Define 'self-sustaining' in terms of time.

Would I expect my H to pine by my unresponsive bedside for twenty years? Nope.

Would I expect my H to sustain feelings of love for me over the six months that it takes me to get over my internal injuries after a car accident? You betcha.

Would I expect my H to hold onto loving feelings while I'm enduring a miserable menopause for two years? Yes, I would.

If 'love' is an electric-switch feeling based on immediate gratification of needs, that's not my kind of love.

A long-term sense of gratitude, appreciation and warmth is what I expect, to carry us over the inevitable short-term periods of non-needs-meeting and difficulty.

TA

OK..I just got this..meaning..NOT BEING OPENLY ANGRY...



NOW..you LOST ME. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />


You see what I mean? MB is an APPROACH to MARRIAGE..not just about ENDING AN AFFAIR...IMO, it's not supposed to be about the approach working..but a way of working towards a MARRIAGE TO LAST A LIFETIME...see above under the heading for the forum..



Correct, I see MULAN as being NO DIFFERENT than me...my H may not be P/A but he certainly has his ISSUES.... <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />



SL: I think what you are saying is that people differ in how much they are ABLE to ENDURE...I get concerned about you not seeing the POSITIVE that your H is doing...No, he is not meeting your needs. Yes, he is not making the effort that YOU long for..BUT, it seems that he DID END HIS AFFAIR(S)...and is doing GOOD STUFF that needs to be recognized by you...You see, I believe in FOCUSING ON THE POSITIVE...in order to COPE with difficult situations, bad enough in themselves....



It's not so much about MBer's principles..which my H does not necessarily follow..what's most important, IMO, is whether your spouse is COMMITTED TO YOU AND THE MARRIAGE...That's the question...

MY H TOLD ME OVER AND OVER..that he was doing it HIS WAY..

The main thing that he was CLEAR ABOUT, that I was THANKFUL for ..for the first six months..was that he was COMMIITTED TO THE MARRIAGE..

Ahhhh, see, I wish I could say he was CLEAR about this. PWC is NOT. He has said that he is TRYING, but not that he is committed. Trying is GREAT, but it is not a commitment. I cannot describe how uneasy this makes me feel. Just being there is great, but not stating that you are committed to this, well, it doesn't help.

Maybe this is why I cannot relate. Everything he said to come home, all that he did, pointed to commitment, THEN he stopped! Once he was fully home, no more IC, no MC, no to MB, he was gonna do it his way. That's fine, but you have to actually DO whatever it is. I still don't know WHAT he IS doing.

I would feel better KNOWING that he is committed. Right now, I feel like he's crossing his fingers that he will fall back in love. That makes me uneasy, and puts the whole shabang on MY shoulders. If it doesn't work out, then it's MY fault.

Mimi, I agree, that's a vital issue.

However the couple tackle their recovery, the most important thing is that both are prepared to invest in that recovery.

The difficulty with P/A spouses is that they so often demonstrate ambivalence about whether they are invested, without ever making that ambivalence explicit. They don't do this just for the months of withdrawal; the non P/A spouse can wait patiently for the 'pain' of losing the OP to subside, only to gradually realise that this state of insularity is permanent.

In other words, their actions, a lot of the time, suggest they don't really want the marriage. But they don't leave, and they won't say what they want.

MB doesn't rule out success if only one spouse works the program - for a while. Ultimately, recovery needs the buy-in of both spouses. Whether the other spouse believes in MB principles or not, as long as both are pulling in the direction of Happy Marriage, there's a good chance it will work.

For many P/A spouses however, the idea of fighting for a mutual goal is anathema - it feels like coercion. The sight of the non P/A spouse working their socks off simply makes them feel more 'made to do it' than ever. Perversely, love and committment pushes this kind of spouse away, rather than pulls them in.

They also don't really want a Happy Marriage of the MB type, alien though that may sound to you! The kind of marriage where there is mutuality, co-operation and team spirit is not attractive, because they are used to getting what passes for satisfaction out of feeling wronged, punished and misunderstood. They are comfortable with holding the marriage in a state of cross-threaded melancholy, from which position they can extract their dubious power and pleasure.

MB doesn't address this kind of problem. The program tends to assume a reasonable level of goodwill and honesty on both sides. Having it on one side only simply doesn't work.

