espoir:

Now, wait a doll garned minute! You said it's okay to point stuff out, so long as it's not disrespectful, an then you kype my keyboard? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Just a few exerpts from Passionate Marriage:

How to build your crucible –

Look within your gridlocked issue or situation and extract your own unresolved developmental tasks. In other words, approach your gridlock as a person dilemma to be solved, rather than as a situational problem or your partner’s problem. You’ll lose your puffed-up sense of righteous indignation and you won’t feel like a victim. Think of someone who would respond to the situation quite differently from the way you do, and you’ll realize that your reaction is not inherent in the situation, it has something to do with you.

Confront yourself for the sake of your own integrity and personal development. Self-confrontation may be good for the soul – and your relationship – but that doesn’t make it easy. Holding on to yourself requires giving up your favorite ways to dodge self-confrontation. It also involves lots of self-soothing for what you see when you stop slip-sliding away.

If you’re having difficulty identifying your own issues, look at both sides of your two-choice dilemma. How are the style and content of your dilemma characteristic of your life or particularly relevant for you? When have you faced something similar before – and dodged it?

Stop taking your partner’s reaction personally. Ask yourself, Why am I taking my partner’s reaction personally and getting defensive? Pull out the elements of your two choice dilemma. A) If you think you should take it personally, what is it you have been doing (or not doing) that leads you to assume your partner’s reaction has anything to do with you? In other words, what culpability are you dodging that makes you reactive to what you claim is your partner’s distortion? B) If you’re not culpable, why are you taking your partner’s reaction personally? The answer to this question can’t be found in blaming others in your past. It’s about why you continue to react as you do and what you plan to do about it. The answer has to do with your inability to hold onto yourself in relation to your partner and your dependence on a reflected sense of self.

Notice, either way, there is no need for defensiveness. Owning either answer leads you to develop more of a relationship with yourself, maintain your integrity, and reduce your reactivity.

Don’t count on your partner to confront himself/herself in return. You can’t move forward by agreeing to acknowledge your issues as long as your partner does likewise. Breaking through gridlock requires the same solution as the fabled Gordian Knot. You don’t “untie” it – you cut through it by unhooking from your partner and confronting yourself. If you demand reciprocity, your partner can control you and your marriage by simply refusing to confront himself/herself.

Forget about “working on your relationship” or the idea that “the relationship is the problem”. This usually doesn’t work – and it’s what couples try first. “There’s something wrong with our relationship” usually means you want to work on your partner’s half of it. When people say, “I’m not getting what I want out of this relationship” often the real issue is that they are not getting what they want out of themselves in their marriage. When they get what they want from themselves, they generally like the relationship more – or do something constructive about it. When you work on yourself you’re working on your marriage – because when you change, your relationship changes.

Stop focusing on what your partner is (or isn’t) doing. Focus on yourself. Some therapists suggest that examining one’s part in an interpersonal conflict takes the pressure off the partner and demonstrates fairness, courage, and goodwill that he partner will hopefully emulate. I believe this small truth masks a bigger one: focusing on yourself increases the pressure to your partner to change. Contrary to what you might fear, it doesn’t give your partner permission to goof off. Being happy with yourself doesn’t guarantee you’ll be happy with your partner (although it’s more likely). People who like themselves are discerning about who they spend time with. Goodwill may facilitate change, but poorly differentiated people are more likely to move when their two-choice dilemma hits “critical mass”.

Stop trying to change your partner. Pressuring your partner actually reduces the pressure on both of you for change. When you stop avoiding your own two-choice dilemmas, you’ll stop cajoling your partner in any particular direction. You’ll simply want him to stand up and define himself too. You’ll stop disputing his position and pay attention to his point of view so you can make intelligent decisions. If your partner thinks you’re trying to drag him forward into your version of happiness and a better life, you make it safe for him to “dig in his heels” and remain complacent or resistant. When you stop pressuring your partner to change, it pushes you to clarify what you want and what you’re willing to do to get it. When you’re going to make decisions about the rest of your life, the safest thing your partner can do is make sure he is the person he wants to be.

For solutions, look in different directions from where you’ve looked in the past. Reconsider options you’ve previously rejected. Gridlock narrows your perspectives and options. Reconsider issues, options and solutions you’ve rejected as “unthinkable”, “undoable”, and “unacceptable” – especially the latter. Ask yourself, “What about me would have to change – or what would I have to accept or give up – for this to become a real option? Would I like myself more if I could do this?” Don’t mistake this for the road to compromise. Sometimes you will realize that some things are truly non-negotiable. But more things become negotiable when you’re not negotiating a reflected sense of self.

