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Originally Posted by FightTheFight
take a step back for a minute and look at what's happening.

You're letting you instincts control you thoughts right now. All of this started recently because you let your instincts guide you. You listened to what your giver was telling you and now your taker is out in full force.

Your giver and your taker are both whispering in your ear at different times. They compete with one another for control. Neither one of them agrees with the POJA! The POJA takes time and practice to become a habit that overrides your natural instincts one way or the other. The magic of this is that when both spouses do it, it satisfies both the giver and the taker inside of both of you.

Okay. You want to know the truth? I blame myself for her second affair, and I often feel she does too. I guess I got carried away meeting her ENs as my own form of JC. The giver was out of control. Then the taker tells me it wasn't my fault so what the heck are you doing.

For the record, the only thing my taker wanted the past couple of days...is out. But I think I'm backing away from the cliff slowly.

In the shower this morning, I thought about what my Giver and Taker would look like. I defaulted to an image of a devil and angel on opposing shoulders. But I guess they are actually both a little bit of each?


Me: BH, 36 Military Officer
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Originally Posted by mrEureka
Originally Posted by MindMonkey
But it was on Monday that I realized I was doing most of the work. In fact, on Monday I finished the work on our home fitness room so DW can work out with me instead of parading her beautiful body at a gym. She was ecstatic about this...made her first FB post since D-day how awesome her husband was. It got 60 likes. Then I tucked her in early because she was tired and I wanted her to get a good night sleep. I didn�t even consider SF. We had a two week running record of daily SF so it wasn�t a big deal. But as I went about the rest of the evening, putting the kids down and packing lunches for the next day, my Taker started making a list of everything I do for my W and everything she doesn�t do for me. And it�s Veteran�s Day�she didn�t even mention it. Shouldn�t she have made the day about me?
Last year, I had a really good discussion with Dr. Harley on the radio show about how to POJA and not sacrifice on minor issues. I am attaching the radio links. Pay particular attention to the last half of the call.

Radio clip on Mr. and Mrs. Eureka's call
Segment #2
Segment #3
Did you get a chance to listen to these?

What do you think?


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Too much hurt and pain on both sides that my brain hurts just thinking about it all.



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The "giver and taker" model from MarriageBuilders has further convinced me that every person on the planet is of at least two minds about any given topic. If they apparently only embrace one position on an issue, you can be certain the other side of the coin is there lurking somewhere in their brain, even though publicly most people will deny it because they desire to appear consistent.

It's really helpful for me to think of what the two opinions are that my conversational companion probably has, and discuss the alternative he's likely to be considering. This makes for some very, very interesting conversations, because honest people will admit they've thought about it, and often thought through the ramifications of both lines of thought in great detail.


Doormat_No_More
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Originally Posted by MindMonkey
Okay. You want to know the truth? I blame myself for her second affair, and I often feel she does too. I guess I got carried away meeting her ENs as my own form of JC. The giver was out of control. Then the taker tells me it wasn't my fault so what the heck are you doing.

You are to blame for neglecting your wife. You can fix that going forward. You are not to blame for her Affair. It's really hard not to connect the two together, but they are two different things.

Originally Posted by MindMonkey
In the shower this morning, I thought about what my Giver and Taker would look like. I defaulted to an image of a devil and angel on opposing shoulders. But I guess they are actually both a little bit of each?

You know why? Because listening exclusively to one or the other will prevent you from reaching your goals in marriage and that will ultimately cause YOU harm.


Me (42)
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MM:

Yep. On the roller coaster. It blows. And you don't control it.

You don't deserve to be there, and your fWW's A's (either of them) are NOT your fault.

The difference now is that, since you found MB, you have some tools to make your M better than ever. You did not have this toolkit before. So, going forward, things CAN change. You (and your fWW) are not doomed to repeat this situation over and over again. Continue following the plan.

It sounds to me like giving up sacrificing, for you, will be harder than actually doing it all yourself.


