El Camino:

I don't think that Mark has read rizos thread. Or he may have and is taking the opportunity to make sure you have covered all your bases without addressing rizos' issues.


Ok, my original guess was correct. You do know what is going on with rizos.

Another word for SH's explanation is one of the ways that "Entitlement" manifests itself. People go to great lengths to avoid the guilt and shame. See my post on Guilt in the Other Topics section.

In my opinion, SH is telling you something there. He is explaining how rizos could have 12 sessions with the two of you and an MB weekend and still not get it. He is telling you why she would leave emotional bombs for you to discover such as the picture or the hair or not exposing.

See KaylaAndy's comments to her. KA has been here for a very long time, one of the longest of those still posting. She knows women and she understands affairs.

SH is also addressing emotional types and why they have affairs. Dr. Harley in his general teaching of how to recover from affairs does not dwell on emotional types. He wants to focus on recovery. He does discuss emotional types in his other writings. For example, freeloaders, renters and buyers.


In one of your posts, you mention that rizos and your now ex-partner and her affair partner, once dated. Take a look at what Dr. Harley has said and think. A light bulb should go off in your head.

You were up late last night, probably thinking. You want all this to make sense. And it doesn't make sense in the way you would like for it to make sense. This is in the realm of betrayed "Fog," itself not much discussed here in those words, but certainly a very real emotion and a very real confusion.

Since you have read Love Busters, I assume that rizos has as well. Yet something is blocking her emotional access to the concepts. It could be that she doesn't understand that infatuation is a temporary emotion and not real love. Many, many, many women fall in this category. And they BLOCK any attempt to explain otherwise. The feelings are that strong, akin to those found in meth or crack. It is nature's joke.

Well, when I think of rizos, I think of Maureen O'Hara in her role staring in McClintock, a romantic comedy with John Wayne. I just can't help myself. Sorry, these are not the days and times for a John Wayne simple solution.

Larry

Quick comments on your responses.

Saynomore, your post resonates with my situation. It gives me a lot of food for thought.

Larry, I can see where you�re going but I�m a little obtuse when it comes to psychology. I wish that things were a little more black and white. I�ll definitely read the threads that you refer.

Regarding my quote of SH, I realize that I am skating on thin ice when I bring his comments on this forum � and I am doing it possibly out of context too. I must say that I haven�t yet fully grasped some of the concepts of his coaching so I don�t want to sound like I am putting words in his mouth. I do have a lot of respect for SH so I wouldn�t like my (mis)interpretation of his coaching to be misconstrued here.

To settle the argument, I have to be honest and say that SH�s coaching regarding this issue resembles in many ways what Mark is posting here. However, I have struggled badly to absorb this point of view.

Anyways, I don�t necessarily see the outcome of my request to talk to my parents as a condition to continue R. This is not (yet) the island that I�m willing to die on (I relate better to the Pacific side of WW2). But I feel that I wouldn�t be honest if I don�t bring it up. It is a request, so I guess that it is up to Rizos to listen to it, express her feelings about it and POJA the issue (meaning only doing it if we reach an enthusiastic agreement about it).

I�ve been challenged by SH about other issues in a similar way to Mark�s 2x4 post. In fact, BEFORE the hairdryer incident, SH asked me point blank if I was willing to draw the line on the hairstyle issue. My response at the time was NO. I replied that I felt silly to give up attempting to R my M based on hairstyle. However, I do struggle wondering where and when I draw the line.

Winning the war has a potential great reward but the cost of failure is HUGE. I am scared to death of spending a few years trying to R just to obtain a marginally better M that I currently have. On the other side, I can�t see myself being a part-time father.

Is that the dilemma that I need to figure out?

I feel extremely lucky to have you folks as friends. Thanks so much for your help.

--ElCamino72

SH has a wall. When he talks to you, he is working to see that you are doing the best you can and help you with emotional tools so you can do better. He is not going to talk about rizos much to you.

When he talks to rizos, he is doing the same thing.

