Welcome to your new thread. I almost started one for you!!!!
I'll be in touch.
R 25 years M 14 years S11 & S13 Working on it alone since Oct 2014 M in trouble a lot earlier (~2 years) Feb 2016. 1st R chat in a yr. Next R chat Aug'17 Still together
Guess I will have to ask you something to encourageyoi to write here!
Firstly I hope you are reaching clarity about who you want to be.
In your last thread (and before)you mentioned W spewingon boys. You also mentioned being impotent to do something about it. Can you elaborate why?
Best wishes
R 25 years M 14 years S11 & S13 Working on it alone since Oct 2014 M in trouble a lot earlier (~2 years) Feb 2016. 1st R chat in a yr. Next R chat Aug'17 Still together
fear. that has been what has held me in check. and i despise it.
I have been conditioned to not argue with wife out of fear she will get angry or leave or whatever. call it an extention of my relationship with my mom growing up. yucky. no more. I do not allow my mother's BS to affect.me at all anymore, I continue to love her and accept her for who she is.
I know now that my desire for children's well being is stronger than anything that she should possibly do to me. I have decided no longer to be controlled like that by that wuss that is my self. thst man is not who i want to be and have been pealing off those layers of years of avoidance. years of avoidance, patterned behaviour, uugh.
think about how much my wife has learned not to trust ME when she knew I was lying to her to avoid a conflict (how many times have you told your wife 'nothing wasnwrong' when she was asking you...she knew you were lying and that destroys trust over time...sigh)...by holding things in to avoid her possibly getting mad...by omitting details because I was afraid to be seen in a poor light for something I did, even simple stupid crap. years of this will definitely ruin a trust and i am paying for it trying to gain that side of trust back from her.
anyways...so for me, just accepting my old behaviors was not in my best interest nor my kids and changing them. not easy to change crap that took 40 years to shape...my protector self is week, this conflict inside has been raging for a while now and really tearing me apart.
i think about how hard it is for me, then i apply that to our my wifes and cut her more slack as far as how hard it will be for her to change....when her learned behaviors to protect herself theough those emotionally destructive times in her childhood.
my response (^^^ that response throughout our marriage) has not been healthy. I have enabled her to treat me like $hit for too long because of it. I have not placed boundaries around myself to prevent more harm through our entire marriage and now I am starting from scratch.
detaching myaelf from her pain and allowing her to change on her own...her own free will, giving her the space snf time to thrive or wallow is where I have been heading lately.
that is not easy. but none of this is.
thanks for the prompt you have been helping me out more than i can express.
I feel like I need a good swift kick in the Keister from time to time.
I reread this and it is not exactly right...but i dont have a chance to express perfectly, so here it is.
we are going away for the holiday so will not have a huge chunk of time to post. I will make a.trip to one of my favorite breweries, inot Michigan so i will raise a pint of stout (or Porter, whatever you chose) for you!
It expresses very clearly thoughts that I have been trying to sort out in my mind in my situation. I am going to post this into my thread as reminder of my current need and efforts to change in me.
FEAR. This has help me back in so many ways in my life. I have known it, but have not conquered it. I have managed it,and thought I was doing well, until I found that managing it, has destroyed my family, due to a passive approach.
I can not express to you how I needed to see and read this written out this morning. While reading it, something just clicked and I will dwell on the meaning of it for me.
Thank you
Me 46 Former W 46 D19 D7 BD Feb 2016 WAW moves out 4/16/16 D final 6/1/2017
It's time for me to start changin' the way I look at the world......and at myself. ~James Howlett aka Wolverine
hey Sad, feel free to repost...could you fix my typo's thought
I am glad that my struggle can help anyone...it is a good to know I am not alone. it is both therapeutic to me to get this off of my chest and I get a sense of peace from knowing that my pain can help others grow past what I have been mired in for decades.
Zephyr, I hear you about conditioning from dealing with your mother. Living with my parents has sure been an eye opener for me. Every discussion with my mother results in her having extreme anger, spewing hate at me, etc. The next day she'll tell me how she agrees with everything I said. WTF? I ask her to stop hovering, she can't. I ask her to stop interfering with my children, she can't. This feels so familiar, I realize that has been the trend my entire life. This is what caused me to be who I am.
These patterns repeated in my M. What causes us to either retaliate in anger (aka fear) like I do, or back down in fear like you do? Patterns in our M, or patterns from our parents? Then, did we marry our mother or father? They fit our life so well because they are a photocopy of the dysfunction we are used to experiencing?
