OK maybe a long day and my mind is mush, or maybe I am stupid.
Let me open the vault here a bit more.
Quote: You are sending conflicting signals. If she wants to have affection then she needs to choose the marriage. To drive that point home, she needs to feel the discomfort of not having that affection. That is part of what will make her uncomfortable, plus you will be honoring her request for space.
My W, at least what she says, would be fine with no affection whatsoever. She says she does not need it. I do not believe that, I believe it is a blocking tool. So if I am to honor that wish of hers, than I am denying my needs. How is that going to be productive. I understand through some of notATLdave's post how I can minimize my need for my wife to meet those needs, but affection in a relationship is important to me.
So if I pracitce affection abstinence, and she is being truthful, then I am in a relationship that will consistantly test my happiness.
Quote: How can your wife want you to be affectionate with her and yet not have you pursue her at the same time?
See above
Quote: I do not get the impression that she is the sexually aggressive partner, the one who initiates.
Correct
Quote: She wants you pursuing. What I suspect she wants is for you to stop controlling
Pursuit I am unsure, but I see the logic. Contolling, Yes she wants that to stop.
Quote: If so, your pursuit of control has pushed her to the point of detachment. She is scared to leave the marriage because that is not what she wants. She wants the security. But she cannot stay in a relationship dictated by your terms. So even in offering her the “choice” of staying or leaving, you still feel the need to push your entitlement of a good night kiss. Now how is it that you have humility?
True for the most part. Am I understnading that you, rather the logic you are relating, than says I should have NO contatc with my wife? If that isthe case, when do I get the understanding that she is willing to stay in the marriage and work on it. And IF that happens, am I to continue to have no contact?
Quote: Now if that means stopping all affection, contact, sex, converstaions, than that is the edge of the cliff I need to stare. I will not be party to that. second thought not party to that for long.
Just what does this statement mean? This sounds like black and white thinking. That type of logic is usually reserved for those who do not tolerate opposing viewpoints, who have an agenda and intend to push it. Its not so much what you say here (and I’m not really sure what you’re saying) but how you say it, along with other comments, that give me the impression you have an issue with control and this is driving your wife away.
What I was trying to state was, if no affection is going to be the status quo for her to remain and find her happiness, that I could do that for a limited time until we can work out issues. If it would be the reality of our marriage than I would have to look at ending the marriage. Did that make better sense? The issue at hand is the lack of physical closeness and EC between my W and I. Why would I remain in a marriage that is not meeting my needs but all of her needs are met. I do not mean for that to sound demanding but I am unsure how to phrase it otherwise. Is that not a boundry?
Quote: Now if that means stopping all affection, contact, sex, converstaions, than that is the edge of the cliff I need to stare. I will not be party to that. second thought not party to that for long.
Just what does this statement mean? This sounds like black and white thinking. That type of logic is usually reserved for those who do not tolerate opposing viewpoints, who have an agenda and intend to push it. Its not so much what you say here (and I’m not really sure what you’re saying) but how you say it, along with other comments, that give me the impression you have an issue with control and this is driving your wife away.
I believe that terms of the marriage need to be developed from both sides. Compromise and understanding. Some are negotiable and some are not. The love is unconditional, but again I am unable to find the logic that I need to continue to be unhappy to create her happiness.
I see over the past year, through your statements, I have changed one unhealthy relationship into another under the guise of forcing intimacy and affection.
Are you suggesting that I cease all physcial contact with my wife. Will that not be perceived as puting and my form of punishment?
Through honest giving of my love I will recieve 10 fold in return.
Just because a person does not love you in the way you want, does not mean they do not love you!
Maybe we have a disconnect here on the process. What I am saying is that you are confronted with a situation you cannot tolerate much longer. You are trying to do your part but your wife has detached, is indifferent and does not care anymore (which I think is just her way of getting your attention, but it needs to be "gotten"). You want her to make a choice to re-engage in the marriage. Assuming she is logical, you need to present her with the best choice you can, hoping she will choose logically.
