Is it me or is it my unconscious

[OG_Lou]

MC #2
Listed what we were each willing to change or improve.

I discussed a short version of Deida and said I was worn out from trying to accommodate BB's complaints, wants, and lack of commitment to solving problems. I said she keeps offering me her all to common "I don't know" answer for solutions, when discussing problems.

I also talked about considering BB's input in things we do but not being afraid to make the final decision of what is the best for the long-term R.

BB said she wants to work on trusting me more.

Mini-case example of BB's trusting things will work out for her in the long run is the the reverse osmosis (RO) water filter was empty because I was to fill up the coffee pot and the pet's water dishes. BB wanted to fill up her mug before going to bed but couldn't. No water in the RO, but some in a filler jug.

She got frustrated or feeling like she was low person on the totem pole due to the lack of water at the RO site. Later I said I would have taken water out of the coffee pot filler jug to fill her mug.

The way she naturally sees things is I was going to fill the coffee pot and give her what was left over "it there was any." I didn't know she wanted water when I started my fill rounds, but my intention would have been to fill her mug first and wait for more water to process in the RO filter if need. She keeps thinking she is last in line which causes her to see me as uncaring sometimes.

Next MC #3 in 30 days. Session #2 was about having trust that things will work out, being less fearful of things beyond our control, and looking at the OP in a good light.

MC touched a little on The Five Love Languages and fixing yourself from a (biblical sense), similar to MWD's and this forum advice.

I said I had both (5LL DR) books.

Two weeks ago, BB complained so much about not sleeping well and I was mostly the cause, I moved to the spare bedroom. One day I said it was getting to be too hard to be a H to her so the most I could do was to try to be a friend. I said separate rooms and related issues was difficult but the feelings of rejection and little benefit for the amount of work I was putting into the R, was too great to give her much else than friendship/civil room mates.

I suspect it is more than true that sometimes it takes almost losing something, or a willingness to walk away from something, before one or both parties sees a reason to work on a R.

I tried what I thought was a carrot, it didn't work like I thought it should/would. Maybe the carrot was too small. Maybe most carrots need sticks to work.

Linear Lou

[honeypot]

Lou,
Your wife is a pain!

I would say to her, "I am filling the dog dishes and the coffee pot. It is not my intention to leave your mug unfilled, nor is it my responsibility to read your mind. Next time you want water, just ask me in advance and I'd be happy to oblige. Otherwise, you'll be thirsty."

Get a little harsh with her, buddy!

She acts like a crabby princess and gets away with it, thus feeding that beast.

Every time you stand up to her, she respects it and responds favorably..

Later,
Honey

[OG_Lou]

HP said

She acts like a crabby princess

i agree. BB sees it as she gets ignored, reads into situations that other people come first (In my opinion the problem stems from her low self esteem, feeling like the little dog in a big dog world)

is it my responsibility to read your mind.

That is where the problem started. I set out on what I see as needing to be done, which at the time didn't include filing vessel #3. BB automatically saw it as her being last and getting what was left, it anything was left and maybe she wasn't going to get anything at all.

Well there is tap water which we drank for 25 years before we had RO filtered water. I blame part of the problem on TV advertisements; creating a demand for products. Our well water tastes fine, much better than city water which we don't have and can't get.

Every time you stand up to her, she respects it and responds favorably..

I see this. I am trying to balance respect for her wishes, my tendency to do things in a minimal way, which see sees as being cheap, stingy, or as not considering her different style of wants.

I think little gestures work with other people, and with her, because they do with me. That is why I said maybe my carrots are too small.

So far, most of the MC's ideas are not too far off from some of the Deida ideas. So, yes standing up for what I want works.

Lou

[LostGal]

Oh Lou,

I see myself in BB. Yesterday as part of GAL, I had lunch with an old neighbor. Well they moved and we had some tree seedlings that I offered. They were happy to get them. I told H and said well atleast they wont grow up thru the fence.

