LA here is your long awaited reply...I've been working on it for a few days! I feel like I'm back in school!!
Do you believe that he creates resentment in you or your Giver does?
My choice whether to be resentful or not.
Why? What is your intent when you are being Mrs
Wonderful?
My intent has "been" (past tense) to be so wonderful that he would then want to meet my needs. Give to get. I'm learning to act from my core beliefs and not expected returns.
Sounds like you are sharing which isn't stuffing...do you give kudos to yourself? Do you believe you release resentment when you share?
I know that sharing is good for me, and I do release resentment. The problem has been how DH reacted to it, withdrawing and saying I was too emotional, (no drama!) etc. I do realize now that at some point, it can be overdone. I went on a feelings diet and it was actually helpful. I learned from it.
And I hear you measure his share...his efforts...is that correct? Like you measure your own?
What do you mean by measure...qualify?
More kudos on identifying a cycle you've had all your life...even pre-marriage, pre-H. Would that be close to your truth?
Probably, but I don't think I can't actually answer that for sure.
I never had what I would consider, really close relationships before, even with parents. FOO doesn't deal with emotions/affection, etc. Mr. MAZ was really my first introduction (starting at 17 no less) to an emotionally close and intimate relationship.
If you choose to believe that the formula for a wayward state of mind is: Entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect...would you make a boundary around yourself, just as you would to not be intimate with members of the opposite sex, to take no action or say no words which you will resent? Would that break this formula and your cycle? Is it in your power or his?
When you say words I would resent; do you mean as in regret?
Yes, that would definitely help break this cycle and that is totally in my control. This is another one of those things that was in my own power that I never realized. So far, it's been working out pretty well!
Wanna talk about fault? Do you find it laying all around you?
Are you soaking in it? I sure was...I lived in a fault-filled marriage...which had cycles just as you described...with lovely signals like blame, shame, guilt...because I lived in constant measuring...which is judgment. Comes from comparison (a favorite tool of judgment)...and I felt entitled 'cuz I was judging actions.
The actions I was looking for...and missed a whole lot of actions, stepped right over them, that I wasn't looking for.
I have realized that there's enough fault to go around for the both of us, and yes, most definitely I would miss a lot of things that were done out of love just because they weren't the things that I was looking for. I was looking at the glass half empty instead of half full.
When I chose to remove fault/blame from my marriage, I began to look AT myself, my half, and the marriage. To get the whole picture, without judgment...observed to know, not to judge.
This is an ongoing process I am working on. I made a decision to stop doing this. Blaming gets us nowhere. For everything I could find fault with him, he could find plenty with me. At some point, if we really want to recover, we have wipe the slate clean. I remember things to understand, to break patterns, to learn, but I've let go of blame. I've found my DH is a pretty great guy underneath all that resentment I had.
Was everything in my life different instantly? Felt like it...how I experienced it...was it? No. I was different.
That's how I feel...eggsactly.
That's okay--you look good fuzzy.
LOL!
When you change your life premise to that of love...which has respect, acceptance, consideration and honesty...then your focus is on your own choices and actions. You live from it by making it your intent, who you really are, and when others cross your boundaries with disrespect, defining, telling you who you really are...then you enforce those boundaries.
Gotcha!
At your core and his core, you both desire to live in mutuality...which is both having the life premise of love and acting from love. This is a radically different experience...previously, you guys lived from fear and felt love...makes sense that when you change your premise, he may not change his...change it anyway.
I did. And you know what...he's doing it too!!!! Yippee!!
If you truly strive to first understand, then be
understood...a lot of your reactivity will stop completely...you'll hear what you did not before...what you filtered out, twisted like a knife into yourself, and be startled that you see your H as new...totally new...and unknown. Not scary unknown...newly not known.
I am. I'm finding a new person there. He was probably there all along, I just didn't see him. Just as I was there, and he didn't always see me. Now we're seeing each other, really, almost for the first time, warts and all, and still with love.
"Duh...of course it is. Thwack."
OUCH! No more thwacking! (However, I LOVE this onomonopeia and will gladly use it from now on.)
My thwacking is gentle, meant as a loving nudge. (Yeah like a V-8 moment!)
