This is really interesting.

Could you give an example of a conversation like this?



I don't believe you can keep resentments at bay.

Can you state a resentment that you have that you think you keep 'at bay'?



I see resentments coming from having expectations that have not been fulfilled.

I see expectations coming from feelings of entitlement, not from a desire to control another person.




I don't understand what you are saying here.

How do you know OM sees her as you do?

Does he judge and assume stuff about her?

Or does he accept her, pretty much as she is?


This is all a DJ, Muddle.

You do not belong in her stuff.

This is why I asked you if she felt accepted by you.

Is it possible to feel accepted when someone is judging and assuming stuff about you?

~ Marsh

Of course she got angry.

You weren't mirroring, you were telling.

If you want to understand what she's feeling, let her tell you.



Still, it sucks.

Did you tell her, you understood her frustration?

Or did you remind her that this is how it always is?

...what did she expect?



Why not?



Was she angry that you were talking to an old friend or was she angry about something else?



Stormed out?

Do you see the DJ in that description?

Why couldn't your mother follow after your WW to say goodbye to her grandson?



And that is her right, isn't it?

Her choice.



You tried not to give counter arguments???

By telling her, you were sure your father wasn't trying to snub her???

That's not validating. That's not listening.


She felt mistreated, judged, and unaccepted by your family.

I don't blame her for not wanting to return.

If you wish her to join you in visiting your family again, I'd start by truly validating her feelings.

And then ask her what, if anything, you can do make the visit more pleasant for her.

Maybe suggest that you stay in a motel, rather then at your family's home.



Lots of DJs here.



More DJs.



Please stop evaluating her choices.



Ouch! Very big DJ to yourself.

Does telling a lie make you a liar?

Or does it make you a human being who told a lie?

Don't allow yourself to DJ yourself.

What you do to yourself, you do to others.

What you do to others, you do to yourself.



Great catch.

You need to be honest....not just for your WW's sake,or your M's sake, but for your own too.

You could have sent your son out of the room and answered your WW.

Or you could have told her, you'd discuss this w/ her later.

Did you correct this w/ your WW later?



Her choice.



Did you repeat back to her what she was saying?

You: I hear you saying that you think it doesn't matter what you think, is this correct?

Her: No, I'm saying, it doesn't matter to YOU what I think.

You: Oh, you believe I don't care what you think, is THAT correct?

Her: Yes.

You: Is there something I did or didn't do that caused you to assume this is what I think?

Her: Yes, XYZ...

You: Thankyou so much for sharing w/ me what you are thinking. I really want to understand you better, and your willingness to explain this to me helps me alot.

THE END.



DJ

Why didn't you tell her the truth?

Share w/ her your frustration and unhappiness?



Did you repeat back to her, what she was saying?

"I hear you saying I should know what you want me to do today w/o your telling me, is this correct?"

Seek to understand.

Repeat for clarification.

~ Marsh

OK – your point is well taken, and even though I know this all to be true, I haven’t really been living it. This is a complaint my W has about me – that my actions are inconsistent with my intentions. I know that I can only change myself, that I’m responsible for my choices alone, and that evaluating someone else’s choices is simply a way of avoiding responsibility for my own (or at least a distraction from it). Part of the problem is that my W complains that I don’t know her well enough – that I should know things about her, her wants, needs, etc – so I guess I am in a position where I am not really safe to ask her. Not an excuse though – just an evaluation of my position. I do have my code, maybe it’s not as solid and rigid as it could be, but it’s there, and I do well by it.

Yes, I have been focusing on evaluating my choices and actions by my own standards. This has been a part of my attempt to understand and fix my part in the issues that exist in the relationship. It’s interesting that you call this all disrespectful. I’m not disagreeing with you (because I do see issues with respect in the relationship and myself), but I found myself responding to your posts with “I can see that I’m being judgmental, but I don’t see where my judgment is disrespectful.”
Are you baiting me? Trying to get me to make a judgment call about what’s going on in my W’s head? LOL
A little of both. I have the empathic pain of seeing her hurt, and I do feel somewhat responsible for being a part of the frustration that brought her to the point where she’s taking it out on herself. I’m not responsible for her choice to take out her frustration the way she does, but I’m somewhat responsible for what brought her to that point. Similarly, I’m responsible for the state of the marriage that allowed for the affair, but not for the choice to have the affair itself. It’s also that it seems such an unhealthy thing to injure yourself – and I think this is my judgment again.
[quoteHave you ever walked away from her when she's scratching her face?

Have you ever asked her about this behavior in a peaceful moment?

...asked her why she scratches her face in this way?

