Some good points raised, and things YOU should be thinking about.....
Standing VS. waiting....
For me, standing was about taking that hard look into the mirror and figuring out what I didn't like about myself....
De-constructing and defining who I was when the lights went out, and making strides to never be that old asshat again...
Taking the time to actually care about who I was as a Father, Friend, Husband, Partner, Son, Lover, and Man.
Working through the hardest time of my life, while NEVER let it define who I was. Learning what Love meant to me, how I felt loved, how I show love, how to communicate, and defining what my vows meant to me. Eventually embracing that my vows actually had zero to do with my (then) wife.
Waiting to me, means that we get to a place (this place in many situations) and place the blame on something, be it MLC, WAS, whatever it is, and we soapbox that THAT is the root of all of our problems. We continue on, and simply live a very similar life to what we once had, (and our spouse walked away from) without ever looking at OUR role in this. Because if we blame someone else, then we get to be the victim and eventually a martyr even though we had REAL issues that we dismissed because of our ego/pride/whatever.
It's easy to read a book, read some veteran posters, learn to wax poetically without making any real changes and soapbox your path, IF you only want to be as deep as the shallow end of the kiddie pool. Your quest should be to go deeper in yourself, and accept that the journey of "Mike" is for Mike, and ONLY Mike.
It's easy to sit back and think that this other person is the cause of all of your marital problems, and blame him for them. When in actuality, things probably weren't going well before him, which led her to him....what are THOSE things ? The deeper things that made her think that having an affair was a better choice than Mike ??
It takes real courage to make changes in the face of a battle.....which reminds me of some posts a few years ago from a dear friend ....
He struggled mightily with his stand, and defining what his stand should look like......
I wanna put some of his words out there for you...
What an amazing f%king dude he is......
Quote
I can only say that this journey up to now has been the most difficult thing in my life and the most amazing.
I am to the point where I have battled the questions and doubts.
And have grown a great deal and I start this phase after the six months I have been here with the goal to be
A man in full. The man I aspire to be.
A put this down for me and anyone who may learn from these words.
As always thank you for listening...
Martyr- 1 : a person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion 2 : a person who sacrifices something of great value and especially life itself for the sake of principle 3.Victim especially : a great or constant sufferer <a martyr to asthma all his life
To be a martyr there has to be someone applying suffering.
Who is this in the LBS's journey? At first we think it is our spouse. We suffer because our spouse is doing something to us. Or doing something other than we want them to do. We have pain and we suffer and we continue this only if we stay. So why be a martyr?
Why not just leave and then we will be a martyr no longer. But the pain remains. We walk away with all those arrows sticking out of us.
But we are no longer a martyr right? Why would we want to be with someone who does not want to be with us?
Only a weak person or a martyr would subject themselves to that. If you take this exit you find a lot of people waiting for you on the off ramp ready to validate that you made the right choice. You stood up for your own self respect by running away from the person who inflicted the damage to it. And you move on.
BUT
What now? We still hurt. We still have questions. We don't understand why someone who is supposed to love us can treat us this way.
Are we unlovable? We have to find some other person to validate that we are lovable. That we have self respect. So we move on to the next person to trade our love for validation and self respect.
Because we have learned and have confirmed to ourselves that love really doesn't mean what we want it to mean. And our vows really don't hold any value for us because they didn't hold any value to our spouse. If it did then our spouse would have done what they were supposed to do.
So a good idea would to have a card made that you can present to any potential mate
------------------------------------------------------ Originally Posted By: Full Marital Disclosure Card I am looking for validation from you for all my hopes and fears and if you can't fulfill that then I will move on. And I will only love you as long as you behave the way I think you should and give me what I need. If you get confused and scared and act like you don't love me anymore then I will leave because I measure my self respect based on how you treat me. --------------------------------------------------------
The longer we stay in our marriage the more people think we are a victim, a doormat, a martyr to the marriage. We believe this because we do not know who we are really. We have lost ourselves in our marriage and in self doubt because of the crisis in our life.