His goal is that both of you make the effort to move forward. And that takes time. It also means you take responsibility for what you do. And he allocates the responsibility for what rizos does to rizos, not to you unless you are engaging in a direct contradiction to the lessons you have been taught, such as Love Busters and the like.

Keep your own self clean.

Expecting rizos to assume responsibility for herself is not a bad thing, it is the setting of boundaries. I hate to use the word "expect."

You have an unequal power struggle with rizos. You do not want to be a part-time Dad. And she uses that power even at times when she doesn't have to. I have seen her do it. The reality is that a mother should never, ever want her children to have a part-time father if he is a good guy, like I presume you are. That only works if rizos is thinking in the best interest of her kids and isn't in a fog mentality cloud where her thoughts and values are muddled.

I note that your signature has either changed or I got the wrong impression from rizos. Somewhere I got the impression that the affair was purely emotional. Now I see PA in your signature. Perhaps I didn't notice it before.

Larry

EC,

I didn't even bring the lumber on that one...

Hi Larry,

I changed my sig recently but the PA part has been there for a while. Rizos admitted to meeting up with OM about 5 times for kissing and hugging. She says that this occurred in our home and in his house. This was revealed back in Nov when we did the WHAT part of the A under MB coaching.

BTW, I'm still digesting your previous posts here.

--ElCamino72

Hi El Camino

I just walked in the door and there you were. Your thread is one I look for as soon as I log in.

ElC, I said a LOT in those posts to you, but you do have to read between the lines a bit. I did that on purpose. You are a very smart guy. What I wanted you to do was think about possibilities so whatever conclusions you drew was because of what you observed instead of what I said.

I can suspect all I want, but you are the man who is in a position to figure it out, not me. Reading a lot of the threads on here will give you a great deal of background on many of the manifestations of wayward thinking, in fact, probably more than MB weekend and your sessions with SH, both centered around recovery.

Those who have been here for some time have a nose for wayward words and thought processes, if you can call it thought. Mostly wayward thinking involves emotion and emotional outbursts and defenses. I am not quite at the level yet, but sometimes I can smell it.

I do understand the PA issue. I understand your culture in most of its forms, including the level you are at. I also understand the legal ramifications as well. Basically, a "Boss" can do whatever he wants without too much public shame, while a woman and mother is very limited in what she can do, if you understand where I am going with that statement. Much of your culture is still somewhat "Ranchero" in the way it operates.

It is my opinion that rizos is getting some sort of wayward "Fix" by some means which keeps her confused and unable to totally commit. I haven't a clue how. I am reluctant to say more in a place as public as this.

Larry

Does this remind you of anything?

I always wondered if that camera in the corner of my living room was on...

It looked just like our house, I swear...

Mark

I prefer the ending scene to McClintock

Larry

Larry, I hear you loud and clear. Funny thing is that in my line of work I am skilled in geeky stuff like network intrusion detection, protocol decoding, pattern matching, forensic analysis and backchannel recognition. Outside of network security these skills have only been useful for amusing party tricks. Now I am learning to apply some of that knowledge IRL to fine tune my APS (Affair Prevention System).

Fixing the ramifications of the intrusion, kicking and keeping the attackers out is consuming a lot of CPU cycles. But I know very well that restoring a compromised system is significantly harder and more costly than penetrating it so that�s why it is cheaper to protect it from the beginning - I�ve made a living out of this fact in the technology space and now I know from experience that the same applies to M.

OK that�s enough. Please don't think I've gone nuts here. I'm just trying to keep up with the Larry-cryptic style

You're right about our culture. Down here, it's fairly common for guys to have a mistresses. In addition to what you say, our society views a man who has been cheated by his wife as someone terribly weak. To illustrate this, the single most used offensive word in here means that your wife cheats on you. AFAIK, there is not a single word in common English used to mean the same. The most used insult in English involves your mother but in my region's Spanish involves your wife. I know you are an observer of culture, so that gives you a perspective of the local "macho" customs.

Thanks

--ElCamino72

ROTFL... too funny.

Now I know where SIL gets dress ideas.

Well, it's more like I Love Lucy in here... BABALU!

