Pep's discussions on Buyer, Renters and Freeloaders got me to reading the book, and some light-bulbs started flashing. I'm trying to work this through in my head, and I'd be grateful for any insight.

I'm beginning to see why I struggled so hard to Buy for such a long time. Buying takes negotiation, and negotiation requires that Party B listens to Party A and is prepared to pay attention to Party A's issues, yes?

Well, negotiation has always been impossible in this marriage. The book has shown me that this has been partly down to H's Freeloading tendency.

But the more important reason is this. H simply cannot escape the gravity of his own self-absorption long enough to pay attention to anyone else's issues (including mine). I feel that I'm in a permanent orbit round a black hole that sucks in every bit of light I beam in his direction.

If I present an issue - no matter how carefully - he invariably focuses on his own sense of hurt that he's 'failed' me.

If I'm triggered and upset, he focuses on his own guilt and pain at having caused my distress. He's never once comforted me through a trigger - I sometimes think he expects me to comfort him through it!

I've rarely found a way to get past this colossal self-absorption to get me into view, apart from threatening to leave (hardly a smart negotiating tactic).

I think I'm beginning to realise that, not only has none of this been about me (standard infidelity truth), but that H is barely aware of me as a hurting and grieving person. All he wants is for me to exist in his life as a comfortable, comforting presence that he can rely on. When I force my own issues into his awareness, he is irritated and impatient.

My IC identified H as being 'a little narcissistic'. He's not grandiose and he doesn't see himself as superior, so I don't think he entirely merits a Narcissist label. But he's certainly someone who lacks much sense of other people's needs and feelings, and takes his own very seriously.

Does someone like this ever change? Is there anything I can do to get my issues 'seen' and paid attention to? If I can only change me, what do I change?

TIA.

TA

I see you are going to counseling. Is he? Or doesn't he see a problem?

TA,

In my experience a person like this doesn't change.

Generally, if a person hasn't sought counseling of their own volition, they are not receptive to any sort of 'counseling-speak', whether it be about you or them.

I don't know what you want to do about it, but I do think there is still value in introspection and work on ones' self. It does tend to have the effect of taking you farther and farther from the person who has no interest in working on self or a relationship, though.

Believer - I was in IC for nearly two years; H did sessions at an addiction clinic and eighteen months of 'ordinary' IC. We were also in MC, off-and-on over about a year. We stopped when I was made redundant and we couldn't afford all this counselling any more.

H's therapy was about the 'big' problem - why he was so sexually incontinent (there was a prostitute addiction also), and his pull towards affairs. I don't think the marriage was even mentioned - it was peripheral to the basic problem, which was him. That seemed sensible to me - his problems were with himself and the marriage was simply a compounding issue.

Now it's over three years later, and I think that I need to assume he is reasonably 'recovered' - at least enough to discuss how we make our marriage work.

I've asked him to consider going back to MC, but what little response I get suggests that he wants to forget that he ever did the things he did, and is scared of being pulled back in by being in a counselling environment. Compartmentalising has been his coping-mechanism-of-choice practically all his life, so it's not surprising he wants to lock the ugly stuff away in a box right now.

The problem that's visible to him is his own shameful behaviour. Any problem I might have with the marriage is an irritant - he simply wants my issue to go away. He doesn't see any problem with the marriage, because it's working for him.

TA

Everlong


H was very determined to 'work out why he was the way he was' - and ploughed through therapy with some determination. I don't think he's resistant to introspection - about himself. If I talk about his issues, he can talk for hours! It's just that His Issues take up his entire introspection capability. Anything beyond that is an irritant.

If I become really frustrated and withdraw - and he thinks the marriage is in danger of ending - then he will step up and do some talking. I think it's at that point that I go wrong. I usually ask him to acknowledge that this is a problem that needs to 'go on the agenda', and he agrees - but within days he's forgotten all about it. If I raise the issue, he complains that I'm impossible to please, and always complaining.

I think a more savvy person would know how to go about keeping it on the agenda.

TA

TA,

I stand corrected.

But if he doesn't want to keep your concerns on the agenda, then he probably is narcissistic. You can't make him care. It isn't you that's going wrong.

Hi,

Other than the sexual addictions and such, you could be describing my H's and my probs almost to the letter. My H actually complains that I'm impossible to please also. One of his more infamous lines is "Why do you have to be negative?" and "Why can't we just talk about the positive stuff?"

Keeping it on the agenda is possible for me, it just doesn't do any good...he will continue to backpeddle out of it. And then I am a nag, no matter how gently I bring it up. I brought up the "recording incident" (H's unadmitted A) for the first time in months and you would have thought that I talk about it every day. Then the more he complains and skirts, the more frustrated and withdrawn I become!


Quote: "I've rarely found a way to get past this colossal self-absorption to get me into view, apart from threatening to leave (hardly a smart negotiating tactic)"

--My bad, I have done this too often. Not right, but the ONLY way I seem to be able to get his attention on me or us.

