Good suggestion. She has actually said, "We need to find more and new couples to do couples things with..."

I've not initiated enough.

That's a tough one when someone is dealing with deep depression. You got answers? I am trying to learn but depression is a tricky illness. I believe I have learned that the depressed individual needs to find their own way of managing and coping with the illness.

I believe I have learned that the depressed individual needs to find their own way of managing and coping with the illness.

Good! Now UNLEARN that humanistic "freedom of the individual" bilge with all due speed.

If your WW hadn't the use of her legs, would you let her crawl up the steps on her own? If she were blind, would you forbid her getting a sight-dog since you're allergic to dog-hair?

Sorry, Stretch, here it comes:

You CLAIM to have learned that you were a less-than-ideal husband on your way to BH-hood. You didn't learn enough. You must want, desire, crave, to be the one who helps her through ANY issue. What do you think would be her (eventual) reaction to someday realizing that Stretch was the guy who carried her up those emotional steps she couldn't negotiate on her own?

I just googled "spouses of depressed people". Have you ever done that? Remember, friend, this site is for folks who are interested in putting plans together and operating on them.

Ok, hoss, so why the h would you WANT to "heal" or be nice to these people? Seriously! If they weren't related, would you have anything to do with them? Just because they're family doesn't mean you have to pal around with them and send them Christmas cards.

If I were you, I'd take what your wife said about meeting other people to heart and dump these stupid relatives.

C'mon now, your wife is marginal mentally, goes to a [censored]-fest with her cousins and comes back worse than before. And you want to "heal" with them?????? I'd bet they gave her the "well if he doesn't make you happy..." speech and will STILL smile at you the next time they see you.

UGGGHH!! Stretch, you're killing me!

NG, I totally get what your saying, its just logical, if you hang around and participate in activities you admire and respect as a couple then there it is, your going in the right direction right?

Like AA for the miserable whining. Except in AA when you wanna drink you call your sponsor and talk about it, and here it would be, don't say negative crap and expect anything positive to develop.

When I first read what you said I was, he doesn't get it they like to whine, but then I realized, yeah he gets it but is showing the door, instead of whining about the whiners....and therefore keeping the cycle going.

Just made me laugh for a second at myself.. What you said was perfectly logical, and logic seems to be of the least concern to complainers.

I have allways been intriuged with the ideology of therapy, and felt it was best done when your therapist had a good sense of Bull-crap and real patience to let you talk about stuff, and then said to you, "So what are you gonna "DO" about it then?" Its frequently called, "Re-parenting", but that will only work when you give them the same authority that you would give a Parent.

So some people go to a therapist and when they are challanged to change, storm out saying "You don't get me or understand me" When the truth is, the was to help them get out of the mire they were stuck in. Thinking of the AA saying Mel quotes, "Your best thinking got you here"

So if people want to insist on bring up the past, and dwelling upon it, and want someone to spin in circles with as they talk about it, they will find it out there somewhere, hence, "Misery loves company".

What is the balance? We all seek understanding from others, and someone to talk to and reason with, but change will not come without challange to ourselves and how we think. If we don't think with others and talk to them, how can we be challanged? If we are going to complain and seek guidance we should do so with someone with the credentials so we can give them the authority also to challange us when it comes time to change.

In other words, like our parental equivelents, they will listen but then after a little time kick our butt, and we trust them because we know they love us, and we know this for both of those reasons just mentioned.

"Finding thier own way to manage the illness", outside of the people we as a society have detirmined are "Clinically depressed", or "Chemically imbalanced", only really will work if they get out of themselves and trust another person or way of thinking. Personnaly, I beleive even those society drugs and labels as such still need to "think", and then "act" differently, and if I may say it,"believe" that there is a source out here that they can trust.

Trust being the key word in most peoples lives..

No answers here BTW, just like I said, I have allways been intrigued..Who and what authority are we to trust?

I think it's a crap-shoot re: marriage counselors or any therapist in general. Our first MC was a winner, by the way. She said to me, with a straight face, that she saw no problem with my then WW continuing to work with OM as WW was insisting that she was not having an affair.

Yep. Best $120/session I ever spent!

EDIT: And then our second MC was doing good until he mentioned that him and his wife had been in counseling as well. Sheesh.