TA

TogetherAlone, do you know my H? You just described him very well! lol

TA,

I'm with sl77, this is EXACTLY what I'm dealing with, EXCEPT, my FWH has a way of drawing me in, and then withdrawing once I'm invested. It makes me feel like I'm crazy for feeling like I do.

How, then, do you recover with a spouse who is P/A? Is it possible, or is there a level of acceptance that you must have that you will not get what you need from your marriage, and must learn to live without the need fulfilled or find other avenues of fulfilling it?

I know all about the "drawing you in". WH can be so charming & wonderful, when it will get him what he wants. The hardest thing for me to grasp was, that the things I thought were positive, were actually manipulative.

What I saw as signs of hope, were really just ploys to get me to shut up & leave him alone. I would rather be alone than in a marriage where I have to second guess everything that is said and done by my H.

And, quite frankly, I can't stay in a marriage where my needs are probably never going to be met. Much less the work that would need to be done to recover from the affairs.

TA:

Thanks for your post about P/A Spouses.

This is indeed foreign to me.

My H is not at all like this.

I guess I should say THANK GOD.

So what's the point of MARRIAGE for this sort of person?

SL ~ I think you are very early in recovery and I think you should be careful about diagnosing your husband.

These discussions about P/A behavior are interesting, but I think alot of people use a passive aggressive approach to conflict without being "passive agressive" all the time and I think it's dangerous to label your husband and doing so will derail your recovery.

BR, I do recognize that diagnosing PWC with ANYTHING is not my job. I find the discussion very interesting, and do recognize his conflict avoidance as a MAJOR problem for us. I hope he truly is working on himself, as he says. I would hate for him to miss out on what is such a great life, simply by extracting himself from it.

My plan is to follow what Jennifer has brought to me, and to follow yours, Mimi's, and now Frozen's advice, to continue to look inward, and work on my problems, recognizing my shortcomings and personal communication issues.

I feel better having made the decision to completely shift focus.

Even IF PWC were to be dianosed as PA, I would still only have control of me.

SL:

This is what I was thinking in my response to you on your thread.



I was thinking this TOO that BR said...

This was sooo TRUE for ME given my OLD..FIGHT or FLIGHT pattern...From my FOO, I only learned RAGEFUL or NOT..so once I learned to SPEAK MY TRUTH...calmly yet assertively..I stopped resorting to my PASSIVE expression or AGGRESSION which was doing it MY WAY, POUTING, rather than having the COURAGE to talk things over with my H...

My H wanted me to work together with him as A TEAM..to "COME TO THE TABLE"..as he used to say..but that was SOOOOO SCARY for me...

I still get SCARED about CONFLICT..especially if he talks in a GRUFFY, RAISED VOICE..that's HIS WAY..his natural inclination because of HIS STUFF..so I remind him now how SCARY that is for ME..and I have to remind myself that it's mostly my PTSD from my past...where there was lots of SCARY RAGE going on DAILY in my growing up years...RAGE that was both PASSIVE and AGGRESSIVE...

About you SL...I don't know whether to talk to you here or over there...

SL, isn't this somewhat about YOU? It seems that you are reluctant to SPEAK YOUR TRUTH to your H..It seems that you need to SPEAK to him about your UNHAPPINESS and DISSATISFACTION...It seems to me that YOU are being PASSIVE...

What do you think?

I think that you are right, I have been passive. I wasnt' like this before. His affairs, and my reaction to them, have changed me WITH HIM. I'm not like this with anybody else.

I speak my truth to all others. I don't know WHY I have developed this fear. When we do talk, I can see him visibly wince, and even turn away from me.

Also, I don't know WHEN I should talk to him. I've misconstured the message that I've gotten here to NOT have relationship talks. Maybe that was meant to come across as don't nag him. I NEED to have relationship talks, to know how we're doing, what level of commitment he has, and how we can move forward.

I am feeling, especially since talking to Jennifer, that we need to begin talking about our R. Not to damn each other, but to make progress, to get on the 'same page'.

This is most certainly about me. I've taken this week to make the lists that Jennifer recommended, and to look at parts of SAA, HNHN, and continue with 'The language of letting go'.

After speaking with Frozen and BR the other night, I have refocused.

All of this time, as I was working on me, I wasn't utilizing my new 'skills' and awareness to communicate with PWC my unhappiness, in a loving way. I won't learn to better communicate until I do, and give PWC a chance to speak.

I'm no longer fearful of what he will say, I'm fearful that he won't say much of anything.