Qout: "All he wants is for me to exist in his life as a comfortable, comforting presence that he can rely on. When I force my own issues into his awareness, he is irritated and impatient."

He has pretty much told me this, that is all he wants from me...but it's not really. I try to point out that pretty much any woman could fill that.

Quote: "Generally, if a person hasn't sought counseling of their own volition, they are not receptive to any sort of 'counseling-speak', whether it be about you or them."

That is what we have run into, he has lied to MC (pre-A),just won't make the effort.

Quote: "He doesn't see any problem with the marriage, because it's working for him."

EggZactLee

{small voice}Can I have help along with TA? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

jls

With the appropriate change of gender, I could have written this:

“H simply cannot escape the gravity of his own self-absorption long enough to pay attention to anyone else's issues (including mine). I feel that I'm in a permanent orbit round a black hole that sucks in every bit of light I beam in his direction.

If I present an issue - no matter how carefully - he invariably focuses on his own sense of hurt that he's 'failed' me.”

Except for the last four words. Put a period after the word “hurt” and you have FWW.

And this:

“He's certainly someone who lacks much sense of other people's needs and feelings, and takes his own very seriously.”

FWW is the same way. Not overtly Narcissistic but definitely lacking in empathy and with entitlements on steroids.

I recently read an article describing some work researchers did using PET scans to identify an area in the brain that lights up when watching or hearing of someone else in pain, including emotional pain. This area lit up in all subjects except those clinically identified as having a lack of empathy for others. They are now looking into whether these people were born without this organic locus or it atrophied somehow.


”Does someone like this ever change? Is there anything I can do to get my issues 'seen' and paid attention to?”

I think not. I no longer believe they can or will change significantly. Your H and my W did not appear to make mistakes regarding their years of A choices. They did not stumble. They lived a well integrated (and also compartmented) lifestyle for years and years. They knew exactly what they were doing. I am starting to think W’s marrying me was her anomalous mistake, not her LTA.

I was going to ask if your H had addiction issues. Then I read he has had counseling for it.

No, they will not change. But perhaps they can learn to keep their needs, boundaries, thoughts and addictions in check?


Say TA, do you remember starting this post? “A BS Self rescue discussion thread…”

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/sho...true#Post597525


I got a lot out of this thread of yours when I first came lurking to MB. How would you compare your personal recovery now to then? (This question is my real reason for posting.)


With prayers,

How about signing up for a marriage builders weekend symposium ????

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi020_sem.html

Pep

I'd be more than up for it, if we had the money to cross the Atlantic, and if H didn't sneer at 'experts' in any arena...

TA

Aphelion

Gosh, over two years since that thread! And the first thing that strikes me is how...thoughtful...all the posters were. Something seems to have changed around here - perhaps we need to get some of that academic quality back?

How have I changed since then? Well, I can't honestly say I'm happier, just less tender and less vulnerable. But I think this really means that my recovery curve is a lot longer and flatter than I expected. Given how long H lived his double life, I suppose it was never going to be quick and easy to get through the fallout.

My self-esteem is much healthier, though. There are two principle reasons for this:

1. I learned not to invest all my self-esteem in the opinion of a single person (thanks to Pendragon for kicking my butt there).

and

2. I went on a date. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Don't think I've mentioned #2 on the board before...

Back to #1.

Pendragon got me thinking about how much I was dependent on H's view of me to feel good, attractive...'womanly'. The fact that H had professed much stronger admiration of someone else destroyed my sense of being an attractive and valued person. But I made myself look at that, and began to see that a lot depends on what criteria H used to judge attractiveness in a woman. I was assuming that he'd use the same measure as me - integrity and kindness and honesty and generous parenting - so that marking me down was an indictment of me as a human being. But I slowly realised that his measure was something quite different. What he was looking for was to be reflected back to himself in a flattering light. A woman's 'attractiveness' to him was directly proportional to how soft-focused and airbrushed that reflection was. He gave the woman subtle guidelines on what he was looking for (sad little boy, life too hard for him), and rewarded her with compliments and praise if she got the picture 'right'. He punished her with silence or disapproval if she got it wrong or showed signs of an independent opinion. A quick-study OW would be in a much better position to show him a comforting picture than a wife, working in the fluorescent glare of family life.

But I also realised that I'd been working hard for those scraps of praise myself - for years. I'd allowed him to train me just as he trained the OWs. The only way I could get the sense of myself as a desirable and loved wife was to say the right things to him - and I did, contorting my own integrity and honesty to do it.

So I stopped. I forced myself NOT to work for those bits of praise. NOT to pick up my cue and say the required lines. NOT to compromise my own integrity in order to please him. I forced myself to live with the repercussions of that - which were severe. Not only did I not get those crumbs of validation I'd craved, I got instead vilification and expressions of disgust. He loathed me and heaped hatred on me to force me back into the shape he wanted.

I made myself deal with that.

Slowly, I've learned not to hand H the weapon of my need for his approval. It's too tempting for him to use it against me.

