Rough day. I feel like I just continually mess up. I feel like Dr. Jerkyl (not a typo) and Mr. Hyde...

One part of me is saying: No wonder he runs from you. No wonder he cheated on you. You are horrible.

The other part: You wouldn't be so horrible if he hadn't treated you so badly. He should have just been honest.

...and back and forth.

More than once this week I have had fantasies while driving of just driving on and not stopping until I run out of gas. I think I have nearly a full tank right now, so I could get pretty far. I just want to keep driving and forget about any responsibilities I have.

I feel like I'm cracking. Patriot is going to e-mail me some details sometime today...don't know when it's coming. I feel like I'm waiting for the axe to fall and it's hard. On one hand I don't want there to be secrets between us, and on the other it is so difficult to hear and I want to close my eyes and make it all go away.

Can someone help me today?

Don't want to have another post to you Blow up on me .......so I'll just send you out a Brotherly Hug (((({{{{Froz}}}})))) ....and Tell you that many of us Understand.
Hang in there. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Blow up? Geez, I hope you aren't saying I said something mean to you. I guess I just give everyone a thorough tongue-lashing. What the heck is wrong with me?

Thank you very much for the hug, top rope. I really do appreciate it.

Froz I'm always willing to help you or Pat with anything. Just yell at me if there is anything I can do. (((FROZ)))

Froz, I am here if you need a shoulder. You did really good with your assessment of the buyer, renter, freeloader thing. BTW, in M's with addictions it is generally renter - renter and they can still thrive. Not everyone is capable of being a buyer but it sounds like Pat is working toward it.

My email addy is killnme2004-mb@yahoo.com if you need me

Thank you, AskMe.

I've received one e-mail from him. It had quite a bit of information in it.

I am afraid that I will do something incorrectly. I'm not sure how to respond - to each individual e-mail that I will probably be receiving throughout the day, or to the information as a whole when he gets home this evening. We are having company for dinner.

I have to go to work in just a little bit.

This is hard. It's a little more painful that I had imagined it would be. I thought after all this time, and knowing some of this stuff, I would be a little more immune, but I am not.

It helps that you and toprope posted to me. I don't really have any other support system, as no one knows anything about our situation. It helps just to even "virtually" have someone there. Thank you very much.

FF,

I really DO need a friend today. Maybe this was a bad idea and would have been better done on a day when I didn't have to go to work and we weren't having company for dinner. I just didn't want to put it off any longer if he was willing to do it.

I will e-mail you, if it's alright.

*edited to remove email address*

Froz, at least you can keep your mind active with work and company. Let the emails come, look for obvious things and look for the detail later.

Froz, be prepared to feel like you took several steps back to DDAY. It is a NORMAL, hear me, NORMAL reaction. I think pondering the information and putting together any questions and comments. Maybe you could discuss after your company leaves.

froz, anytime email me

I didn't want to go back to D-Day. That is what it feels like.

I have already responded to two e-mails with some questions.

I e-mailed you.

I don't want to talk after company leaves because I am afraid I will do or say something wrong. I don't even know what to say.

When you don't know what to say, don't say anything. Just say you need time to think and process your thoughts. You may even need time to talk with someone to help work out your thoughts. That way you can get the emotions out first.

Okay. Thank you.

Frozen:
Sorry I just had to peek back.

Please know that although this Can Help you Long Term .....it will be a set back in the short.
Unfortunately,
that's Just the way this type of information, combined with Emotions work.

That is Why I Always SO STRONGLY Encourage Any and ALL newbies to get the Details out of the way As EARLY early On in the process as Possible.

Delaying asking and then getting your questions answered (although NOT fatal) ....is Harmful by making you seem Set back.

In reality,
all you've been doing is trying to recover .....backwards.
Your making gains .......but don't even KNOW What your recovering From.

Cause Most BS are going to Ask sooner or Later.

Putting it off does little except to waste a lot of the time, energy and diligence people are putting into their marriages.

