Hi all, Yep , the book is Living with A Passive Agressive Man. I think Bets already KNEW that's what she was dealing with and so she read , hoping she'd learn HOW to live with one better. I was like someone said above: I felt that there was something not quite right, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I mean, i was married to MR. Nice Guy, so if there was something I needed and wasn't finding....well it must have been me, right? Then a therapist diagnosed Mr. Nice Guy as being attachment injured and yep, we all have some of those isseus, but he was adopted so had the abandonment of birth mother thing and then 6 months before he came back and searched me out he found out that his adoptive mom had early onset Alzheimers.....so I think it fair to assume that my conflict avoidant MR. NG was looking for the unconditional love that mommies give and hadn't much of a clue about what partners should be thinking about giving each other and taking from each other. For me, the book read sort of like my life: oh THATs what was up when he withheld sex, that's why he said/did/didn't do that. The thing about P/A partners is that the 'sins' are of OMISSION rather than COmission. They don't usually name call, punch, criticize out loud...something you can pin down ..it is all in the withholding, omitting, NOT doing, feeling , saying. And if you don't have P/A tendencies yourself (I think I am a nurturer/fixer) it is difficult to understand what is going on in the P/A mindset. So, basically, the book says that a P/A man tends to be afraid of abandonment like everyone else BUT the difference is that he blames his partner for his fear. When he realizes he actually NEEDS you, he is afraid but also angry that he needs you. And when you need him: Whoa, watch out, cause he closes down. He WANTS intimacy but is so afraid of it that he sabotages. Sex isn't about pleasing his partner, but more often pleasing himself....and his partner should please herself. Well, ok, but where then is the intimacy? So, I found it a good book cause it defined some ambiguous things that I could never before understand. The gist is that P/As are driven by fear and anger and they hold you to blame or transfer the blame onto you. And living with them? Well, it is difficult unless you can LOVE them gently back to NORMAL so to speak...You have to confront, but lovingly and patiently and blamelessly. So you need to be a Mother Teresa. In Bets case, she has done a great job, and the result is that HER Mr. W has finally admitted that maybe HE has some issues. Mine never could. I was loving and patient for lots of years and finally realized that I was never going to get what I needed and thought was a reasonable need to want from a partner in life. And I sort of gave up with giving on my part...and that is when the marriage really went to hell. Because the P/A man never seems to get that needing is ok, kinda nice even, and SAFE. They resent needing. But they expect their partner to give what she has been giving for years and years and if she stops...there is hell to pay. How DARE she? And they just don't get that reciprocal is ok, it is important, it is part of it...that maybe only moms should be expected to give unconditional love...and that partners should give reciprocal love. Anyway...if you are doubting yourself and have felt that no matter how you try to address issues, you are somehow always to blame....then you might be dealing with a P/A man and this book gives you some understanding into what they do and why they do it. Yep, it is short on how to LIVE with them or CHANGE them....but it is a maladaptive coping skill they have adopted to protect themselves, so the key is making it safe enough for them to figure that out and to patiently lead them into finding a better way. I regret that I may have had a chance to do that with my X back in l995, but I didn't know the nature of the beast then. And all the excuses I made for his 'different'-from-my behaviors/responses/reactions actually just enabled him. If I had read this book and had been very, very lucky, there is a chance we could be happily and healthily married. So I will always regret that I didn't learn more, learn better back then. In all, I think P/A, attachment injured/ emotional stilllifes all have similar etiology based in fear and anger. And I think P/A souls call out for nurturer/fixers who enable each other in many ways. I say that I fixed and was perceived as a controller but that X was a COVERT controller and much more devious and destructive.
Anyway...an easy read. If not the library, try Amazon.com USED books and you'll probably find a cheap copy.
In the other Q and A stuff: the happiness, making someone happy or un etc category: I think we do have to rely on ourselves for the most part to choose to be happy. But I think we all need certain fundamental basics to be happy. I, for one, (eternal romantic)could be happy hungry but with a man I felt deeply intimate with. I could be happy, feeling cold and very poor, if I had someone I loved to share my blanket with...ok, lame examples, I will stop now My point is that I don't believe that you can be happy about your most important relationship if that relationship is stagnant, destructive, if you are hurting the one you love and vv. You can TRY to solve the problems, you can CHOOSE to confront your needs and issues, but if your partner can't wont'....then I don't think you can just choose to accept that your basic needs aren't being met and choose to be happy. I wasn't happy in my marriage but I didn't want to end my marriage. I wanted to understand what it was that was coming between our love, the resentment, the criticism, the withholding, the fear and anger. So until it was 'fixed' I didn't feel in balance, content, happy. And then: when above, people are talking about 2 people responsible for their own needs and happiness...I can understand BUT I feel that in a marriage a 3rd 'unit' is created, a WE. And that the WE takes on it's own entity. Some of SELF goes into that entity and is slightly changed. Personally, I think that is ok and even more than ok...that is the part of the sharing, caring, love that I really like. Mutual interdependence comes close to putting a label on it. So, we are responsible for taking care of ourselves, but also taking care of the WE. Am I jsut running at the mouth again? Oh well, back to reality.