First this means cleaning up your act, stopping the controlling behavior (which you didn't openly admit to but which I pulled out of you - bad), acknowledging her feelings and righting the imbalance in the marriage. These changes need to be real for them to be an attractive choice for her (I sense she has some trust issues here).
I suspect, and you confirm, she wants the affection and security of the marriage. She wants to stay but she has drawn a line and lost hope. She is content to just survive. You are not happy with that prospect. So you present her with the choice of working to improve the marriage or split.
She may be ambivalent to these choices. So make a contrast between the two. One should be appealing and the other not. Working on yourself will sweeten one choice. The other may be less appealing but she may not truly understand that (especially if she is shut down). This is where you want her to feel the consequences of this other choice. Stopping contact is no different than how things will be if you divorce. If you say she is uncomfortable with that, then I think she would be reluctant to make such a choice after experiencing the loneliness of it for a while. And there doesn’t need to be a time limit. Leave it open ended so she has complete control. That puts the burden squarely on her shoulders. Does this make sense?
So staying distant is only a temporary thing to set a boundary and let her choose. If she chooses the marriage, then you two can work together with the benefit of her enthusiastic support (this should be a condition of acceptance). If not, then you split anyway. Before doing this, you need to be comfortable with either outcome. Since you already told her your wanted to divorce, I assume that is the case. This only puts some teeth into it.
But what I am feeling from you is a slow realization that maybe you had more to do with driving her away than your realized. Because of this, she may actually accept divorce. She may just call your bluff (and I think you are bluffing, trying to re-establish control) and that scares you.
I also think it may not be necessary for you to ever present this choice. Improving yourself may be enough for her to stay in the marriage without you needing to force her into staying. This would be the ideal path, don’t you think?
I am the pursuer in my marriage. My wife avoids like crazy. Usually the situation is reversed, where women want intimacy and men avoid it and the emotional entanglements. Since I know I pursue out of a fear of abandonment, I have a pretty good guess you do too. Fear is a sign of weakness, and with a healthy ego, this is hard to accept. You seem intelligent, so your intellect makes it all too easy to turn things around and exert a little control over the spouse to keep her from running away. Over time she gets tired of this and the tactics need to be stronger. Your wife does not sound nearly as assertive nor does she seem to have a need to control too, as mine does, so you may have avoided a lot of the control battles that I have encountered.
But you can still hold major sway over the relationship if you will just confront yourself, reign in your fears, stop the controlling and address the sense of panic that comes from not controlling.
Now, have you ordered Passionate Marriage yet? “Addiction to Love: Overcoming Obsession and Dependency in Relationships” by Susan Peabody is good for the pursuer/avoider dynamic. And for good measure, pick up a copy of “Narcissism” by Alexander Lowen or read up on this website: http://samvak.tripod.com/.
Do I throw my control enduced tantrum now or later?
A little humor.
Cobra,
Let me start by stating publicy that I have followed threads for a year, and in some cases I vbelieve you to be spot on in your suggestion, in some ones I see clear misses. I see both here.
Let me follow with the fact that truth hurts mosst when it has been overlooked or ignored, so as much as your summarization stings, it for the most part is correct.
As to the controlling behavior, Yes I am. Yes I was not free to admit. She is as controlling, if not greater. No blame game here or finger pointing, stating the facts. A disconnect in our marriage to date, in the past no compromise, just exert more control. I for one am ready to drop the control. Butas you well know learned habits are hard to break and I must make sure I have a firm grasp when I start to trigger.
Quote: I suspect, and you confirm, she wants the affection and security of the marriage. She wants to stay but she has drawn a line and lost hope. She is content to just survive. You are not happy with that prospect. So you present her with the choice of working to improve the marriage or split.
Spot on and am sure it was not a revelation.
Quote: So staying distant is only a temporary thing to set a boundary and let her choose. If she chooses the marriage, then you two can work together with the benefit of her enthusiastic support (this should be a condition of acceptance). If not, then you split anyway. Before doing this, you need to be comfortable with either outcome. Since you already told her your wanted to divorce, I assume that is the case. This only puts some teeth into it.