...asked her what needs to happen for her to give herself permission to do this to her face?
[/quote]
No – I recoil, judge and leave it there. I should communicate my feelings and talk about it.

I think this has more to do with wanting to be appreciated. I give and I give, yet I feel like I’m never appreciated. It’s never good enough. I never accomplish what she thinks I should. I often feel like if I just change a little here or there I’ll satisfy her, but no matter what I do, it doesn’t. My giving is from my heart – but it’s never appreciated as that. I appreciate it for what it is, and it feels good to give, but I want my W to see the positive in it all too. I want her to make it real on both sides of the fence. Otherwise I’m a fraud. All I have to do is believe I’m doing good for it to be real in my reality – but if she doesn’t believe it too, than I’m lying to myself, or I could be and wouldn’t know it.
I agree – I need to let her communicate rather than trying to figure it out from her cues. I’m not sure whether she feels shame about feeling angry.
I was mirroring here. Maybe I’m doing a poor job explaining it here, but she told me how she was feeling and what made her feel that way. I was paraphrasing her explanation.
This is something that we’ve addressed in therapy to some degree or another. My W asks me questions that are somewhat yes/no and my opinion doesn’t fall into either category. She’s doesn’t seem to want to hear my side, rather she tries to put me into an either/or box. I try and explain that and a fact in my explanation falls into a box, so she points this out, showing me that I am agreeing with that point, yet I won’t commit to living in that box she set up. In our discussion in therapy, the therapist pointed out to my W that she saw that I had reason to feel like I was being baited, like my W was trying to trap me. I liken it to something that happens at my job where the upper mgmt will ask for bits and pieces of information to make inferences and decisions from without allowing the person that works with these details to answer the question. But my W claims that she’s just trying to understand and that if I were to just answer the question as if it’s really all she wanted to know rather than read some kind of intention into it, it would likely end there.
Come to think of it, this is somewhat a theme in my life. I don’t like to be boxed in. I often reject labels that are put on me. I don’t identify myself as anything, but rather as someone who does something. So, this is a clear point where I am not treating my W as I want to be treated.
No, if I were keeping a particular resentment at bay, I wouldn’t be keeping resentment at bay. I manage resentment as an issue by managing my expectations. If something doesn’t happen the way I expect it to, then all I can do is change my expectations if I can’t control the situation.
You see me feeling entitled? What are you picking up on as resentments? I think the entitlement issue is somewhat true because I think that we agreed to something that’s not being upheld by my W. I know that she feels this way too to some extent.

This is somewhat complicated. I accept my W, and always have. I have never made giving my love contingent on her meeting my expectations, on my judging her as worthy of it. It’s only recently, since all this has started that I turned on her with my judgment. It’s my response to this that has changed me into someone undesirable – in the beginning, she was struggling, torn, because we were both viable options to her to some degree.
What’s the judgment here? She told me that she feels like it’s always there in my view of her. Is it disrespectful for me to question whether it’s her own guilt that’s causing her to feel like that? I’m not sure what’s the DJ here. Would you clarify?

I told her I understood her frustration. I didn’t tell her that she’s making something out of nothing. I told her that she had good reason to be frustrated. It’s inconsiderate of my family to act the way they do.
Later she told me that she remembered that she had a lot to do once we got home while we were in church and she got anxious. She was overwhelmed from the day and this anxiety on top of it put her over the top.
Yes, she stormed out. I’m not sure I see the DJ here. I know I’m making an assumption and labeling her actions, but some things are what they are, right? She forcefully ran out.
My mother is older, had a hip replacement, didn’t have a coat on. She physically couldn’t.
Of course it is. There’s no judgment here, just a description of what she did. I didn’t try and pull it out of her, I let her be. She’d talk to me when she was ready to.
I made one statement about my father. I know she felt like I was protecting him because of it. But I was good about everything else. I listened, I understood where she was coming from, I told her this. Again, I’m sure that my description isn’t doing me justice.
Yes she did, and I don’t blame her either. I support her. I communicated this, and I also conveyed to her that I want to be a part of any solution, any way to make her more comfortable. We don’t stay there, we live only a half hour away. My problem is that I have a hard time not feeling like I have to pick apart how screwed up my family is or hurt my W by not. I haven’t been able to find any middle ground where I can be loyal to everyone that I love.
Yes, I have been starting here, but this is not so easy for me. I have lived as an outsider for most of my life. It’s a huge paradigm shift, something I have a feeling that I’m going to need a good deal of therapy for. I think this is where my propensity to judge comes from – I have the sense that by observing and judging I am interacting with the group, that I’m a part of things.
Interesting catch. This is something that I’m well aware of – the distinction between the actor and the act. I think sometimes it takes something more forceful that recognizing that I acted badly to force myself to change. It’s easy to forgive myself for a mistake, but I don’t want to BE someone whose character is defined by routinely making said mistake. Also, good point about the reciprocal nature of perspective. I try to live by this, and I’m very aware that what I see in others exists in myself – but the trouble is I defend my criticism of my W by criticizing myself. Not good for either of us.
I told her that I wanted to discuss it later because I didn’t think it was good to talk about this in front of our son. She responded by mocking me and telling me that she had to obey the wishes of the king of the family.