Stop trying to make your partner listen, accept, and validate you. Listen to yourself. Wise sages from every age have noted that we see the world not as it is, but as we are. Insights are always true about the perceiver, but not necessarily about what’s perceived. Ask yourself “What is it in me that predisposes me to see my partner this way?” Even when observations about our partner are accurate, arriving at this realization may mean that this particular truth is most relevant and timely to our own development.

Keep your mouth shut about your partner’s issues – particularly concerning things you are certain are true. “Sharing” your insights about your partner – especially when it repeatedly angers him – is more often an expression of your own need for validation. The more patently obvious the issues are to you (while remaining utterly mysterious to your spouse), the more crucial (and difficult) it is to remain quiet. Consider the wisdom of silence: don’t let your partner fight with you instead of with himself. Shift your efforts to being an expert on yourself. Prior generations recognized that marriage is often improved by the two or three things not said every day.

Don’t identify with your feelings. The issue isn’t whether you’re entitled to your feelings. If you’re entitled to them, keep them. The problem is, the feelings we defend usually aren’t the ones we want. If you want them to pass, stop making them an issue of your personal validity. Emotional Siamese Twins can’t change their feelings because those feelings are so integral to how they see themselves. They have no consistent sense of identity when their mood, behavior or situation changes.

h4f:

DANG. The bookstores are closed!

That's fascinating stuff.

Like I said before, I always did very poorly in humanities classes and social sciences. I remember when I had to wipe out a GE at the end of my B.S. degree program. I'm a scientist, and here I was taking an "folklore and mythology" class. It was very intersting stuff. I studied REALLY hard for the essay exams, and wrote PAGES of answers, but I always got Cs!! 2analytical for that stuff, I figured. W, on the other hand, went through anthropolgy departments.

Now, here I am. Find out that my wonderful W of 26.5 years has been having a 12-yr long A, and I "suddenly" find that I know more about human interactions than SHE does, and I've learned what I've soaked up in just the past 6 months!! I don't have more than 2 or 3 books on Rs at this stage, but I've read this website at least 3 times, and have posted to this forum over 1800 times since February. That's gotta count!

I'm going to head on over to the bookstore tomorrow and buy that book, H4F.

I like it.

I had to jump in here, sorry, I will look at the whole thread, I promise, I just feel like the pary's here!!!

going:

I sure WISH the party wasn't here!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" />

I can remember being jealous of Persistant's thread. Like, a couple thousand posts??? SHEEZ! But NOW that *I've* got something that requires a ton of feedback to keep me from swinging from the chandeliers naked and giggly, I wish I didn't.

Actually, I hope that someday, my beautiful W and I can sit on the veranda, sipping mint juleps and think fondly on the great jokes I learned from this thread.... I can hope, right H4F? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

persevere, I'm not Paul Harvey.

Gee I do that all the time and I don't get a minimal amount of the posts you do... sure I may use sweat pants to swing off the chandelier, but I get all giggly allright!

<img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! *swings off to bed*

gotta ask, what the heck is a mint julep?

I can't keep up with this monster thread! It'll have to be tomorrow! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Have a safe night!

I've never made one, but a bartender made one for me. Jack Daniels and mint leaves and some other $h!t I can't recall.

I don't actually tend to like hard liquor much. Although a friend of mine once told me that Ouzo would make you dance. I laughed and said, Nah! An hour later, I was dancing on the bed, holding his Cassette player up to the ceiling vent (you could hear stuff from one hotel room to the next through the ducting) and playing old Moody Blues music through the hotel!!! I think we paid 11 bucks a night for a double room!! It was worth every penny of it, I assure you! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

I keep quoting Peter Gabriel lyrics.

From "Washing of the Water" on the "Us" album:

"Letting go, it's so hard, the way it's hurting now
To get this love untied
So tough to stay with this thing, cos if I follow through
I face what I denied
I'll get those hooks out of me
And I'll take out the hooks that I sunk deep in your side
Kill that fear of emptiness, that loneliness I hide"

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I don't actually tend to like hard liquor much. Although a friend of mine once told me that Ouzo would make you dance. I laughed and said, Nah! An hour later, I was dancing on the bed, holding his Cassette player up to the ceiling vent (you could hear stuff from one hotel room to the next through the ducting) and playing old Moody Blues music through the hotel!!! </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Ahh!! Never say never, on my 21st birthday, I told by boyfriend at the time and all of his friends that I could outdrink them. Big problem, they boought the drinks, which means they chose the drinks, don't remember leaving that bar!!