Again very astute observation. Am I comfortable with D? Hell no. I am not. I see the issues ahead for my sons as they were for me. Though I will not be in a different state as my father was. But still, we all no the perils for children. Along that lines it is no better to see a couple stay in conflict. That may have even worse consequences. This is a hard place to go back to. It was, as I have mentioned, whitered in my marriage and the love dimmed for my W.
Quote: So staying distant is only a temporary thing to set a boundary and let her choose. If she chooses the marriage, then you two can work together with the benefit of her enthusiastic support (this should be a condition of acceptance). If not, then you split anyway. Before doing this, you need to be comfortable with either outcome. Since you already told her your wanted to divorce, I assume that is the case. This only puts some teeth into it.
Quite right.
Quote: But what I am feeling from you is a slow realization that maybe you had more to do with driving her away than your realized. Because of this, she may actually accept divorce. She may just call your bluff (and I think you are bluffing, trying to re-establish control) and that scares you.
I also think it may not be necessary for you to ever present this choice. Improving yourself may be enough for her to stay in the marriage without you needing to force her into staying. This would be the ideal path, don’t you think?
Yes I have done my share of this. But I take no more blame than that. There was two here that contibuted. My fatal mistake was exerting more control after her affair when she was vulnerable, unsure, and attempting, if not full heartedly, trying.
Quote: Since I know I pursue out of a fear of abandonment, I have a pretty good guess you do too. Fear is a sign of weakness, and with a healthy ego, this is hard to accept. You seem intelligent, so your intellect makes it all too easy to turn things around and exert a little control over the spouse to keep her from running away. Over time she gets tired of this and the tactics need to be stronger. Your wife does not sound nearly as assertive nor does she seem to have a need to control too, as mine does, so you may have avoided a lot of the control battles that I have encountered.
But you can still hold major sway over the relationship if you will just confront yourself, reign in your fears, stop the controlling and address the sense of panic that comes from not controlling.
Without question. I recognize my fear, I confront it, it is getting better to beat down. My W is actually a control master. She does not ease on isssues easily and is a very good master of manipulation. Withholding sex and affection primarily because she knows the "need" it serves with me. Over the past year she has gone away from that but recently with her getting "tired" she has fallen back into this pattern. Her other favorite game is do and watch for the reaction. Casein point being out until 5:00 am with a group of er classmates at a reunion in town with OM among them. Not telling until I confronted, than blaming me for not understanding. I know this is about me, so I am not deflecting the light, just shedding part of it into the realm where she is a controller.
Cobra, These are things I knew, but refused to acknowledge. They have rushed forward in the past three days and I have had to take a hard look at them. I pray it is not too late. But if it is, the fear that will come will be of my own doing and I will have to deal with it on that level.
I hear the message, stop everything! Be here in my supportive role as father and H, but relinquish control and power until she can recommit. If she cannot, then it is as we are Divorced already and logic would then state, moving on is inevitable.
F4W (now completely a skin full of gelatin!)
Through honest giving of my love I will recieve 10 fold in return.
Just because a person does not love you in the way you want, does not mean they do not love you!
I looked at the 9 criteria. Hmmm Which ones can you identify with me?
I willl list the ones that I can partially or completely say, I engage in.
(2) is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love I believe I am looking for the odeal relationship with my W, or at least was until the last 72 hours. I believethat is the one part of this criteria that holds water.
(4) requires excessive admiration If it is affection and wanting to be desired than YES, this one fits
(5) has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations I think we have linked several behaviors to this or atleast started to link them to entitlement
(9) shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes At time this is true, at others not
I beleive that all of us can identify with the criteria and see portions of our emotional make up listed,
So I see your point, I see the roadblock (one of many) that I need to get a hold on and then maybe, effect some real change in me.
F4W
Through honest giving of my love I will recieve 10 fold in return.
Just because a person does not love you in the way you want, does not mean they do not love you!
