FROZ,

Have you read the Owning your own villagers thread??? LA has been working there with me and she helped me alot. You might try going through the exercise she does over there, if for no other reason, "It is very interesting and will make you think real hard about who you are."

It might just help.

Good Luck to you and Patriot! Hang in there it will get better, really it will!

Froz..

Maybe this will help..maybe not..but it did help me back in the day [suprising I didn't post about it..seems that during the times of most change I seem to be so busy and consumed that I forget the computor exists].

I meant every word that I said with regard to having a look into your own darkness.

One of the things that held me back from the next step was..hmm..how to explain..waiting for clarity?

Waiting for things to be in stark contrast.

Waiting for The Answer..you know..the one that will make things Better.

I was waiting for things to be SO bad that I couldn't stay..or SO much improved that I wouldn't WANT to leave..and it didn't work..because some parts of me wanted both all of the time.

It sucked..but not enough for me to really honestly be willing to walk away.

It was good..but not enough to erase the bad.

Also..we didn't really change in a big way. We are still the same people with the same issues we have always had. I think that REAL change..is a [painfully] slow process..not visible to the eye..but it subtly changes your trajectory if that makes sense. Not a 180..but rather 1 millionth of a 1 degree of a turn. Which leaves you without your AHA!

Posting now so it doesn't bump me [which it has been doing and I don't know why]..more later

Cont..

So..really the person I had to deal with was myself.

H still had and has personality traits and habits that leave me feeling insecure.

These are not affair related though..they are part of his makeup and not going to change. Really I think they make me nervous because I can't identify with him..it's not *the* alien..but it's alien to me.

That is how I [with much distance and no personal investment] would now look at an incident such as the one you described with your daughter.

Was it manipulative? Sure. If he wants to dispute that I'm willing to go 'round the mountain with him. Trying to *prep* you so to speak rather than allowing you to walk in *cold* and find him distraught and worried and maybe angry and not knowing what he was going to do or what he should do..which ironically would have probably been the best possible method when dealing WITH YOU because of it's transparency.

He isn't a transparent man and probably never will be..even if he is an honest one.

You will probably not ever be able to judge his mood or discern his motives. He has a lot of filters between himself and the world..it makes him hard to know.

Regret about his A isn't going to change that. It's bigger than CA.

That issue of beating you to the punch..running ahead and saying..YES! I'm wrong! Whip me! IS also manipulative. You know it..you see it..you live with it..it is part of being conflict averse..skipping the conflict and taking the wind out of your sails by acknowledging ahead of the lynch mob. Inviting the lynch mob. Probably having beers with the lynch mob before the night is out.

Aw shucks.

The flip side is that they continue to ask forgiveness and not permission. It's a pattern..it fits together.

These traits are a part of your man. They are part of who he is. He may learn new skills and change some of his habits..but he will never completely eradicate these things and why should he? A lot of the time they work! People with good people skills are manipulative by nature. They know how to spin.

Now that we have acknowledged and validated your gripes..are you ready to have a look at yourself?

What are your dark areas?

Wow, Noodle. You are REALLY good at validation!

I really, really, really like feeling understood.



That makes me nervous because I fear that you are correct. I don't know if that is something that can be acceptable for me forever.

Transparency is extremely important to me.

Every single time in my life that the "other shoe" dropped, which usually equated to a situation of extreme crisis - not the kind of crisis where you go to work and then come home and your life is kind of stressful, but the kind of crisis where, in an instant, you HAVE no home.

I thought things were fine one minute. The next, my whole life changed and I didn't know where I would live, had no money, no vehicle, no job (since I didn't have transportation any longer), and no idea how I would eat - all because of information someone else had about my life that I did not, and they didn't bother to share with me. All because others tricked me and led me to believe everything was a way that it wasn't at all.

This happened to me numerous times when I was young.

I can't live like that.

I need to have some measure of control over my own life, or at the very least have as much information as possible about my own life so I can be as prepared as possible if it changes.


