[color:"blue"] " If someone treats me poorly, it must be because I deserve it." [/color] ... it's possible you did deserve it
or
it's possible they are a selfish jerk

or it's possible you look like an easy target

or it's possible they are wearing underpants 3 sizes too small and a wedgie is inching it's self up their crack where they have an open herpetic lesion that burns like a million beestings

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Lilsis --

Relax. Regroup.

Your WS has exploded on you a week ago. And he apologized. You do the same.

This is all part of the process Lilsis -- he is fighting your Plan A. He will spew awful venom at you to make you give up. He wants more than anything for you to give up.

He will do anything to make you give up. Because your Plan A is making him conflicted. He thought he was through this portion of the process -- you're pulling him back. And he's fighting you.

Maybe this event will provoke you into expediting the divorce, then you will share the blame with him.

There is simply no point in screaming at him to make him stop the affair. He won't -- until continuing the affair becomes painful to HIM (not you, your sons, or anyone else). He's not there yet.

You need to go into Plan B with grace. Not because he pushed you there -- then he wins, the affair wins, he's justified.

Regroup.

From Penalty Kill

To clarify: Lil Sis seemed, to me, to feel badly that she unloaded emotionally on her WH. Personally, I don't think that was bad; I think that it was honest, and spoke to how she felt after months of hurt.

So I don't think that she should apologize for crying, etc.

The hitting was different, much different. It demonstrated a loss of control and an inappropriate release of aggression. Hence, the apology that I felt was "owed" for some behavior and not for other behavior. If that is Taker language, so be it. I was attempting, probably poorly, to make a distinction.

Let me draw an analogy for you to illustrate OK?

Say you meet a coworker after work in a grocery store...and you enjoy his company and you agree to meet for coffee.

Then you do and you walk back to his house to see some rare piece of artwork that he has in his collection...a collection you have always admired and been curious of.

Say that while you are there he makes a subtle pass at you.

Followed by a less subtle pass.

Now you can see that with each step...while you COULD change direction..you have free will it is POSSIBLE...

It becomes less and less likely.

Have respect for the power of TRAJECTORY.

Nasa certainly does.

By the time the clothes start coming off in the above scenario...there is still one step more to be had but...you are far far FAR less likely to turn that situation around successfully than you would have been to have AVOIDED it successfully.

It is easier to pull back when you are at the beginning of a journey than at the conclusion.

Putting your faith in your ability to resist temptation puts you at a disadvantage.

Pride before a fall as they say.

ta'da ! [color:"red"] There is simply no point in screaming at him to make him stop the affair. He won't -- until continuing the affair becomes painful to HIM (not you, your sons, or anyone else). He's not there yet. [/color]

See...after reading the posts that were posted while I was writing MY post....(follow that???)

I already see the flaws in my thesis. It was not respectful of my taker!

Revision 1:

When pushed to our limits, we are all capable of reacting out of purely selfish emotion. We go to survival mode; self-protection. Those emotional reactions are not characteristic of who we are or how we might behave ordinarily. They are instinctive human reactions, designed for self-protection.

However, as thoughtful beings, we do have a responsibility to control our reactions so that we protect ourselves, but don't harm ourselves or others.

When we do fail to guard ourselves from reacting in hurtful ways, we can only hope that the people who love us most will understand that this behavior does not define us...just makes us human. And those people will continue to love us anyway.

[color:"red"] "If that is Taker language, so be it." [/color]

Thanks .... it is Taker language when we begin to weigh what is "owed" to us, what we "deserve" .... help me out PB, think of some more Taker-Talk ... what we've "earned", what "belongs" to us ...

Taker-Talk is a good thing ... we need to be aware when we are in that state of mind ... and when our loved ones are in that state of mind as well

[color:"red"] ((( PenaltyBox )))[/color] <~~~ this is Giver-Talk <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Thanks PB !

Pep

Thank you for clarifying:
In terms of what happened to me yesterday...I have been walking that fine line every day during Plan A. Very, very cautiously avoiding any LBs. It is a TIGHTROPE to me. Taking the crappy foggy talk, letting it roll off, I thought that venting here would be a sufficient way to indulge my taker...see? I DID put my faith in my ability to resist temptation. Look where it got me. Back to my old pattern.

Trajectory...maybe momentum as well...the ball is rolling, right into the painful territory, and time and time again in Plan A I apply the brakes just in time to avoid losing control...didn't work this time. The brakes failed.

The brakes= intelligence that KNOW that the screaming, fighting, crying won't work. The momentum = the emotion, the taker, wanting to be HEARD, regardless of what intelligence says.

i totally agree here.
this is exactly what i was thinking...recover from yesterday gracefully...even if it is only for a short time.
and i know you can do it.

There is something i want to make mention of.....ya know how you keep mentioning that YOU intend to fight for this marriage....you made a promise and you are not about to break YOUR VOWS??

YOUR WH seems to get defensive after you go there...
i wonder if your H might take those comments as superior old LS?? NEVER does anyhting wrong...trying to win again.
SHE would never break a promise...and SHE keeps throwing THAT in my face.

I love that you say you will fight for marriage...you will fight FOR HIM....but,maybe you could back off from the parts tha tmight make him feel like he failed.

you and I know that is exactly what he did.....and so does he, but he doesn't like being reminded of it. I also worry that he thinks you don't want HIM back as much as you don't want to feel that YOU lost or failed.
he sees you as the superior one, doesn't it??

Oh..about my taker as path to satisfaction post...

That is MOSTLY relevent for recovery but here is how it's relevent today.

You can LET GO of the belief that your behavior is responsible for his dissatisfaction or failure to dust HIS OWN taker off before the resentment and disrespect reached critical mass.