No offense, but you and I are very much alike. My wife is also very controlling. I have ratcheted up my assertiveness over the years to hold on to what little control I thought I had. She on the other hand says I have all the control. But we are both right in that we each have the majority of control over different issues. She controls the kids. I control the finances. And until we each control everything, we feel the other has control.
What I have learned (and am still trying to pound into her thick head) is that I do not have bad intentions. Because of her FOO, she assumes a male with control is a disaster waiting to happen. Her parents divorced and her father abandoned the family. So she thinks I will do the same, and the more dependent she is on me the scarier this all seems. So like Happy Giant’s wife, she engages in a certain amount of self deprecation in order to stay off the pedestal and focuses on the negative in order to create and maintain distance and thus safety, at least in her mind.
I have a narcissistic mother from whom I have learned control tactics, deflection, deferral. This meshes nicely with my wife’s FOO to make an intractable mess. What I have had to do is confront my behavior exactly as you are doing, hold onto myself when I felt the panic of separation and abandonment breathing down my neck, and assure myself it would all pass and things would be fine in a few days. After noting this process a few times, I can to realize this was true and I did not need to push to “resolve” a dispute. That push always made things worse. My wife always said she needed space. My read of that was so she could further distance, further build her defenses, further prepare for divorce.
Learning to differentiate and to let her steep in her pain and anger, knowing that is it her problem, not mine to fix, helped me deal with these blowups. Now she is able to resume cordial conversations the next day, rather than being cold, angry and silent for weeks (at the beginning of our marriage, the normal length of this was 2-3 weeks!) She may still be upset and angry, but she is learning to hold onto herself.
I have also placed some of my faith in her by assuming she will not do anything bad, that she does not have evil intentions, and give her the benefit of the doubt. Without his “leap of faith” I could not move forward. It is a necessary condition.
One other thing… the danger with throwing around power is that you just might achieve what you threaten to achieve. Equally dangerous is that you do not achieve what you threaten. Having your ultimatum called without following through leaves you powerless. The next time you need to up the ante. At some point, your spouse will just not respond, like your wife is doing now. If you decide to follow through on your threat, the damage can be irreversible. That is why setting boundaries and letting your wife hang herself is so much better. She has no one to blame but herself. You are off the hook. (When she does hang herself, don’t be happy about it, at least on the outside. That will only tick her off, thinking you somehow trapped her.)
So you seem to be faced with the same model. Perhaps my path can help you. It’s a very hard, complicated “game.” Schnarch can REALLY help. The good news is that you are now approaching the bottom, if you aren’t there already. You have confronted the hard realizations about yourself and survived. You are now unchained. Any further self evaluation will be much easier to deal with. While the future may hold a lot of hard work and frustration for you and your wife, you are in a MUCH better place now to deal with it in a constructive manner. Look up, the sun is coming out!
Need of some clarification. So knowing I have more hang-ups than I can count. I know I need to improve in being able to release and let go the small crap that prompts our arguements. Case in point, another phone call this morning as soon as I get to work about picking up kids and logistics for the night. We had gone all over this on Sunday night and we compared Palms and data entered. I suspect that this follows on the heels of me informing her I was having 5 people over for a local board meeting following my sons game. She had not put that down. So I let it go, say "I remember". Mind you I was in a meeting at work and informed her of this and asked her if I could call her right back. She says it will just take a minute. Not a response and really am not too shook up about it b/c they are her issues and it is not worth getting bent up about. Vent over!
The next area I believe I need to go but am leary of because it is enabling her. If I cease all expectations and affection etc am I not enabling her to continue with loveless acts? I know that there is some time here that I have to totally act ambivilent to the situation as she stews on her decision to follow through with D or to stay and work on us. The question is how long? Not that there is a timeline in stone, but if the behavior does not change how has this had a positive.
The other route I see myself taking is to drop all my games completely and act as loving as I can without any expectations. If she feels trapped or smothered than that is her issue and not mine as long as I am not baiting or hooking her.
