Silly, silly me...there I was thinking we were not in Recovery!!!! How silly it was to think that you can take away progress! How dumb to think that a mistake takes you back to square one!

We are not at square one, nor have we ever been - not since D-Day. To say that we were at square one after nine months of Recovery or to say that Recovery has been false because mistakes have been made is not only an exaggeration, it's just plain wrong.

I was very mistaken. I didn't understand.

I understand more now.

I understand that just because I don't feel loved doesn't mean that love isn't there. It just means that I am not seeing it. I also understand that just because I am not seeing it at that moment, it doesn't mean that I never will. I thought it did mean I never would, because I didn't believe that the problem lied with my capability to see it. I thought the problem lied with the question of whether or not it was really there. I thought I would never see it because I didn't really believe it was there.

I was wrong about that, too.

It's there.

I see it now. I feel it now.

I just didn't understand it because Patriot spoke German and I spoke Japanese.

In Japanese..."I have been having an affair, but I want to marry you and Recover with you" means...

"I never really did love you, but I'm willing to try to love you."

So, considering that, you can see how I was easily confused.

Tonight, I learned a little bit of German, and now I understand what he has been trying to tell me.

Another thing I learned tonight was that in Japanese..."You need to make him feel safe to be honest with you" means "You need to lie about how you feel or show no emotion so that he can feel safe enough to be honest with you", which, frankly, didn't ever really jibe with me. I suck at lying about how I feel and at hiding my emotions. It was a battle of control that I was losing most of the time.

I think I found a way to do it. I just didn't see it before. I see it now.

I presented it to him as "The Grace Period Rule".

The Grace Period Rule states that I allow Patriot to be imperfect on Conflict-Avoidance. Obviously, if Conflict-Avoidance is his first instinct, it stands to reason that he would first need to be able to practice a new instinct before discarding the old one completely...practicing that new instinct until it became his first instinct. Anyone would make a mistake.

What I did, without realizing it, was setting him up to fail and then punishing him for it. How could he win? How could I expect any other result? I was telling him "I will allow you room for growth and mistakes, but if you make a mistake I will punish you for it." I was offering him a system that was flawed from the start.

So, I offered him a new one. We are going to try it out and watch for bugs until we perfect it. I guess that means that we are going to allow the new system room for growth and mistakes, too.

The new system is this:

If Patriot reacts to conflict by being dishonest, when he comes to me and tells me the truth he isn't punished for reacting with his first instinct. It may take a very long time before it no longer is his first instinct. He is definitely worth the wait. I also think that it is the very least I can offer him, considering how patient and forgiving he is with my mistakes.

I didn't realize I was setting a trap for him. If I would have known, I would have stopped. If I had known how to stop hurting him, I would have. I do know now, so I will stop.

By the same token, I felt like he has been hurting me. I didn't realize that if he knew how, he would stop. He has been trying to stop all along, he just wasn't perfect at it. I punished him for it and he still kept trying. I see that now, but I didn't before.

I now see that in German, that translates to "I love you and I will not give up on us."

I wish I could have understood that before now, but I didn't.

I have more Recovery progress to report, but that is enough for tonight.

I am very excited. I have often stated here that I have nothing to look forward to.

I do now.

I look forward to learning a little bit of German, because am excited about the first two things I want to learn to say to him...

I love you

and

I respect you.


Froz <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Frozen I'm glad to hear you guys are hanging in there. I might be able to help you a little with the German "Ich liebe dich" (forgive spelling) I love you ...I have no clue about Japanese but the next time he walks in the room smile at him, walk up to him look him straight in the eye and give him a warm wet kiss...I think he'll get it. that's international language.

Good luck and best wishes for your journey. I'll be following your journal

froz - this is awesome to read. Sprint and I had to learn a little Japanese and German too, and for the first time in SOOO long things are good and we are making steady, but great progress.

(((HUGS))) to you guys and Sprint says hi!

Frozen
how very insiteful. Great journal, i am not familiar with your story...how long did it take you to get to enlightenment?

LT

35 years...

Dorry,

So glad to hear of the progress you two are making!

I have discovered that the form of Japanese I have been speaking is a broken, not widely-spoken dialect.

It's no wonder I didn't understand what anyone was saying to me!

I have begun to think more and more about this concept, and I find it quite mind-boggling. It amazes me how it has shifted my perception on just about every level.

I find it very sad that I have been walking around feeling unloved my entire life, when in fact, I was just misunderstanding. I think perhaps I was wrong about my mother. I think she does love me. I think she made mistakes, and she doesn't love the way I love, but she does love me. It didn't recognize it as such.