Sadly,
Much of the effort of trust and connection is once again broken, when Facts are reveled --- OUT of ORDER (like this).

However,
Facts are just facts:
Be they about times, places, people, feelings, whathaveyou.

But most BS NEED to know what they are (to one degree or another) ...in order to properly cope and deal with them.

So Ideally,
Get them out of the way Early on, so they are NOT the Unknown & Unspoken elephant in the room ....Cutting you OFF from your spouse by their enormity.

So as to you Froz:
Guess what??
There NEVER will be a GOOD time to do this.
However,
Pat's willing NOW .......so you better take advantage of it while the offer is there.

So keep your mouth (and your keyboard silent) ........you can always Respond later, AFTER you have a chance to PROCESS some of this info.
Cause NO Doubt a lot of it WILL be hard to take. Just a sad fact.
Very Sorry you've had to wait sooooo long just to get to this point.

^bump^ how are ya, froz?

Funny...I just jumped on here for a sec because I wanted to see how YOU were.

I am okay...up and down, but a lot of ups this weekend. It seemed to be either really high ups and really low downs.

We had a couple of really heated discussions. It makes me so very angry when he calls me negative or NegaFroz. I am going to refrain from calling myself that from now on.

It started out as a joke, but I am beginning to take it a little personally, because I don't believe it IS true.

Sure, I have some low moments - even hopeless ones - but, as I explained to him earlier this morning...

This is a very difficult situation - it's been the hardest thing I've had to deal with in my life, partly because it just IS hard and partly because of the timing and because it came AFTER all the other hard stuff I've been through. So, given that, it probably makes it feel even more difficult and it is a large contributing factor to why I've really struggled so much.

Anyway, I told him that it is a difficult situation and no matter what obstacles there have been, I have remained faithful, loyal, open to looking at myself and making adjustments, open to working toward making our marriage better and striving for both our happiness. That doesn't sound like NegaFroz to me.

There are times when I feel hopeless and feel like giving up, but I have always kept trying.

So has he.

Sometimes I feel kind of bad for him. I feel bad because I see how he struggles and I do see that he really tries - even when his efforts don't bear much fruit. I greatly admire his persistence and the other night I called him "The Little Engine That Could".

He struggles SO MUCH with conflict avoidance. He used it so much as a defense mechanism during his childhood that it seems to have become like second nature for him and it's often difficult for him to even recognize when he is practicing it.

How do you stop it when you don't even know you're doing it???

It becomes even more difficult to stop it when I react to it. It makes me feel very unsafe when he conflict avoids and sometimes I am able to react with patience and just try to point it out to him. Other times - if I am feeling particularly unsafe about it - I react with very strong emotion, which only serves to reinforce his instinct of conflict avoidance.

I think it is often the case that our bad habits feed off of each other. I have got to work harder to control my emotional reactions. When I am able to do that, it makes him feel safer and it is easier for him to listen when I point out conflict avoidance to him in a loving, patient manner.

It may sound rude to point it out to him, but he seems to really appreciate the help. I know that I want him to point out to me if I am acting disrespectfully, which is a problem of mine.

I wish that he would post more often. The feedback that I have gotten from doing so has been so helpful for me.

I told him that I believe that if he wouldn't worry so much about sounding a certain way in his posts or saying the "right things" when inside, his mindset is really different from what he is saying, that people here could aid him in working through thought processes that create obstacles for him. It is hard to get any real answers if you aren't being completely open about your thoughts and feelings.

Also, a lot of times he looks to me for the answers - particularly with the conflict avoidance issue - and the truth is that I can't fix it for him. I will be glad to help him however I can, but it is sometimes difficult for me to relate to because conflict avoidance is not something I identify strongly with. In fact, I sometimes find it very difficult to understand.

The other thing he really seems to want to work in is selfishness. That is also hard for me to help him with because it's difficult to point out to someone without making them feel defensive.

The best I've been able to do so far is to point out when he isn't being very sensitive to my feelings.

