Does anyone have any comments or suggestions on how to approach a relationship with someone who never says she is sorry. I feel it is like a sign of weakness to her to say so. She is a driven person, with sensitivities to authority figures and is a hard person to get to relax... anybody dealing with something like this?

Do really want relationship with someone like this ?
-rh-

Does she regret what she has done ? Do you really love her or just feel that you need to be with her ?

Do you really mean "never" or do you mean "seldom"? Either way, it seems like a tough situation. What kind of relationship is this? Are you married? For how long? If you provide more details, you are more likely to get advice.

We lived together for 10 years. Never means never...she always explained it off...just a joke, I misunderstood, etc. I was made to feel the one at fault. Her problems with losing face also applied at work, where she had issues with male authority figures.
I am out now for a month, and trying to reconcile the past. I feel she was hard to live with, my friends and family all agree, and with some support, think I can prevent this from happening again, or going back.

wfraser,

I hear that you want to try to reconcile and try to get support here to avoid the disasterous result.

IMVHO you need to search deep down and take a back seat. Find out what the positive and negative of staying out from her and what the positive and negative of coming back. You are out from it keep it that way until you are sure.

Remember it take two person to make R work and one person to break it up. So if she is not willing nor even admitting her issues ... I would flea from her. It is hard enough to make R work w/ willing partner ... take a break, do no contact with her and see if you still want her 6 months from now. Meanwhile learn as much as you can about MB, go out and have fun w/o her.

Basic Concept
General Welcome for All New Builders
Acronyms, Smilies, UBB Codes

Again even you know MB inside out ... you still need her to be willing otherwise you doing the same thing over and over expecting diferent result.

-rh-

Thank you to everyone who took the time to comment. I wanted very bad to make this work...so bad that I put up with alot. A few months away may give another perspective...even though I miss some things about her...I never meant to say it was all bad, just very bad in some ways.

Wow, flee? I have a very different experience. I've been married for 17 years to a man who has said he is sorry four times in that same time span. He wasn't much for saying ILY, either.

I said "sorry" like an M&M maker, one after the other after the other. Both are abusive. Not the hill I chose to kill my marriage on. Doesn't say anything to me about who he is...until we learned to communicate and be safe, we didn't know who each other were.

Know why he said he didn't say sorry? He couldn't admit to making a mistake without being one.

I, on the otherhand, admitted to many mistakes that weren't mind because I believed if I was wrong, I had power to fix it the mistake I was.

We rock. We're having a great recovery and I still believe, if you look at the person you're attempting to replace, instead of yourself, you'll live the relationship again and again, with other people.

Why did you live together for ten years? Why no marriage? Children? All your choices...to put up with a lot or not. To freely made a lot resentments to hold against her for her behavior...is about your own. Been there, been that.

I think it isn't in the choosing your partner, but being a great one yourself.

IMHO 'cuz I lived it,

LA

As I posted above. Take your time and figure out the +/- on both sides. Take your time to learn MB. If you want to try ... learn about plan A. Print a copy of ENQ and LBQ. Fill it out as if she is filling it out. Guess her ENs and her LBs. Start putting it together action plan. It will be a hard work and you have to watch yourself not to become WP (wayward partner).

How interested is she to come back ?. Would she agree to marriage/relationship counseling ?. You know it very well, if you just get together w/o any changes on both sides ... you will end up at the same place.

-rh-

was there an affair

ark

No affair...her son is a problem, involved in illegal stuff...he was cause of his father breaking up with his last 2 girlfriends...and he has turned on me, too. I had spent so much time with him when he was young, it was a shock to me when he made me uncomfortable when he moved back in with us.
She has attended counselling with me, I made it clear I wanted no more criticism (it was constant and unwarrented as well as warrented...and unbearable)or controlling. She even insulted me at the counsellors, and in private the counsellor agreed she had heard it and was wrong. Counsellor told me she would work on her. But, she planned without asking me, to travel to her family during the Superbowl. Yes, she knew I wanted to watch it, but it did not matter. She deliberately ignores me when I ask her to come share with me something interesting, and she does it because she knows it hurts me to see her so disinterested in my interests. And, was not the first time she did something like this. Last summer she told me we were going to her familys for 10 days, without asking. She has shown disrespect for me with insults, too. She said I had fat chest, something hurtful to a former distance runner who has had a bad injury. She has us always with her family, and when I told her to pay more attention to me, she said I was jealous of her family. She tells me I should hug her, but never (I know, those words always and never) hugs me. She pointed out that she had spent more on a xmas gift for me then I did her, tells me how to dress, chew gum, drive and park a car, bar-b-que, wash dishes or peel potatoes, and on. It is like she always has to know better. I have been out a month, and am lost because I had put so much effort in living life under her terms and little on what I wanted to do.