Yes. Thank you for the comfortable lead-in.



I really, really want to answer this question, but I'm not precisely clear on what you mean. I want to be. I looked back at your posts and there were a couple of times you mentioned the word "dark".

I would appreciate it so much if you could clarify for me.

Thanks, Noodle.

Hi Froz ~


Your pain, your emotions, you feelings are all yours to have for as long as you want, whenever you want.

Patriot can choose to be bothered and hurt, or not, by your feelings.

You are not responsible for his feelings. You, as his wife, are responsible for meeting healthy reasonable emotional needs and protecting him from lovebusting action.

That you hurt and it 'punishes' him is really his issue and his problem, not yours.

I'm not busting your chops over your feelings. I'm busting your chops over your choices of lovebusting behavior which you wrap in victimized justification.


Oh but you do. I used to be where you are at, and I used to cry and scream at my AlAnon sponsor because I would ask her how to let go, how to make the pain stop and she's simply say: "Make a decision".

That response drove me nuts. *I* didn't choose the pain!! My horrible alcoholic cheating husband did this to me!!!!

It took time, and practice, and a God box, but I learned that I did have the power and control to choose to do something else when the pain started to kick in.

She was right, as I am now.

You are choosing to live in the pain of your past instead of the present. Your present is experienced through filters of painful past that do not really apply to the here and now.

It's your choice to objectively examine those past truths with external guidance and determine if those truths really serve you in the here and now. This is not something you should do alone in your own head.


Then own your responsibility for staying. Stop 'hoping' for some magic event and start owning your choices and behaviors. Do not blame him for your choice to stay and the consequences of such. Recovery can not happen if you are both not willing to step up to ownership of your own stuff.


Ok..well...I don't believe they don't know, and havent seen you fight. I don't believe that the 2 of you are perpetually loving and cheerful in front of them.

If you think they don't experience the tensions...and if you think they don't know...ask them. I think you'll be surprised.

But ok, lets suspend reality for a second and say they don't know. They see you treating your new husband like what? For no reason?

What do you think that does to their perceptions of relationships?


Uh. Where did I say I thought anything of the sort?

Lovebusting is lovebusting if done 1% of the time. Damage is not measured by how many times you do it.

Besides, your response sounds rather childish don't you think? If Patriot never EVER posted on MB, we'd still be having this conversation. You tattle on yourself all the time my dear. I don't need him to tell me.


I am talking to you, not him. You are the one who has the power to transform your life into one that is happy joyous and free. Patriot has zero power to do that for you.

You can not fix what you don't acknowledge (thank you Dr. Phil!). So lets go back to talking about you instead of your husband.

I think one of your payoffs is that while he is the bad one, you can justify your focus on him instead of your scary parts.



Yes you were asked for examples. You could have given examples of current behavior. You instead chose to bring up the past.

I did NOT say you should not be hurt, and that you should be grateful it was not worse. Go back and reread what I wrote, not what you twisted it into meaning in your own head!

If Patriot had a pattern of lying to you about his lunch companions, and had done nothing to rectify this issue in your marriage - it would have been a valid example.

My problem with you is that yes, he did something wrong - and with in the same 24 hours took action to rectify it. The three Rs were present in his follow up behavior. He took responsibility, expressed remorse and understanding that what he did was wrong, and has since, never repeated the action and has in fact been honest and POJAd about his lunch companions since then.

I don't know about you and Patriot, but me and my husband are human beings. We both screw up and do things that hurt each other. We don't always get it right the first time. We both have hurts and fears and scars from our past that affect how we interact with the present. We have both worked hard at learning how to take responsbility, apologize, and change our behavior. Part of intimacy is recognizing and accepting that the other person has warts and faults, and part of intimacy is the ability to forgive your spouse when in response to a love busting behavior, the three Rs are applied, swiftly and without hesitation.

Patriot met those criteria. What else do you want from him? He can't take back the lie, all he can do is say he is sorry and do everything he can to change that.