Did he say what he was in counselling for? It really doesn't diqualify him but how honest was he? If it was for communication stuff and building a better relationship its a good sign I would think, but if was because she was a serial cheater or something real serious well then.. Lol. I'm with you. You can't give what you don't have.

I didn't ask, but it did make me have second thoughts about his ability and made me a bit more wary. He did fine, though, as all he really did was coach us on how to talk to each other. We kind of stunk at it

I will say I got more out of this site/forum than any counselor.

You guys are TOUGH! And I love it.

Thank you.

Jus "keepin it real" bro.

Lol What you said reminds me of one of those german officers depicted as strict disciplinarins. "You vill do it and you vill LUFF it!"

Me too, and I think that is natural also, because they can only see you for a short time every week and are not there to monitor our thoughts and correct our thinking like the collective people here can. Here we have the benifet of many, and also the people who can see where others, or us, might be blind. Even the steeling of our resolve that happens because we see others make the same mistakes as we are/have in the past/present, is helpful.

A trained therapist/counsellor can be a great sounding board and a way to have things documented though if they are objective. I remember the first time I heard of "Empathy", and asked "Don't you mean sympathy?" years ago from a nurse I was dating. (She would have been a great catch if I wasn't so stupid and went for "Dumsels in Distress", but that was my weakness and tells a lot about who I got hooked up with)

Empathy is understanding, not devoid of emotion, but understanding how emotion plays into a situation. Sympathy involves you emotionally and you feel it along with them and it effects your emotions also. Brings a whole new meaning to that song by the Stones, "Sympathy for the Devil" doesn't it. lol. It also is a sad fact that sometimes we are forced to make descisions out of Empathy when it seems we have no Sympathy. Ask any parent who has been told they are so "mean".

I am seeing a therapist, and being here is also helping me as I am reminded of what it takes to have a marriage, what a healthy one looks like, and hopefully help people to adjust to getting thiers back to what it should be. The personal recovery is so important in the big picture of the BSs, and my heart goes out to them. If anything helping them to adjust and heal also heals me in the process as I am reminded there are good people out here with hearts and souls that have the guts to care, really care, about others.

There is that saying, "The best therapist is inside you", and I translate that to mean "you know what is bothering you". I think its a combination of both knowing what is bothering you and someone who can reveal it to you and give you options to change that makes for good therapy.

Lets never forget our teachers in life.

WHOA Stretch. Read that back to yourself. These people are no friends of yours. They deceived you, smiled at you, grin-effed you, and in your own words "abused" you. AND YOU WANT TO "HEAL WITH THEM" YOURSELF? Guess what Stretch, they don't want to "heal". They don't think they're sick. The cat is more out of the bag than before, so they might have re-calibrated a bit, but they have shown you that they have no problem looking at you as a cuckold without any significant moral pangs. HEAL WITH THEM? No no no. Not to mention the fact that you are only in control of your actions, NOT theirs.

Dr. H has said that survivors of infidelity and rape largely felt that infidelity was the MORE painful of the two. Allow me the indulgence of rewriting your statement in a way that might help you see how turned around and gas-lit you are on this particular issue:

"But you've heard me say over and over on this thread, I will heal and repair with them. I do enjoy them, love them. I am betrayed that they smiled at me and were so nice to me all while I was being raped in front of them. And took advantage of me and abused me. But I intend to heal with them myself."

I hope you realize just how crazy and foolish this thought is - and I suspect it's a thought that your WW has implanted, germinated, and encouraged all the while. I hope you realize that it is an incorrect train of thought!


Yes you do. You know. You just need to admit it to yourself. She is, at the VERY least, getting validation and brainwashing from these toxic people. Your marriage cannot survive these continued friendships. This is really going to be black and white. Either she commits to the marriage and cuts them out because she has enough love and respect for you to do that, or she walks away and you make sure the door doesn't hit her on her way out the door. Yes, I believe it is this serious.

Your gut feelings and recognition of their effect on her are correct. Do not let your WW gaslight you any more on this.

Sorry for the 2x4s, but I think this is pretty darn important stuff to recognize.

