Then we will agree to disagree.

You may be uninformed but you are not a victim.

But again I don't like the whole "VICTIM" mentality.

Nope not really.. Again though why would you want to be a victim?
What does being a victim entitle you to?


This is a defeatist mentality. In what way are you the victim in anything?

My wife cheated on me. As long as I sat around as a victim nothing was going to happen.

What is one of the first thigs a BS hears here.

REalize your part in the deterioration of the M before the A.

If you had filled the EN's not LB'd filled the love bank. Your FWS or WS would not have strayed.

As a BS we own Part of that therefore we cannot claim victim status.

Eat that crap sandwich when you find out your spouse was with someone else. LOL. It ain't easy. They don't even serve any condiments with that one.

Victim status will never produce anything for anybody except a miserable life.

You cannot look at the way you were harmed in every situation. You need to look at the situation as a whole and take your part.

You own your decesions wether you felt fully informed or not.

You own your choices.

Do not look for sympathy, do not look for empathy. Look for a solution to the problem that makes you feel as though you need those things.

I can empathize or sympathize with someone who lost their job because the company went bankrupt. I can't do the same for the person that lost their job because of poor performance and bad attendance.

I will give you what happened in my life.

My wife wanted to claim victim status when I got angry.

I would raise my voice or yell or call her a name. Some of those things are absolutely wrong.

I should never call my wife a name. I think I am entitled to raising my voice.

Now my wife does something/anything that she knows will upset me. Then I find out.

Somewhere along the line I yell and call her a name. (again I will fully admit I was wrong for doing that).

Now she is the victim of my cruelty. I am so mean and so horrible.

She will tell the world she was the victim. (she convienently left out I found out she spent $500 on a new purse and lied about it. or something like that.)

So now. I hardly even raise my voice. I have a lot of patience. If I get angry there is usually a reason for it.

The reason gets' lost because she is waiting for me to slip up and do something that makes her the victim.

Nothing ever gets accomplished that way.

If you want to accomplish something own what you did. Discuss that and only that. Then move forward.

When you do something wrong it is not time to discuss what she did wrong.

Discuss what she did wrong or what you don't like when it comes up.

Again in my life.

I will say I don't like that you just did that. With the hope we can discuss what happened.

Instead I will get. Well you...... Very counter productive.

I think honestly that may be what is happening in your M.

TA,

It was confusing, how I said it... but what I meant is that I am interested in changing my thinking. And in support of that, instead of getting upset at the mention of something I might not like, I chose to listen and attempt to think on it from a perspective other than my own.

thanks frog

I think the "why" is because you lack courage. This is not a 2x4 or meant to offend, but my guess is this is what you struggle with.

We can all talk through the "ingredients" of infidelity. Let's work backwards.

1) During your A, you were selfish, immature, had opportunity, and it felt good.
2) When you started your A, you were selfish, immature, had opportunity, and you wanted to see what it felt like.
3) You wanted to see what it felt like because you were unhappy and you were experimenting
4) You made a poor choice of what to experiment with because you were selfish and immature.
5) You were selfish and immature because either you changed your value system due to unhappiness or you were always selfish and immature.
6) If you changed your value system, you did it because doing things within your value system no longer made you happy.
7) If you were always selfish and immature, its because it was reinforced during your upbringing.
8) You were born selfish and immature, as we all were.

One can pick any of these and dig a little deeper. Why was I unhappy? How was this or that re-inforced? How did my environment create opportunity?

I'm as empathetic as anyone. I understand the benefits of introspection, of analyzing people's motivations and behaviors. But, IMHO, knowing the why's I felt this way or that doesn't flick the switch and make recovery a breeze. Many times, its a long winded exercise that's true goal is to find that one external thing in your past, that thing you had no real control over, that a consensus of people (and most notably Froz) will agree to say, "Ah yes, but for that, you would not have cheated". This abdicates your responsibility and eases the mind.

I'd say to you, their are thousands of other Patriots and Froz's out there. They had similar upbringings, similar environments, similar stress and concerns. Similar external environments. I guarantee you that many of those Patriots did not have an A and courage was the difference.

At any point in the path above you could have acted courageously and ended things.

P/A is not courage. Denial is not courage. Conflict avoidance is not courage.

Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is facing your fear. Facing your fear makes you vulnerable. When you are vulnerable, and another cares for you, protects you, keeps you from harm, you feel very connected.

What are you afraid of?

I agree with rprynne that affairs are down to selfishness and immaturity.

Trouble is, most adults don't see the selfishness and immaturity in themselves. There's rarely a moment when we think "Gosh, I need to grow up a bit here".

The unevolved aspects of ourselves show up only when we fall short of the expectations of our peer group, or when we find ourselves betraying values we're 'supposed' to hold.

But when we do that, our tendency is to rationalise the anomaly away. We pin the blame on others; we tell ourselves we're 'owed' the lapse; we imagine ourselves as more enlightened than the sheep around us; we tell ourselves we're dancing to a different drummer; we normalise the lapse by telling ourselves that most others do it too; we minimise the consequences; we demonise others; we see ourselves as rebellious anti-heroes, or sexual sirens, or wronged martyrs; we pride ourselves on our sophistication; we maximise the 'benefits' of the lapse; we tell ourselves the lure was irrestistable,and would have been so for anyone, we hang out with people who are like-minded....and so on, and on...

Perhaps a good way to explore the weaknesses of the self is to take each betrayal one has perpetrated, work out which values were ignored, and ask the question "What did I tell myself to make it OK to do that?"

Finding the lie in the rationalisation is where the maturity comes from.

TA

I think indulgence and neglect run hand in hand personally.

I was both indulged and neglected and abused and spoiled all at the same time so I don't think it's odd or even unusual for that to be the way it goes.