TODAY he's digging out the neighbors seedlings. I left the delivery way open and got the idea that we'd talk again and arange the entire thing. But....I gave him an out and said, "well atleast the ground isn't frozen yet".

I tried to dance around the situation that I have asked for a particular tree to be moved for 2 years. He said, "Well, I bet your going to say what about me?" "Nah, I did think about it but since you're digging I'm looking forward to the tree on flat being moved too." "What tree?" "The one you put the ribbon on. (gets coat) Want me to show you?" "No, I'm not going that way" "OK...let me know when you want me to show you"

I do feel strange that the neighbors were done and not mine for the second year.

Had a discussion about me wanting him to take inititive, which he did and then me being angered about what he chose to do. I guess I'll end up being happy with what ever I get cuz its a loosing senario to discuss the merrits of what just happened/didn't happen.

PS Pitcher water would have been fine. I've often thought of sitting at a bar and having H complain to me about the nagging wife at home. From his POV it would be hard to argue that he was not being put upon. From my POV he's trying so hard and doing so much, but the neighbors trees were no where on 'today's' list.

[Lillieperl]

Lou, 30 days between MC appts is REALLY long. Can't you move it up to every two weeks, or at least every three weeks?


Regarding water issue-- here's a practical suggestion. The water at my house in the country is drinkable but not tasty, so I use a countertop distiller from Sears (on sale right now for $99-- I'm on my third one in 14 years) to make distilled water, and that's what we've drunk for the 14 years that I've lived there. It takes SEVEN HOURS to make a gallon of water, so basically it's an overnight process.

I bought a big five-gallon plastic storage tank ($24.99) with a spigot on it at the container store, and it sits on a small table right next to the refrigerator. Every night I fill the distiller and turn it on. In the morning, I pour that gallon of distilled water into the holding container, fill the distiller again and turn it on again. In the afternoon or early evening when that gallon of water is done, I pour it in the holding tank, fill the distiller, and at bedtime, turn it on again. Sometimes I don't do the daytime gallon, because we don't need it. We use this water for drinking, coffee, cooking, etc. If you have a five-gallon tank of water on hand, you won't have the problem of BB feeling slighted. She may feel slighted about something else, but not about this.

This issue is an example of something that can be looked at two ways. On the one hand you can look at it as another way that BB's immature attitude makes your life miserable and puts you in the wrong.

OR you can remove the "she's right/wrong" or "I'm right/wrong" judgments from the sitch and simply look at it as a problem that is solvable.

Lou, have you fallen into the habit of judging BB's annoying behavior as WRONG so much of the time that you don't see when a situation has a simple solution?

Again, as I've said to Mrs. C, it's not that BB isn't annoying, immature, a self-absorbed princess, BUT maybe some of her whiny complaints mask situations that have real-world solutions.

Edited to add... maybe I didn't say that exactly right. What I was trying to get across is that BB has so many rules and land mines strewn around that it's hard to see when her complaint is actually something reasonable. Not that feeling slighted because she thought the dog would get water and she would not-- that was just BB being pissy. I mean that having only a gallon or two of water on hand for two adults and some animals does NOT seem reasonable to me. I keep five gallons of water on hand at all times just for me and BF; the dog and six cats drink tap water. Sometimes it's hard to filter out her pissiness to see when there is actually a reasonable complaint at the bottom of things.

[blackfoot]

HP. The only book Ive read is TWOTSM.
The book store didnt have 'Blue Truth', or 'wild nights' but the next one Im going to read is 'Blue Truth'. I want to read 'WN' but its just to compare notes, and Im allready swamped with whitepapers from other projects. Eventually I want to read his female directed books as well, since I think there could be valuable lessons to learn on encouraging, and communicating with women. Itll have to wait.
I agree with your feeling about 'Its A Guy Thing' and Mr. H.

excuse me while I talk outloud.

Im interested in 'BT', because Im guessing from the blurb he goes into more depth on remaining open during hurt. I allready know my tendancy is toward being even more imperturbable and invulnerable (indifferant). Works great for short term and being mysterious, as long as its congruent, but wont do anything for a LTR.