--ElCamino72

Yes, well...


I knew about that too, but wasn't going to mention it. Problem is that cultural view is eat up with stupid on that point. For a fact, I know that it isn't just husbands who find recreational companionship in places other than the marriage bed. And a significant number of men know it but don't want to admit it.

For obvious reasons.

Most men in your culture would sooner go for a Proctology examination than catch wife doing someone other than with him.

Oh well.

And I got your cryptic message. Like I said, I would be more candid in a conversation where I was not looking over my shoulder at who might be reading what I could say.

Larry

Oh and for the record, I picked up some time back that your business was one where client trust was an absolute. And that you had wanted for some time to sever yourself from that company.

I understood that completely, especially when you revealed what you did about your partner.

Larry

[video:youtube]AFLLw7JcU74[/video]

--ElCamino72

Ok, ok, here it is:





Larry

El Camino,

Your advice helped me a lot a few weeks ago, so I'm going to try to return the favor even though I'm probably not the right one to be giving it out.

I don't know if this is consistent with MB or not, but here's a realization I made a couple of days ago that has brought me a lot of peace.

We cannot control how our WW's think, feel, or act. Therefore, it is pointless to try to do so. I see that you spend a lot of time and energy stewing over her actions like changing her hairstyle or now exposing to her parents. All this stewing doesn't influence her actions one iota and just makes you miserable, which I'm sure your wife picks up on and is counter productive to creating the loving environment that is so critical to plan "A". What we see as logical boundaries are viewed by WW as trying to control, and unfortunately perception is indeed reality.

I have now found peace in that I will still keep up the positive changes I've made to myself and to live by MB principles as much as she'll let me, but not to expect any changes by her or in her. Be the best I can be, enjoy my kids, do things that make me happy, and go on with life. If she comes around then great, if she doesn't then I'm fine with that too.

Since Schtoop mentioned one of my favorite words...Boundaries

Boundaries that attempt to control the actions of someone else, whether to get them to do something or to make them stop doing something are NOT boundaries at all. They are attempts at manipulation. Boundaries can only define what I will do, the way I will react, the things I will say, the life I will live.

A boundary is NOT a line in the sand that says don't cross this or else. It is rather a line that you recognize as being an attack on your own personhood (am I making words up today?) and take actions to avoid being attacked before the attack happens or at least before it can turn really nasty and do you and your marriage harm.

In a marriage marked by both husband and wife being in a state of Intimacy there really is no need to have boundaries to define interactions between us. The only boundaries in a loving fully engaged healthy marriage are marital boundaries that prevent outsiders from harming the relationship.

Any time we state something and say it is a boundary but it has to do with a desired change in the actions of our spouse, it is not a boundary at all but merely a thinly disguised Selfish Demand, an instinctive tool of our Taker that tries to get us our way from our spouse.

Mark

Schtoop has in effect recommended a perpetual Plan A and that may work for him. It is up to you to decide if it works for you. On the other hand, it would appear that your wife is still in somewhat of a wayward mind set. Something continues to trigger her. And then she triggers you, an uncomfortable path for either of you to soldier on.

Perhaps the move to the States will help put time and distance in place and thus the possibility of a more complete recovery and the start of the kind of relationship that MB concepts can help achieve.

Larry

I have never heard anyone who used the word "boundaries" say this, ever.

Where were you twenty years ago when my mother (wayward) was eating up "boundaries" from one of her counselors and using it to torment my Dad?

Hey schtoop, good to see you around. Your sitch comes to my mind quite frequently. I hope that you continue to progress in your R.

You are making a great point. Good or bad, my (over)analysis engine has not taken a break since D-Day

I can say that I was in that peaceful place you describe for a couple of months during the peak of my plan A. Even before my MB coaching I also cycled on and off out of being comfortable in letting go. Just recently I�ve had to adjust my approach to regroup a little bit. I may find a way back to be impervious to wayward behavior but at this time I choose to remain guarded.

The dynamic of this group is awesome. Your opinions help to put different perspectives to my M issues. I do take every angle into consideration.

--ElCamino72