Okay...so you just saw two very important things...you have the power to choose the most heart-wrenching beliefs and then experience them as if they are true about others. Good to know.
You're not alone. This is a major discovery.
Not following, maybe because this post has been quoted,
cut/pasted enough that I've lost the original point this referred to!
Next, you figured out that your heart's desire has some
pretty strict conditions...you want what you want, when you want it, in the way you want it. Because THEN you can feel loved.
Complete. Whole. Admired. Visible. Equal. Cherished. Pick what else you feel when...
Yep, pretty much sums it up. What do you mean with your last sentence?
You've been operating from crumbs and from boulders...those extremes tell you that this is coming from the child you, not the adult you. Good to know. These conditions are really reasonable when you believe humans earn goodness, love, respect, admiration...that they are who they act like. Are seen as...and it's fine tuning, isn't it? For security?
I get the first part, not sure I get the fine tuning for security part though.
Keeping along these lines of how you feel loved...the conditions...see where else they apply in your life...they are a pattern, deeply rooted in your perception and perspective...you've been unaware of them, so they've filtered out a lot of your experience, twisted and distorted it...do you apply these conditions, then, to recovery? To your kids? To your parents? To your siblings? At work? In friendships? You can find their tentacles
creeping a lot of places...you'll see them best, though, in relation to your H. He's your partner. He's your other half of self...which is why you wanna thwack him, 'cuz you thwack you.
I have seen them applied to other relationships, with the major exception of my kids. In fact, I kind of tell myself to love my DH like I love my kids...even if he or they have frustrated me to no end at the current point in time...I still love and care for them the same.
Going with that, I'll share that I used to want to make my
DH have ephiphanies, also.
LOL
I'd reach for a boulder and then run him down a hill with
it.
Yeah, I hear you...poor guy, the thing is, once I stopped trying to force the boulder....it seemed like he had his own epiphanies! Go figure!
Permit yourself to do this...when something H does riles you...use it for your power...stating truth without the agenda to make him stop...and find where your angry, frustrated feelings may be directing with you to be more honest. That's your power...your choice. Dwelling in his choices, you have no power at all...which is why you felt powerless, done to and very angry. Oh, and fearful.
Yes, it's true. I am working on doing this.
Do you believe his lying, defining, withdrawal can stop you from knowing yourself and sharing your stuff? Then your belief would be that unless H does or doesn't do, then you will not thrive. Does that make you powerful or powerless?
I'm getting it LA, I'm getting it.
Now, about the "you are right"...that's a defining me. LOL.
Not that I don't like it...sure speaks to who I was before...and I don't want to go there. What I hear is you saying, "Yes, I believe this, also." No right or wrong honestly in there. Am I close?
Absolutely, right on.
Are his actions about you or him? Are his choices his own, or about you? We make a lot of stuff about us...part of God's design of humans. We are trapped in our own filter...comes through our experience, our eyes and ears...we can't hear or see through others. We may believe we can. We really can't. His choices (the truth) were to lie and deceive...that's reality. Making it about you, an attack, a withdrawal...whatever further conclusion you want to draw is your truth, not the truth.
I have often taken these actions as attacks on me, signs that I wasn't loved, that M was a mistake, etc...trying to make my truth, The Truth.
If you want to judge your H as wrong...meaning not what he did...that is a wrong human being...go ahead. Phrase "His choices were wrong and hurtful." Well, you felt hurt, and a lot of other stuff...where does his actions end and your truth begin? I'm asking for you to perceive and view differently, for right now...to unravel enmeshment, so you can stand free and thrive. It's gonna be hard. It's not forever.
I could use some clarification on enmeshment and what is not going to be forever, the hard part?
I'm trying to remember how I truly got this myself...it was when my DH was WH...and I had learned we truly are separate and equal human beings--all of us--with our own power and limits.
I had based my A on DH's choices...I made him my master and
child, alternately...so powerful that every choice he made, made me. I'm asking you to truly see your own choices about you...for instance, if you make H a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole grain bread, and he only likes white, and you just know he'll complain, but you're out of white bread...do you see your choice as making him a sandwich or not? From love, not demand? Your choice, not his? He can see your choice as an attack, a punishment, a discounting choice to ignore his likes and dislikes...does that mean you did?
