a fact."

Still doing it. Let me put it another way. If you think that lowly of her domestic skills, why try to save the marriage? I'm not saying that you need to see her as perfect but if you continually keep these thoughts in the back of your mind, resentment will come up in you and you'll still see yourself as being above her.

[Pyrite]

Mr Bond, I'm glad you got us off tack. I want to save the marriage because I love her. Nothing to do with her domestic skills.

We lived together for 5.5 years before getting married. Her domestic skills have actually improved and it was even a joke between us. It is not a big issue, and really i only mention it to illustrate our daily life. the R was under pressure, mainly because of me, and i was under pressure too. i didn't have time to settle, reflect, check my ego etc. Weeknights, the first time i sat down was for dinner and the next time was when i took the oldest to bed (with a wet T-shirt from dishes, every night). Weekends were pretty much the same. I haven't watched TV in 4 years. My schedule was flat out every day. Her behaviour of not putting anything away, or shutting a drawer, or keeping every piece of paper that comes into the house did not help.

She took it for granted until it had already grown to be a resentment issue for me. I was stupid, and I kicked myself even at the time. She would offer to do the dishes or something, and my attitude always found some excuse not to graciously accept, even criticise her at times. As I realised from Zeus' discussion of this issue, I set her up to fail. Unless she did do the dishes, cook, clean, be a wife etc exactly as I had EXPECTED, then I would resent her for it. And this resentment built up. The sad truth is that without this kick in the head I never would've realised this in the same light. I knew it to be the case, but on a really superficial level. I mean i didn't see it as a fault in me per se. With some issues I did, but I couldn't understand why, and without the time, harbouring resentment already, I didn't explore this any further. Also, even if she had met my expectations, I'm sure I would've just shifted them.

In short, the "pig" issue is not a big deal. there were aspects of her personality which i do consider to be real issues. And others, including her parents, have noted this. BUT I knew these things 12 years ago. I accepted them then, and pretty much always have. They have contributed to where we are, and I believe for her sake she should deal with them. BUT (again), this is not my concern. My concern is me. My behaviour is really what destroyed the M. Not hers. Hers may have eventually, but we'll never know that and it doesn't matter now anyway. In so far as being verbally or openly disrespectful, I certainly have in the last few months. My attitude has been for years.

[Pyrite]

" if you continually keep these thoughts in the back of your mind, resentment will come up in you and you'll still see yourself as being above her"

ok - i've omitted commenting on this. i can understand your advice here. but i really dont think I'm dwelling on this point at all. it is not something I expect her to even change. It would be nice if she was more mindful of it, but it is NOT a condition or anything.

[MrBond]

"but i really dont think I'm dwelling on this point at all. it is not something I expect her to even change. It would be nice if she was more mindful of it, but it is NOT a condition or anything."

First of all, you're going to have to learn what saying the word 'but' means when you're communicating with your W or others. When you say "but", it negates and invalidates everything you said before it.

AND the fact that you say things like "it would be nice if she was more mindful of it" shows that you're STILL focussing on her faults.

[Pyrite]

and if i haven't said already, I have been disrespectful of her and mistreated her in general. Just not particularly this one.

[Pyrite]

Actually there's alot to do. GAL isn't one of them. You can start learning about how to treat and communicate with women in a respectable manner. You learn not to call her a pig or any other derogatory titles. As it outlines in the books, you can write out your list of problems that you caused in the marriage and next to them, write out the list of solutions on how you are correcting them. You learn how to get rid of the ego so that when chances of you meeting with her arise, you know what to do.

You learn and you grow. That's what you do.

i am working on this. i should point out though - it is not a gender thing. i treat everyone the same way, just a female happens to be my W and the one closest to me, copping the worst of it.

[Heart14]

but i really dont think I'm dwelling on this point at all. it is not something I expect her to even change. It would be nice if she was more mindful of it, but it is NOT a condition or anything.

Pyrite, even though you state it's not a condition I'd caution you on mentally focusing on her flaws. Even if you don't bring them up, I'm guessing she can tell that you have all these negative thoughts about her. That's not going to attract her back to you. We know you love her or you likely wouldn't be here. Can you give us some things you like about her?

She would offer to do the dishes or something, and my attitude always found some excuse not to graciously accept, even criticise her at times.

I get the impression from your posts that you felt you did everything and she did nothing. Did you ever ask her to help? Often we expect our spouses to anticipate our needs/wants. They aren't mind readers. We need to communicate these things to them. It's also important to realize they might not do things our way, but that doesn't mean their way is wrong. It's just different.

It seems like you set her up for constant failure because she could never be perfect enough. What we emphasize grows. If you mainly point out her faults, eventually that's all you (and she while she's with you) will see.