Indeed, what a difference a few days can make. Yesterday I could feel myself cycling into a down period and told myself I had had enough of this stuff! I KNOW it is a cycle, that has precious little to do with outside events. So I have to be aware of when it is happening and take preventive measures. And today I am not down!
I have come up with another resolution - I will not go to the public website that H posts to, to talk about his (our common) interest, as even though it is nothing to do with relationships, he still manages to mention his 'ex-wife' quite often...
I stopped all snooping more than a year ago, this is all that remains of keeping the finger on the pulse, as it were, but it affects my PMA and makes me want to puke at times too. For instance, on this site, and even to me directly, he has referred to himself as an alpha male... and I don't know whether to laugh or retch at this perception. So I feel it is best not to even expose myself to his nonsense. So no more visits to that site.
There, I feel better already! My moods will NOT be tied to what H is doing or what he is thinking.
I printed out what Mojo posted to this thread a week or so ago, and was thinking about it during my few days away. I will quote the relevant part again -
Quote: What's to negotiate? If you have a serious relationship problem, you're obviously not getting what you hoped to get out of being in that relationship and it's not serving you to stay in it unless you just like being the victim.
My bet is that the other party is dealing with you in a way that he or she thinks is okay--part of the unwritten agreement. You see once you've put up with some form of mistreatment without protest, you've allowed that sort of behavior to become the norm. You have an unwritten agreement that how he or she is treating you is okay.
The only solution for that relationship is for you to negotiate a new agreement.
The place of power from which you must negotiate your new agreement is a stance that has you outside the relationship, intending to choose back into it with a new understanding.
If a new agreement cannot be reached, there’s no basis for a continuing relationship. This attitude may seem cold and hard until you stop consider that the real purpose of a relationship is to provide you with the experience of being who you are.
All your relationships serve that purpose—even those that seem to upset you. What I’m saying here is that the job you don’t like serves you by allowing you to be the victim of a boss you don’t like, doing work you don’t like so you can be the lightweight you’ve chosen to be in that relationship. Your way back to power is to give up your role as the victim.
Negotiate out of choice, not attachment, and never out of fear
When I suggest choosing out of a relationship with the intention of choosing back into it under a new agreement, I’m never surprised by the fearful reactions and the looks of disbelief that I would even suggest such a thing.
Let me assure you that the greatest possible relationship you could ever have would be one where you were clearly there in that relationship by choice, not because you were afraid not to be.
When you’re in a relationship only because you’re afraid of what life might be like out of it, you don’t really have a relationship; you have an attachment. If you can’t see yourself outside the relationship choosing back in under new rules, you are hooked.
The basis for your relationship is fear, not love. If you remain in a relationship because you are afraid not to be in it, you are firmly attached. Don’t tell me that’s love, because it isn’t!
So, I was thinking about all this, and thought, at this point, I am out of the relationship all right - H has been away with OW, we have a SA in place, I am thinking about how to manage without him etc. Would I want H back with things like they were before?
No.
I figured it was my dissatisfaction with the way H behaved that got all this going. I didn't know how to deal with it, how to approach H about it, and when he didn't appear to be listening to me regarding certain issues, I had screaming/shouting sessions, to which H would do NOTHING at all, or he would evade the issue.
I suppose I may have told him one time too many that I 'wasn't prepared to put up with the way things were' (I was meaning things needed to change between us), he took that to mean I would leave, so he built up resentment about that and decided to leave first himself, having formed such a deep 'friendship' with my friend.
I don't want to go back to a man who -
Doesn't or can't show me that he cares, especially when I am down, depressed, ill or whatever. When I am vulnerable. I have virtually no memories of him being kind to me in those situations. Only one small time. But not on the big occasions. My being in any way needy provoked hostility in him. Even my friend mentioned seeing him being unkind (or rather less than kind) to me once when I had acute back problems. And yet he can be a big baby when HE is ill. I don't wish to be married to a fair weather friend.
Disrepects me verbally and otherwise, and thinks nothing of it. As recently as a few weeks ago, he talked about us not being equal, so he couldn't treat me as equal. Well, buddy, if that's the case, you have a deep seated problem there. He has a lot of unresolved issues to do with his innate feeling of superiority (perhaps linked to his deep seated feelings of inferiority?) that others have pointed out to me in the past. I could 'help' him with those when I was 'on his team', but when directed at me, it is a different matter. I *do* remember him showing a level of disrepect to others sometimes that I found uncomfortable, and would tell him so. He is still showing high levels of disrespect to all and sundry these days. And all this when H tries to show his CARING CONCERN in his public work. I think 'charity' begins at home, with your wife and child.
These were two issues that got my goat even during the 'good times', so I think they are too important to ignore now. They are deal breakers.
Livnlearn, thinking out loud.
"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates
