Warm ashes,
I'm interested in your name also. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

Welcome to MB.

I've read your post, my only 2 cents is this.

If you want somebody to change how they treat you, change yourself. This will require them to change their response to you.

My H and I are trying to find a new balance to our M. He is the dominate one, and I'm the pathetic push over. I have shown him how to treat me, I'm now taking a stand, voicing my opinions, and being more indepentant. It is working, we just need to find a happy balance.

Best of luck to you and to your R (relationship)

KYellow

Gray -

That was a great summary of your story! I was starting to forget what all went down so far. You know the post I read of yours are becoming amazingly insightful, and I would imagine quite helpful to whomever you are posting to. You are becoming one of the "wise" ones, in my opinion!

You too Jelly (as always, sweet, kind & wise)

Sorry for the thread jack, Warm.

Thank you so much, weaver. It means a lot coming from you. I'm glad we keep luring you back into this sad, beautiful corner of the Internet.

It's true what Jelly says, WA, nothing inspires your partner's giver more than the unmistakable presence of yours. Think of the things you were willing to do for one another when you first came together.

This time was probably terribly tumultuous for the two of you, since you were both married to men before. Maybe your relationship had a rocky beginning, during which the two of you established patterns which have remained with you. Maybe you never had the chance to engage in ordinary "dating" activities. I'm only speculating here...

GC

Thank you for your responses GC and Weaver. I am in total admiration of your efforts GC for all you are/have been trying to do. There is a special place in heaven, I believe, for souls like you. We should all be so lucky as to have such a forgiving and "in earnest" spouse! Infidelity has never been one of the problems I've had to deal with, so for that, I am grateful.
Weaver, thank you for the encouragement. I have always been happy to help where I can. Does one just browse and then jump in ?
The warm way that I have been responded has meant a lot, I can even say some of my perpsectives may be shifting and that can be a good thing. So I would be happy to help support,listen to(read) or do whatever we can do for each other via this medium.

WA, I take your last post to mean that your M ended prior to, or as a result of, a conflict with your sexual identity, but that you did not explore this until the M was over.

If so, is the same true of your partner?

GC

Good golly, WA - thank you very much for the kind words. Binder's sig applies here - trying to be like a lighthouse, feel like an outhouse.

GC

To those cyberfriends that asked... The name Warm Ashes came about in two ways (1) I was having trouble with finding something to be called that wasn't already taken (kind of silly, but I was responding incorrectly) (2) From the rumaging around in my unconscious to find a usable name,I came up with this. As I think about it carefully, two things occur to me... The fact that I felt that I had been burning out and secondly, that I have such faith in the "rising phoenix". How well our unconscious tells our tale !!!

Hi again GC,
To answer your question about sexual identity.
I guess I would correctly identify myself as bisexual. From my earliest memories it was consistant. I had told my future H the whole truth before we married and it was of no consequence to him. We were married for 23 years and had 3 children. Our M died for many reasons, but sexual identity was not one of them. It was never a problem while we were together. Neither of us looked to other relationships while we were together. I was 6 years out of my M before my current partner and I got together. She had a similar background and had been emotionally divorced from her H for about 4 years before she decided to physically leave. She didn't leave because of me, it was just timing. Divorce was already underway.

Thanks, WA. That's good information - I once worked with a woman who divorced her H after a long marriage because of a sexual identity crisis. She ended a good marriage and hurt her H terribly, and she talked about how that was a great burden she felt she would carry forever.

Do you and your partner spend much time discussing your IC sessions with each other?

GC

Holy crap, I got 2 thumbs up, I need to know when to quit, so I will. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

WA thanks for the name explanation, everybody has a great name story, I really need to make one up. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />
My friends call me Jelly because, I'm soft and squishy??? I'll work on it. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Hi GC,
Do we spend a lot of/any time discussing our IC's ? (see I'mm getting the lingo now !) Not really because there wasn't any real crisis for either of us. We were both interested in a loving partner, the gender didn't matter.
All of us, our ex's and ourselves were just not able to make it work at that point in our lives.
Would we have behaved differently/better 14 years wiser ? Maybe !!!?? But could we have lived in that hell for another 14 years to find out ? Definitely not ! I strongly believe it takes both partners to be at least trying to work things out. But when only 1/2 of the equation is on board for very long periods of time.......sometimes you just have to go to Plan B.

Thanks Jelly,
So glad you are listening, so glad you responded !

i just re-read your thread, and something caught my eye this time. If my partner told me to "get a life" that is exactly what I would do. I would scrape together enough money to buy a car, get a part-time job, make new friends, travel - basically have fun. Now everybody needs their own money, I don't know how you guys divy up the money but she has to give it you, and I assume you have to ask for any extra that isn't part of household expenses. That is no good.