Comments? Really torn on this since Cobra got his scapel out.
F4W
Through honest giving of my love I will recieve 10 fold in return.
Just because a person does not love you in the way you want, does not mean they do not love you!
As I process this throughout my day between fires and crisis at work. I start to think, even with all my faults, I wonder if I have created something something that she will not be able to get past.
It is a no-win situation for a while, Not my strong point. I cannot pry for where she is at not totally go away.
There is always a way to gain a foothold (right?) The foothold I am referring to is most likely now just relaxing and taking a break.
F4W
Through honest giving of my love I will recieve 10 fold in return.
Just because a person does not love you in the way you want, does not mean they do not love you!
This is your anxiety as a pursuer kicking it. If like me, then your fears are of abandonment from something in your past. It is difficult to feel like this and not do anything about it. You are used to taking control to prevent chaos (did you do this as a child?) She told you she would not leave and would do whatever you wanted, right?
Perhaps you should level with her about your fears and vulnerabilities, why you act as you do, what you are doing to change this and what you truly want in a marriage. Then let it alone. Both of you will need a lot of time for this to sink in and work through it. You might also tell her you realize that going to counseling is the next logical step, rather than filing for divorce.
About the enabling business. Stop trying to rescue her and her feelings. If she is upset or feel uncomfortable, then tough. This is a much her doing as yours. Your concern for how she feels is just another aspect of pursuit, combined with your need to be a hero. You are doing this for you, not her. Read up more on the narcissism site when you can.
I don’t think you should be acting too ambivalent toward her right know, if you want to avoid confronting her with the choice of marriage or divorce. Open up to her, propose the counseling. Give her some time. Then if she refuses, consider something else. But even then, you can just delay for say 6 months, work on yourself, let her see and feel the changes, then ask gain. When you decide to force a decision on the marriage or divorce is up to you.
Personally, I think you need to anticipate a long slow process to working back together. A year would be pretty quick IMO.
Quote: The next area I believe I need to go but am leary of because it is enabling her. If I cease all expectations and affection etc am I not enabling her to continue with loveless acts?
This is quite fascinating question and it really jumped out at me.
Simple common sense would seem to say that if you don't call them on stuff and point out where they hurt you, you're letting them get away with things, "enabling them," as you put it.
But as backa$$wards as it seems, just the opposite is true.
It IS a good thing to mention that something bothered you, etc. And it's a good thing to have expectations and to show affection WITH NO STRINGS ATTACHED. But when you keep covering the same ground over and over again about someone else's behavior OVER WHICH YOU HAVE NO CONTROL, THAT'S when you are being the enabler.
Look at it this way-- you're still in the dance. The only way to end the dance is for you to leave the floor.
The alcoholic couple is a good example. When the non-drinking partner continually berates the drinker for drinking, pours their booze down the sink, picks up after them, or doesn't pick up after them, the dance continues. The way to end the dance is for the non-drinker to realize that s/he CANNOT control whether their partner drinks. All they can do is GAL as much as possible (and that can be quite a lot) within the context of the relationship, or leave. Of course it is a given that the non-drinker can ask the drinker to limit consumption, stop all together, not drive drunk, etc. all the while realizing that it is up to the drinker whether to comply.
If your partner continually makes life miserable for you in spite of your attempts to be civil, make progress, be kind, etc., then you have to ask yourself if you need to be there at all.
Continuing the dance of trying to get them to see (beyond a simple request, statement of your position, etc.), trying to correct them, help them grow, help them reach their potential-- it's all futile and not your job anyway. Their growth is their job; your growth is YOUR job.
I apologize for not being more current on your sitch, and apologize again if these comments are entirely inappropriate. It was just that your statement really caught my eye.
When my bf was getting sh!t-faced drunk every night and I first went to alanon, you can imagine how furious I was when I heard: "The alcoholic's drinking is none of your business." Cr@p! NOT what I wanted to know! I wanted to know how to make him stop. I found out that I couldn't make him stop. All I could do was decide what *I* would do. That's all we can EVER do.
