We recently watched an interesting movie (Netflix is great for us)

it's a Frenchie film... called

[color:"red"] Joyeux Noelle [/color]

have you seen it?

synopsis:

Joyeux Noel captures a rare moment of grace from one of the worst wars in the history of mankind, World War I. On Christmas Eve, 1914, as German, French, and Scottish regiments face each other from their respective trenches, a musical call-and-response turns into an impromptu cease-fire, trading chocolates and champagne, playing soccer, and comparing pictures of their wives. But when Christmas ends, the war returns...

No, but it's now on my list.

look at my edit

I saw that. I looked it up on the net when I first read your post.

Having a sort of an ice cream social here at work right now. They would do it the day after lent starts...

So I'm heading off to a meeting to avoid temptation...

ed: It's an unnecessary meeting, but typing unnecessary and meeting in the same sentence is redundant. Probably full of Bodachs, too.

I think my WW would make an excellent Bodach.

2long said:
"Seriously dysfunctional family, and I do have 2 admit that it's tempting 2 tell them ALL 2 go fly a kyte, W included. But I don't work that way.

The in laws will likely blame me for doing exactly that, because my justice will be interpreted by them as vindictiveness. But it won't be. I just need my money untied from that s2pid building and the selfish 2wits living in it."

Sometimes, we should do what we want to do without worrying about the other party. This is especially true when THEY are trying to take advantage of us.

Sometimes nice doesn't work, and we have to try something else.

Pep learned that about teenage kids.

Pep, share what you learned?

SS

SS:

doesn't apply here... ...teenage kids aren't this s2pid! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

-ol' 2long

That bad?

For sure get tough then.

SS

SS, speaking of parenting, my H sent me this today:




JOB DESCRIPTION :
Long term, team players needed, for challenging
permanent work in an, often chaotic environment.
Candidates must possess excellent communication and
organizational skills and be willing to work variable
hours, which will include evenings and weekends and
frequent 24 hour shifts on call. Some overnight travel
required, including trips to primitive camping sites
on rainy weekends and endless sports tournaments in
far away cities! Travel expenses not reimbursed.
Extensive courier duties also required.

RESPONSIBILITIES :
The rest of your life. Must be willing to be hated, at
least temporarily, until someone needs $5. Must be
willing to bite tongue repeatedly. Also, must possess
the physical stamina of a pack mule and be able to go
from zero to 60 mph in three seconds flat in case,
this time, the screams from the backyard are not
someone just crying wolf. Must be willing to face
stimulating technical challenges, such as small gadget
repair, mysteriously sluggish toilets and stuck
zippers. Must screen phone calls, maintain calendars
and coordinate production of multiple homework
projects. Must have ability to plan and organize
social gatherings for clients of all ages and mental
outlooks. Must be willing to be indispensable one
minute, an embarrassment the next. Must handle
assembly and product safety testing of a half million
cheap, plastic toys, and battery operated devices.
Must always hope for the best but be prepared for the
worst. Must assume final, complete accountability for
the quality of the end product. Responsibilities also
include floor maintenance and janitorial work
throughout the facility.

POSSIBILITY FOR ADVANCEMENT & PROMOTION :
None. Your job is to remain in the same position for
years, without complaining, constantly retraining and
updating your skills, so that those in your charge can
ultimately surpass you

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE :
None required unfortunately. On-the-job training
offered on a continually exhausting basis.

WAGES AND COMPENSATION :
Get this! You pay them! Offering frequent raises and
bonuses. A balloon payment is due when they turn 18
because of the assumption that college will help them
become financially independent. When you die, you give
them whatever is left. The oddest thing about this
reverse salary scheme is that you actually enjoy it
and wish you could only do more.

BENEFITS :
While no health or dental insurance, no pension, no
tuition reimbursement, no paid holidays and no stock
options are offered; this job supplies limitless
opportunities for personal growth and free hugs for
life if you play your cards right.

Yes. My SIL is a pr*ck, not a b*tch.