I did tell her later of my reasoning.

No question, but she uses this later to prove that I’m inattentive to her needs.

hey MT, have been meaning to check in on you. how goes it? I am wondering of you saw Ark's posting on being still. it was really helpful to me. may help you as well.

also, sounds like you and your WW are bouncing off one another. look up on passive aggressive behavior, I don't remember which link, but it was validating as well.

Marsh, you are a wealth of information. your view point is eye opening and thought provoking. on your idea of expectation being part of entitlement...hmmm. I guess when you expect someone to act in a certain way (committed) and they fall short of that (betrayal) you do feel that sense of entitlement ripped away. Should we not expect a spouse to be faithful? Should we not feel that entitlement. After the betrayal I do understand the letting go has to occur for everyone to move past the offense. But shouldn’t we be allowed to mourn that disappointment?? Is it wrong to ever feel like you deserve something worthy from the person you chose to spend your life with?? Just food for thought.

MT, I had an interesting weekend with my WS, she is moving out next week. But this weekend for the first time, we had a really good conversation. I typically follow your path ie: assess, assign, direct the conversation, judge, give my input. And I do have to say, it was really hard, and I know I didn’t do everything right, but I did better than I usually do. I will try to give you an example

WS “ you always let me get away with not sharing my feelings, OP doesn’t let me get away with that”
BS “really, I thought I was being respectful by giving you space, how does that work with OP?”
WS “when I say ‘I don’t know’ you usually let it go, but OP says ‘no, you feel something what is it?’ I am forced to communicate when I don’t feel comfortable”
BS “I wasn’t aware you felt that way, thank you for sharing.
After this conversation, I made a point of being aware of my WS thoughts on anything. even the kitchen sink. It actually got to be funny. I would ask “what do you think of the color of these dishes” WS ‘I don’t know’ BS “oh, yes, I know you have an opinion”
Then we would laugh. Took a lot of tension out.

We actually talked for an hour on sun and an hour on mon. my WS and I really connected. What I did was keep saying over and over in my head “shut the **** up” whenever I would want to interrupt, talk over her, explain myself, defend myself, tell her how I thought she was feeling, tell her why I thought she was feeling that way. When I couldn’t help myself I chose to rearrange my thoughts and form them in a question. The difference between my usual “I think you feel abcd, because of your parents abandoning you in your childhood.” turned into “why do you think you are so afraid to let your feelings out?” or “do you think your childhood plays a part in that?” instead of making a statement I asked a question. A statement doesn’t require a response.

I am finding out how hard it is to really learn to listen. Everytime my Ws talks my head starts spinning. I tried to pause for 10 seconds without responding to each statement she made, and I found that if I didn’t jump right in, she would sometimes pick up and speak some more. I have never really listened to her this well. It really made a difference. Give it a try.

Thanks for checking in Fighting - it goes fairly well. I was on vacation most of last week and spent a lot of time with the family, which was for the most part quite nice. WW seemed to enjoy spending time with me too, despite her anxiety and dread beforehand. We had some good talks too.

I too have been aware of how I'm talking with my W and haven't been making some of the mistakes I was previously. I have been very careful about putting words in her mouth, and I've been careful not to react to what she says. I have noticed that I make a judgement about what something means to me (in terms of what is a healthy way to think about something) and I tend to respond to my W in a somewhat condescending way. I guess it's because I somehow think I have knowledge that she doesn't - and that she needs in order to get over what ails her. Nothing's wrong with her that I can fix - I need to just accept her as she is. I have been really focusing on this: not resisting her because of the conflict between what I judge to be right and how she's acting. This has been working. It's amazing that it's taken me this long to see that I do this. It's got to be really uncomfortable to be in her shoes. Lots of assumptions here, but I'm finally looking at myself in such a way that I can see what my W complains about.

I like your approach - taking the statement out of it and making it a question. It causes interaction, which is always good, and it removes the opportunity for assumptions. I will try this too.

Good awareness, about avoiding owning your stuff, by looking at hers.



What do you mean you aren't in a position where you feel safe to ask her about her wants and needs?