Do what she said, - get a life. I bet she comes around real quick after that. A part time job shouldn't be too hard for a 58 yr old woman to get. I would concentrate on getting a job where you would like the people. Because in your case that would mainly be what it is about - socializing and some pocket change. Forget about the house work, who cares? Not her if she isn't willing to do it. Go on strike - hah. That'll get her attention.

Just my .02

Thanks Weaver ! It's certainly a thought !

It's more than a thought. Weaver is right on. It's like star*fish's sig line. This site won't change your spouse, but it will change you, and in a way that makes it hard for someone who loves you to forget they love you.

Or something like that.

You can nag your partner all day to change her attitude, or you can change yours and watch her come running. When she does, she will begin to open up more.

GC

Thanks GC !
Not sure at the moment how to execute this, but I'm thinking !

Hiya, Warm Ashes. You've gotten a whole lot of really good advice here. I'm the resident token female-in-a-same-sex-marriage (it would be so much easier if I actually identified as a lesbian, wouldn't it? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> ah well). As such, I believe it is my obligation to say,

THANK GOD, ANOTHER ONE FINALLY!!!!!

Errr, I mean, welcome to MB, so glad to have you! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

Now... about this relationship of yours. Sounds to me, to be unpleasantly honest about it, like your partner is taking some severe advantage of you. I wouldn't be too terribly surprised if there's an emotional (or possibly physical) affair going on somewhere as well. So.... I have a few questions for you, and a couple of pieces of straightforward-sounding but difficult advice.

- What do you and she call your relationship? Is it a partnership? A civil union? A marriage? Living together?

This is much more important in the gay&lesbian community than it was a few years ago. There's suddenly a difference between shacking up and making a commitment to a lifetime relationship, and I'd like to know where you are along that continuum. I would also like to know what specific vows and promises you have made to each other, what working agreements you have, and what's just assumed-but-never-actually-negotiated.

That covers a whole lot of ground, I know, but stuff that we can just assume with all these heterosexual married people cannot be assumed in your case.

- What skills DO you have? No more whining about how you can't go out and support yourself. I've been a BS for long enough to know it when I hear it. Maybe you'll have to go work as a greeter at WalMart, but jeepers, girl, ya gotta have SOMETHING you can do outside the home. Heck, if you've kept a household going all these years, you can certainly get work doing that, either as a housekeeper/nanny or as a cleaning service person. I'm not interested in glamorous, I'm interested in what you can do if you toss yourself out on your a$$, having had your entire world fall apart (again).

- You mentioned your grandson's mom. How would she like a roommate for a few months or years?

- I would bet, and I'm a betting sort of a girl, that you can find enough money to buy yourself a car. Will it be a beyoootiful young thing? Well, no. It'll sag and have bags and wrinkles and grey hair. So what? You want to drive it, not use it as a trophy spouse.

- Who says grey hair isn't sexy? Oh wait, no one said that, did they. Great!! Then you're still sexy, too. How totally excellent for you.

Now.... it seems to me that there are some pretty major flaws in your argument and presentation of yourself. Namely, every single time you said you can't do something, or that you "have to" do something for your partner.

Sacrifice? Yeah, Jesus did it for us. The rest of us are going to have to learn to SAY NO.

And that last item is my advice to you. Learn to say no. Politely, firmly, and without equivocation. Something along these lines would work well, "No, that doesn't work for me. [calm change of subject] I'm going to get a glass of milk. Do you want some?"

Say no WHENEVER you're not enthusiastic about something.

I do not really care whether your partner is willing to POJA stuff or not. If you become an infinitely heavy immovable object when you aren't happy, she'll learn.

And here's another assignment. It's called the honesty assignment. Practice it on your geriatric dogs:

"I feel ______ when you ______."

In the first blank, insert a feeling word. Examples: Sad, hurt, angry, happy, giddy, lonely, depressed, overjoyed, surprised, anxious, nervous, pissed, dejected, amused.

In the second blank, insert a description of her action that caused the emotion.
Examples: leave glasses in the sink, fart, leave me alone for long periods of time, tell me to get a life, give me a hug, leave the lid up on the toilet.

You are not allowed to EVER claim that a sentence that started with "I feel like you [did whatever]" was an honest statement about your feelings.

Seems easy? Ha. Took me nearly exactly one year to get through an entire conversation using this formula. It's HARD.

