Learning to trust myself II

[Burgbud]

This is projection on my part but I don't think it's blind projection; many of the things he's done and said are quite similar to how I was about it. I agree with Heather that it's not mainly a control issue.

It's something he enjoys, and he doesn't believe it affects his interactions with his wife. He knows that it hurts her feelings but thinks that it shouldn't. If she would just acknowledge this, then he could go on peacefully with his pleasurable, harmless hobby. This is something very interesting and important to him and he shouldn't have to give it up just because she doesn't like it. Let's say he was a big baseball fan. If Heather didn't like baseball does that mean he should give it up forever? Can he not even watch a game when she's not home? What about when he's travelling for business?

So I think there are only two paths to getting him to stop. One is for him to become convinced that what he's doing is harmful to his interactions with his wife. That he acts differently because of it and this different behavior is a negative for their R. I think it would be very, very difficult to convince him of this because to him it would seem like he's being told he's not in control of his own behavior. That's tough to make someone believe who doesn't want to.

The second is to convince him that Heather's feelings about it, even if he doesn't understand why she has them, make her feel badly about herself. And that her need to feel good about herself in this area (being the priority in his life, being the woman he truly desires) outweighs his need to pursue this hobby. This would be tough as well because it's very important to him and her objection to it seems almost like an unreasonable whim. But I think this is more likely to work than the other option.

This concept was very tough for me. The idea that sometimes you do what your partner wants just because that's what they need. No matter how fair or unfair it may seem to you. You just let it go. You believe them when they tell you how they feel and you allow their feeling to be your priority. You feel good about yourself because you did something that was hard for you and made your partner feel better. I think women are better at this than men are, in general. I don't think you can do this all the time in an R because nobody can have their life dictated by someone else's feelings. But I'm convinced this issue falls into this category whether the men involved understand it or not.