This is why you have been told over and over that you hold the bar far too high for a normal person to reasonably jump over. It does not mean that you should not be hurt when he screws up. It just means that at some point Froz, you have to recognize when it is safe to let go of the pain and drop your walls. Patriot is outside waving a white flag of surrender, but you, crounched inside your Fortress of Fear and Pain, you see a shotgun in his hands instead.

You can still be hurt about it if you want to. It is your choice to hang on to that pain and withhold forgiveness. But it is not a valid example of how evil Patriot is in the PRESENT.


This is you throwing a temper tantrum that Patriot is not being punished for hurting your feelings. You want him judged so you can be right (and a victim).

Your need for external validation is a bottomless pit Froz, and I won't feed the beast by giving you false platitudes that your choices are even slightly good for you right now.

The person that you should be seeking validation from you is YOU. You don't need approval from me. You don't need approval from Pepperband or Gimble. What you need my dear is to own your own choices and to take some responsibility.


It hurts you because you have made his behavior all about you. Thats why I said precisely, 'Self centered'.

Your husband did not lie and deceive you.

He did his job as protector of you and your family by checking on your daughter and discovering a serious problem. Rather than immediately fly off the handle and create panic for you while you were at work, he followed up to get all the facts. He knew he had to tell you.

His own past, his own fears, hurts and old coping mechanisms came rushing out to his defense. He struggled with it. He was panicked and his instincts were screaming manipulate, hide, protect. And in the end, YOU and YOUR SAFETY WON. Rather than protect himself from the nuculear meltdown that he was terrified of, ignoring his fear, he chose to TELL YOU. Thats called courage - doing what is right, even when scared to death. He wasn't lying to you, he was struggling in his own soul with his past and his present.

But of course, because he was human, and didn't tell you on your perfect timeline, he's still wrong. He's damned if he does or damned if he doesn't. If he had called you at work with only half the facts and told you RIGHT THAT SECOND would you have been expecting it? I mean really Froz - do you sit at work expecting devastating news about your daughter? There is NO good way to share that kind of information even for someone who is GOOD at communicating. Your husband is clumsy, and he is human. He is JUST LIKE YOU - he is struggling with his own hurts and fears and trying to learn new behaviors that just aren't intuitive. He is fighting his own demons, and really, those demons have NOTHING to do with you and your self worth.

Stop making everything he does about you.

And truely it is NOT about you, its about your daughter. My point was not that you arent supervising your daughter, but why aren't you in a immediate action mode to care for her? An 18 year old girl, with her history as a victim of sexual abuse, posting about sexual activity and pregnancy is not a red flag? Why is your energy focused on his wrongs committed upon youself instead of Oh my God what can I do to help my hurting, innocent (real victim) daughter?


Your feelings don't match reality - that is what everyone is saying to you. No one is telling you how long. Thats your right to decide. But you can't have your cake and eat it too. You say you want recovery...the problem is you want recovery on your terms, in your way (sound familiar?). You can't have it that way. There's a narrow road to recovery and you keep taking side paths that don't lead to your goal, and you are ticked off that anyone LOVES AND CARES about you enough to point that out!

Lets see.

If I was standing in the middle of a busy intersection - but I "felt" that I was really standing safely on the sidewalk - would you attempt to tell me I was wrong? Or would you validate me?

Will being right make you happy? Is your need to be right and for Patriot to be wrong and chastised really that much greater than your desire to have a happy marriage with him?

Why do you feel that recovery is impossible if he doesn't lose?

Because hun, thats what you are asking for, you want him to suffer as much as you have in order to make yourself feel better.

Where is your duty to protect him? When you chose to marry him, you committed to protecting him. That is your responsibility. That was your choice. Own it.

You can play tit for tat. Thats a choice you can make. The consequence however, is that you will not be married.

correct

plus

saying you do might seem like you are complimenting me

but I do not see it that way at all

Noodle,


First I want to say thank you for reaching out to my wife and talking to her. Actually, thank you to any and all people that do. Regardless of public, or not, opinion… I am generally a happy person, content with things going on in my life and I value an amount of normalcy and optimism. Tension has always been an enemy of mine and I unfortunately did learn some shady tactics attempting to make tension remove itself from my life. But, I also learned some healthy, caring ones. I admit, however, that shady tactics, like sugarcoating, outright lying and subversion produce much quicker results. In survival mode, usually the shortest distance between two points wins, in my experience. That said, I don’t see it as license to do it. I am just saying that I see the roadbump that way and that I then make the choice to NOT negotiate the obstacle using the easy wrong. I have made mistakes where this is concerned. I imagine, we all have our demons for one reason or another. I am working on mine.



I will focus on one word here. Waiting. That is not an action word. How is waiting going to get anything done? Not to insult you, and maybe there is more to this explanation, but how can anyone wait and think it will change anything? Waiting never fixed anything that was broken. Waiting allows things that work, work. Why focus on this? I hear this word a lot. Waiting. Waiting for me. Waiting for this or that. I just don’t see waiting as an action. Something you can stand behind and say “well.. I did this” and derive some sense of accomplishment for doing one’s part. I would extend that in a marriage, you often have to do more than your part.

I follow that idea with this. For a time in my relationship with frozen, I was not doing my part. I was destroying. I admit that. Now, a time came when a decision was made based on the facts at hand and WE decided that WE wanted to work on this marriage. In my mind, regardless of my faults, she BOUGHT the relationship back. She reclaimed responsibility in it. The window from DDay to this decision was her time to drop the whole thing like a hot potato and send me packing with all responsibility of the relationship failure squarely on MY shoulders. 100% all mine. Once she bought the relationship back, she accepted responsibility for the outcome again. Why bring this up? Because buying the relationship back and then waiting doesn’t sound like following words with action. “Waiting” so one can say I did something and it still failed all because of you. Waiting isn’t doing anything.


Is changing in a big way required? This passage also sounds familiar to me because it speaks of wanting the ‘AHA!’ moment and not getting it. Why must there be an AHA! moment? Does the lack of one mean recovery has not occurred? Who decides this standard? I must tell you there has never been a discussion in my house about lack of an AHA moment being a boundary. A showstopper, if you will. Maybe I am being sarcastic a bit, but I do truly want to understand this. What if the A was a bad moral decision and not a deep seeded character flaw? Will there still be significant change to notice? Also… something that occurred to me, relative to regaining trust, is that the only way to seemingly regain trust is to NOT be dishonest. Not the presence of honesty, because if honesty exists, how do you know? Check emails? Be accountable? These investigation tactic only produce “lack of dishonesty with the possibility of you being smarter and using other means” responses in my home. Dishonesty you can put your teeth into. Dishonesty triggers this AHA in my mind. I caught you! AHA! Yet, I have no recollection of AHA, you told the truth. It seems the long road to truth is history. A timeframe, of significant value, with the absence of dishonesty becomes honesty. THAT certainly does not sound like it has an AHA attached to it… much like you described the subtle changes above.



Such a short powerful statement. Only person you can control is you. I decide what MY boundaries are. All of that. I think this is linked to the other portions I have quoted from you above, but I am not certain how. Can you explain? Does it mean you saw that waiting was getting nothing done? (my thinking from above that I am open to change because I truly want to grow… meaning I wonder if it means that… but I don’t KNOW it means that)



And how did you best address THIS issue? Not everything frozen dislikes about me means I am going to hurt her. Maybe I burp all the time and this is an annoying habit. It does not mean I will cheat on her. I don’t know exactly my point, but I am very curious how you have dealt with this kind of situation. This seems like a good learning point.



I admit I am confused here a little. How would you look at this instance? That it was just my nasty habits making themselves seen again? If so, is this boundary crossing?