Which brings me to #2.

During one particularly difficult exchange, when I'd declined to support H's view of himself as a victimised martyr, his rage exploded in a series of insults. I was nasty, cold, selfish and - this was supposed to be the big gun - he couldn't bear to even think of touching me. I was now physically repulsive too!

I didn't back down.

Shortly afterwards, the phone rang. And, by some bizarre fluke, it was a man asking me out! He was an attractive man I'd known professionally for decades; we shared loads of common interests and had talked about them frequently. His wife had recently left him for another man, and he had a spare ticket to a movie, and...

I wanted to see the film. H had declined to go see it when I'd expressed an interest. So I said yes, I'd love to go.

H, standing next to me, was gobsmacked.

It was, as you might expect, a fairly uncomfortable 'date'. Attractive Man was looking for a love interest to fill the hole in his life, so I made clear up-front that I wasn't in the market, and we just had a pleasant, if slightly awkward evening.

But it reminded me that I wasn't dead in the water as a romantic prospect.

I realised how assiduously H had worked to assure me that life for middle-aged divorcees was lonely and unfulfilling (he was an expert, having shagged a large number of them). He had really done a number on me. But I suddenly saw that there was a market for attractive, intelligent women in their forties and that the future without H held plenty of promise.

This may not have been very MB of me, but that one evening did more for my sense of personal attractiveness than any EN questionnaire...

H has been keen to see movies with me recently.<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

So that's where I am now. I am careful to tell H that I respect or admire things that he does - only when I mean it, and not in the expectation of a 'reward'. I get few compliments from H. When I ask him what, if anything, he values in me, I get no response. I know it's not 'worth' it to him to give his rewards away for nothing. For now, I have to live with that. To have so little invested in my spouse's opinion of me has got to be unhealthy in the long run. A loving couple ought to care what the other thinks about them.

But I'm not about to go back to the old model. We either build a new, healthy way to be together, or we go our separate ways.

Timing is the tough question.

ya think? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

that's a funnee story ... right under his nose ...

Oh, Pep...I could not believe the timing! God did this, has to be...

H stood there with his jaw on the floor, muttering "He's asked you on a date."

Thank you, Lord.

TA, I love that story. Good for you for finding your worth in yourself instead reflected in your H's eyes.

Damn, that hits close to home. My W is exactly same way - finds it difficult to give me compliments or show what she values in me. Her explanation is that if she doesn't see something she likes about me, she'll let me know, other than that I can assume that she likes everything else...

TA,

""I get few compliments from H. When I ask him what, if anything, he values in me, I get no response. I know it's not 'worth' it to him to give his rewards away for nothing.""

20 years of marriage and still the gameplaying is thick as pea soup. Controlling and manipulative or trying to be.

k

TA,

I agree with you regarding the thoughtful posts. There are some truly impressive posters around here. But it does sometimes seem as if quality was better in some sort of academic sense in “the good old days”.

Hah, what do I know? I wasn’t even around in the good old days. I just know I find a lot of very good advice and deep reflection in the archives.

OTOH, you are still a very thoughtful poster. So, all is not lost on MB quite yet.


Apropos your number 1:

I have settled for scraps for most of my M. MC even stated this out loud to the both of us about two months after DDay2. FWW was - what’s the word I need? Amazed? Irritated? Incensed? Adamantly opposed to the very idea? She wanted a D for a week afterwards.

But I have known this about me for a while now - I settle. From way before her LTA started, in fact. She always got whatever she wanted. She always did whatever she wanted. I always took second place to her wants.

FWW’s LTA (and the A I now know of from before that one) was not about missing ENs. I am a darn good H. I met all the ENs a normal human can possibly meet. That’s why she never left, in fact. She bragged early on to MC I would never leave her, nor have an A, no matter what she did.

Well, maybe I’m not such a good H after all. I let her get away with almost anything. I was a textbook enabler of her addictive behaviors out of CA and fear of a D. She used to threaten D a lot, from the very beginning, whenever she had trouble getting her own way. I always caved.

Which brings be to an affirmation of your number 2.

FWW no longer threatens D. After I started the paperwork right after DDay2 and told her I was not afraid of a D any longer, she flipped 180 degrees. She started to try to meet some of my ENs even though she is really bad at it. She has no practice whatsoever, lol. But she never mentions D any more

Now, almost two years later it’s me thinking it.

I agree with you that timing is everything. I am pretty sure I will never feel safe with her. I am pretty sure she will always be pretty much like your H. Neither of them will ever really change. Neither will ever develop empathy.

So, just like you, I now want a plan for beyond recovery. I need a plan for when DS goes to college.

Yet, in the end, I still love her. My LBank has never been insolvent. No matter what happens I think I will always love her. Which is why this is so very hard.

With prayers,

Is it something in our personalities that keeps us loving our S's no matter what? I wonder about that. I wonder why I have tolerated so much and still love my H so deeply. You are a very good man, Appy. TA, very good post.