I know you have a code. I was just wondering if it was a clearly defined one.

I saw in your other post where you said you didn't like to be labeled or defined.

I see that as a need to be respected.

..allowed to be who you are, and allowed to define yourself, your thoughts, and your beliefs.

If you choose to be respectful as your code... not, to act respectful, but to BE respectful...

Will you allow yourself to DJ yourself or others?



How are you showing respect for your WW when you label her, and assume stuff about her?

Do you feel respected by her, when she does this to you?




I believe you are just making a joke here, but just to be extra sure that you understand what I was trying to say, the answer is no, I wasn't trying to bait you.

I was just throwing out alternative ways she may have been thinking, to help you realize that unless she tells you why she is angry, you really don't know.



It is her choice to scratch her face. Not yours.

She is responsible to acting out her frustrations in this way.


Are you saying you are somewhat responsible for her feelings of frustration/anger?


No, you are 50% responsible for the state of your marriage. Also, it wasn't the state of the M that allowed for the A, it was your WW that allowed it.



Yes, but not a disrespectful judgment.


I think it would be helpful to discuss her scratching her face in a quiet moment.

I'd ask her if you could talk about it w/ her sometime.

Yes, I'd share your feelings. Tell her how you feel when you see her do it.

But, I would also ask her why she thinks she does this.

And what has to happen for her to give herself permission to do this.

Seek to understand. Share how you feel.

~ Marsh

Wanting or expecting?



Does she use those words? " What you do is never good enough."?

Or is this how you are interpreting her complaints?




Huh?

Your WW can make you a fraud by not seeing what you do as a token of your love for her?

Wow!

No wonder it's so important to you that she appreciates you. If she doesn't, she has the power to make you a fraud???



Sounds like she wants to define you.



Right. You are both doing this to each other.

And when you define eachother, you've just reduced the wonderful people you both are into mere labels.

Ouch!



No, I didn't say I saw you as feeling entitled.


I'm not.

The only reason I know you have resentments is b/c you told me you did.

I was just speaking in a general way about resentments.

I resented the service I received at the bank, I resented my DH for not appreciating the effort I put into preparing dinner, I resented the children when they argued w/ me....

I didn't expect to have such a hassle at the bank, I expected my DH to admire the dinner I made, I expected my children would always agree w/ me, ect...

If I continue to make expectations that will turn into resentments then I'll feel entitled to try to get even or take what isn't mine.

First comes the expectation...

Then comes the resentment...

Then feelings of entitlement




Are you sure, Muddle?

Are you certain that you never judged her thoughts, beliefs, actions before the A?

I only ask, b/c I've judged others stuff all my life. And I judged the crap out of myself.

I also ask this b/c I think it's important for you to figure out what EN's OM has been meeting that you weren't.

I think acceptance is a part of admiration. I don't see how she could have felt accepted by you when you were judging her stuff.

I want YOU to gain the advantage over OM.

I want you to meet her ENs.

I believe if you will give up judging her and choose to accept her, you will make HUGE deposits in her love bank.

And she will return the favor.




OUCH!

HUGE DJ!!!

You're someone undesirable?




What do you think?

How does this 'questioning' open up an opportunity to connect w/ her?

How is it respectful?

She tells you that she believes the A is blocking your vision to see what's missing from the marriage, and you ask her if she believes it b/c she has guilt.

How does that question make her feel heard?



Right.

I bet she also expected you to remember that she had alot to do, and out of consideration for her, she expected that you would cut your conversation short.

Expectation leads to resentment.

When you understood her thought process, you could understand her anger in the church better, right?



She may have described what she did, as fleeing.

You described it as storming.

The truth was, she left in a hurry...or left upset.


OK, but, was there another way your mother could have had a chance to say good bye to her grandson?

Could you have brought him back inside?

Work w/ me here.



It's not a matter of being 'good' or not.

It's about being aware.

There's no 'badness' in not seeing something.



Your acknowledging your WW's feelings of rejection does NOT require you to believe your family is screwed up. They aren't monsters, and your WW isn't an angel. Nor is your family angels and your wife a monster.

Both sides feelings are legitimate.

I can imagine how disappointed your mother was that she didn't get to say good bye to her grandson. I can understand if they feel anger and resentment towards your WW b/c of her choice to have the A.

The way you can be loyal to everyone is by letting them know that their feelings about the situation make sense. There is nothing wrong w/ the way they feel.

Respect.



If you choose to be respectful, you won't allow yourself to DJ yourself or others.

You'll become aware of them, and stop them cold in your mind.

I think you'll be surprised at how easy this is to do.

Choose clarity, not judgment.

Awareness not assessment.



