Everyone please keep challenging me and don’t give up on me. Call me out.
I am trying to engage honestly but maybe I’m not used to facing these things.
Mach:
I am scared and pretty decent and nice but I have failed in my marriage and have lost my wife. One of the things I have often done poorly, is resort to control out of fear.
I have been afraid in our marriage if my wife’s emotional distress and her conflicts with our eldest daughter for example, so I would try to control our daughter and fix their conflicts sometimes.
Ok let’s look at the list in the context of my behaviours in our marriage:
1. This has improved with maturity and as I have looked past my biases to see that I still have to overcome judgment. Naturally, I have often resort to judgment when I don’t understand or approve of something that scares me, but I have sincerely sought to appreciate a merciful and restorative lens to love and accept my wife without judgment. I’m still working on this, but it is coming more. 2. I am sometimes honest but I have often suppressed honesty and been dishonest with my wife instead of standing up for myself and what is important and what is right. I was dishonest for a period of time when I was afraid of judgment from my wife regarding how I spent time, money and energy: watching lots of sports, junk food/fast food etc. instead of owning up to this is what I did, this is what I am deciding to do, this is what I need to change I hid for a period. I had changed that approach to be honest responsible and accountable after my 30’s. Also I was not often honest in standing up to W when she made comments of contempt or disrespect or insulting to me. 3. Yes 4. Yes 5. Not always especially when I am afraid. 6. Yes 7. Yes to a certain degree but as I am going through treatment for ptsd and the breakdown in my marriage I am healing to be able to do this more, go through the pain, be vulnerable about it with safe trustworthy solid friends and therapists 8. Yes though again, I am learning to check my motives, intentions, and methods to determine what Am I trying to achieve, to benefit whom, what ways am I using manipulation? 9. Yes 10. Yes I have done this well at times and others not because I have given into resentment at times. Yet I am continuing to grow in this. One thing I recognize is that I am patient. Patience has been produced in me through suffering and growth and persistence.
Bonus: Yes
I want to do the work well for option 1 - work through this failed marriage , learn, become whole and ready for a healthy relationship including the possibility of healing with W.
I am afraid right now of giving up, only half a$$ing the opportunity for learning and growth I have been presented with and failing and failing again and again.
I am afraid of W’s emotional distress
Yes I am a person I would want to have a relationship with. Having said that, I want to be more courageous to face my character flaws and failures and use my time to be a stronger man. I want to totally move away from controlling others. I want to be courageous and confident to deal with things effectively.
A couple questions (out of so many that I have about my quest for growth and need for healing:
Please help me to understand what you mean in these sentences : 1. “That is if you were to compare a lifetime of building behavioural patterns from within them”
How I interpret this is as so: if I were to consider a person who invested a lifetime building behaviours patterns from within these points, how would the way that people experience that person compare to how my wife has experienced me in our marriage?
2. “Make sure that you aren’t holding her accountable for your actions and emotional decisions.”
My take: make sure I don’t chameleon and act differently and make different emotional decisions based upon how W behaves or treats me
