Hi, Stubborn, thanks for your input. I agree with you on some points, but not on others. I don't think you realize the extent to which S. brings up "issues" and wants to talk about them. I get the feeling you guys think I'm shoving these intense conversations down his throat all the time... well, I'm here to tell ya, the guy is a talker, an analyzer, and he's got the longevity of Castro.
Granted, I didn't react with the utmost of calm assuredness last night, but the disbelief that he was lying to me, even as the bonehead had forgotten he'd told me ALL about this woman, just took over. I don't think many people would have calmly asked themselves "How did I contribute to this lie?" "What is my part in this?" as the ridiculous lie was coming out of his mouth.
I didn't freak out and fly off the handle, nor did I raise my voice. I cried briefly, well into the conversation, and I quicky recovered. The main thing I did was ask him questions, and yes, I listened to the answers. I even validated that he must be feeling terrible and I was sorry. And I validated and apologized for his feeling that I couldn't be approached with the truth.
I post all this not to defend myself, but to get support and advice based on more of the whole story. I regret not having been more articulate this morning, but I had been awake since 5 and I was feeling very, very low.
Quote: Keep in mind that you aren't going to agree on everything. S may not be willing to cut off contact with former GFs. You can be very disappointed, but it's his choice to make. That should be respected, not belittled. If that is ultimately unacceptable to you, that is fine, but S doesn't have to be labeled as wrong. The way to maintain your boundaries is to control your behavior, not S's.
This is a very good point, which is why I have decided not to talk about this again with him until I've decided what my bottom line is. For the record, he hasn't tried to contact me today. His tentative date with this woman is for tomorrow night, then he works Wednesday late, and I leave at 0'dark-thirty on Thursday morning for ten days.
I feel like I need to really assert my boundaries here, and if that means ending the R if he keeps choosing himself over us, then I'm garnering my strength to do that. Something I didn't post (a skewed cherry) that he told me before he told me about the mystery coop girl also has me thinking: We spent all weekend and the last few weeks excitedly talking about buying real estate, looking at R-E web sites, talking about houses, and sending each other links to properties. Then, he went out and made himself an appointment to look at some properties. Alone. This, in my book, is once again choosing himself over us, especially in light of conversations we had this weekend about being ready to settle down. And just Friday he was lambasting me because I hadn't invited him to a movie I was going to see with H2H, saying, "You know how I love movies. Why WOULDN'T you include me?!"
Anyway, small potatoes compared to lying about seeing some woman who broke his heart WHILE we were seeing each other.
Quote: I get the feeling you guys think I'm shoving these intense conversations down his throat all the time...
Uh huh.
Quote: well, I'm here to tell ya, the guy is a talker, an analyzer, and he's got the longevity of Castro.
That one's hard to believe, but I'll have to take your word for it.
Thanks for filling out the picture. It does sound more balanced than you first let on. Yay you for listening and validating and not flying off the handle.
Quote: Then, he went out and made himself an appointment to look at some properties. Alone. This, in my book, is once again choosing himself over us, especially in light of conversations we had this weekend about being ready to settle down.
Can you get to that calm, compassionate, nonjudgemental place to ask him what it means in his book?
As for the bigger issues, unfortunately people often have different ideas about the importance of telling the truth, and what sort of Rs are acceptable outside a primary R. Big differences may be impossible to bridge (and look out for that nasty tendency to polarize, which makes small differences look like big differences). Any differences should be the beginnings of conversations. What's most important is that you bring a willingness to understand each other, and to do what you can to meet the other person's needs, without compromising your own bottom line.
Marshall Rosenberg talks about how we often focus on the one particular way that we want to get a certain need met. We foolishly fail to open ourselves to all the other possible ways that particular need might be met. H2H has also talked about how we might fail to notice progress or solutions if they don't look exactly like we expected.
I'm a little fried. I don't know if there was anything helpful (or even coherent) in all that. Anyway, I applaud your decision to take a little breather and figure out yourself a little more before continuing these convos.
Can you guess what I'm going to say? Actually, my first advice is to talk with H2H, who seems to be your best friend in the R business.
Actually, that's not my first advice. My first advice is to examine the big Q which is the first thing any DB Coach will ask you: WHAT IS/ARE YOUR GOALS???? If you need to rethink them, do so.
There is no doubt that having healthy R's with the opposite sex can be a very good thing in relationships. However, I do beg to differ with SD in that I do not believe such R's are appropriate with ex-lovers (either physically or emotionally) when you are involved in a COMMITTED relationship.