I found that when I judged, it helped me to emotionally detach from others who I thought might hurt me.

And I found that what I did to others, I did to myself...detach from me.

Ouch!

I wanted to be accepting of myself and of others.

I wanted to be loving.

But, how could I be loving when I kept judging everyone?



Does judging yourself in this severe way REALLY help to force you to change?



Would you consider what you see in yourself and others isn't deserving of a DJ?

What's your payoff for judging your WW and yourself?



Good for you.

What did she say after you told her your reasoning?



She can't prove that you're inattentive to her needs by using this as an example.

She can use it to support HER truth, but not THE truth.

~ Marsh

I'm sorry, FB, I think I messed up what I was trying to say about this.

Let me clarify...

We expect...then when others or ourselves fail to live up to our expectations we resent...

If we continue to make more expectations that will lead to more resentments then we will begin to have feelings of entitlement.

~ Marsh

Happy New Year! Just wanted to pop in and wish you the best for the year to come!

Thinking of you and backing you up! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

rin

Happy New Year to you too, Rin! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

~ Marsh

I’m allowing my actions to be defined by my W’s responses – by my expectations of her responses. I’m letting her control me, but I’m controlling her by anticipating what she’s going to do to control me. There’s history to back up my reasoning, but this whole approach is unhealthy – from both sides.

You’re right. Sincerity is important, and often I seem to lack this. I think it comes from what I eluded to above, the power struggle. I’m struggling to be allowed to be me – something that nobody can allow me to be but myself. Why struggle? Just be, and if my boundaries are disrespected, state this and move on. But this has to be reciprocal – I’m looking at my W in an adversarial way because of my labeling. My response to my fear, my feeling threatened, is to blame the person nearest when I feel this way for making me feel this way. The line is blurry though between truly being abused and playing the role of victim as a way of gaining control. I don’t think I do this, but the fact that I engage in the struggle means that I do. I need to be consistent in fighting fair.
Well yes. She doesn’t get what she expects out of the interaction – what she thinks she has a legitimate claim to. What she’s entitled to. So she gets frustrated with me (I know this is her issue – not something I can own, but I am still a part of it). I think my fear that she’s using the fact that she associates frustration with me and uses it as a reason to want out of the marriage gives me reason to want to take it on as my issue though – because I want the marriage to get its best chance and this issue seems to be preventing that.
Yes, I know 50%.
I will do this.


I think wanting. These days I don’t expect much of anything.
I’m interpreting it this way from the endless criticism about how I’m always doing things wrong. She gets on my case because I don’t just accept her way of doing things but I like to independently come to my own conclusion. Sometimes I agree with her way, sometimes not. It seems to me that she feels invalidated when I don’t immediately agree with her way (when I’m the one doing the doing), so I have tried to give a bit – but it’s a part of me to try to do things (especially mechanical things) the best way possible. For example, loading the dishwasher, I oriented things differently in the rack in order to fit a few more things. It worked, but it invalidated my W’s judgment that the dishwasher was full. So I try to just let things be for the sake of the relationship and adopt her method – but I also don’t want to avoid conflict, because then we’re avoiding opportunities for growth and learning.
Let me see if I can explain this a little bit better. A relationship is made up of two people’s realities. I can’t control what another person thinks or believes, but their beliefs are significant to the totality of the relationship. Basic, right? Well, if I am doing my best, but it’s not seen as enough by my partner who knows my history and is able to judge my performance by what I’ve done in the past, than am I REALLY doing my best? I know this is dependant on the honesty of the judgment of my partner, which in a power struggle isn’t likely to be very honest. The other side, my own self doubt, comes into play here because I question how much of my motivation is really sincere. Sure I evaluate myself, and I “know” that I’m in this for all the right reasons but I also know that people go into this sort of fight for the wrong reasons, and I’m a person right? Maybe I’m in it for the wrong reasons, telling myself that I’m driven by the right reasons and this is self deception is preventing me from truly, honestly giving my all because I’m not 100% in it for the right reasons. Who can really be in it 100% though? I don’t think anyone can, I think the hurt and damage precludes this. So if there’s inconsistency between what I think I’m projecting and what is perceived, I question whether I’m really doing what I think I am.