It also really changes things about the A. It is still painful, but it isn't nearly as painful when I view it through the perspective that he didn't specifically set out to hurt me and that, yes, it is possible that he loved me during the A. It would not have been possible for me, and that's why I didn't understand it. Patriot doesn't love the same way I do, either.

My language has been very black and white. Words in my dialect have had no alternate meanings. Love had one definition. I realize now that that isn't necessarily so for everyone.

It has changed things such as my defensiveness of my children, if Patriot says anything negative about them or criticizes them in any way.

Because, all along, the truth was that I feared he didn't love me, even before the A. I reacted so defensively because I viewed it as a rejection, based on the fear that he didn't love me.

Yesterday, he mentioned a potential problem with my son. I understood and was very able to view it objectively. I didn't even feel defensive without that element present.

I also noticed that I don't feel as threatened if he wants to spend time doing something else. I think that if I would have believed that he loved me all along, there would have been a lot less friction...oh yeah, and also I would have felt loved. That would have been nice. I wish I wouldn't have robbed myself of that.

I have made many mistakes. Patriot has obviously made his fair share of them, too. We didn't know any better. Now we do. I am not thrilled with the road we took to get here, but I am glad we are here, nonetheless.

I feel very grateful for the special person that my H is, and very grateful for his love.

I am also grateful for our dear friend, Miss Sally, who just happened to speak a few words of my broken dialect, and helped me understand that everyone wasn't speaking the same language.

Everyone else was probably trying to tell me (Pep - did I say that out loud?), and I just wasn't understanding the words.

Froz

Froz ~ you've made a breakthrough insight. You are right, we all speak different love languages. That's really only half the equation though!

Part of recovery is recognizing that your spouse's needs are different than yours. What you were suffering from was unfulfilled, unrealistic expectations, which led to great anger and depression.

The other part is learning your spouse's love language and doing those things. If your spouse speaks German, you learn German and speak German to fill your spouse's needs.

If you speak Japanese, your spouse needs to learn Japanese and speak it to you. If you speak Japanese, you have the right to get loved in Japanese!

It's good to realize that you speak Japanese, and your husband was speaking German to you all this time, in an effort to express love. Yes, he really does love you. But he needs to learn Japanese to make you feel loved, instead of forcing you to learn German. And vice versa.

My husband and I used the book The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate along with our MB workbook in recovery.

It explains the same exact MB concepts we use here, just in a different "language" that may be easier for you to 'get'.

BR,

I have the book. Perhaps Patriot and I could read it together soon.

I understand what you mean about Love Languages. We seem to be pretty adept at meeting each others needs. I think LB's and communication have been bigger obstacles for us.

I guess I was loosely using the term 'languages' regarding perception, meaning...it didn't matter what language he was speaking. I really don't know that anyone spoke my language. It would have been impossible for anyone to love me given that I had such a narrow-minded perception on what love really was.

I am very interested in reading the book you mentioned, though. It has been recommended to me before. Perhaps it could expound on some of the things I mentioned above that I have learned.

Awesome Froz - no wonder you and Sprint got along, you both spoke broken Japanese. He expanded his vocabulary when he left and got the lightbulb in his head. I had already been brushing up on my Japanese, and continued my skills now...

Both Sprint and I were trying, but neither of us could see us trying as it wasn't in eachother's languages..it was my MOM that forced us to start really listening and hear what eachother is saying, as we were both saying what eachother wanted to hear, but in our own ways.

Sprint also realized how black and white his dialect was. He was basing his recovery on a definition of words that had no room for other interpretations - like love, commitment. Commitment to him was faithfulness and nothing else. Once he figured out the words are more than just that, he sees the 8 months of work i did, and still taking him back after all the recent events, and looks at that as commitment, sticking it through all the tough times and never leaving - even when the A ended for me and i could have left. He's starting to see less and less black and white.

Dont ya love Sally - she broke through my communication barriers too <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> taught me how to talk to Sprint before Sprint started making his changes. It's been amazing for us - Sally you are the communication Queen! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> lol

Froz I am so happy you have had this breakthrough. I know the road ahead is still long, but I am so happy that there is still a road for you guys to journey on together.

Dorry,

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. I find it sad, really, that Sprint and I deprived ourselves of love that was ours for the taking, if only we'd have recognized it for what it truly was. But, isn't it great that it's not too late???

I feel very blessed, as I'd bet Sprint does, to have such a loving, patient spouse.