I won't belabor the distinctions I've discussed so many times before on the differences between marital and long-term committed relationships, but from where I sit--S's desire to maintain these sends all the wrong signals--particularly if he was dishonest about it. However, I do agree with SD that right now--this is YOUR issue. not S's. That is, S could be purely innocent on this, but your reaction shows this is an area where you need to set your own acceptable boundaries--and live or die by them. To me personally, this is a tough area to compromise. S may have good intentions and the spirit may be willing, but the flesh is weak.
Gosh darnit! As I write this, I just can't get away from this cetral issue of what I'll now call divinely inspired marital love. As I approach baptism and complete an intense journey of Faith--one begins to realize that the type of personal sacrifice necessary to maintain a permanent R requires divine intervention and commitment to that divinity because we are human and can't do it alone (I'll grant that ther are exceptions, but the rule holds for the overwhelming majority of us). We can maintain the exclusive commitment for a long time, but it's simply simply against our purely human nature to keep on the exclsuivity path when troubles befall and alternatives are present without something more inspirational to guide us--and even those with a good deal of inspiration can fall.
And that's the bottom line Jennifer: What are YOU willing to accept that is under YOUR control and how do YOU intend to manage that level of acceptance? It's not an easy issue to answer, but is probably the truest pathway to peace. And as I read H2H's dealings, I think you can learn a lot from her about this path. Be well my Brooklyn friend.
Hi, guys - thanks, SD and Merrick, for such considered support. I am in need of some coaching, some reality checks, and some good old-fashioned unconditional support. I'm feeling pretty low right now.
I haven't see or spoken to S. since Monday morning, when he left the apartment after he got up. I had gotten up around 6 (woke up at 5 and couldn't sleep), and was in my study working when he finally got up at 8:45. He came into the study, kissed my forehead, and said "I'm sorry I handled things so poorly last night, and I'm sorry I lied to you." I said, "Thank you," and sat there for a moment while he squeezed my shoulders before I quietly said, "I really can't talk about this right now. I have a lot of work to do before my meeting at 10," and he pretty much said OK and bolted.
No word from him the rest of the day yesterday. Today, I went out for a meeting first thing in the morning, and got home around 2. Around 4:45, I was sitting up in my study working and firing e-mails back and forth with H2H, when I heard a key in the lock and the door open, then the lock again (two floors down - I live in an echo-y old townhouse). I heard no one enter, so after a minute I said "Hello?" no answer. I went downstairs, and lo and behold Mr. S. had received a package for me while I was gone, and brought it over and left it just inside the door. There was a slight chance it was my downstairs neighbor, but I called her and it was not. So S. had come by, left the package (of tasty treats from SD, by the way ), and left without a word.
After a bit of waffling, I called him to ask if he had been here, but it was about 10 minutes after he came over, and his phone rang once and then went to VM. I am ASSuming here, but I ASSume he was headed toward the subway when he dropped the package, and by the time I called he was already getting underground. 4:45 would have been around the time he'd leave to meet this woman after work. Today was supposed to have been the day.
So, I don't know anything. His style, often, is to "give" me space when we have conflict. He may be doing that, out of some misguided thinking that that's what I want. He may be scared to death of calling me. He may be sick of the drama and is saying screw it. I don't know. And I'm trying not to think about it.
I don't think I can be the one to call. I usually am, and I just don't think I can do it this time, especially in light of his long-term pattern of passivity and my feeling that he keeps choosing himself over the R. Merrick, in a nod to your own thoughts on marital commitment, if he were my H, I would chase him down. But he isn't, and the words "He's just not that into you" are becoming louder in my ears by the day.
Quote: Can you get to that calm, compassionate, nonjudgemental place to ask him what it means in his book?
If the time comes, I think I can talk about this in a rational manner. I may never get the chance.
Merrick, I hear what you're saying, and while your religious views don't quite resonate with my own set of beliefs, underneath it all we're both hacking at the same stump. I want to be in a R where my partner and I choose each other. I want to be in a R where my partner and I support each other and don't compete with each other. I want to be in a R where I don't wonder if my partner is telling me the truth all the time. A place of mutual respect and trust, happiness and FREEDOM.
I'm too low to come up with any better or more specific goals than that. My one short-term goal is to get through the evening, get some work done, get through tomorrow, get more work and some errands done, and get some sleep before I have to get up at the Tony Orlando of Dawn to catch my plane on Thursday. And if he happens to call, I hope to be able to summon my most mature qualities and deflect any R talks until I get back.
Please, if anyone has any thoughts about how to handle this for the next few days, and then while I'm gone, post away.
No brilliant ideas, but I do have one thought. I often read P's words or actions as if she were me. She's not. It's plain as day to me that if I said or did XXX it would mean YYY. Even though I KNOW that P is different, it is still hard to really believe that if she says or does XXX, it might mean something different entirely.