Labels can be manipulated and controlled. People on the other hand are far too complex. We can’t even truly control ourselves.
I’m sure I did to some extent, but never like I have since this all started. I trusted her. I trusted her judgment. When she made this highly visible bad choice I had reason to think that my trust was poorly placed. I questioned my own judgment to choose her, to trust her.
Admiration is an issue, and this is going to come out sounding judgmental again, but I’ll risk it here. I think she feels that there’s little to be admired in herself. When I tell her I admire her, or admire something in her, she tosses it aside, or gives a counter argument. She often tells me that she can’t do anything right. Her self esteem is low, and she blames me for this. I think it takes progress on her part accompanied by my continued admiration for her to see my admiration as sincere. After all, if she thinks she’s not worthy of admiration what does that say about someone that admires her? The OM doesn’t know she’s not worthy. . .
Please understand that I know she’s worthy – I know she’s a wonderful person, I’m just trying to express what I see coming from her and how I understand the situation.
In someone’s reality. Someone is rejecting me. Someone has an aversion to me. It doesn’t make me undesirable, it makes my actions undesirable.
No, I never mentioned her guilt, or my assumption of it, to her. I question it here, or in my own head.
Sure, I understand it. But there are a lot of expectations in there that I think are unreasonable. But that’s not my place to judge.
My mother met us uptown at the car and got a chance to say goodbye. She also made a point of being loving to my W as well.
Well, somewhere I have this belief that if I do everything right, we’ll save the marriage – good. If I do wrong, we won’t – bad.
Good point.
I’m not sure, but I can tell you that I need something to alert me to the seriousness of it because otherwise I can accept something as a trait or a flaw and live with it without changing.
None, no payoff. I tell myself that I’m learning, that I’m recognizing issues that are a part of our problem so I can clarify what is my problem and what’s not. If I can figure out what the problem is I can find a solution. I’m not sure that I’ve made significant progress in this approach though. It’s more like I’m acting in ways that won’t allow others to criticize me. Not healthy.
She understood it but thought I was being unreasonable. She thought I should have helped her out of courtesy without regard to what she was doing.
Yes, but her truth is 50% of the truth, isn’t it? She’s constantly trying to show me how this is all my fault, the fact that we are where we are in our marriage. I accept my part, but the need to keep blaming is still there.

Have you ever talked about this in a quiet moment?

"Wife, I really want to understand you better, and many times when I'm trying to get clarity by asking you a question, you tell me that my asking you the question is a sign to you that I don't love you."

Will you explain this to me?

Give yourself permission to ask questions.

Accept that your WW may not want to answer your questions.

Then you will have to accept that you don't know.

Don't assume what the answer is b/c it makes your brain happier to fill in that blank.

Just accept that you don't know the answer.



Yes, why?

Who else do you want to be?


Good catch that labeling/judging makes her your adversary.



Make yourself clear boundaries and enforce them.

You don't need to examine whether you are truly a victim or playing one..

You are a human being who WILL have people cross your boundaries. That's life.

A victim will allow them to continue to cross them.

You're WW starts shouting disrespectful judgments at you.

You ask her to stop, and tell her you will leave the room for X number of mins. if she doesn't stop it.

(She's already crossed your boundary...now you are enforcing you boundary, by not staying if she continues to.)

I will not do something for WW so that she can talk to OM.

Doesn't matter what she does, I will NOT cross this boundary.

I will not disrespect my family by agreeing w/ WW that my family are cruel people.

Doesn't matter what she does, I will NOT cross this boundary.

I don't like when WW puts me into a box by judging and labeling me. I'll be sure that I don't do this to her. I won't cross this boundary, that way when WW does it, I'll recognize what she's doing and I'll reject it b/c she is messing w/ my stuff, and that is disrespectful. And I don't DO disrespectful.




How does believing you have power where you have none help your situation?

How does help your fears?



Why do you distrust yourself so much?

Why not be easy w/ yourself and choose to believe you are always trying your best?

Your WW has no business evaluating whether you are doing your best or not. Does she know how exhausted you were that night? Does she know you were preoccupied w/ something that happened at work? Does she know you were full of self doubts at that moment? Our best doesn't mean that we give 100% all the time. It means we do our best at any particular moment. We may be sick, and cannot complete what we had hoped to. That doesn't mean it wasn't our best.



You believe you can trick yourself into doing the right thing for the wrong reasons?

Wow!

Why do you think you would do that to yourself?

I do things for my DH to strengthen my M, and demonstrate my love for him.

I evaluate my choices by asking myself if I am being respectful, honest, accepting, considerate, faithful...not right or wrong...but am I acting by my own standards?

If I am, I go forward w/ my choice regardless of how others respond to me.



Why are you judging what's going on in her head again. It's NOT your stuff. What's the payoff?

She believes certain things about herself.

Some are negative.

When you tell her you believe something about her that she doesn't, she'll argue w/ you about it.

Makes sense, right?

Maybe the problem isn't w/ her, but w/ the way you are trying to 'admire' her.

Are you admiring her character? Her personality?

Or are you admiring her efforts? Her accomplishments?