So we run away and confirm to ourselves that we are victims and confirm others assessment of us. We run further away from the path to find ourselves. To know who we are. Because when we choose this who we are is what others perceive us to be and when we believe that then we will always be beholden to others for our SELF. We will be defined by others, and live with self doubt, unless we understand otherwise.
We will understand otherwise because it will happen again and again until we do.
Or
We walk further down the path. We detach. We understand that what our spouse is doing is not to us. It is because of their fears and insecurities. It is because in part the way we have behaved. It is because most of all what THEY feel inside.
We understand that we have no control over this.
We set boundaries to protect ourselves and our family. We don't fully understand why we are walking down this path. We still doubt why we are since we don't understand why our spouse is still making these choices. And we think we will be validated for all the self doubt we still harbor if our spouse comes back. If we could get that to happen then we would be ok.
Time goes on. Our friends and others who have experienced this question why we are still doing this. Why would you want to be with someone who clearly doesn't want to be with you? It is their choice and not about you but why would you want to stay in this because it still is causing you pain.
Why is it still causing you pain? Because you feel still feel that your worth is dependent on your spouse. And you are still a doormat.
What are we missing?
We all want to feel loved. We think about it, hope for it, fantasize about it, go to great lengths to achieve it, and feel that our lives are incomplete without it. The lack of unconditional love is the cause of most of our anger and confusion.
We learned that love was conditional, that we had to get it from the people around us with our words and behavior. And that is how we perceive it when it is given. We give when expect to get it.
------------------------------------------------------ Originally Posted By: someone other than me The instant we do anything at all to win the approval or respect of other people with what we say, what we do, how we look we are paying for the attention and affection we receive, and we can't feel genuinely loved. --------------------------------------------------------
Isn't our marriage based on this? Isn't this where it derailed? Isn't this why we still feel we have to get our spouse back? Otherwise we ARE what we fear we are UNLOVABLE.
How do we need to be loved?
At this point in your journey it is still about how you need to be treated (loved) and yourself worth and respect is still dependent on your spouse and others.
We may decide to leave at this point because of the long suffering we have endured at the hands of our spouse and predicament. If we leave now we confirm our ignorance of what love means and confirm that to our spouse that your love was not real but dependent and conditional.
You confirm again all the self loathing your spouse feels inside because the person that is supposed to love them hasn't and won't and never will.
We then begin to understand
We yearn for a deeper answer. We crave knowledge that has so far been unattainable.
We want to know the mystery of love. The mystery of our marriage. To know ourselves.
To remove self doubt. To know ourselves. To know who we are at our core.
We start to focus on ourselves. To look inside and know who we are.
Find things we don't like. Endeavor to change them. To learn what and who we aspire to be.
Not as someone our spouse wants us to be. We tried that already. Who we really are.
When you do that you begin to understand why you are standing for your spouse and your marriage.
And you start to learn what real love is.
Unconditional love is caring about the happiness of another without any thought for what we might get for ourselves. It's also when other people care about our happiness unconditionally.
And what it is not
It is not what we have lived in our life and our marriage up to now. It is not controlling. It does not desire and force. It does not depend on action or inaction from our spouse.
And so as we let this soak and it takes hold we discover an amazing thing and it gives life to us and breaths hope into our spirits and that is
Unconditional love is when we love despite the foolish choices of our spouse, when they fail to do what we desire, regardless of any choice they make. This love alone has the power to heal all wounds, deliver self respect and remove all doubt for you and your spouse. It allows love and healing to flourish.
This is how we need to be loved. And this is the paradox.
That we only get this when we give it.
And now is the opportunity.
There is no GREATER opportunity you will ever have in your life then NOW to express this kind of love.
To do this takes greater courage than most people will ever understand and will ever know.
And you have received this wonderful gift only by going through the experience. By the trial.
By the tragedy.
What greater thing could you aspire to do.
EVER.
Mike....
Standing is YOUR choice....
Limbo is YOUR choice....
NOT growing is your choice....
Whatever that choice....just F-ing own it, and don't do it half way.
You are either committed to you, or you aren't.
I'm pretty sure I know what it is, however YOU need to know it also....