No, I get that, but if I explained we were out of white bread, then he would be fine with it!
The second part of you quoting yourself (I'm for
that)...I'm very much that the majority of 15 hours should be RC...playing with each other...inner child with inner child...which was pretty much how you guys fell in love...delightfully, creatively, which makes you guys each others partners, not enemies. Vital to recovery. One hour a week, I believe, spent on communication exercises (1/2 hour one day, and 1/2 hour two days later)...this was the formula we used...and I love it to this day.
And no, TV doesn't count as RC.
Well darn about the tv...what if we're snuggling at the time?
LOL, no I get what you're saying, and since I wrote the previous post you are referring to, I have quit trying to make the UA time about M/R talk and more about just enjoying each other. It's working out very well.
Whatcha sorry for? I was being vulnerable...how does that make you sorry? I am sharing my fear of being seen as a monster...this fear remains in me...up to me to not act from it...which to me is backing down, withholding from you...where I see in you what is in me...where I lived, what I experienced, because I truly loved resentment more than my DH...more than myself...my dear, dear poison.
I do say sorry often, but it's my was of showing empathy and wishing whatever bad feelings the person is experiencing weren't there...I guess. How can anyone love resentment? I feel like maybe I lived with it simply because I didn't know what it was, that it was there...I didn't know there was another way, but is it the same as loving it?
How about a crossed signal here? You feel hurt...and you have chosen to live from proof...see? It's okay to hurt...he hurt me. When the signal might really be...it's okay to feel what you feel. That is just and true. That's reality. You HURT. Lose the justifications...they come from a wayward mindset, remember? So they aren't linked to reality...but to fantasy. The fantasy belief you have that you have to justify your feelings...justify your signals...instead of trace them.
Yes, exactly. This is exactly what I would do...justify.
And look at you, considering though it's hard...figuring out new mindset...don't forget your kudos, 'k? Feelings ARE...you feel angry...valid signal...yours...inside you. You don't any rights
to feelings...they exist. They are yours...by God's design. All humans have feelings...owning them is a choice. Own yours without justification. Own them to know and trace...within yourself...to the beliefs they are coming from...that gets the signal, finds your way, and how we know our power.
Relieve yourself of justifications, him crushing pain into you...for right now...right here. So you can see through your eyes without judgment. Experience your choices being about you, from your own code...and then hazard a glance over there, elsewhere, 'k?
Sounds good to me.
And how great that you have this resistance and are sharing it with me...'cuz this would be what would stop you from living from respect...if you cannot see yourselves as two whole, separate people...owning your own choices...you wouldn't be able to share your own stuff, correct?
I'd share it, but I wouldn't realize it was solely my stuff.
Btw, I remember what jarred me into choosing this new perspective...it was being asked (probably by dear JL, Pep or ML)...do I want to be right or be married?
I remember this quote too. It was one of the first things I came across on MB. It switched on a bulb with me too.
I think I went from giddy to dippy. How 'bout that?
Endorphins! That's it...I couldn't think of the word...
I just postjacked myself...is that possible?
It's not only possible, I encourage it myself. Sometimes you get the most unexpected surprises that way <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Do you know you will get whatever you need when you need it most? Trust yourself, MAZ...this is a lot of stuff...I'm sharing...not telling you to know, live and act...I'm asking you to be open, take what you need and leave the rest...revisit, allow me to repeat, and you steer me to what resonates with you...healing isn't a set of instructions...we've lived off the false power of our
resentment, justifications, disrespect...like sick medicine, for decades. You don't have to believe anything...you choose. We have a lot of beliefs we don't even KNOW we have...let's get to those, so we both grow through knowing, 'k?
Sounds good to me too (again).
"Totally honest here, yes that is a big resentment
statement, however it is true of how I have felt most of the time."
When you want to measure...know that you are looking at proof.
It's okay you feel resentment, anger, sadness, frustration...all are coming from your fear of ... what? Know also when you choose to judge rather than know reality, that judgment is what you'll get...you will have made your judgment into your belief and experience great anger, resentment, sadness, frustration and fear from the choice to judge.
Stay present, right now...are you sorrowing you chose to earn love? Create and nourish resentment? Take that poison? Did I already quote WhoDat?