Manipulative? How? In my mind, being manipulative contains an amount of deviousness gain to it. I was trying to be a caring husband, truly. I did not choose the best action. Was it the worst action? No. NOT telling her at all and then just waiting to see if in a few months an 18 yo girl started walking around with an unexplainable pot belly and then telling her, or not and killing intimacy with my silence, was the worst. I did not do that. But, I did not choose the best either. Certainly not a black and white issue.


I admit that I am not a complete open book. I say that with the standard, in my mind, being ANY AND ALL things that run through my head become verbalized immediately. Now, lets look at that a minute. I would look like an autistic child if I did that. Short example. I have prayed to God, eyes closed, and while I was ‘speaking’ to God in my head have had evil thoughts run through my head. Flashes of killings from movies. The latest news on TV. Worries of money. Random words, filthy or not. Sometimes chaotic thoughts. Sometimes not. All within the confines of me talking to God. Like it was background noise in my head. Am I supposed to regurgitate ALL of this ALL the time? I talked about football and other sports today with co-workers. Do I cover that? My point, now that I have probably labeled myself the next serial-killer waiting to happen, is that I don’t know about you… but my mind sometimes runs multiple threads hundreds of times in a mere second. And sometimes it does not. Am I supposed to sit her down and talk about all of it? THAT these things happen in my head, I have told her… but the content every single time? Does that make me not transparent? I do have lots of filters? I imagine you work in a professional environment… You have to have filters. If you put it all out there all the time, what would that look like? Imagine this. I watched a rape on a tv program one time. Pick a movie… they have these scenes. Then, my imagination runs and places me in the movie in my mind doing that offense. Do you go telling everyone that? I don’t think so. Do I tell my wife that? If the event or thought was meaningful, then yes. And for me, that is the barometer. Meaningful. Yes, I have LIED about my affair before. Of course I was trying to hide. I did not want her to know. ******, at the time I wanted her to shut up. Anyway I could. But, I don’t apply this idea to everyday life. An affair is not everyday life for me. It is over for me and I am not doing it again. Everything else I do regularly IS everyday life, and if it is meaningful, I tell her.

Now that I have put that out there, I ask that you comment on it with the understanding that I AM willing to listen and learn. Whatever I need to do to provide love, safety and connection with frozen. That is what I desire. I know I don’t have all the answers.


I mentioned filters above. Am I hard to know? Or am I hard to trust. And am I hard to trust because I carried on a big fat lie for 18 months or because I am a pathological liar? Am I the kind of man that would tell her the sun is NOT up at noon during the day when right there it is?



Fearing, yet again I will make clear my lack of intelligence, can you explain this remark too?


Or… maybe… I am trying to get to a better me the only way I know how. Again, I am wondering how this is manipulative. Is it a requirement that I get beating on for a prescribed amount of time before the ‘teach patriot’ portion of the discussion can begin? In my home, Froz thinks that due to my charm or other attribute, people just like me. And because she ‘puts it all out there’ she is chastised. Now, I empathize with her totally because I have been places in my life where I did not feel accepted or liked. I have sometimes asked and begged to get hit because I wanted her to feel better that it was not her getting hit… but the truth is I STILL wanted to learn something and I trust in my ability to brush things off if I don’t like the way they were said to me. Possibly an odd form of protection for her, but I saw it as protection nonetheless. Getting the focus on me for a moment so she could take a beating breather. BUT… the underlying idea for me was STILL to learn and grow… and if I could remove the pain of 2X4s from her for a moment… bonus. So two things here… I think the latter is clear but the former might not be. Is it wrong to admit YES! I am WRONG!!! If I truly FEEL like I was wrong? I don’t make it a habit to go around and take blame that is not mine…regardless of popular opinion. One of the reasons I am bad at validation sometimes is because if I FEEL you are wrong, I just can’t back you up. For those of you that think I am the most dishonest person you know… that ought to sound odd. I just can not stand up and say YOU ARE SO RIGHT!!!! when I feel you aren’t. I am learning that frozen’s feelings are real TO HER, but it is a hard step actually, because I want so badly to say THAT IS NOT HOW I SEE IT first, instead of telling her that I understand her feelings are real to her, and that I imagine it feels such and such and THEN bringing my opinion into it.




