"A bucket of water" meaning what exactly?

Any ideas about why you are and have always been so sensitive? What is the payoff for you?

Susan

Why not just say: "Lemonman, are you being sarcastic with me?" And see what he says?

Probe for information, rather than make assumptions.

Read Frozen's post to me on the PTSD thread. That captures it. I feel OK about being sensitive. It enables me to be compassionate and caring about others.

I've been this way for as long as I can remember, Susan. I was a "crybaby". My M was calling me sensitive. My maternal grandmother was and so is my mother. Maybe it's inherited. It has helped me more than hurt me in my life... Particularly in my profession.......

In my real life, I am very compassionate and caring.....
That feels good. Maybe that's the payoff....

PROVERBS 31- MY LIFE MISSION

Well, we are not being very loving and compassionate if we burden others with our "sensitivities." I'm not sure that Lemonman feels this love and compassion, for example, so it is selectively distributed.

I'm not being mean, Mimi -- but on the MB board I do see a lot of weaknesses (and most of our "strengths" have an accompanying weakness) condoned as "that's just the way I am." This goes directly against MB principles.

We have to struggle with our weaknesses, while keeping the strengths that may be the flipside of the coin.

Hi Mimi,

I am impressed with your courage to "duke it out" instead of leaving.

Thanks to everyone who is participating in this thread! I am learning a lot and now realize that I have come father than I was giving myself credit for.

Take care everyone <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I have no idea if I am doing the quote thing correctly, but I do have a suggestion.


You said you were e-mailing "directly", and if you considered it a "private" conversation why not keep it in e-mail. There is no such thing as a private converstation on a public message board. JMHO.

I agree with you AM.

I'm trying to figure this out and learn from this.

In my discussion with LM on CC's thread, he acknowledged having difficulties with direct communication.

His sarcasm was clear and obvious and not acceptable to me just like my oversensitivity is not always acceptable.

I don't know about me and him......A bad match......

BECONTENT:

Your point is well taken about the fact that we should have kept our conversation private. However, I thought that others made have profitted from our discussion with each other.

I couldn't see how sarcastic intrusion was necessary or helpful. It would have been preferable for him to give CC some helpful advice, himself, rather than to make sarcastic reference to my style and what I was saying. It did make me angry as noted by LM himself.

Again, I apologize to making reference to him in the discussion with CC.

Time for a GG chime in. I couldn't sleep last night and saw this post really early this morning. I wanted to think about it and had a bunch of things to do this morning. This is the first opportunity I had to answer.

Disclaimer: On this forum, Mimi has been extremely helpful to me. I don't always agree with what she says but I hardly ever agree with anyone 100%. Also, I've only been here for 6 months and I know nuffing...

When I read this thread, my first thought was "What's up with Mimi? Is there some more going on than we know?" Where I live, this is also called being sensitive. Maybe it's more empathic but it's being senstive to what other people think/feel/are going through. Yesterday, on my thread, Mimi also called me sarcastic. I didn't really feel sarcastic. Maybe more of an edgy, dark humor. Sarcasm, facetiousness. teasing and black humor are abundant in my family. Our tools. Our coping mechanisms. I didn't think I was any more or less than usual. I did feel I was being jumped on a bit unfairly but hey, it's water off my back. I wondered why Mimi felt more affected by it. Did I hit a trigger? Was it one of those fragile days?

I'd say it's a fair assessment that everybody on this board is or has been hurt in someway. Since we're here, we all have some belief in the MB principals. Some people have had good luck with them, some haven't. I haven't been here long enough to know if the people who have done "textbook" Plan As and "textbook" Plan Bs have failed or succeeded. Situations can be similar but not the same. WS may act to the same script (and probably BS, too) but there is a different ending to every story.

In my beginnings here, sometimes lemonman would post things to me that felt hurtful. In retrospect, they were probably too honest. Poop or get off the pot variety things. Others have posted things that hurt me too. Sometimes, there seems a notion that we WS have glaring character flaws where we've ignored and neglected our S and that's why they've had an A. Like if we didn't spend so much time with those darn kids and kept our houses clean, we'd have happy spouses. On various days, the posts that said I need to be more independent hurt me. On others, posts that say I can't have a good M if I'm too independent, do. In the end, I am who I am. Warts and all. There are habits and behaviors I can modify, but I am only part of the equation. Does this make me a MB unbeliever?

I hope nobody leaves this board. I like the balance of the success stories of Mimi and Orchid and the failures of lemonman. It sometimes seems like the posters on this board have either come to some resolution or are at a "trainwreck" point. I think my trainwrecks are down to about once a week. Mimi reminds us that with hard work, we can be successes. LM asks us what is the price we are willing to pay. Both good points of view. Everything is helpful.

BTW: In my little corner of the USA, in the colloquial voice, the word Sarcasm often comes out sounding like Sour-casm.

From another newbie who knows even less of "nuffing" than Grapegirl:

I really hope the two of you can resolve this in such a way that you still post on the same threads. I have read lots of posts from both of you, and I think that any thread that has the two of you posting on it is richer for the variety - the divergence of styles and opinions.

Think of how lonely millions of egg rolls would be if there were no sweet AND sour sauce.............

Whew! I was in a hurry when I posted, and was afraid you'd take it in the wrong way.

"I like the balance of the success stories of Mimi and Orchid and the failures of lemonman."

I don't regard Lemonman or anyone else as a failure. Sometimes breaking up is the happy ending.

I don't think Lemonman considers himself a failure either. Although, his marriage did fail which would be the opposite of marriage building. I'm sure he did what he did to get where he is. Does that make any sense at all?

In my case, I've prayed that God should take my marriage and do what he (she) wants to with it. Whatever happens is part of the grand plan somehow. Ultimately, it's out of my hands.

There are a number of posters here whose marriages could not be saved despite their best efforts. I do not consider any of them "failures." Many of them spend a great deal of time here trying to help other folks with what they learned, even though it did not end as they had hoped. I greatly appreciate that and I'm sure many others do, too.
Mulan