Think about it...it is EASIER to indulge a misbehavior than to take the time to correct, discipline, and retrain.

Since your mom was a SAHM I assume that the lions share of child training went to her and your dad was comfortable and used to having a peripheral/supportive role...he seems to [based on your description] not have realised it was his turn to step up to the plate and try to fill both roles.

A step parent is NOT prepared to provide the same care and nurture and devotion that you had been served 3 squares a day of up until your mothers death.

It is unreasonable to expect a step parent to love you unconditionally as though you were her own and quite predictably she did not. On the few [very few] occasions I have seen genuine love between step parents and their step children which I would equate to what exists between themselves and their natural children it was usually a circumstance in which the step parent assumed that role very EARLY in the childs life and usually they were the ONLY mom or dad the child has ever known.

My point in saying this is to point out that EVERYONE has areas of poor discipline or indulgence and a step parent will more likely HATE you for them than help you overcome them [because others peoples kids are annoying brats when they show less than immaculate and perfect manners, motivations, habits etc] and the entire scenario is just better avoided in my honest and best judgement.

That not having been the case it is entirely plausable to just ASSUME that there are underdeveloped pieces of your character that are no more mature today than they were when your real character training stopped ...how could it be otherwise? Character is like muscle...the more training it gets the bigger and stronger it becomes... underused they stay small and weak and atrophied. Allow them to atrophy enough and you can become crippled in some area.

So really all you need is a consistant and reliable source of "reality check" [IC could possibly provide this IF you are selective about who you choose] to keep you accountable in your perspective and to start to work those muscles and learn and remember how to use them until they move as naturally and smoothly [or at least close] as all of the muscles you use every day to be successfull in your strong areas.

I don't believe in creating pathology and I don't believe that you are truly a sick man...yet...because I haven't seen you TRY and be unable to flex those muscles.

I think they are sitting there just as healthy and with as much potential as anyone else.

I completely believe that you CAN use them...that you are intelligent and capable of the task.

We can talk more about the role of personal discipline if you want to sometime..it plays a very big role in getting from point a to point b.

I didn't read your whole thread and maybe someone's said this already - but look at the notable posts thread on GQ2 for Pittman's catalogue of the reasons for infidelity - http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/sho...e=0&fpart=1

He listed all the reasons why I'd been unfaithful.

5/6... any idea what page of that 11-page thread the list os on?

Oh victim status gets you plenty. ESPECIALLY as a P/A! (And stop sulking, holey moley Pat!)

When I am a victim, I take no ownership in the miserable situation I am in. As along as I have no ownership, I do not need to examine my own contribution, and therefore, don't need to change.

As long as I am a victim, I expect other people to change so that I can be happy.

Victimhood is safe and comfortable. It gets me attention. (Oh poor baby, I can't believe you get jacked around like that!)

I'll tell you the same thing that I told Froz when she moaned and groaned and complained about what a jerk you were...and how you hurt her feelings...and how you treated her badly...

I told her to examine how SHE was contributing to the situation. We didn't pick you apart and say Oh Poor Froz.

She was told to turn that finger pointing back on herself and examine what SHE was doing that contributed.

So should you.

You are not a victim even though you are trying very hard to be that.

I am not getting "oh poor baby' from anyone... so victimhood is not really all that safe. Certainly not fulfilling.

And currently, I am not trying very hard to be a victim.

Just last night she and I had a discussion where we negotiated some things and it went very well. I see where shooting for win-win is a much better option than win-lose for me. Not just her. Me too.

So that is what I am after.

I fully understand that being in victim mood does not get anything resolved. I recognize it and it is against what I am doing. Trying to resolve.

thanks for the reminder

I'm done with sulking.

Noodle,
I would very much like to hear about the role of personal discipline in getting from a to b. So post away.

Hey! How did THAT get there??? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

I find it odd to answer questions like this one.


The tense hangs me up. Right at this moment, I am not afriad of the things that had me acting those ways. What I am afraid of right now is the amount of damage caused to you and that it might be irreparable.

The tense is present. What I was afraid of was intimacy, being open and rejected, abandoned, not getting what I wanted, being told what I wanted was evil or wrong, that happiness would never be available for me and that I was making the wrong decisions.

all of that driven by lack of self-respect.

Here is something I figured out.

When are people are capable of doing evil? Always.

When are people likely to do it? When they lack self-respect.

It is lack of self-respect that "allows" people to "accidentally" do many bad things.

Do you think a murderer or rapist respects themselves? I don’t. If they did, they wouldn’t do those kinds of things. Or I bet they would be less likely.

So, what I conclude is that increasing self-respect would be a very good way to affair proof our marriage.

And how do you increase that? Noodle’s personal disciple discussion would no doubt shed light on what to do, but certainly personal discipline would do it. Standing up for what is right, like the values of marriage would do it.

That’s what I think.

If people can be affected in subtle ways by making wrong decisions, like me taking the job where we talked about people ‘know’ they have poisoned themselves and aren’t quite right until they fix it… then making the right decisions should certainly have the opposite effect.



Afraid. I was afraid of not being good enough. And in sitting around pining over that, it is what I became. Not good enough.

That is no longer acceptable and we are turning that around.

And you know what I am starting with. I told you this morning.

SF?

lol. no. but of course that is part of the plan.

I mean it is a need and all...

I was going to tie self respect and ethical behavior together but you did it already.

Yes, my self respect holds me accountable more certainly than ANY policing effort ever could.

Every time I have given you advice about a specific action to take it has been for the purpose of recapturing your self respect.

crap. and I was so looking forward to dicsussions with pasta.

robbed.

Not to worry there is more to come...that was just my FIRST point.

you have more points?

I look forward to it.

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