It is a lie to say I have not done this in my life. I, however, do NOT think it is a pattern. I don’t do this by default. If frozen thinks I am wrong on this statement then I need to hear it from her and then I am VERY willing to correct that. Currently, I don’t think it is default behavior.


How have I shown I have good people skills? Just a curious question. I agree with the idea though because a lawyer that lies all day probably has a hard time NOT doing it at home at night. But I think that an extreme case. Can one not be just nice to people and it not be seen as CA, or fake, or a lie?

The truth is I am willing to listen to opinions and make intelligent choices about those opinions. Your time will not be wasted, I believe. If you point something out and I, being open to any idea and have been for a long time, see it as valid, I will certainly give it the consideration it deserves.

I do want to learn. I do want to grow. And I do want THIS marriage.

Thanks for your time… and I kind of apologize for this being quite long….

Arrrrg!

Another LOOONG post declared invalid and *poof* ..no can do.

I'll have to do it point by point Patriot..be patient with me.

First I want to say thank you for reaching out to my wife and talking to her. Actually, thank you to any and all people that do. Regardless of public, or not, opinion… I am generally a happy person, content with things going on in my life and I value an amount of normalcy and optimism. Tension has always been an enemy of mine and I unfortunately did learn some shady tactics attempting to make tension remove itself from my life. But, I also learned some healthy, caring ones. I admit, however, that shady tactics, like sugarcoating, outright lying and subversion produce much quicker results. In survival mode, usually the shortest distance between two points wins, in my experience. That said, I don’t see it as license to do it. I am just saying that I see the roadbump that way and that I then make the choice to NOT negotiate the obstacle using the easy wrong. I have made mistakes where this is concerned. I imagine, we all have our demons for one reason or another. I am working on mine.



I will focus on one word here. Waiting. That is not an action word. How is waiting going to get anything done?

Exactly.

Not to insult you, and maybe there is more to this explanation, but how can anyone wait and think it will change anything? Waiting never fixed anything that was broken. Waiting allows things that work, work. Why focus on this? I hear this word a lot. Waiting. Waiting for me. Waiting for this or that. I just don’t see waiting as an action. Something you can stand behind and say “well.. I did this” and derive some sense of accomplishment for doing one’s part. I would extend that in a marriage, you often have to do more than your part.

I may be misreading you here..but it seems you missed the part of the post in front that said that waiting was what held me back?

I follow that idea with this. For a time in my relationship with frozen, I was not doing my part. I was destroying. I admit that. Now, a time came when a decision was made based on the facts at hand and WE decided that WE wanted to work on this marriage. In my mind, regardless of my faults, she BOUGHT the relationship back. She reclaimed responsibility in it. The window from DDay to this decision was her time to drop the whole thing like a hot potato and send me packing with all responsibility of the relationship failure squarely on MY shoulders. 100% all mine. Once she bought the relationship back, she accepted responsibility for the outcome again. Why bring this up? Because buying the relationship back and then waiting doesn’t sound like following words with action. “Waiting” so one can say I did something and it still failed all because of you. Waiting isn’t doing anything.

An admirable approach..but not the one Frozen took. She didn't commit to this Patriot. She rode in weak and reluctant on your tide. In order for recovery to happen..these are some things she will perhaps commit to..but they are by no means past tense.

Is changing in a big way required?

I certainly don't think so.

This passage also sounds familiar to me because it speaks of wanting the ‘AHA!’ moment and not getting it. Why must there be an AHA! moment? Does the lack of one mean recovery has not occurred?

Waiting for one means recovery has not occured.

Who decides this standard?

Apparently Frozen does.

I must tell you there has never been a discussion in my house about lack of an AHA moment being a boundary. A showstopper, if you will. Maybe I am being sarcastic a bit, but I do truly want to understand this. What if the A was a bad moral decision and not a deep seeded character flaw?