-ol' 2long

I haven't had an oppor2nity 2 post this up 2 now (out of town until Thursday, likely 2 have 2 sue my SIL about when I get home...), but:

I had a flash of insight recently about my W: I think Trix is right, menopause-related something. Without volunteering anything fundamental, my W nonetheless point blank admitted that her crying-anger-dumping-episode about not wanting a conventional marriage was due 2 an "episode" of sorts brought on by the stress of the house si2ation and menopause...

I don't know enough about it though, orther than I definitely have sensed her "apologizing" wordlessly, if not wordfully, for that behavior.

Feels pretty strange, though.

...and there's still that pic2re 2 address at some point in all this...

-ol' 2long

Sorry............. for all the bad, difficult stuff.

You sound pretty good considering.

Good actor?
Or you are more used to it by now?

I don't know enough about it though, orther than I definitely have sensed her "apologizing" wordlessly, if not wordfully, for that behavior.

What will impress me is not if she apologizes, but if she stops saying things like that - and starts telling you ILY, and acting like it too. Well, maybe she does act like it, I hope so.

SS

2 dude,

I think that pic on the b-board would get lost real quick..and then fall into a shredder, then into a fire....and the ashes buried under the new four lane.

krk

That would impress the snot out of me, as well. I think she thinks she acts like it. I'm not sure how convinced I am, though.

-ol' 2long

That, and I'd like 2 see RM, himself, in the ground.

Some of that I can justify. Not most of it though.

-ol' 2long

"Feels pretty strange, though."

Man, does this roller coaster ever level out? I lost my stomach in a strange feeling years ago. But I'm still rolling up and down, up and down, back and forth, to and fro...


"..and there's still that pic2re 2 address at some point in all this..."

Not via conflict though, right? By sharing your feelings. As in: that picture hurts, reminds you of a very bad period in your marriage, you hoped she was over him by now, takes you back to a bad place, makes you want to stomp his... err, better stop sharing before you get to that particular set of feelings.

This seemingly erratic behaviour of a LTA WW is not necessarily indicative of renewed contact. It is as likely to be a little fog clearing, you know. The fog has to lift above a horizon that stretches back over so many years of their life they must get kind of disoriented.

Quote:
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I'd be tempted to say that it's just fear of being divorced,


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Perhaps 3 or 4 years ago. Not now. I almost look forward 2 it even.


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or fear of not having the "old comfortable shoe of the marital state,"


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My marriage isn't comfortable anymore. I'm most comfortable alone, or with my kids.


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but I think there is more to it than that. YOU believe in marital fidelity. She did not, and still may not. I GET the balancing of carreers and all that, but this seems more like a "marriage of convenience" and not what you really envision a loving marriage should be.


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Correct.


Quote:
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So what can we do to help, other than just provide an empathetic ear?

Is there anything we can say to your wife? Is there anyone who has "influence" with her who could say something to her?


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I don't think so. She's tended 2 distance anyone from her who might tell her she's behaving badly. Particularly me, of course.

Convo between you and FH shown above, 2long.

My thoughts:

Good!

It is becomming uncomfortable for you, because you are realizing what it is you want from your life. You are realizing the person you have become and know that you must continue to advance...keep moving forward.

When things become uncomfortable for us is when we can be most greatful, because it is at this time we are becoming ready to make necessary changes to avoid staying in a place that doesn't fasciliatate growth.

Remember what is not growing is dying. What does not contribute is eleminated.

I see all these as positive things 2'.

For it is becoming clearer and clearer that your wife will not change until she has to. I personally think you have held on so long (once the pain subsided I mean) because you know she will get it once you are gone, but by then you will be gone. If you thought she would never get it, you would have no qualm with leaving, long ago in fact.

Don't forget that it is okay to disolve a partnership, allowing for the growth of the other person, and then reuniting again.

It's posible, often probable and may even be desirable (to go your own ways and end up together again, someday).

"we don't normally change until the pain of staying the same outweighs the pain of change" = Mrs. 2long, for you have already been there and done that...she hasn't.

don't be parallized by thinking that once gone you can never go back, for like the web and flow of the tide, it is sometimes needed.