Yes, very much. Yet, I didn't know, but still...so much time and memories tainted...
I'm asking you to not judge...to say, "Feels like it's been this way for years...maybe, all my life. Me, the Giver, others The Taker." Whatever you feel, state it as yours...your perception, what it feels like right now, on this rung of your upward spiral staircase...not making it fact...
"I accept now though that I had a bigger part in it than I
accepted before and that my perceptions were skewed because of depression and other factors."
I hear you...to negate your power is to resent YOURSELF. Hurt me a lot. To see my choices in retrospect. Then it freed me. This is how you get to freedom, MAZ.
"I accept that while this may have been what I felt, it may not have been an accurate slice of reality. Does that make sense?"
Ahhh...yes. Sharing is stating your truth..."I feel" "I think" "I believe"...not making them facts...which hurts you inside, and your marriage.
Thank you for walking yourself all the way there. You beat me.
LOL! Yay! Still, thanks!
Now you know...when we stop owning, we live in blaming. We just do. Not your fault...God's design. You're experiencing it.
What you see now is that it's a choice...you were getting a lot of signals you were regressing...re-experiencing a lot of stuff (every betrayal, lie and deceit) from before...all piled into one lump...your signals were pain, fear and anger. Tracing them alerts you to being in your inner child...seeing through those fear-filled eyes. Good to know. No bashing (or thwacking) required, 'k?
And what you experienced was very much what you feared
experiencing, wasn't it?
More than ANYTHING...
Adults own...children evade. LOL. Know why? Because as children, we are discovering who we are...when someone says we did something bad, that means we ARE bad...we do that...because we're trying to figure out stuff...easy overlaps...which can last a lifetime. And we fear being abandoned through rejection, neglect (invisible) and annihilated through insignificance...all while we are
totally dependent and have no control. Frightening experience...and you will have these signals when you choose to base your stuff on your H's stuff...when he makes you feel, think, believe, etc.
That's what you experienced in childhood.
Know your signals...and choose not to live from them...choose to trace them.
Finally growing up...better late than never!
"Allowed by me?"
I love this...I just saw your head snap us and your eyes get fiery in my own mind. I take the Fifth Endorphins on that one.
LOL! I have to laugh...DH would say you were right on with that assessment!!
When he crosses your boundary, you do your first boundary enforcement...and if he continues right then, you do your second...and if he chooses to continue, your third...fourth. That's for communication. Actions have different ones...though they are parallel. In communication, each time we communicate, we enforce...in actions, they are progressive for each incidence.
Each time you do not enforce your boundaries, you allow...permit...do not do your half. Usually comes from a
permission inside us to do what the other is doing (like lying) under certain circumstances. When we are in fear for our life or the lives of our loved ones, for instance. Or if we fear murdering someone else's feelings. Our belief system is really complicated...I know there are levels to permissions which kick in different beliefs. When I began to trace my feelings, I found it simpler to see if I could find the offense in myself, as well, where I violate
my own boundary, then I could find the permission to NOT enforce it.
I get the first part completely. If they can do it, so can
I...absolutely. Could you please elaborate on the last sentence?
That fire in your eyes in my head...from your highest honesty, your great sharing...that was a signal in you that I crossed your boundary...that I was lying to you when I previously said, and you believed also, you can't control others...which means you don't allow, either. It was a signal in you...share it with me, please. 'Cuz that's not you getting it wrong...it's your signal...and I had it, also...definitions...our own definitions...which parallels
living from them, in them, all over the place...a defined, judged life...and I believe, signals you truly no longer desire to live as if you are more powerful than you are...and no less.
I'll tell you exactly where all that comes from. I started out as a pretty outgoing kid, but by the time I got to junior high, I had become very self conscious and shy. I was picked on/teased a lot...rumors spread about me, things put in my locker, it got pretty brutal. I hated going to school. I loved the academic part, but my stomac
h would be in knots from anticipating the next "attack." As I got older, around 16 or so, I started to learn that
I didn't have to accept being treated that way, I didn't have to be shy, I could be who I wanted to be and I started coming out of my shell. Because of all the childhood stuff, I vowed to never "allow" anyone to treat me badly. Never put up with ****!