BIG DIFFERENCES!

If my DH comes home and tells me I look beautiful, I think, "I'm glad he thinks so."

But, if he tells me he can't get over how the house looks so nice and how dinner was delicious and remarks about how well I manage everything, I'm over the moon.



Your actions are only undesirable if they are not inside your code.



Ok, but, does assuming and judging her stuff (in your mind) show respect for her?

If you assume she believes what she does b/c of her guilt, where is your interest in finding out if your WW has a point?

How does assuming this get you more connected to your WW?



Good.

Then that's the place you should stay in w/ your WW.

...understanding her point of view.

Agreeing that her thought process was reasonable, even if you don't agree w/ her belief's.




Sure to you, her expectations were unreasonable.

To her they weren't.

Perhaps you expected her to behave better than she did?

That she should have laughed stuff off rather than take it so personally.

Perhaps you expected to be able to talk a while w/ your friend?

Maybe you expected her to patiently wait until you were finished talking?

Do you think these expectations might seem unreasonable to your WW?

It's about understanding and respecting.

You may have believed that your WW behaved in an unreasonable way that night.

She may have believed that you were inconsiderate and uncaring that night.

But, you can look at her perspective and she at yours and you can discover that your judgments about one another were faulty b/c you were in each other's stuff judging and assuming.

You're WW if not defective. And neither are you.

But, for some reason you both think, if you can prove the other person flawed, it will make you less flawed.

Neither one of you are flawed.



Is this belief true?



Do you view judging yourself in a severe way a form of punishment?

Do you believe you need to punish yourself in order to get yourself to behave?


There's a payoff...otherwise you wouldn't do it.



Is this a security issue?

Does judging make you feel safer, smarter, better?

~ Marsh

muddle...just wanted to drop by and say hi...we posted back and forth in our threads on the DB site a month or two back...stay strong and I wish you well on your journey.

btw...I like this forum...very active and lots of great responses...my journey has not went that well and I am headed to plan D...but oh well...life goes on and I will make the best of it...

OK Marsh, i think I get what you are trying to say.
so when we overestimate our expectations we end up feeling resentment, and as a result of that resentment we feel entitled to feel a certain way, act a certain way.

I guess I have felt this, just never looked at it that way. hard not to LB when you are thinking, "oh, yes I will spend every dime we own, after all you are ****ing around." you give yourself permission to act out, be irresponsible, LB and such, as a response to the horrible things WS is doing and almost feel justified.

big part of my plan A was leaving all that reaction behind. hardest thing I have done and will do in my life,
act responsible, be faithful and kind despite all the crap thrown my way. lesson in perseverance
thanks for your input

Yup, it's easy to start crossing your own boundaries when you resent.

But, breaking down your resentments and looking at the expectation that started it all, helps to get rid of the resentment.



I've been following your situation and I must say, you are doing great!

It is empowering to choose the standards you want to live by and then see it through.

I don't want to live any other way.

~ Marsh

No, I'm just starting to understand this. I haven't gotten to the point where I can talk about this with her.


I want to be me, nobody else. But I think it serves a purpose to me to be adversarial to some degree. So if I'm working against some resistance I am aware of my strength, if there's no resistance, I don't feel strong. It's subtle, but it's there.

I don't know - I have conflicting beliefs about this. I believe that I don't have power in this particular element, yet I think I have some power in influencing the direction the marriage takes. It's irrational. It doesn't make sense. I'm resisting something that's there that I don't want to be there. Not a productive thing to do.

Because I've sabotaged myself in the past. I've allowed myself to go into a situation without truly giving my all, and then failed and walked away thinking that I gave enough, or feeling like I had given my all. I don't want to do that again. I guess part of this is figuring out how to judge this, and because I have such a flexible judgement scale I often look to external sources for this judgement. I am a capable person, if I truly give my all there is little I can't accomplish. If I don't accomplish what I set out to do, then I wasn't working hard or smart enough. In the moment though I can accept that whatever level of giving I'm doing is appropriate for the situation. Am I justifying what feels right to avoid overextending myself and moving beyond my comfort zone? Or am I honestly assessing the situation?

Because it's not always true. I can be lazy. Sometimes I can be lazy and wish I wasn't and convince myself that I did give my all. All that's necessary to make that true is my belief in that, right? There's no objective way of knowing whether I gave my all. Shifting beliefs to match my behavior. This is why having a rigid code is so important.

She may not, but she does. She's evaluating me - questioning whether she wants to spend her life with me, someone with all the problems I have, all the frustration I cause her. And on top of it, she has these expectations, completely unreasonable expectations, of what a relationship should do for her life, how it will fix her. I can't live up to that, and I don't perform so well under a microscope. It's stressful, and I have a difficult time truly being my best in stressful situations. I'm better in some ways, but I put my blinders on to function in others.