He touched on this 'open loving' briefly in Chapter 2 of 'TWOTSM' and I think I got a good mental grasp on it, as well as a good visual of what it should look like.

Only when the front of your body is relaxed and opened,...your gaze ungaurded and directly connected with another person's eyes, can your fullest intelligence manifest spontaneously in the situation. To act as a superior man...you must feel <shudder> the entire situation with your whole body. A closed body is unable to sense subtle cues and signals, and therefor unable to act with mastery in the situation.

I comprehend what he is saying, the same thing is accomplished in sports thru practice, or martial arts, by sparring. You eventually are relaxed enough to remain aware, and eventually/hopefully reach a alpha wave nueral mind state. You are ,AWARE without thinking. In these situations, if your reacting instead of predicting or acting, your toast. When you react you get to far into your own head, start thinking, which slows you reaction time way way down, and start personalizing.

so taking baby steps to be ... <blech> vulnerable, while not reacting and lashing out at the perceived rejection and slights that hurt, is not nearly as appetizing as is just rationalizing that we really dont want something, that we may need, or require, rather then enter that vulnerable place. <ahem>

Now I know logically, that as long as I dont betaize myself, things will be fine. But the knowing isnt the same as feeling. I got hurt, and Im not prone to letting that happen again. Not to mention Id rather be surrounded by people I can trust, then allways be UP. Only way to do that is show vulnerability and see what they do with it, while having a plan for self defense. You dont truly know someone till you hand them power and give them choice.
GRR! I keep flipflopping on this. Does doing this with awareness make me P/A or mean that I wont settle for less then I want-- damn the consequences? Id pretty much given up on that untill I saw Mrs. Nop's comment about pre-nups.
(thankyou thankyou thankyou)

After reading this passage in TWOTSM, two movie scenes that demonstrate being hurt but remaining open, jumped to my mind. The first was hugh grant, in notting hill- when the paparazzi interupt her sequestering with him.
The other is john cusack, in must love dogs, when he breaks off their dating when he meets her other suitor, whislt toting around his dates drunk brother. They get hurt, but they stay in the moment, show their hurt,(congruence, very important distinction to indifferance) with no return punishment or supplicating/placating.
even the withdrawal, which is very painful to women, is done as a boundary, not a reaction/punishment


Lou.
I still have trouble with the chapter about a man's purpose is more important than his family. That doesn't work for me, assuming the family isn't selfish or seriously dysfunctional.

I think your talking about Chapter 7.
I understand where you are coming from, but what he is saying is that this is intrinsically a part of the masculine polarity. If the man assumes the feminine polarity, (the family) the woman will accordingly take up the masculine side which is to be free or seek some purpose. Both will be unhappy and unsatisfied.

for ex. when x ambushed me a couple months ago, she tried to create rapport and start a connection by talking about how well she is doing with her career. < - still clueless> her family hasnt exactly ostracized her, but I had to tell them to invite her to family gatherings before they invited me. If she declined, then I *might* come. Plus I had to detach for my own sake. before I moved out of state, my xBIL was showing me pictures of my nephews and they're were some of her on the camera as well. She looks like sh!t. I was shocked. Reading Deida was sort of eerie, cause one of the last things I said to her was 'untill you learn to put your family first you will never be happy. All this other crap your doing to distract yourself is BS.'

In your sitch, I think if you look back Lou, there were many times when you did put your purpose, your identity, and your motivation into your work. It was primary. Those times were also 'better' according to what you have related, with regards to your R. If I recollect, the problems started with health problems and loss of that identity and purpose.

x's #1 complaint our whole R was time together. Whether it was my work/our education or my hobbies. Not persistant or chronic, but when she complained -primarily -that was what it was about. I understood she 'wanted' more QT, and I would take care of it-as I was able. But our R was good despite the 'complaints'. Ironically, there were ZERO quantity time issues, ZERO complaints about that, (there was others) or related work/hobby/purpose interferances when she started her A. Our joint recreational activity was REALLY high. In fact QT was no longer going to be an issue because of my career change. I say quantity and not quality, because I was completely unavailable to her emotionally.