He was probably ignorant and believed as you did that his giver should sit on the throne.

Yet what dynamic does that give us?

It leaves us TRYING TO MANIPULATE THE OTHER PERSONS GIVER AS PRIMARY RESOLUTION TOOL.

How does this leave the other person feeling?

Guilty, accused, defensive, manipulated, etc.

When you have these tangents they are attempts to use the old format and manipulate his giver and it is completely futile because his TAKER is in power at the moment.

Does this make sense to you?

Momentum...absofrickenlutely.

Just TRY coming to a dead halt or changing direction sometime when a great deal of speed and mass is in motion.

Oh wait..that is exactly what you ARE doing isn't it?

YES. This is what Lex just said. Until HE feels the pain--he himself HURTS (presumably in Plan B)--nothing I say or do will have any impact on him. Because his giver is gone, long gone. It's all taker, so it is irrelevant to him if I am hurting. Got it. Very well put. That gives the plan B issue some context that I hadn't considered...

A question, though:
When in taker mode so deeply (as WH is now) does one even realize it?

And another question for FWS's...
Does seeing one's BS in pain cause ANY pain to the WS? or is it like watching a stranger, or someone on TV? My BF and I were talking about this yesterday...how is it that the WS can sit and watch someone they once loved enough to marry in abject misery....and be unaffected? What does that feel like to a WS?

Just curious...because it's so mind-boggling...and I'm asking the question in all honestly...not to elicit a "it's just foggy" or whatever. I wonder what it FEELS like...

Have you ever broken up with someone when they didn't want to or it hurt them?

It feels like that. You see that person through a veil of justification and NOT with empathy or intimacy.

Like they are getting in the way, or not letting go when you want them to.

That is why the first thing to do is establish intimacy via meeting ENs and counter withdrawl by reducing LBs.

It IS impossible, isn't it? The laws of physics are insurmoutable.

Ahhh...except through an Act of God. So the discussion comes full circle, does it not? Let go control, because trying to overcome the laws of nature is an impossibility...only God can provide sufficient mass to reverse the momentum or alter the trajectory. I--as one single individual--cannot do this.

You know...this discussion is so helpful to me...I am such a linear thinker, I thrive on analogies and metaphors. And using physics (even thought I hate it as a discipline) is concrete and logical.

Thanks noodle.

I've been in those screaming matches.
I was pretty quiet, and let him explode at me.
I didn't feel pain.
I would say the emotion is "uncomfortable"

I would receive his screaming, and felt I deserved it.
But all I wanted was for it to be over.
And I would respond with venom, and use the situation to prove whatever points and justification I had tried to use before. (Like: See? This is why we're not together because you....) And it further justified that I had to leave, because I would always be on the receiving end of the anger -- that what I had done would come back in future disagreements and I would never be on equal footing with him.

So I would add my jabs to his obvious pain, hoping to provoke the end for him (thinking that was ultimately a kindness....that if he would just get over me, it would be better for him...)

The real me felt like I was watching from behind a wall. This was something I had to do and endure and experience to get to where I was planning to go. I never revealed my real thoughts or feelings during these episodes. Never revealed my conflict. Never revealed my second thoughts. Because I didn't want him to remain emotionally entangled with me. Didn't want to give him any hope whatsoever.

And then I would present the story of the event to OM like a gift -- I was going through this for him. Because he was pressuring me that I wasn't do any of this fast enough. So any conflict with my BS helped my affair (because this was a story based on truth, rather than all the lies I had to tell him....)

Thanks, lex, for sharing the ugly truth...the reality. It sounds exactly like what I observed....the thing about never being able to get past this, that it needed to be endured, using my behavior as justification...

The lack of affect is so completely disconcerting...especially from one with whom you have shared SOO much joy and pain and gratitude...

I think I'll go throw up now.

Me too.

I can't think of a better deterant than realizing that it will be presented as a "gift" to RT.

Very motivating that little nugget of intel would be for me.

Thanks for chiming in with it Lexxxy.

But Lilsis, I did have second thoughts -- I just didn't share them with BS.

I didn't let him get close. I didn't let him see that I was thinking maybe we could fix it. Maybe I could end the affair and be happy again in the marriage. THat OM was not what I truly wanted. That I saw all the problems with the affair, that I felt TERRIBLE about it.

I DID THINK ALL THOSE THINGS. There was just NO WAY I could ever let BS see that or know that, because it would be cruel to drag this on and on and on.

I truly believed that I was being KIND to force him to get over me.

You talked about the joy, pain, gratitude, all those things you shared in the marriage. You the BS are focused on those, and how do you walk away from that?
The WS does not (can not) think about those things. Its just the past. He's rewritten history so he does not have to view those things.

He feels very committed to his course of action.
He just needs to get through this.

I have to leave for the afternoon, but I'll be back later.

So my challenge is not to explode to him: SO, DID YOU AND RT HAVE A GREAT LITTLE LAUGH AT MY EXPENSE YESTERDAY? DID IT FEEL GOOD FOR YOU TO SHARE WHAT A CRAZED LUNATIC I'VE BECOME? DID RT DO A GOOD JOB OF PRETENDING TO FEEL BADLY FOR ME? OF SHOWING FALSE SYMPATHY? DID YOU FEEL LIKE A HERO TO HER? DID YOU FEEL LIKE A HERO FOR SETTING ME FREE SO THAT I COULD FIND MY TRUE HAPPINESS, TOO?

Because that's what I feel like....

So that's my Taker talking. How do I stifle while at the same time not letting it accumulate to the point where it overflows? What do I do with the anger and frustration? (my therapist would have me punch a pillow or hit the wall with a rolled up towel...seriously)