What if it was both working together?

Will there still be significant change to notice? Also… something that occurred to me, relative to regaining trust, is that the only way to seemingly regain trust is to NOT be dishonest.

I disagree..I think that in order for a person to regain the ability to trust they have to perceive themselves as being able to survive another blow. If they don't believe this then regardless of the actions on the part of the other person they can't afford to take the risk.

Not the presence of honesty, because if honesty exists, how do you know? Check emails? Be accountable? These investigation tactic only produce “lack of dishonesty with the possibility of you being smarter and using other means” responses in my home.

Agree..no way to fly.

Dishonesty you can put your teeth into. Dishonesty triggers this AHA in my mind. I caught you! AHA!

Agree.

Yet, I have no recollection of AHA, you told the truth.

They come..but very much in retrospect..they do not have the immediate gratification quality that produces the AHA!

It seems the long road to truth is history. A timeframe, of significant value, with the absence of dishonesty becomes honesty. THAT certainly does not sound like it has an AHA attached to it… much like you described the subtle changes above.

Yup.

[

Such a short powerful statement. Only person you can control is you. I decide what MY boundaries are. All of that. I think this is linked to the other portions I have quoted from you above, but I am not certain how. Can you explain? Does it mean you saw that waiting was getting nothing done? (my thinking from above that I am open to change because I truly want to grow… meaning I wonder if it means that… but I don’t KNOW it means that)

It means that my issues in recovery were about ME and not about H or his A.



And how did you best address THIS issue? Not everything frozen dislikes about me means I am going to hurt her. Maybe I burp all the time and this is an annoying habit. It does not mean I will cheat on her. I don’t know exactly my point, but I am very curious how you have dealt with this kind of situation. This seems like a good learning point.

It comes down to being hale and hardy enough to believe that I can afford the risk. I no longer take his affair personally. Honestly it doesn't even hurt anymore. I don't feel threatened beyond what I am willing to tolerate by personality traits that I believe *could* contribute to another A [notice I did not say behavior]..and even if we do not make it as a couple in the long scheme of things I will not regard my time as having been wasted. It takes a lot of work to get to this place..no one could do it for me or even help. With that frame of mind..I could care less if he burps or farts or leaves his towel on the floor.

Here is your foolproof solution. SInce this has happened to you more than once, I will extend it without being requested.

Microsoft word (or your other favorite word processing program) is your friend. I simply cut and paste all from MB I wish to quote into the document. Then I use tags to quote it like [ quote ] without the spaces and [ /quote ] without spaces to end it.

And then I go to town.

Just an idear. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Thanks for the responses. I am letting some of it sink in for a minute... Just want to make sure I 'get it'.

Get back to you in a few.

I'll finish up after the kids are asleep..hard to concentrate with one dangling off of each arm.

Froz

If you are reading along - Noodle is making some very good points...it's where Sprint had to get to as well in order for us to really recover, and me as well. and we still work at it each day.

Would you like me to ask him as a favor to talk to you?

Patriot - would you be okay with it - I think if Sprint is willing to - he might be able to really help Froz out.

noodle,
Shall I try again? This assistance? Or are you pulling my chain and you have it under control? I am ever the IT professional and I CAN NOT have poor souls wandering the dark, dank streets under the information superhighway without understanding the power of the 'right' click.

You see.... I had to learn that there was no spoon.... (really stupid Matrix joke...)

No..sadly serious.

Seriously sad when it come to computor....stuff.

Ok. You ever used Microsoft Word? Do you have it?

I imagine you do. If you have an Apple, then all bets are off... I am no Apple wiz.

Open word and type your post in that. then just highlight all of it, right click, select cut, open the window you have MB in and right click with the pointer in the area you would normally type your post and select paste.

That should be about it. If you truly didn't need this help, then I am an idiot. Just trying to help.