If you read chapters 47-49, and specifically 48, it would appear at first that Deida is contradicting himself about chapter 7. He places the responsibitlity for the growth of the R, having a direction, even stating that we insist that it take place, and guaging the emotional weather and dealing with it. In fact that was one of the things I really liked about the book is the fact that he gave specific examples of how to change a womans emotional state(not her mind). Thats something that is very very rarely touched on, even around this forum. So in that way, the family is the mans responsibility, but without some other exterior purpose, he wont have the proper framework (or boundaries)for keeping his families respect and hence her desire.

Occasionally you mention that BB seeks some direction and reassurance as to the future/plans from you. Try to see that as a positive and an opportunity.

[blackfoot]

Lil

I think a large part of the reason that BB engages Lou in this way is because she is seeking some sort of emotional reaction/connection/validation of value. (MJ )

Lou could find practical rational ways to solve every single one that comes down the pike, but that will neither satisfy her nor solve the real problem/situation. I dont think they will ever cease, untill she gets what she really 'needs'.

Thats not Lous fault because she is not communicating clearly or honestly. I hear independant speech coming out of her mouth, and see picky attitude, but I see a very unsure, and insecure lady. Shes lucky to have you Lou.

Instead of coming home and feeling unappreciated, try a differant approach. After youve been gone all day, walk up to her and say ' Missed me didnt ya.' Then tweak her nose. That kind of stuff is 'playing' besides demonstrating a lot of other positive attributes.

[OG_Lou]

Re Lostgal

I do feel strange that the neighbors were done and not mine for the second year.

I fit in that pattern too. Not concerning trees, but when I was repairing cars at home before my last back flare up in 1986. I worked on our car last but it always was maintained well. What I didn't do was have BB's car always looking sharp.

I commented because doing the neighbors work before our own seems to be a common trait.

Re Lil

The water at my house in the country is drinkable but not tasty

Lil, I lived in the south some, where the water smelled like rotten eggs. I moved 28 times before I was in 10th grade. some places had poor quality water. Most places had good water. Where we live now has what I consider good water but slightly high in minerals.

The ground water's source is the river and the irrigation canals distribute water to a large area. Seepage of water out of the canals is how the local well get their water.

The down or maybe up side is, up till about 1965, this was farm land. I don't know what chemicals were put on the crops or how much fertilizer was used.

when we moved here, no one worried much about fertilizers or many farm chemicals. The thinking was, they were all dissipated in a few years. Gee, we even put used motor oil on the road to keep the dust down. And neighbors had Chem Lawn yard service to kill weeds and help make the grass look nicer.

Fast forward to BB's breast cancer, news stories about residual effects of farm practices, Chen Lawn treatments and links to various types of cancers and other environmentally influenced diseases.

Add on top of that the advertisement of bottled water, Brita type water pitchers and filters. With all of this I decided a reverse osmosis filter with a holding tank was the way to go. We decided we should protect our selves and I installed the following system Five Stage Reverse Osmosis

Our system processes about 8 gallons of water a day and has a 3 gallon expansion storage tank under the sink. The system is rated at 18 gallons per day with a booster pump.

When everything works correctly, we have plenty of drinking and cooking water, dogs and cats included. The dogs eat deer manure but have OR water to drink. (go figure that one out)

The other day whan BB was thinking she was low person to the totem pole, the ice-maker malfunctioned and I had that water line turned off for 4 hours while I tried to figure out why the ice maker malfunctioned. Everything checked out to be OK but the ice-maker didn't work correctly. I drove to town and bought a new one. I installed a new one to avoid trouble in the future. Hence the reason for a one time shortage of drinking water.

Thanks for the information on distillers.

This issue is an example of something that can be looked at two ways...... BB's immature attitude.....OR you can remove the "she's right/wrong"....or look at it as a problem that is solvable.