I look back now and feel sorry that Patriot was trying so hard to love me. I threw that love back at him, rejecting it, because it didn't fit my picture of what love was (very black and white). I think about how he must have felt very rejected and how rude it was of me to toss away his precious gift. I think about how diligent he was after the A, trudging uphill...while I blasted him for his imperfections and used them as proof that his love wasn't real because it wasn't like mine. How self-righteous!

I have a lot of personal work to do.

Hi Froz ~ the book is not the complete answer....I think that a huge part of the problem is expectations. When our unrealistic expectations are not met, it results in a huge amount of anger - which unresolved becomes depression.

This is where you have to really look at you, and see if some of your love language issues are really and truely unrealistic expectations. If that is the case, then you need to adjust those.

I can tell you a story about me and my husband...

We had been married maybe 3 years...and I had huge expectations that truely interfered in my ability to feel loved by my husband.

So ... the week before my birthday approached...and my husband TOLD me (a huge No NO in my book because if he loved me he would keep it secret and surprise me) that he was going birthday shopping. Strike 1.

Then he got in the car and left. He showed back up at the house an hour later. Strike 2. (he didn't spend enough time shopping for me, so I believed he didn't care. If he really loved me it would have taken ALL AFTERNOON to find the right gift!)

Then he really screwed up. He came in the house and told me that while he was at the mall, the car was vandalized and I had to go out side and look in the car to see it. I gasped, ran outside, and found the car unharmed, but a beautiful leather handbag and a bottle of perfume sitting on the car seat. Strikes 3, and 4 (lol and these don't count the lame story to get me outside). Oh boy was he in trouble now.

You see, it was a week early. He obviously didnt love me because he didn't wait for my birthday, he just wanted to 'get it over with'. And it wasn't wrapped, so again, he just didn't care.

I was convinced by this enter episode that my husband hated me.

Guess what the truth was? My husband was head over heels in love, and was so excited about his gift for me that he couldn't wait for my birthday to see my face.

It was about half way through his affair, as I was working my 12 step program with my sponsor, when I became aware of just how devastating my angry love busting response to his excited gesture of love must have been to him. I was so horrified by my sheer blindness.

My husband had no way of understanding my needs. My needs were so incredibly exacting, that I doubt there was any humanly possible way of meeting them. Part of my growth was to learn what was a healthy need, and what was just plain controlling and unrealistic.

So Froz, think about both. You and Patriot have to learn to speak the other's language. But you might want to look harder into yourself and see if you have expectations that should be readjusted.

I know just what you mean!!!!

Yours was a perfect example of what I was talking about.

I don't know how I could have been so blind and just plain cruel.


That is precisely what I was doing.



This is good advice. I think awareness is a key point. Once you become aware of the behavior, it shifts your perspective quite a bit and prevents the same behaviors from recurring. I do realize that it will take more than just awareness. It will take learning new behaviors to replace the old. Any tools or information you have, I will hungrily dive into.

I really just can't get over what a self-righteous fool I've been. I really did think there was nothing wrong with me. I wondered what was wrong with the whole world, that they could be so unkind and unloving while I, of course, was so giving and unselfish...

How did someone not want to knock me off my high-horse?

you weren't being self -righteous lady - you were hurt and trying to figure things out. You are one great woman and don't forget that!

Not my intention to self-bash, Dorry, but it's true. If I wasn't giving off that impression, I was thinking it.

I am human, therefore imperfect. All I can do is strive to correct the things I am aware of.

It just occurred to me..what if there is some other GIANT thing causing me problems that I don't see now? I sure didn't think there was one before.

UGH!

What progress. Some walls between my wife and I have seemed to come crashing down and are no longer keeping us apart. I am so grateful for that.

One of the first things I want to do with my wife in our Recovery from this point is identify some books for us to read and discuss the ideas in them. The love languages book sure seems to apply. Also, readings from the Bible need to be included.

I feel exhilerated about the new realizations Froz has made because it opens doors for me that allow me to be a better husband for her...and that is what I have been trying to do.

I do wish she wasn't so hard on herself because people make mistakes. The best thing is to learn from them and move forward. But, I understand the need, sometimes, to beat one's self up. I have done it. Often.

Also, I am going to work on focusing 15 hours a week on my wife..which really doesn't seem that hard. I think there were times I was spending time that "didn't count" or some such thing... but she and I have certainly seemed to overcome some real obstacles recently.

Having her tell me that she actually felt loved by me was so huge, I can't even describe it. I look forward to making her happy.

So, I will do some work over the next few days or weeks... and then I will report back with what I have.

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Froz ~ No one can just hand you any of this to you. You can't "hear" what we say to you until you are ready.