You asked for thoughts on a convo with her, well here are mine

"I can no longer be in a marriage with someone whose vision of said marriage is so radically different than mine. It not only saddens me, makes me feel lonely, makes me uncomfortable in the presence of...it stunts the growth I desire in my relationship as well as in my life.

If your vision ever aligns more closely with mine I would love for you to share it with me.

Until then, adioux swwet wife."

But however you lean 2long, I will support you. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Pep, I left on vacation soon after you posted your email addy for requests to receive your story, and I don't have my old email account where I have your addy stored.

Can you please email it to me at chanci99@hotmail.com

Thanks!

Hi weav!

This is good:

"I personally think you have held on so long (once the pain subsided I mean) because you know she will get it once you are gone, but by then you will be gone. If you thought she would never get it, you would have no qualm with leaving, long ago in fact."


LTAs are horses of a different color.

LTA adulterers get into such a smooth well-worn rut they can't see anything wrong whatsoever any more. The LTA is no longer intense, passionate, nor even a forbidden feeling. It is just ordinary humdrum life. Pittman calls the OP in an LTA a marital aide. They just exist, like air.

It is not even possible to sort out missing ENs since while in the LTA, which has existed for so long no one remembers how it used to be, the adulterer does not let the BS meet their ENS more than the minimum required daily allotment. And since the BS has not had ENs met to any degree more than what is absolutly necessary to avoid upsetting the marriage status quo for so long the real question is why are they still there at all, even without knowing about the LTA.

ed: If you ever have a desire to see almost perfect loving detachment in action, watch the adulterer in an LTA. They have it down pat. They turn loving detachment into an art form.

The single biggest problem, well, after getting the BS to stick around at least for a while, is the by now marriage-is-not-a-covenant, entitled, adulterous, totally integrated WS beliefs, character and personality. They simply are who they are this late in middle age. No one in their right mind would ever marry them now if it was known who they really are. Not even OP!

Changing that completely integrated WS self requires a lot more effort than introspection, which they have never done and don't want to do. It takes a metaphorical brick to the side of the head. It takes fundamental personality changes, even if slow and evolving changes. It takes years to see even minor results.

Rarely happens. BS gives up first.


With prayers,

The metaphorical brick up the side of the head should be a quick one then, to avoid the BS giving up and losing all desire?

However, the BS in a LTA has become someone who cannot see, think or reason clearly as well, and this too would be a long process...back to a reality (at least mentally if not otherwise) that they can have some reasonable assurance is a solid one and that is actually based in reality.

People on this thread have stated their feelings on how they would handle an affair in the future.

Well for me, because I was lied to so convincingly and so callasely with no thoughts or cares to my mental well being and actually ended up in a place where I questioned my own perception of reality/sanity (a very bad place to be), I would walk away completely and immediately. I would have to, if merely to protect who I have worked so hard to become.

MB tools are successful for this reason ( directed at whoever questioned this earlier)... among others.

It may take a long time Appy, and it may not happen at all but we cannot know which is the correct path to take until we have healed, can think clearly and have become a whole new person basically.

The complete destruction of two people. MB gives at least one of them, if not both, a way to rebuild themselves to a place where they can make an intelligent decision. And this takes time either way.

Mrs 2long's pain will be great if he decides he no longer wants to remain with her as she is. This is why she keeps reeling him back in with the crumbs she throws everytime she senses he is about to bolt.

She will do anything to avoid the pain of introspection and change.

However when/he leaves she will spiral very quickly into the very pain/change she fears(subconsciously) the most.

This is what I sense anyway that it will take.

I mean how long does it take for a person to change if they don't have to, don't want to, don't see a need to? Is life long enough for this to happen?

If Providence should be so kind as to help out, as it sometimes does in movies, or if The Ghost of Christmas Past, Present or Future could stop by one night.

I don't know, but it all boils down to what do you want, and how long will you wait for it before you don't want it anymore?

We make our changes, we learn to love unconditonally, we change the dynamics as best we can on our own end and then we are faced with the same decision as we have always been faced with.

Do I stay or do I go.

Yuck!

I'm so sorry 2'long.