Muddle's Waters III

[MuddleThrough]

I married my W with most of these same traits

No question here, and I think I would do it again. Even my W admits that we did things wrong and we *could* have been much better off had we worked on our relationship all along. According to her it's too late now.

There is a lot written about whether things are the cause of each other or merely related in some other way. What I am learning to do is to NOT be the cause or effect of my W's actions, just to exist along side her while this thing goes on, hoping that at some point my growth, time, her growth, etc, will make it possible for us to be more interactive rather than just coexistent.

This is the approach I have tried to take as well. The trouble is, no matter what I do, nothing seems to change her somewhat abusive behavior. I guess I haven't really changed then, if this is the case. The problem is that for my W to stop this behavior, I need to become the perfect person and this isn't going to happen. I have been thinking that maybe instead of this approach, I need to become more aware of and defend my boundaries when she acts like this. Not fight, but simply point out that she's being nasty and I don't want to be treated like that. I'll tell her either she talks to me better or I'm going to walk away from the conversation. I have always kind of listened to her and not fought back, but I guess this gives her license to continue.

I keep telling myself that time will really be the only thing that can resolve this, but the pressure of do/not doing the right/wrong things during that time and not really getting a clear idea of what defines a right or how to tell if it's having the desired effect is frustrating. I guess that's where I just need to stop and live my life, but the demands of my family (including my wife) don't give me the opportunity to shut this out.

In terms of you feeling that you have settled for FAR less than you should, well, that's something you really have to evaluate and see if you are just upset at the current sitch, or if you really feel this way long-term.

Let me clarify here: I really think my W and I ARE compatable. I really think that she and I can have a really great marriage. I certainly don't think that she, as a person, is less than great. The way she is now committed to acting seems to preclude any growth or fulfillment in the relationship. I don't think that we can have a great relationship if she doesn't decide that she wants to give to me. Maybe she will at some point, but I look at her and see a really immature person that's going to take a long time to get to that point, and even then, I don't know if she'll be able to do that with me. So, right now I'm really settling. If she doesn't begin to contribute to the relationship far more than she used to - I certainly will be settling. It's a pretty stupid thing to be even weighing this out when she's 90% out the door and running fast.

That's something that I believe DOES represent the major difference between the LBS and WAS in the end. Keep that in mind.

There's something interesting that I read recently talking about this. It leads me to believe that what you seem to be attributing to character differences might be association after the fact. The idea was that both people in the marriage were not getting their needs met when the A started. It's likely that the WAS was the first one with the opportunity to have an A, not that their values or morals were weaker. We as LBSs have no idea whether we would have become WASs ourselves had our spouses not beaten us to it.