We are both off work today, and he went to have lunch with a friend. I spent some time today with one of my friends. Last I talked to him, he said he had some thoughts and was very motivated today to WORK, meaning MB work. I am extremely anxious to know what he has in mind and what he's been thinking about.

Anyway, how are YOU???

If I haven't told you lately, I sure do appreciate you.

If anyone else is listening, I really appreciate EVERYONE here. I don't know how I would have fared this past year without all of you.

I am ok, thanks for asking. Dealing with some issues of my own and finding out that triggers hit me really hard to the point of a physical reaction.

No, you are NOT negafroz...you are hurt froz sometimes and slushy other times. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I am anxious to hear what you two work on today. I think it is great you can gently point out his CA tendancies without it being an LB. The selfish stuff I think is tough because he is just going to need to get to a point of recognizing what is motivating him. Has he read Love Busters?

What a horrible feeling I know that is. YUCK! I think it is my least favorite feeling in the whole world. I would rather eat broccoli, touch a dead mouse, listen to my ex-husband speak, study Mathematics, and be slapped in the face every day.

I will say that those feelings lessen with time, fortunately.



Thanks for that! Jokes are funny, but labels are not.



I think it is great that he is willing and open to listening because he wants to learn better coping skills. I think it is great that he desires help in overcoming this obstacle.


No, he hasn't. He read HNHN and I read LB and then we were supposed to switch, which brings me to...



As it turns out, my MAN had a PLAN!!! That's what he wanted to talk about...a plan to jolt us out of a rut and give us focus.

I am impressed with his planning skills and the time, effort and research he put into it.

I am GRATEFUL for his leadership.

We have both noticed that when we focus our attentions on learning it seems to make the best use of our time, as opposed to the HOURS and HOURS of open discussion that seem to cause negative feelings and assist us in running in circles, getting absolutely nowhere but hurt.

His plan...

STUDY TIME! Two hours every Thursday evening of MB study, beginning with discussion and implementation of articles based on the principles. Articles are to be printed and handed out on Sunday for review together the following Thursday.

He proposed a reinstatement of Date Night - every Friday. There hasn't been much RC going on around here for a while. I get to pick first.

We also discussed setting specific time aside each week for reading together. We still haven't finished Safe Haven Marriage and there are many other books that would be beneficial for us to read and learn.

Part of his plan included a specific method for dealing with anger appropriately. Our attempt at one of us asking for a break has been unsuccessful, as neither wants to take a break because we have some crazy desire to DELVE further into it to gain resolution. It definitely seems to hinder productivity.

The NEW plan is...a 30 minute mandatory break to set down anger when it begins to turn into projection.

Another thing he discussed is learning how to deal with resentment, though we didn't necessarily have a "plan" for doing that. I know that Dr. Harley covers it in some of his articles, so I hope that it can become addressed in that fashion.

Oddly enough, if you recall, we discussed some pretty heavy details on Thursday. It was difficult for me to deal with and I did need some time to process. I spent a little bit of the weekend hurting over them. But, we had a GREAT weekend together. I mean REALLY great!

We watched the Godfather trilogy, and I proclaim Patriot's "Godfather voice" to be his best impersonation EVER. I enjoyed watching it with him. We met lots and lots of other needs, <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> and last night we took note of each other's love banks. We each had scores that were drastically improved from the last few times we took note of them (last week).

A little loving sarcasm for my husband here (he said he likes it)...

Hmmm, Patriot...how is HONESTY working for ya???

Serious note: Remember when we had that talk and you asked me where was the payoff in honesty?

Here is my answer...

Sometimes it DOESN'T feel good to be honest. Sometimes it hurts to give it and it also hurts to receive it. Sometimes the payoff isn't obvious at first, and you can't possibly see what fruit it could bear right away, but there is still a payoff and THIS is it -

INTIMACY

Intimacy that is real.

I love you very, very much and I am so grateful for your honesty, your perserverance and willingness to learn, your leadership and your protection.

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> That is the best thing I have read in a while! I am so proud of both of you. Froz, you just gave me something to send to my H. Check out the thread I am about to start.