No judgment from me...You see it now...that's what
counts. Humans do this...not bad or wrong...we step into our habits...act from beliefs we used to live by...triggered by our old brain when we feel attacked, threatened...naturally. And our new brain is where we own our stuff, live in our power...know we are not dying from an attack...as our old brain experiences it...and I
believe, it's why we CAN grow...because then our new selves can see our old selves and meet...shake hands...shake heads...come to our own understanding, forgiveness and experience life whole.
What a visual. To come full circle. I'd like that.
Could be the endorphins right now. That's new, btw. Not repeating. Which is why I'm posting to you...two-way street...I very much want to love my old selves...who only were doing what they knew how, then...
I'm sad for the old MAZ, being so unhappy and not knowing she could do anything different, but I'm glad for the new MAZ who has a chance now to enjoy the rest of her life.
Talking about re-experiencing the past (from our thoughts dwelling there) as if it were the present...before I go on, I want to ask you to not see this as a problem to be solved. It's a choice of where your thoughts dwell, which triggers the rest. Choice. Not problem.
Gotcha.
"I think that's what fueled the fire of this whole current problem. I went right back there."
Great awareness! Kudos here, not thwacks, 'k?
Thanks!!
Changing your intent to live directly from your beliefs great reduces how long signals hang on...the quicker you identify, trace and share...the sooner they drop. Well, at least the yucky ones. I don't trace the loving, joyful, blissful ones...I'm too busy loving
them up and sharing them.
I always wondered about that...why aren't we tracing the good ones, lol!
I believe you. Totally. And when we fall...there's a reason.
If you weren't consciously choosing to love...if you fell back into learning love and punishment (feeling punished)..then there's more to learn and grow, isn't there? Maybe, even, that we mess up...we stop staying in our high awareness, slip into judgment, wrestling...old stuff. Maybe you learned to rise and grow together...side by side...and now, you're learning to fall together...to go back, and come back into the present...not because you messed up, because you still choose to create and
build resentment...something you didn't revoke permissiont to do...didn't vow to yourself...because when you were totally there, you weren't feeling, experiencing resentment. Now you are.
Another layer...not a sentence on who you are or your
marriage...or who your H is...he didn't make you feel
THERE...you were THERE together...not from earning...from doing and not doing.
As you are now. Learning to fall is how we learn to soar...same stuff...different direction. Did you even conceive of upward spirals before? I only knew downward ones...didn't know we can break those cycles or make new ones...didn't know my power and limits...remains true in our human design.
Thing is, since then, we've been on an upward spiral and gone higher than we were before. How cool is that?!
How about choosing to be delighted you fell...so you can rise again? Choosing to see it as you both falling together? Opportunity, not condemnation..which is judgment. Opportunity is not judgment.
Like you, just is.
At the time, certainly I could not have seen it like this, but now, away from it, absolutely. It was an opportunity for even more growth, which is what we did get.
"I'm not understanding this one." Have you forgiven
YOURSELF for your choice to have an A? Your pre-choices of
creating and building resentment into entitlement and not respecting your own stuff, your H's stuff, or your marriage?
And if so, can you see where you've chosen to do amends through new, healthy marital boundaries, your choice to honor them...and how this is more like extending what those boundaries...getting to the source choices you may not have seen before? Means your marriage is MORE protected now, doesn't it?
Means you're still working it, girl!
Right here, right now...nothing lost...just more. More. Okay with more?
I was never a less is more girl, so more is more, yes, okay with more.
You had boundaries...you weren't aware you had boundaries.
You didn't allow some stranger to come up and hit you over the head and walk away...you would have called the police. You didn't allow others to hurt you without you hurting back in some way (child's boundary)...you didn't allow your six-year-old to smoke in front of you and say nothing...we had boundaries...what's different is our awareness. That we choose, define and thus, define ourselves in our choices.
Yes, I just never was consciously aware of them. We have not had a serious knock down/drag out since then, we have had a discussion or two that got heated on both sides and we (both agreed) tabled it and went back to it later and was able to POJA it. So we are definitely making progress. I can't think of anything that has come up that got to the point where I felt I needed to enforce a boundary such as leaving the room. I used to worry about the next time DH would get upset with me and go "off" and I'd put it, but that is waning...for one thing, he seems
to have had his lightbulb moment and will settle down when I point out to him he's starting to raise his voice, and another thing, I feel EMPOWERED that if it does happen, I can respond in a way that doesn't leave me feeling abused. DH knows this too, and I think it makes a difference. Time will tell.