Quote: my feeling that he keeps choosing himself over the R.
Ask, don't ASSume what his actions mean.
Can you be warm and pleasant with S even while this issue is unresolved? Maybe contact S and let him know that you want to discuss the issue further, but you need some time to sort out your thoughts first. And that you don't intend to give him the cold shoulder in the meantime.
Quote: I don't think I can be the one to call. I usually am, and I just don't think I can do it this time, especially in light of his long-term pattern of passivity and my feeling that he keeps choosing himself over the R.
From my obstructed view seat (i.e., I know I'm missing some of the action) this is what I see. But that's a problem all of us experience, especially when we think we can have both.
Jennifer--This is going to be quick, as D8 picked her nose and I now have a mother of all bloody messes on my upstairs carpet (literally, not the British form of cursing).
Quote: Please, if anyone has any thoughts about how to handle this for the next few days, and then while I'm gone, post away.
Jennifer, the one good thing about traveling is that we can expect to be incommunicado with our loved ones as we are off doing other things. I found myself in pretty much the same predicament as you are in about 6 months before Mr. W. left. We got in a huge fight, and I felt the need to get out of town and hopped a flight to somewhere I'd never been (Seattle) and used the chance to clear my head.
Now that I've had input and insight on this trip and what was leading up to it, Mr. W. was really scared when I took off. He was really afraid that I was going to return home to tell him I was moving out. You know what? It was definitely on my mind. And though I said nothing, I know he sensed I was reaching the very edge of my boundaries with him.
Oddly enough, it was on this trip where I figured out that leaving was not the answer. I didn't know what the answer was, but after 12 years of marriage, I knew enough to come back and hope that we could fix things.
I don't know what your outcome will be or should be. I suspect you know in your heart. Use your time to plan for the trip to agree not to make any decisions until you are firmly out of town and otherwise occupied. Then feel free to explore what is in your heart and examine your motives.
I won't say I haven't wondered when you were going to mull these questions over. From what you've posted since Day 1 and from what I've sensed between the lines, you seem like a savvy and intelligent woman. A woman with class and finesse and dreams and high hopes for something that is not elusive or a pipe dream. You offer wise and witty counsel here. And you've proven to be a good friend to many folks--on and off the BB. All these things seem consistent in your life. Except for your dealings with one person: S. He seems to bring out the crazy in you.
And while SD can wield the frying pan and roll of duct tape with you (because she sends goodies in boxes to your doorstep ), I don't want to be that person. Not that I couldn't be. But you have enough on your plate right now.
I know this weighs heavily on your mind. I'm glad you're considering it to the depth that you are.
(And for the record, I really wish you were here to offer the same advice to my colleague who is marrying the guy she's been living with for a few years now. He's no S by any stretch. She's a fellow NYer with some huge abandonment issues and I really am finding her decision to overlook some horrible truths disconcerting. I think she would benefit from your wise counsel. But you're not here. And I'm stuck with my feelings about it.)
There comes a time when we all need to ask ourselves if the people we are with (friends and lovers) are good for us. If we've learned what it is we're supposed to learn. But it requires the level of honesty you are willing to invest.
I just think you need to take a break from the decision and all it entails until you can take a deep breath and figure this out.
No communication for a few days does not sign the death knell of any R, sweetie. You've found that to be true for the rest of us here, right? Well, it's not going to make or break your R with S either.
For the record, I'll say here that I'm with you 100% on how he chose to handle this whole conversation. For most of us, I would ask you right away if your reaction is what is preventing him from being honest with you. But I'm not going to say that, Jennifer. Because the fact is, he continues to give you reason to doubt his integrity. And any spouse/partner worth their salt would go out of his or her way to make sure the one that they love isn't hurt by their decisions. They also attempt to learn from the mistakes in the past and take great caution in not recreating them in the future. I know this is true for you. But is this true for him?
I don't see you as being unreasonable about this one at all.
So hop your plane and see if things seem different for you wherever you're headed.
Big hugs, Jennifer.
Betsey
"There are only 2 ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
Good morning, and THANK YOU for posting, Stubborn, Merrick, and Betsey.
I don't have anything to add at the moment - just processing. I haven't heard a peep from S. yet. He goes in to work all day today.
But this morning, as I sat here looking over my day's work, an e-mail popped in from one of my best (and oldest) friends. I post it here just to show you how VALUABLE you all are, and how understanding. Betsey, this is probably what your boss is thinking, too. Isn't this just wonderful? It's so nice to have friends you can rely on for support. ~~* So here goes:
Quote: Hey, I need your advice:
I have this friend who is constantly having the same problem with his/her partner over and over again. It's been going on for _years_ and I'm not sure I can take it anymore, you know? I mean, it's not my place to interfere or tell him/her my opinion (and it's not like him/her to listen, either), but on one hand it seems like this partner lives under a microscope and on the other it seems like the partner is just completely the wrong person. Now it's up to my friend to figure this out, but in the meantime he/she has become emotionally stagnant and like most stagnant things, it's starting to smell and fill up with tadpoles.