Best wishes,
Arpeggi

ITA w/Arpeggi here, stretch. A "friend" who is not supportive of your M is no friend at all.

Unlike your WW, I didn't have any "friends" during the A that I confided in, so other than the OM I had no support/validation for what I was doing to my BH.

After things came out, though, I learned very quickly who was supportive of my M and who was not - unfortunately so many ppl IRL have such a disposable view of M, as did I when I was a WW. I was posting on HFD's thread yesterday and mentioned my aunt, who's in an affairage. I try to avoid talking to her about my M as much as possible - for the longest time when she found out about my A (I didn't expose to her, my grandma has a hard time not telling my aunt anything & everything re:family), she wanted to talk to me and kept trying to get my mom to have me call her. I refused until she came back home to visit and pretty much cornered me. She was full of the "follow your heart" crap and kept saying she knew exactly how I felt, and I was thinking, bullcr@p!!! She never wanted to restore her M and continued being blatantly wayward until 2 marriages ended in D and the lives of 4 children were uprooted, not to mention how she trashed her AP's W and her own H, and continues to do so. So how could she possibly know what I am feeling? She's a selfish you-know-what...but anyway, I digress!

FWIW, I'm just weighing in. For the good of your M, she needs to distance herself from these "friends," for good.

Hey, Stretch, how are you doing?

(I'm really not "forum-stalking" you! I was thinking about my own history this morning, and some of the details reminded me of your situation.)

Anyway, I hope you have had positive developments.

Hey fellas, back from vacation and trying to catch up. Where'd the no gurls thread go?

Sorry TJ

Not sure......I think one of the ladies tossed it out in their group "Spring Cleaning".

/end tj

New title, new venue;

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2501361#Post2501361

Hey brother. Go ahead and share. Would love to hear those details.

Our Anniversary on Friday. Very nice day. We were very busy because we were preparing for huge garage sale on Saturday. Involved selling Grandma's stuff (recall that gma passed away in March) and involved working with wife's divorced M&D and BIL a lot, who are lovely people, but its a lot of activity and family effort and cooperation.

So Friday we had a lot on our list.

But I was up extra early to make sure she saw her rose on the breakfast table (same color rose from our wedding), and read her card, and I fed all the children before their bus, and made her a special breakfast. We looked through one of our wedding scrapbooks. I made her lunch and coffee and cake and candy in the afternoon. She requested some "private" time in the afternoon for connecting in an SF way -- and that was good stuff.

After a busy hectic day we headed out for dinner with the kids. Weren't sure where we were headed but ended up at a old-school supper club. Tons of fun. Cracker tray/ old school steaks and baked potatoes in foil, au gratin. Really should have had more plastic leather and those 70's red candles. Ha. It was tons of fun. And the kids enjoyed seeing us celebrate an anniversary. We had drinks. But I also ordered the little split of champagne as a surprise.

Then, Saturday, we all busted our butts selling Gma stuff in the garage sale. We took care of MIL who is still recovering from pneumonia (you may recall that too) and made sure she didn't stay in the rain. She went back to our house and warmed up and made us all Chicken Noodle Soup. (She does things like that -- I love it!)

I deposited a TON of $LB units. And she came to me more than once to thank me for working so hard, making the anniversay special in little ways (she did not want a big date -- we had a big date a couple Friday's ago, but I wanted to recognize the day in all those little surprising ways) and for helping her family so much.

This morning, she shared for about fifteen minutes what she reviewed on her first session with a new PC and her final session with the PC she worked with for a year and a half. I am glad that she opened that -- we need to start getting serious and real with this work. Feels like one heck of a big switch to hear how I am not to blame for everything.

If the fog is breaking up I hope it means we can spend time processing in very real ways without fogbabble, and emotions too raw, and anger/defensiveness/revision.

Her mind is still confused -- but the ring is on, the hubby isn't always blamed, she started with a new therapist, she finally tackled abuse at 5 and 18, she has expressed gratitude, appreciation and love to me...

Our MC is Thursday. Lots to cover. I have been backing off the heavy lifting marriage processing sessions between us lately. And it feels like she is coming around more. Partly because I am showing independance and strength and stability. I would like to have a couple processing sessions again between us. Gotta believe she is feeling safer and clearer headed.