How about we hold that question on handling it differently for later? It has a should in it...and my saying "however you choose to handle it from your code" sounds crappy to me right now. What if you put a note on your monitor with that question and ask it after four more posts, however long that may be?
Is now a good time for that?
And I used the tense wrong in the answer, anyway...because I, like you, was a timekeeper. I lived more in the past than the present...my way of organizing proof of love, acceptance, consideration and honesty. Part of the living from resentment (which makes an awful moral), of constantly measuring my actions, others' actions, the past tense. We'll have new stuff and then you can tell me how you chose to handle it, maybe.
Any new stuff?...I think my comment up above covers that.
And about the shoulds...because we wanted what we
wanted, in the way we wanted it, when we wanted it...we will look at our actions and choices, and possibly measure them to prove ourselves something...right, wrong, good, bad...something. What do you think? Like sharing isn't enough if we aren't being heard, then acknowledged and considered, accepted and loved in the steps...which is doing the same thing in a sneaky way.
Yes, I do have expectations that when I share, I will receive those things in return. I'm working on that.
There's the wrong again...I'm sidestepping it...it's not wrong...it's more. More than you can conceive of right now...and that's okay. You tell me your payoff in jumping to the future you don't know...even theoretically...without faith...because it has no room in a code of honesty and respect. Your choice in what you want to live from is yours...the future isn't...and if you predicate your choices now, on what to live from, from theories about the
result...then you're still choosing to live a life based on possible response than on your own code...in your own power and limits.
Which is choosing to live in fantasy, isn't it?
Yes, I see that.
"I do know that I have placed meeting my needs squarely on his shoulders. A lifetime of that and I don't know how to meet my own. This is still a big problem for me that I'm trying to work on."
Not trying...you ARE working on it. Get your list of ENs and write down all the actions you take to meet them inside yourself...if you want, share them with me.
Yikes! I'm just about to the end of this reply and now I see more work! (Just kidding!)
You triggered...and saw it as him making you trigger. If he didn't do those behaviors, you wouldn't trigger...is that close?
How about owning your triggers...which is what I learned as a BS, not a WS...because I finally understood, as you already showed YOU understand...that human beings trigger to the past...and we do it cumulatively...in our design...for a reason. We do. Not them doing to us. We're in control...and that triggers are benign. Yes, they FEEL awful...and we don't like awful...if we are unaware we
are triggering...reliving (because our brains do not know
time...everything is now...and our brains hand us what we
experienced before as if it is happening right now...hence,
trigger). Signals, not sentences.
How do you feel when you go there?
Do you mean feelings about my M, from the past?
How about choosing to believe, which is faith, that he will?
Not when or how or in what way yet...just know he will. He's shown you he grows...and falls...and like you, acts from old, not now. Very much same stuff...all human stuff...we do. Not odd, broken or defective.
Wish is another word which signals our wishful innner child...and it's like a sentence we don't complete...would you please complete that sentence? "I just wish he could tell me that so I would feel (think, believe, perceive, view) <blank>"
I just wish he would tell me so that I would feel that the anger wasn't because he didn't care, respect, or love me.
He CAN tell you his stuff...he's capable. You are stating you want to be shared with, to know and be known. Your power is to be safe to be known...and to know. You've just experienced a downward spiral into enemies...both of you...great choice would be to be pals, playmates, partners through RC, affection, repair work...so both of your old brains (truly, this isn't about age, we all have old and new brains) will settle down and mark your partner as your nuturer, protector...the good guy.
We're working on it...we really are. And he does give me a tidbit now and then, something that apparently has been swimming around in his brain for a while and when I least expect it, he'll share it.
I'm learning to just wait for these moments when they occur, on his timetable and react in a way that makes him feel safe to continue to share those things. He'll share, eventually, on his timetable, not mine, as it should be for his stuff.
You aren't trying...You are choosing to ask, know, wrestle, consider and KNOW...you are doing. Thank you for BEING here with all your doing, MAZ.
I want to get there, more than anything. There is no way I could say thank you enough.