I have the opposite end, but same problem. My W learned to not trust me because of the anger, or because I tried to fix her. Neither extreme works. Being open, honest, AND most of all calm I think is the solution? It takes all 3 at the same time to be effective?
I have a theory I shared with my brother the other day. When someone vents without thinking, whether writing or talking or yelling, their true feelings come out. I have noticed this in text messages I used to get from W. I know her well, I can read a text that she wrote, and know that even though she was terrible at sharing, when she did share, what she wrote was genuine, that she didn't ever filter anything. Her lack of empathy or lack of intelligence or whatever was the issue, prevented her from having a filter. Her perception is way off from the norm, way off from logic, but still genuine. Her method of response is extremely hurtful (the OFP is a prime example), but still the "right thing to do" from her perspective.
Running everything through a filter first is designed to protect others, or to protect ourselves from not appearing a certain way to others (more fear). The more thought out your posts are, the less genuine they are? What are you really p'd off about that you are filtering? I am sure you have noticed the lack of filter in my posts. My "wrong" thoughts are right there in the open. Fear of what others think is not part of why I journal. I hope my W never reads the things I have written, or anyone else that I know, but I know I am being honest with myself. I should post this in my thread also I guess.
Here's the part that confuses me... do we filter or share with brutal honestly in a M?
Don't sell yourself short Z. You have done so much and are a work in progress. Phenomenal progress in many ways.
Are you ready to tackle this fear? Are you ready to stand up and place the boundaries you need to place? Reread NG. It sings about this. I have found that sometimes I come across some info.I really get it and agree with it, but it is only much much later that it is right time to implement it. Sometimes we just aren't there yet but you know when you are.
Anyway sidetrack apart. You have already placed THE boundary so the others should be less fearful.
Have a good holiday and actually I am a larger guy, though have been meaning to retry the Guinness!
R 25 years M 14 years S11 & S13 Working on it alone since Oct 2014 M in trouble a lot earlier (~2 years) Feb 2016. 1st R chat in a yr. Next R chat Aug'17 Still together
Running everything through a filter first is designed to protect others, or to protect ourselves from not appearing a certain way to others (more fear). The more thought out your posts are, the less genuine they are? What are you really p'd off about that you are filtering? I am sure you have noticed the lack of filter in my posts. My "wrong" thoughts are right there in the open. Fear of what others think is not part of why I journal. I hope my W never reads the things I have written, or anyone else that I know, but I know I am being honest with myself. I should post this in my thread also I guess.
Here's the part that confuses me... do we filter or share with brutal honestly in a M?
Ok so I will not hit backspace on this post
I will say that I am not a very articulate person. I don't stutter when i talk, but do when I think...I jumble crap up and my thought come off as confusing rather that what I want to say.
I try to Polish these posts to be as suss once as possible but often fall short.
what am i afraid of here...being accepted. dont want to seem wishy washy or indiciaive or weak. here I am not treated as an outcast or a fraud. even my brothers over the years have cast me aside from time to time because I am not the same as them. I've tried to get into the same activities as them to build something...but it always wore thin.
I know they love me. they just don't want to enjoy the same activites as me, so we don't hang out as much as I would like. part of that is me, i know.
I don't want to talk too much about my mother, I've accepted she is overbearing and i no longer allow her bullcrap drama to get to me. I actually have spent more time with her in last year than whole adult life...detach emotionally, accept that a scorpion is a scorpion and nothing I will ever do can change that...right.
my dad, his acceptance is something is strove for for years and never felt like I got it. is he proud, i am sure...I just never heard it from him. not when I labored on study as a kid, or get a job at 14, academics, athletics, work, college two degrees in 5 years with multiple part time jobs, my life in general..never seemed to make a dent.
last 4th of July we were together at my summer cottage in Michigan. we had been drinking all day...I laid into my parents pretty hard about thier 'acceptance' of me and my brothers and the relationships over the years. they were both crying pretty hard. never saw my dad cry like that in my whole life.
since then, mom and dad have been making a real effort to try to see each of us 4 boys and our kids more and be present, letting crap go...working on rebuilding relationships with daughters in law...all that.
I am getting stronger, for sure. I will continue to draw strength from you guys...from my kids and from the knowledge that I deserve to be treated better.
you have been helping me out more than i can express.