About the "Problem" Solvable for sure. About BB feeling/thinking she is low person on the totem-pole, when she isn't, that is the root problem.

BUT maybe some of her whiny complaints mask situations that have real-world solutions.

I list the situations for mechanical fixes. IE get a bigger holding tank) but my main intent is to list the whole situation for the readers understanding. For solutions to what might reduce BB's feeling of coming in last.

What I was trying to get across is that BB has so many rules and land mines strewn around that it's hard to see when her complaint is actually something reasonable....Sometimes it's hard to filter out her pissiness to see when there is actually a reasonable complaint at the bottom of things.

That is a very good way to say it Lil.

I mean that having only a gallon or two of water on hand for two adults and some animals does NOT seem reasonable to me

It's rare that we actually run out. Sometimes the pressure drops in the reserve tank. But like I said, 4 dogs and 6 cats have always had RO water to drink. I forgot about the people Lil. We have plenty too.

Pecking order in the house. Pets first.

Lou

[Lillieperl]

About BB feeling/thinking she is low person on the totem-pole, when she isn't, that is the root problem.

Lou and BF, I do understand this and agree with it.

Lou, I didn't realize your system produced that much water. As I described, my distiller needs to be run every day and the water collected manually in a holding tank. We would NEVER go through 18 gallons in a day. We never even go through the five gallons in the holding tank. At my house you don't fill up a glass with water, take a sip and dump the rest out! Not when you've seen the distiller fill it jug literally one drop at a time!

I know that no matter how many things you fix, she will always find a way to feel slighted and martyred.


How come you can't go to the C more often than once a month?

[OG_Lou]

Lil said: (in bold)
Lou, I didn't realize your system produced that much water.
It does, if your water pressure is around 80PSI. My water system is set for the pump to come on if the pressure drops below 30 on psi and go off above 50psi, so I estimate the RO system produces 5 to 8 gallons of water at the 30/50 psi, and it too is one drop at a time. The drops come faster than the distilling method, but still to slow to fill a glass. That is why there is a 3 gallon tank as part of the system.

When something is rated at a number, that is in the testing mode, with things being stretched to it’s limits. I would estimate the water reserve tan to hold 1.5 to 2 gallons at normal pressure. I could put a bigger reserve tank in another location but running out of drinking/cooking water only happens if I have the water off on that branch line for several hours, maybe once every year or two.

How come you can't go to the C more often than once a month?
C sets the schedule. C is doing this voluntary as his calling of the church / God. He has lots of other people he works with. Some already filed D papers. Some owe so much $$$$ they can't see daylight. Some make big $$$$$$ but don't have anything to show for it but an over stock of stuff. Maybe he thinks we don't have that big of a problem.

Maybe I didn’t open up to him enough, be honest about all of the frustrations I have been having . I did say things have been a problem for me and BB for several years.

Originally, I inquired about two M/R programs the church promoted through it‘s “small group“ growth program. One “small group” was for couples about to or just experiencing “empty nest” events” (40ish couples) and another “small group” program was for 50/60ish couples planning to retire in a few years. I explained my concerns to a church department leader/organizer and he said I/BB should the MC person.

Why am I not taking a more active role in this MC process? It is because church attendance was BB’s idea so I thought she would listen to and agree to do their program, even though it was me who made all of the contacts.

With past experiences, once I was more enthustic about something than she was, BB lost interest, the more I want something, the more BB resisted. I am trying to get as much mileage out of BB wanting to attend this particular church and her saying how much she likes going there.

As far as traditional MC,(female C that was a women’s issues expert) we went for several months in the early 1990’s (BB learninig about co-dependency years) and BB went through the motions, made some changes but didn’t buy in to the program. She seems to have bought in to what she knows about the church does and the programs it offers.

So, in our second session, BB listed what she wanted to do to make the R better. I know she wants to make the R better but I also see it is difficult to not keep doing some of the old habits and very difficult for her to be less picky and difficult for her to not think she gets the short end of the deal.

Lou