Hey all. What a weird day today! This morning, a guy at my work was trying to come on to me. He had what had to be the first pick up line I've EVER heard, lolol! Something about how , in his Tribe, there was a tradition of "stealing women" for wives & that's a hard tradition to break when he met a woman like me. Can you believe it? Sheesh! I told him that my H came from a Tribe that had a tradition of kicking the a$$es of men who talked to their wives like that & my Tribe had a few "traditions" along those lines too. Holy! And that was just the start of a day that got weirder!
Anyways....Sage, no you aren't the only one. It feels like a fine line to walk sometimes. I won't deny that there is still a lot that I have to work through and it will take time. Here's the big BUT (lol) though: I'm not going to wallow in being a martyr and I'm not trying to punish my sweetie! It took a while for him to get that it is a gift when I bring him my vulnerable feelings and allow him to comfort me and for me to comfort him in return. It's about healing and turning TOWARD each other instead of isolating and distancing. It's new stuff for us, good stuff!
Also, I think ratio is important. Lot's of positive stuff per a little bit of the difficult stuff.
KAW, maybe I do need to go back and read through my threads for a fresh appreciation of how far we've come. The healing that is still in progress doesn't take away from the really good state that our relationship is in now, though. Ya know, I always knew our R had the potential to be great, but we both had limited abilities to express ourselves or ask for what we needed.
Pam, I knew from the day the bomb hit that we could work our way through this if we both wanted to. I know that sometimes it takes awhile for some WAS to shake their heads and wonder WTF they were thinking first, but there is a level of disrespect that would have been the breaking point for me. I love my guy, but I deserve to be treated with kindness and respect. If I had not seen improvement in those areas over time, I would have walked away and told myself that it was Wolfie's loss.
You deserve to be loved and treated with respect too! You have used the bottom-line self-improvement principals of DB in the finest way--for yourself! Some folks learn the hard lessons in life by watching other people make mistakes, some folks have to make serious mistakes themselves but learn from those, and SOME folks just keep beating their head against a brick wall over and over--wondering why it hurts! You have learned so much! I know you are not ready to think about another R yet, but you are much healthier and happier now--so in the future, you will attract a much healtheir & happier R!
To Slowly & Mooka & T2 & PIB & everybody else: big wave HI!