You can do the same with a notepad on an apple <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I admit I am confused here a little. How would you look at this instance? That it was just my nasty habits making themselves seen again? If so, is this boundary crossing?

As a personality clash. You have these tools in your toolbox that allow you to chose how and when you will respond. That isn't a bad thing by the way. It's a neutral skill. *However*..you have USED these skills to deceive her in the past..Froz doesn't trust herself to be able to distinguish between the tool itself and its application. Make sense?


Manipulative? How?

It is manipulative because you have an agenda..and the ability to mold or manipulate the environment to suite that agenda. You have an ability to predict that if you do X..Y will be the result..since Y is the desired result you do X. It makes sense..but still leaves Froz feeling played..and she was.

In my mind, being manipulative contains an amount of deviousness gain to it.

Free your mind and absorb the true definition of the word. See how very well it fits.

I was trying to be a caring husband, truly. I did not choose the best action. Was it the worst action? No. NOT telling her at all and then just waiting to see if in a few months an 18 yo girl started walking around with an unexplainable pot belly and then telling her, or not and killing intimacy with my silence, was the worst. I did not do that. But, I did not choose the best either. Certainly not a black and white issue.

I think your intent is irrelevent with regard to this issue. Froz objects to the method..it freaks her out.


I admit that I am not a complete open book. I say that with the standard, in my mind, being ANY AND ALL things that run through my head become verbalized immediately. Now, lets look at that a minute. I would look like an autistic child if I did that. Short example. I have prayed to God, eyes closed, and while I was ‘speaking’ to God in my head have had evil thoughts run through my head. Flashes of killings from movies. The latest news on TV. Worries of money. Random words, filthy or not. Sometimes chaotic thoughts. Sometimes not. All within the confines of me talking to God. Like it was background noise in my head. Am I supposed to regurgitate ALL of this ALL the time? I talked about football and other sports today with co-workers. Do I cover that? My point, now that I have probably labeled myself the next serial-killer waiting to happen, is that I don’t know about you… but my mind sometimes runs multiple threads hundreds of times in a mere second. And sometimes it does not. Am I supposed to sit her down and talk about all of it? THAT these things happen in my head, I have told her… but the content every single time? Does that make me not transparent? I do have lots of filters? I imagine you work in a professional environment… You have to have filters. If you put it all out there all the time, what would that look like? Imagine this. I watched a rape on a tv program one time. Pick a movie… they have these scenes. Then, my imagination runs and places me in the movie in my mind doing that offense. Do you go telling everyone that? I don’t think so. Do I tell my wife that? If the event or thought was meaningful, then yes. And for me, that is the barometer. Meaningful. Yes, I have LIED about my affair before. Of course I was trying to hide. I did not want her to know. ******, at the time I wanted her to shut up. Anyway I could. But, I don’t apply this idea to everyday life. An affair is not everyday life for me. It is over for me and I am not doing it again. Everything else I do regularly IS everyday life, and if it is meaningful, I tell her.

Now that I have put that out there, I ask that you comment on it with the understanding that I AM willing to listen and learn. Whatever I need to do to provide love, safety and connection with frozen. That is what I desire. I know I don’t have all the answers.

I easily recognize these traits because we share a lot of them. I'm treading on familiar ground here Patriot. The point is not the good uses or need for filters..the point is that they make you unreadable. When Froz is upset..everyone knows it. She's reactive..you aren't..this gives you an advantage..she knows it.


I mentioned filters above. Am I hard to know? Or am I hard to trust. And am I hard to trust because I carried on a big fat lie for 18 months or because I am a pathological liar? Am I the kind of man that would tell her the sun is NOT up at noon during the day when right there it is?

Being hard to know makes you hard to trust. This aspect of your personality gives you a lot in life..but it takes from you also. It will damage your ability to have genuine first response relationship knowledge..because you are always one step ahead of the game. By the time everyone else has the memo you have already processed it and found the angle you think is the best option. She can't judge your reactions because by the time she sees them they have already been processed.