So I guess I'm not sure what to tell him/her. He/she's off soon to "go evaluate" in some remote location, but I tell you this friend has been out evaluating all over the damn world and it ain't brought him/her a damn site closer to an answer. I just want to tell this friend of mine to stop driving me crazy, but I know it's not that simple. In the meantime, I'm thinking about changing my email address and phone number. (Although the truth is, I think this friend of mine is actually now talking about this situation less because he/she knows it is getting on my nerves or he/she is tired of it, which means I'm getting subtly expelled from my friend's life.)
So what should I tell him/her? Believe you me, I've already run through a gamut of colloquialisms like "Sh*t or get off the pot." and "Love doesn't always come in the form we expect. Or Want. Or can tolerate..."
Quote: I post it here just to show you how VALUABLE you all are, and how understanding.
This is the place to find people who understand (or at least work to understand) Rs and their difficulties.
Does your friend really want to keep the friendship with him/her (the troubled R person)? It sounds like they are venting their frustration over someone not following their advice.
To Jennifer's email friend:
Quote: I have this friend who is constantly having the same problem with his/her partner over and over again. It's been going on for _years_ and I'm not sure I can take it anymore, you know? I mean, it's not my place to interfere or tell him/her my opinion
You're right. It's not your place. You can offer support. You can tell your friend how you see things. But if your friend has other priorities for the R, why should you want to change them? It's not your R, and it shouldn't be the basis for your own friendship with him/her.
Quote: Any advice would be helpful.
I hope it was.
Thanks,
K
My sitch More importantly, Light A Million Candles
I'm not really quite sure what to say. Because you are the only one who can decide whether you choose to be around to support this friend as she (I'm just going to call her a she) goes through a difficult time, or not.
My experience with this sort of thing is that people take their own time to process things, especially things that are really important to them and their future. Your friend may feel that there is something worth holding onto, even in the face of so many problems, and she just isn't ready to let go of it. The fact that you are impatient with the process shows that you may believe that she should adhere to some sort of schedule (yours), or that there is a limit to how long someone should try to work on a relationship.
In my own situation, I've spent both a lot of time, and very little time, processing the end of relationships and/or trying to make them work. My experience is that there is no set formula, nor is there a set timeline. Your friend must simply do what she thinks is best for her, and be true to herself, and you must simply realize that the only timeline that is going to work for her is hers.
I, too, have been frustrated in the past at a friend's seemingly endless back-and-forth with her partner. It was hard for me to listen, because I was so tired of hearing the same thing. And I admit, I did pull away from this person eventually. Not something I'm really proud of, because I never told her why, but there it is. But I also learned that there was nothing I could do to accelerate the process or make it go away, as hard as I tried to make her conform to my ideas about what she should do.
I find a lot of similarities in your friend's situation and my own. I try not to burden my friends with my problems, but I also struggle with not talking about it at all, since it's such an integral part of my life. So my attempts at sparing my friends the back and forth ultimately put stress on me, because not only am I suffering the problem, but I am also suffering keeping a lot of things inside that are really at the forefront of my mind.
For example, I'm aware that you don't want to hear any more about my problems with S. I have obliged by not talking about it. But recently, it seems, I violated this by telling you something about what was going on with S. and me. The reason I elaborated was so that you would be spared the discomfort of calling him up to go over to the workshop and finding out later (like, on the way to the workshop) that something had gone horribly wrong with our relationship and you didn't know about it.
I wasn't asking for advice, I was simply giving you what I thought was relevant information. I also think that I need to at least let my friends know when I'm completely stressed out and having difficulty, especially when I'm talking to them frequently. Otherwise, I just appear to be a ball of stress for no reason.
All this is to say, I don't know what you should do about your friend. Only you can decide that. If you can't give unconditional support, I would advise letting her know and simply pulling away. The downside is, it could mean the end of your friendship, depending on how your friend feels about it. If you decide to stick in, though, it's a conscious decision not to be frustrated and complain, because it is a choice you are making, and your frustration would end up driving you apart, anyway. Maybe your friend would agree to some kind of "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. But I can't imagine that in my own situation. It would mean sometimes faking that all is well, and stuffing my feelings about things that are really important to me. I don't want that lack of authenticity in my life.
Jennifer
Betsey 
~~* So here goes: