Lots of good stuff on the board this weekend, despite what appeared to me to be a slightly negative vibe, -- must be in the air, my weekend was sheetay also.
Hopefully we can encourage each other this week, stay focused and working on things that work, and not on what we dont have.

Cobra I am ready to open a discussion with you about my actions and beliefs, where they stem from and how they are not just point in time actions with me wanting to manipulate and control.

Sound good?

I have lots of comments to make on Globule thread, that I am dragging here for now, since his is locked and because they are more along the lines of greater understanding and discussion that you were talking about for myself and hopefully others. So lets shake things up and see what floats up from the everyone. Guess Ill start with a reply to one of Cobra’s post.

Oops first a quote from LFL

While I could express myself very openly with OM, I STILL am not able to do that with H. His anxiety makes me uncomfortable to the point of not wanting to TRULY share myself with him.

This remark plays in exactly to my belief that the mans mental state is what sets the R dynamic. LFL has the desire and demonstrated ability with a man who is not anxious. She wants to, she wants it to be her H. She knows her H is anxious from his body language and words.
I think it was in the LL book that the author stated that women are like a mirror to the man in the R. This is agreed with in Genesis and also borne out by evolutionary biology.

Any problems with this concept?


Cobra,

She still blames me for everything, and since I sometimes feel I can’t win no matter what I do, I go ahead and act out

This is a reaction, based on and driven by your negative feelings. As you have noticed it is working better then trying to reason and rationalize with her, but is not the best solution. A woman wants to know your feelings(needs to know the truth so she can trust and feel connected to you) but also wants you to be strong and in control of your feelings so that she isnt overly hurt, and damaged by them. Acting out puts her in her place a little but maybe stopping her or not allowing her to act out with nuetral comments like "knock it off" "Thats enough!" "Yamero!" (do you speak Japanese?) etc. Try it out, if it works appreciate that she respects your strength and authority, and that you can do it without being emotionally reactive or likewise dysfunctional or abusive.

I find she is only empathic to certain people

being giving, and having the ability and skill to take care of others is much different then being empathetic, my x display something very similar to this. Ran across something in my readings recently to this effect that I can't find right now. Anywho it comes from a desire to be needed, and or liked by others. Sound familiar?

The intellectual understanding does not seem to be enough to move her off center
It doesnt and never will. Wanting it to, hoping it will, expecting it of her, will cause you to endlessly spin your wheels. You obviously do make an effort to behave this way, but a mans brain is much different then a womans.

Ladies I DID NOT SAY BETTER. I said different. I do not have gender superior beliefs. Knock it off. You are not lesser or better, we are each halves of a whole, that need to fill our respective roles.

You might find she will not follow through and that her withdrawn emotional state is her way on controlling you, by playing on your worst fears. Once you know this dynamic, you can be freed of that fear and become more empowered to stand your ground and take whatever action needed to move the marriage toward a healthy state.

This is a very powerful and astute statement that is the backbone of my personal endeavors, not narcissim and its attendant endeavors like manipulation and control. I want to go on and on about this. Ill try not to.

Fear and anxiety, like attraction is not a choice. They are both encoded in us for our survival. Therefore we have very little control over them. You Feel them and they dictate to you. However they are not rational or logical and often make mistakes. Since they do dictate to us, their mistakes are ours. Bad analogy, I am walking thru the woods, see something out of corner of my eye, think it is snake, take off running, before I realize it is a stick, and sprain ankle. Obviously these fears can be conditioned out of us, as the crocodile hunter demonstrates.

In our sitches we are afraid of losing our SO, and actually end up doing the opposite of what needs to be done, to avoid the outcome we are afraid of. For women this wrong often does not get righted until they are so fed up they are willing to walk or do walk . Then the man is willing to do anything to change but tooooo late. Not only is she fed up/given up but his resultant reaction from unexpected loss, withdrawal, and FEAR, leads him to acting even MORE unattractive to her.

For men, they fear loosing their SO so instead of doing what she needs, acting Strong, making decisions, being able to listen to her thru the code, which means not personalizing or having hurt feelings, they try to give the woman whatever she asks for, giving in to ridiculous emotional outbursts, caving to demands, breaking when tested, while in reality giving her nothing she needs. It makes sense to a man because if she would just give him what he wanted (sex?) he would be happy.

The reality is no man ever puts up with these things in the beginning of a R. If she behaved this way he would set a clear boundary of stop or Next. This leads to her not feeling attracted, hence no nookie, so he finds it elsewhere, or continues to whine and complain until she again gets fed up and goes to find a REAL man.

Occasionally he will get fed up, starts demanding some respect, issuing ultimatums which is not as effective as earning and acting in a way that gets respect but starts a sufficient chain to work the way back. It is hard, hard, hard to do this without blowing his cool from frustration.

The Nop's have mentioned an incident where he expressed his appreciation for her fighting with him and throwing food at each other then running away or withdrawing.

I am going to address some of your comments from the previous post now Cobra.