Just read a post where a BS, who is considering leaving her WS is talking about her difficulty with forgiveness.

Our struggles and endeavors say show much about who we are and where we want to go. Our struggles are an intimate facet of who we are, and often share what we need the most. Our struggles contain our dreams and hopes and desires.

How many people use this board as a way to explore their struggles privately? How many people use this board as a way to struggle behind closed doors, excluding a spouse or a loved one?

The spouse who is thinking of leaving her husband gave some very good advice to someone else on her thread. She wrote:

We all need to not just explore our vulnerabilities but communicate them with our spouse and let our spouse understand us and accept us.

How many people desire to be "naturally perfect" and "low maintenance" that they hide their soul from their spouse?

How many people prevent their spouse from understanding them by hiding their struggles?

Where do you take your struggles?

Loy,

I find your post to be very interesting.



When you try to be "naturally perfect", you are trying to guess what someone else wants and mimick that...wrap it all up in a nice package with pretty wrapping and a bow and present it to them.

It's fake, it isn't real, and it's intimacy avoidance. That behavior robs your spouse from being able to meet your needs and sharing your life with them - because personal struggles are intimate and part of your life.

It makes me very angry.

Frozen,

I think a lot of people focus on how hard are they "trying" in their marriage and give themselves credit for that. They choose to measure their effort verses measuring their honesty.

I have been so afraid of dissapointing others that I have tried to avoid all confrontation. One way I do that is by trying to be perfect. People won't be mad at me or dissapointed in me if they can't find something to complain about.

This was how I manipulated the situation to avoid confrontation.

This was how I manipulated the situation to control others.

I know that when I feel attacked or insecure, this is how I have tried to cope. And this is also the same time where I tend to avoid risks and creativity.

Being able to share thyself is so crutial to knowing theyself.

Loy,

How did you stop?

lOY

One of the things I am trying to change is my need to act perfect. I have been doing some reading on this and found analogy where they compared a person who tried to act perfect to a robot. A robot shows no emotion and feeling and an human acting that way cold come across as cold. Sometimes it is our faults that make us who we are,interesting and what people love us for.

Froz,

How did I stop?

When I was a teenager I said the word "like" all the time. Like, I could, like, use the word several times in a sentance and not even know I had used it.

I didn't correct this silly problem until my dad started counting on his fingers how many times I was using the word in a conversation. I wouldn't notice until he had up 5 fingers, and then I was amazed that I couldn't stop using that word. It was worse than "um" for me. The fact that I was aware that my dad was counting likes, and I still made the mistake was frusterating. It was a conversation crutch for me.

So, you have to become aware of yourself and be willing to address how you get by, or cope.

We all want to hide. We are Adam and Eve. So how do you hide from life and responsibility?

Do you turn from others? Toward others?
Do you turn to excitement? Do you hide in resentment? Do you hide in blame?

What cop out to life's challenges do you cling to?

Becoming self-aware is very 4 dimensional.

Trying,

Sometimes I want to be perfect so I don't let others down. That is very hard for me to see because then I am doing it for others.

Of course, sometimes what I am doing for others is so that they will love me. Other times I am doing it so they will be happy. Sometimes I do it to ease their burned. But somewhere in here my desire to assist lost touch with reality.

Understanding that I can't make everything better for some people means, that I am not all powerful. That I am week. That I should respect people enough to let them feel the full weight of their responsibility and love them regardless of how they feel about me.

I know that I struggle with this one.

Loving my spouse is so difficult sometimes because he is the closest person to myself that I know. If I don't love myself properly, how can I love him properly?

When I think about how I love my siblings and how I love my parents, and daughters - compared to how I love my husband... it's different.

I feel that I will always love them and that they will always love me. I allow them so much more room for failure.

But I do not allow myself room for failure. I have not had a lot of love for myself. And this is relected in my relationship with my husband. It prevents me from feeling his love I think.

If his affair confirmed all of my fears that I was unloveable, then that means I look to him for validation that I am loveable. I don't look to my family for that. I just am with them.

How does God want me to grow? I think our marriages are a vehicle for growth toward God. When you hide from your marriage you are also hiding from yourself and from God.

If you hide from one of these crutial relationships, you are hiding from them all.

Interesting.