Hi there Just J !
Glad to hear from you ! (I just lost a whole page of writing for some stupid reason ??? So here I go again)
To answer your question about our type of relationship.... We made vows privately to one another in "95. That was as good as it got back then, outside of a formal committment ceremony. Since we live in Ontario, we now have the option to legalize the union. She is not willing to do so at this time. She says it isn't "necessary" and is "patriarchal". She has vacillated back and forth a few times, but at the moment it is "No".
This hurts, but I would leave the matter be if we could have a legal contract regarding shared assets etc. Common law only deals with some aspects of property division in the case of separation. We have both been burned so badly in the past, as I said earlier in the thread, trust is a big problem especially since we have been fighting so much.
A few home truths, Just J, that I haven't mentioned before. I may be coming into some money in the next few years. MAY BE ! (Very long story here). Also regarding working, yes I could survive if I had to, not well, but I could survive! I have many skills, some professional, but I had a breakdown a couple of years ago and I have lost most of any confidence that I had. That is the real bottom line. I'm TERRIFIED to go out on my own. If I had to go it alone , I don't know what I would do with my "babies" (dogs), either.
I truly love my partner anyway, and I want this to work. However, I may have to consider outside the home stuff, regardless, just to re-establish my confidence and find other outlets/people to mix with etc. There is no possible way I could stay with my children.
I do not believe that my partner has any "other" intersts. It would be quite out of character for either of us. Never did. Never would.
I'm familiar with the "I feel_______ when you______. It hasn't been very helpful so far as she immediately takes it as a criticism and flies into a rage.
I am not sure what you meant by the other part -

"You are not allowed to EVER claim that a sentence that started with "I feel like you [did whatever]" was an honest statement about your feelings". Could you please explain a little more ?

Most of our difficulties arise from enormous defensiveness on her part and emotional sensitivity on mine, trust issues (especially since so much has been withdrawn from our respective LBs)and the fact that we are still both trying to work through our own respective baggage individually in therapy.
I have found this web site SO helpful and she is working with learning the material too. We do a lot of reading it together, doing the Questionnaires etc. When things are really uncomfortable, we just agree to take it up with our therapist next visit. The thoughts and advice forthcoming in this forum over the past day has been so comforting. Can't quite name the feeling, positive perhaps, but I can say I do feel less alone and crazy. Thanks again.

Hello Warm Ashes, I too think you have received some great suggestions, I too am a fellow Canadian - in Ontario too.

I really believe you need to get out and socialize, it is hard, I know, the longer you stay in your "cocoon" the harder it is, I agree with Just Learning - what about a little volunteer work? It will get you some experience, look good on a resume, get you out and socialize and meeting new people, something like community care, seniors residence, etc. even just a few hours a week to start, get your feet wet and take it from there.

I can understand the hesitation in jumping in and getting a job is a little scary, this may help you ease into it slowly and then you can decide from there if you want to work part time, full time, etc.

Sandy

<small>[ August 05, 2004, 07:33 AM: Message edited by: sl000 ]</small>

I'm at work and thus will reply only briefly. Two things to think about.

If she will not marry you.... then you are not married. In Canada, since same-sex marriages are legal, there's a clear and distinct difference. I recognize that in 1995 there wasn't that kind of difference. (Nor was there when my partner and I made our promises to one another in 1990. And still isn't, in my poor backwards state.)

So you're living together. You've made verbal promises to one another. And she is making it quite clear that she is not willing to formalize those promises and bind herself to them.

That's absolutely and totally her choice.

However, I have to ask. Does that work for you? Are you willing to be the housewife for someone who will not marry you? I think it's downright hilarious that a couple who's set up their relationship using the provider/housewife model is talking about things that are too patriarchal. Particularly when it's the one playing the "male" role doing the talking.

Define for me, if you will, "flying into a rage." What does that look like? If it looks like verbal abuse, then I must say that it is time for you to confront it head on. That's probably an incredibly tough thing to do. All I'm asking is that you meet her eyes and you say, "I will not stay in the room while you are speaking to me that way."

And if she continues, you leave.

If she follows you, you pick up your purse, go outside, get in the car, and drive away. Silently.

This will, at first, cause even more rage and fury. Think of it as a thunderstorm. You can't control it, you've asked for it to end, and when it doesn't, you get out of the way.

You know, you talk a lot about your issues and your therapeutic work. That's great, and I'm glad you understand yourself and your issues so well -- it's the first step in dealing with them.

So now I really want to know this. What ONE THING are you going to do today to begin to change this situation?

What ONE THING are you going to do to regain your confidence, your self-esteem? What are you going to do to unearth that strength that you and I both know is still in there, even though you've done your darndest to bury it in fear and uncertainty?

Because, baby, it's screaming to be let out, and you might as well accept that and start working with it.