I am a good person, and was during our time together. Everybody here knows it. She makes my friends and family uncomfortable and has tried to isolate me from them. I told the counsellor that her stopping the criticism and controlling behaviour was a dealbreaker...it had to stop. It did not, and after her son moved back in and insulted my cooking, my inability to speak french, and my wanting to get into her will, I left. I had to. Her financial advisor is a golf buddy of mine, and he knows about this, and knows I cannot and would not try such a thing.

I have tried, and the lady above that said I should look to myself is wrong. I am not perfect and have made mistakes, but she was running my life with no respect or regard for me. I am trying to deal with the reality that maybe it cannot be worked out. My 50th is Friday. I will wait to hear if she tries to contact me. If not, I will start making plans to get back my furniture and moving on...the only and best plan I can come up with on my own

Redhat, could you tell me exactly what a wayward partner is?
Thanks

wfraser..

she is a cruel woman..
and she chooses to act thusly...

you do not need that...

you are not married and you would be foolish to stay with her someone this cruel..

if these words were writtin by a woman and mans actions..no one would say go to him...

free yourself from the abuse..
find strength once again in yourself..she has beaten well in to a nice pulp....

but you are not defined by her cruelness...

be free and count your blessings...

no need to wait for your birthday..you have ten past birthdays and atleast one superbowl where she has anwered all your questions...

you can
do better...and
you deserve better when you are free as you are to choose

ARK

a partner that having an affair.

Listen to ark ... a wise one.

-rh-

Happy Birthday a day late, wfraser;

When I said, look to yourself, I meant on how you self-betray. There are steps to stop being abused. They are your choices, your power.

My concern is to take lessons with you. You can stay safe, continue counseling, and find out why you don't create boundaries and enforce them.

And you create and hold resentments...like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die...it can feel like power, to know the exact nature of how you're wronged...resentments continue to inflict injury on you.

You've got a do over at 50...your life again, beginning now. Know your choices. You're worth it. Not because you're good or nice...you are human.

LA

Lovinganyway...Thank you for the Birthday wishes, and also for the comment about why boundaries. I think you are right. But, it is not that I didn't have them, or convey them to her. It was I seemed to have failed to enforce them. In fairness, most people have had a hard time dealing with her, especially her bosses. And, she is very smart and a good arguer. Gradually, I think it snowballed and the more she got used to her behaviour with me, the better she got at justifing and arguing she was right. When I stood up for myself, like the Superbowl thing, she had a tantrum, and expanded the conversation to include other issues, transfering the argument to suit her, or avoiding responsibility altogether...in order to avoid acknowledging fault.

And, I do think there is resentment on my part. I rehash her words and other displays of disrespect, but still look for ways I may have deserved it...which is not true, really. I know...because smart people have told me so. Such is her power over me. I seemed to have lost myself in this relationship...as I said, I tried too hard. Or, maybe tried too hard in the wrong way.

Maybe the time away will be good for me, but maybe not so for the relationship. I cannot go back in time when she used to wave goodbye to me from the window, or join in with me when I cheered against Tiger Woods on the TV. She has not done that for awhile, and maybe nothing I do can ever change things back. But, maybe I should try a new haircut as a start...

Wfraser,

Keep posting. Please. Your posts are really about you and your journey, not her. Not the relationship. You.

Stuff I've learned:

People cannot avoid their responsibility...they may attempt to.

Things can't be explained away. Things remain.

Accepting others' beliefs as the basis for yours will net you insanity. They say she is like this, so she is. That you believe she is like this is enough.

When you focus on her and not you, then the next person you encounter who seems the opposite of her, soft spoken, agreeable, says sorry all the time, owns what isn't hers, tells you that you deserve all the goodness in the world, that you deserved better and treats you as well...will equally cross your boundaries, abuse you and you will end up in the same relationship again.

Why?

Because you are the factor, not them, that determines the results.

Get that haircut, wfraser...and as you sit in the chair, let go an old belief that was yours, put there by others, with each hair that falls. Redesign yourself by choosing your beliefs, knowing your thoughts and feelings and stating them.

You're right...you had boundaries you didn't enforce. Own that as your part. Write down and know consciously your boundaries and find out if they are reasonable, about you, not expectations of others, and make sure they match your standards.

Then you will meet and fall in love with someone who has similar standards--primary one, that their intent is to hold to their code, not your manipulation. And you'll stop manipulating also.

LA