Me: BW, 57 fWH: 63 (Taffy1) Serial cheater
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MM,

I have been following along, but I don't post too often.

I had a huge amount of resentment for a long time. I think it was exacerbated by our false recovery. In any case, Dr. Harley had some comments about resentment. He said something along the lines that if there was still resentment, then recovery is not complete. Soooooooo, what H and I did was to continue to work the program, as closely as possible without deviation (we had our slip-ups). After a period of time, we were back in love and my resentment dissipated.

Work the program!!!!

AM


BW - 70
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D-day - 17 Apr 08
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Relevant quote to support armymama's statement here: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5062_qa.html

Originally Posted by Dr. Harley
The more there is to resent, the more difficult it is to overcome resentment...emotional associations fade over time as long as there are no further associations with new painful events. In both cases, their husbands have not had an affair after the revelation, and so I would predict that if they have a normal recovery, where they learn to meet each other's needs, avoid Love Busters and learn to apply the Policy of Joint Agreement and the Policy of Radical Honesty to their decisions, the resentment would fade away.

If, on the other hand, either husband were to have another affair, the association would be much harder to extinguish. In fact, when a couple goes through a recovery after an affair, and then experience another affair, the resentment is often more intense and more persistent after the second recovery. With multiple affairs and recoveries, resentment is almost impossible to overcome...

... Resentment usually appears when an experience of the present reminds us of a painful experience of the past. For example, if a wife had been abandoned by her husband after a fight on a vacation, left to find her way home alone from Jamaica, the resentment of that experience would pop up whenever her husband walks out the door during an argument. Very often, continuing resentment means that whatever it was that caused the painful experience is still lurking in the background. And it jumps out every once in a while when evidence of it's existence surfaces.

The procedure for recovery that I suggest usually eliminates the root causes of infidelity, and that makes it unlikely that present experiences will remind a spouse of experiences associated with an affair. If the only time you feel resentment about a spouse's past affair is when your needs have not been met, when your spouse is engaged in a Love Buster, or when the Policy of Joint Agreement or Policy of Radical Honesty has not been followed, then it's the completion of recovery that's your problem, not resentment."


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Too much hurt and pain on both sides that my brain hurts just thinking about it all.



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Originally Posted by catwhit
It sounds to me like giving up sacrificing, for you, will be harder than actually doing it all yourself.

We had a talk on Saturday following a long run. One thing that was very obvious is that we really haven't talked about each other�s EN since a few weeks after Dday. We had planned on doing them weekly (Sundays @ 3:30) but always got wrapped up in other UA stuff. I think we figured that since we were happy, we didn't need to slow down and figure out if our needs were being met properly.

So we talked about that and agreed that my needs were being met but my giver was in overdrive. My taker took over at the slightest trigger and caused a prolonged period of resentment and anger. Doing much better now.

W is pretty good at helping point out my sacrifices, now. I really have a hard time seeing it. I was turning her socks right side out before washing them the other day (thinking to myself this is annoying, why doesn't she just put them in the hamper right side out?) and she told me that was sacrifice. Whaaaaat? She asked if I was enthusiastic about it. "Well, no, but it's just socks." My life is FULL of that kind of minor sacrifice. I've got to get better about complaining.


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Mindmonkey, I had been meaning to find and post the link to this thread for you for a week now. I hope it helps you as it did me. Though it does take some time for it to sink in.

Using Resentment as a Punishment

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Also, Dr Harley says that it easier to change an annoying habit than it is to change our reaction to it.

Practice saying "I would love it if..." when you complain. Repeat and repeat until the habit changes.

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W is pretty good at helping point out my sacrifices, now. I really have a hard time seeing it. I was turning her socks right side out before washing them the other day (thinking to myself this is annoying, why doesn't she just put them in the hamper right side out?) and she told me that was sacrifice.

Can you see how this is also demanding and disrespectful?
You are saying "She should just turn the socks right side out before putting them in the hamper. Why doesn't she just do it the right way?"