I can suggest a couple of things however. 1 is that you are very angry. And I don't think all of your anger is about Patriot. Again, I'm going to suggest you work on uncovering the source(s) of your anger. Unfulfilled, unrealistic expectations are one source of anger. Why do you have the expectations that you have? Where did you learn that behavior?

I don't know alot about you. What I do know is that twice in your life you have picked men that have problems with honesty and act out sexually. I sincerely doubt this was a coincidence.

What is it about you that finds those qualities in a man "normal" and "comfortable"?

You are very fortunate that Patriot has decided to take responsibility for his problems. While he is doing so, you should have plenty of free time to explore yours.

I suspect that your anger and your tendency to pick the men you have picked are probably related. I also would be willing to bet it started back in childhood.

For me, a 12 step program helped me uncover my answers to those questions. I learned alot about me ~ and alot about me in a relationship ~ by doing so.

BR,

You pose some very interesting questions. Most of them are things I have thought of, but haven't really arrived at any conclusions about.


I haven't ever really been angry like this before. This is definitely a new emotion to me, at least anger to this extent and for this duration. I have always been quicker to identify the underlying emotion, rather than the secondary emotion - anger. Maybe this was just the final straw in a long line of betrayals.




I have been thinking about this one myself, and I honestly have no idea where I learned that behavior. I don't know that anyone in my family has that sort of perception. I have always identified it as 'sensitive', or lacking a thick skin. Now I see that it was really my perception that was causing things to be more painful, rather than a lack of thick skin.



Well, I guess it is more of a pattern than you think, because I have picked three men, such as you described.
Maybe it isn't a coincidence...I don't know. I know that I don't find anything normal or comfortable about it at all. There is no family history of that kind of thing. I wasn't sexually abused as a child or anything like that. I have no idea. I figured it was poor judgement or back luck.

I really wish I had the answers to your questions. I have racked my brain about this, and I got nothin'.

Froz ~

I can tell you about my experiences, and you can take what you like and leave the rest.

I didn't know I was angry for years and years. Not only that, but I had no idea I had a reason(s) to be angry.

My discovery unfolded slowly.


At first, when I started to explore anger, I was angry at my husband. He was my active alcoholic and he was having an affair. I understood that my parents were the root of my problems, but I didn't think I felt anger towards them. It took time, and as I peeled back the layers of the onion that was me, I found depths of anger I had never known were there.

Anger at my father surfaced. My father actively committed pyschological warfare on us children as his form of parenting..... and yet...later, much later, I found myself exploding in anger at my mother, who to this day, still manipulates, appeases, controls and refuses to let go of anything she thinks she can affect.

My view on my childhood and my parents is much much different than it was 10 years ago.


I can tell you there was a very long time in my life that I thought my childhood and parents were perfect.

I can tell you that as I began working the 12 steps, and really addressing who I was and challenging the "truths" that I belived, that I realized that not only was my "perfect" and "normal" family riddled with alcoholism, but that it was also riddled with sexual dysfunction.

There was no drinking in my childhood home. But the problem was deeper. Both of my grandfathers (which I never knew) were raging violent alcoholics. This was a deep dark family secret. (Hint: if your family keeps secrets...or has issues that sit like a giant invisible elephant in the middle of family gatherings - everyone is aware but no one acknowledges, you probably have issues to explore). My parents never sought help. They took the emotional and spiritual lessons they had grown up with under the threat of violent alcoholism, and imposed those lessons on us children. Even more insidious...there was sexual abuse in my parent's family. It gave my parents a very twisted unhealthy attitude about sex, one that was on one hand, incrediblely strict and yet very blind. My uncle's sexual molestation of my younger siblings was hushed up and covered up. He had probably been a victim of incest by his mother (my grandmother). I knew nothing of this until roughly 3 or 4 years ago.

So my point is....I never experienced, or so I thought, the effects of someone's drinking because no one drank in my childhood home.

My parents had a great marriage too, I thought. What I know now is that my father had one EA after another and was emotionally unavailable to my mother.

And I went on to marry an emotionally unavailable alcoholic because that is what I knew.


There are no coincidences.

I am the oldest of 10 children.

6 of my 9 siblings have become alcoholics, or have married them, or even worse, have done both. Of the other 3, one is dead at age 19, one is still living at home, and the other is taking serious note of her siblings issues and is getting help before getting into a serious relationship.

This is not bad judgement or bad luck.

This is being attracted to what you know, even though you may not understand or know what it is that feels normal.

I guarantee, that there is some reason, maybe not apparent now, that has lead to your choices in men.