There's got to be a cultural component to this, something about not being able to truly acheive unless it's done with a pure heart. I recognize the need to do so, to approach it from the right perspective, but I'm not sure the underlying motivation comes from there. If my motivation is pure, than it would have been while I neglected my marriage. I would have responded to issues as they came up, I would not have allowed myself to exist in denial. Maybe. Or maybe I was doing my best - which I was - and I chose to ignore red flags because of my fear and self doubt. Is there a sinister side to it? Maybe we all have it, moreso than we want to believe. Isn't that a component in P/A behavior? And we are all capable of that.

Because I'm more interested in truth than in choosing the most functional perspective for the moment. I don't want to be in denial, I want to consider all options.

I don't tell her these things. I judge simply so I can see that it's not mine to own. I don't judge her for it, I judge the issues and their relation to me.

You're right. The problem is with how I'm relating to her. I admire her for both who she is, and what she does. I compliment her, I recognize when she's put effort into things, I appreciate her contributions, I admire her honesty, her courage.

You're right. I'm assuming that I can understand what goes into why my W feels the way she does better than she can. She's responsible for understanding herself and communicating it, I'm responsible for my side. It's disrespectful to her to act this way. I'm invalidating her ability to know herself.

Yes, this is at play in it. I like to think that I don't see her as flawed, but rather an action of hers. But your point is well made. We would have both been in a better place if we had discussed our expectations briefly and come to an agreement. Instead we chose to resent each other because the other couldn't see how reasonable our expectations were. This is something my W has verbalized to me on all too many occasions. She tells me that I have no common sense, that logic would have told me X or Y. That I didn't think it out properly. My reasoning is defective because I don't draw the same conclusions that she does. I know this isn't true, and I have to deflect it somehow in my own mind. I have to translate this into her expressing her opinion that happens to be different than mine. I see her reasoning and it's sound. But there's nothing wrong with me for coming to a different conclusion than she did. I try and be careful to not do the same thing to my W, but I can see that I do none-the-less.



Is this belief true? [/quote]
How could one ever know? Even if I do everything right and save the marriage, it happened once, is it repeatable? Who knows? There's no way to objectively evaluate this as truth. Furthermore, the outcome shouldn't define my actions, and in this way of thinking it does. The actions stand on their own, and I have been doing right. Who knows what will come of the marriage though?

No, punishment does no good. I don't see this as punishment. It's more about putting things into perspective. I am not trying to motivate myself by creating shame in myself (maybe I'm trying to avoid it in the future to some extent), if that's what you're getting at.

Perhaps it does. I'm not really sure, but I think it's important to figure out what the function is to me. I think you may have some points in the safer/smarter/better area, but I'm not sure that's all it is.

Thanks again for helping me see more clearly.

Thanks for dropping by. I saw your thread and I think it shows a good bit of promise. At least it seems there is a clarity to the situation. Stay strong yourself and I wish you the best!

I can really relate to this. I have taken to evaluating my actions against my own desires for character rather than what I hope to get out of my W, or anyone else for that matter. I noticed myself crossing over boundaries that I never wanted to and found myself becoming someone I don't want to be in exactly this way. Nothing justifies acting poorly.

The trouble for me is that my W caught on to this and began to tell me that she thought that I was being vindictive, that I had this reason to justify acting badly towards her, and I feel like she exploited it. I know my actions are sound because I weighed them against my code, on their own, yet she sees them in a different light. I question myself as to whether I am really acting the way I want to, because if I were wouldn't my actions be more universally accepted? Although I'm vulnerable to someone intent on manipulating me and the situation for her own benefit and gain.

MT
my guess is, if she views you as being vindictive, regardless of your intent, she may be reading between the lines. what would she view as vindictive? or is she baiting you and you fall into the trap,

my WS started the bait trick today. asked if she could have lunch with OP. I stated, "sure, but pack your stuff, as you wont be sleeping here after that" with a smile

then she started self defacing and baiting. "I guess my only job is the laundry, guess I'll do another load" my only response was "gee, you sound really upset" she did not respond, and I wish we could've talked more about it, but those are the consequences. for once, I let her be angry, upset without interacting with her.

anyone have any ideas how to gently get someone like this to turn anger, being upset into revealing true feelings. this is a difficult place to navigate. I want her to know I am open for discussion, but she just wants to bait, throw digs. I used to jump in, but haven't for a while. I know this is the way to let her feelings out, but how do I get there without doing it for her. challenging