Stop turning them right side out for her -- not only to stop the sacrifice of doing it for her, but to stop the disrespectful judgement that THAT is the way it should be done. Perhaps she doesn't care, in which case you are sacrificing for nothing. If she wants them turned right side out, she is perfectly capable of doing it herself.


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Socks don't get clean if they are in a crumpled up inside out ball. That's a fact.

Another thing you can do is refuse to wash them if they are like that. Toss them in a pile for her to deal with.


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Socks don't get clean if they are in a crumpled up inside out ball. That's a fact.
Is it? I never turn anybody's socks in the house right side out, and they somehow manage to get cleaned.

The fact is that it is disrespectful of him to assume that the way he wants the laundry done is the RIGHT way to do it. It may annoy him that she doesn't do it his way, and she may be willing to change to do it his way, but he cannot assume that his way is the RIGHT and ONLY way. She is a grown woman and is perfectly capable to deciding if she wants her socks turned right side out when washed.


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Originally Posted by Rocketqueen
Socks don't get clean if they are in a crumpled up inside out ball. That's a fact.

Another thing you can do is refuse to wash them if they are like that. Toss them in a pile for her to deal with.
First - he did not say anything about "a crumpled up ball" - just that they were inside out - but even if they are in a ball, it's not for him to insist on this "fact" with her. They are her socks; he is not being asked to wear badly-washed, dirty socks. He can load up the machine with the socks as they are and let his wife make her own decisions when they come out badly washed.

He could respectfully suggest that she turn her socks out before putting them in the basket so that they come out of the machine clean, but he should leave it at that if she does not want to, or if she grumbles, or says she will and then never does it. Educating your spouse is specifically identified as a lovebuster by Dr H.

Second, refusing to wash them and tossing them in a pile for her to deal with is unpleasant, mildy aggressive behaviour. That behaviour would be detrimental to the marriage.

He can ask his family members to put their laundry in the basket in the way that he would like, in order to make his chore more bearable or easier.

He can give up dealing with the family washing if his family members will not cooperate with his requests. He could negotiate individual responsibility for laundry, or a shared rota, or ask someone else to do it (I did not check how old his kids are; could they do it, or his wife, or a cleaning lady?) or he could negotiate something else.

What he cannot do is get annoyed and become nasty to his wife, which tossing her socks in a pile would be doing.


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That's a fact.
"Facts" have nothing to do with respect.
"Facts" are very often subjective, as well, when one spouse "knows" something the other does not.


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Respect is so key in a good marriage. If we suggest disrespectful behaviour to spouses we are encouraging them to harm their marriage.


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Originally Posted by Prisca
The fact is that it is disrespectful of him to assume that the way he wants the laundry done is the RIGHT way to do it.


My wife gave me this lesson three weeks into our marriage. I complained that she had destroyed a favorite T-shirt with a logo on it by drying it right-side out on high temperature.

She matter-of-factly said, "You can do your own laundry from now on."

We'll have been together twenty years, and the only time she's ever done my laundry since has been when I was injured and unable to do it myself. It would deposit love units for her to do it, of course, but her memory of my anger at the ruined shirt has stuck with her for two decades!


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***EDIT***

Last edited by Toujours; 11/21/13 04:22 PM. Reason: TOS: personal attack
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Originally Posted by SugarCane
He could respectfully suggest that she turn her socks out before putting them in the basket so that they come out of the machine clean, but he should leave it at that if she does not want to, or if she grumbles, or says she will and then never does it. Educating your spouse is specifically identified as a lovebuster by Dr H.

Exactly, which is why I suggested the "I would love it if.." phrase

Originally Posted by sugarcane
Second, refusing to wash them and tossing them in a pile for her to deal with is unpleasant, mildy aggressive behaviour. That behaviour would be detrimental to the marriage.


Nope, it's a boundary. I refuse to wash kiss' clothes if they are on the floor after I have told him that "I would love it if..". Not doing as I have asked is disrespectful, IMHO. But I don't get heated about it.


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