2long,
WOW! WOW! WOW!!!! This thread moves! It stinks having the time difference because it puts me out of the loop on things.

Reading through (or trying to...) all the posts here, it seems that your situation boils down to a very "stereotypical" situation. If there can be such a thing. You are bound-and-determined to persuade your WW that she is wrong and that you are the right choice for her, and she is determined to show you she is torn. We all know what the true solution is to all of this nonsense, but it is no longer your job to persuade her of this; you've made your beliefs clear to her now in words, now show her you are true to them and back off! Show her you are the right choice, show her that you will be able to fulfill the needs that the OM is fulfilling.

"Passionate Marriage," I think also called "Passionate Relationships" now is the book for you!!! I see that you have already gotten a small taste of it. This has been the relationship bible for me. I'd say read it today, but it might take a bit longer than that; there's a lot to digest here. If you are desperate, go to the last 100-pages of the book. It is where the meat-and-potatoes of the book is situated.

Sweden

Sweden:

"Reading through (or trying to...) all the posts here, it seems that your situation boils down to a very "stereotypical" situation. If there can be such a thing."

That's what keeps me going!

"We all know what the true solution is to all of this nonsense, but it is no longer your job to persuade her of this; you've made your beliefs clear to her now in words, now show her you are true to them and back off!"

I'm slowly coming to the realization that that is all I can do. (pepper and nina too are audibly groaning now!).

"Show her you are the right choice, show her that you will be able to fulfill the needs that the OM is fulfilling."

I don't know if I ever mentioned this before, but my W never filled out an ENQ. This stuff is "stupid" remember? I have asked and gotten a one or two sentence response maybe 3 times since D-day. She "just needed a little bit more attention, that's all" on one occasion, and maybe "admiration" on another. No ranking, no discussion of my needs or ranking... Oh well.

"Passionate Marriage," I think also called "Passionate Relationships" now is the book for you!!! I see that you have already gotten a small taste of it. This has been the relationship bible for me. I'd say read it today, but it might take a bit longer than that; there's a lot to digest here. If you are desperate, go to the last 100-pages of the book. It is where the meat-and-potatoes of the book is situated."

I'm going to go by the bookstore this afternoon.

I've got this question that I think I know the answer to, but :

What would you recommend I do in this sitch?
My D leaves for London tomorrow evening. My W is taking the day off work, and will probably take her to the airport. Should I go? Or should I say goodbye before she leaves?

My D is a smart, wonderful person. We talked at length a couple nights ago about all this, and she's doing very well with it. She even said she understands that I might need to not go (and since we can't go through customs to the gate anyway, we'd literally be dropping her off). If I don't go, I do want to visit with her tonight.

Say goodbye before she leaves for the airport with your W.

You KNOW you'll get sucked into an argument you DON'T want or need on the ride back. DON'T DO IT!!!

Yup, if things were calmed down and there was a solid "understanding" between the two of you I'd say go...but things are NOT at that point.

Had to send an email to W confirming a problem she saw with the house. No R talk. No R replies to baited questions.

2Long ... passionate Marriage is an amazing book.

You are getting sleepy *zzzz* sleepy *zzzz* you are now completely asleep and feeling totally relaxed ... when I snap my fingers 3 times you will awaken and complete the following instructions:

You will get in your car now ... You will drive to Boarders now .... You will pull out your debit card now ... you will purchase this book now ... you will read said book now ....you will let go and work on your own issues now ....

<snap> <snap> <snap>

P <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" />

whut wuzzat!!? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="images/icons/confused.gif" />

CSue, breathless from reading marathon thread since last visit!!

Gawd....I LOVE you people!!! Actually, since I am such a visual person my perception is that my CPU has multiple personalities starring all of you cyber-friends.

I have learned so much from this thread!
I AM GOING TO GET THAT BOOK!! It's a good thing non of you live in my city because I would have to push you out of the way to snatch the PM book!!

Bramble posted this the other day..."When you find yourslef in a deep hole, Step 1 is to stop digging!! hehehe I love that!

Since I am awestruck with my marathon reading, I have nothing to contribute...for now! CSue