Some people are only P/A in personal relationships. It's the method they use to control and manage their partner anytime they think their partner might cause them a "problem".

I did not see any signs of this in my husband until I started interfering with his girlfriends at work. Then, P/A was the weapon he pulled out to control and manage me - first to keep me out of the way, and then to punish me when "keeping me out of the way" no longer worked.
Mulan

My WH is P/A all the time, w/ everyone. It escalated to the point where I need to divorce and have as little to do w/ him as possible.

If I hadn't left when I did, I would have had a nervous breakdown. It is scary the way his mind works. It sometimes doesn't even seem like he deals w/ reality anymore. He can't deal w/ anything in an open, honest way.

I do think there is a difference between someone who acts P/A now & again. Everybody does at one time or another. And then there are those that are extreme. My WH also has a narcisstic personality also.

What's sad is, he had a horrible childhood. Swore he'd never be that kind of spouse or parent. But now thinks nothing of abandoning his family to screw around. Probably tells himself that he's better bacause at least he doesn't beat us.

If only more people realized just how far-reaching the consequences of their actions were, maybe they wouldn't choose to do half of the crap they do.

My FWH is P/A all the time w/everyone, he was raised this way and this is how he conducts himself. Now I am a CA big time, so is he, I am sure that I am P/A at times as well. .

I need help recognizing the P/A behavior and developing a plan on how to react in a more healthy way. I was angry and resentful for a looong time, did nothing to change the sitch except escalate my own dysfunctional behavior. I understand some of my anger reactions from FOO but I didn't fully understand the sitch until I read the P/A thread. I felt incredible guilty over showing any anger. Both my FWH and oldest son played the guilt trip to the hilt, I didn't disappoint them. I would apologize, all my fault. I stopped this when FWH would throw in my face about the yelling and anger, this was in about the 1st 6 mo. of his A. I then completely changed this, became calm and dealt with some, not all of the anger in therapy. The rest I turned inward, which gets turned into depression. I felt like I didn't have a right to be angry with any bad behavior or a right to stand up for myself, I allowed my FWH opinion of me (which he used to justify/rationalize his A) to become my opinion, that is that I was the bad, angry, yelling unreasonable person.

I now know this is part of the dance. I just recently, within the last year, "allowed" myself to become angry. However, in P/A situations, this is just what they want and they are the victim, I again feel like the bad "mother".

Here is an example;

We are moving to NJ and are leaving where most of our family resides. We had a party on Sunday, kinda the last hurrah and partly just to get together for fun with both our families.

Everyone left by 10:30 pm except for our 3 sons and 2 nephews, both of which are age 20. FWH and I went to bed. I looked into the computer room the next day prior to leaving with YS and see a case of empty beer and food left all over. Both nephews spent the night btw.

I was furious, but frustated as I was trying to leave and we had just put our house up for sale. I call FWH in to see, he is disgusted and gets ready to walk down the stairs away from me and the 3 sons and towards the TV. I say to him so what is the plan to deal with this? He stops and sighs, doesn't roll his eyes which he would have done in the past. I again ask him for his opinion on how this s/b handled. Now in the past he often thought I overreacted to drinking/any drug findings and that it should be glossed over as boy will be boys. This situation would exsasperate both of us as we both thought the other's reaction was inappropriate. This time instead of ranting an raving, yelling at everyone and telling FWH what I thought s/b done, I tried to ask FWH what he thought. He said he supposed we should talk to the older sons. We spoke to the middle son who was on the way out the door to return to college. I expressed that I was concerned that he didn't seem to see the bigger picture of contributing to people over drinking. Now in his same college last year a girl was intoxicated (age 19) and left where her friends were, walked along train tracks and was killed. Her friends who were partying with her and were the same age as her were charged with a crime, a felony, for allowing her to drink to excess. Now nowhere is there mention of personal responsibility, but this is the world which we currently live in. This son said he didn't agree with the legal drinking age, which we said was not relevant. He apologized and we parted.

FWH and I, I thought, agreed that FWH would speak to OS (now age 24) as YS and I had a 9+ hr drive ahead of us.

I felt like I was in the past where he felt it was no big deal and I felt it was a big deal and he agreed w/me in order to appease me. I spoke to FWH on the phone and asked him if he spoke to OS yesterday, to which he replied he had not and made excuses, said he would do it today. I couldn't help myself, I was frustrated and angry. I said I didn't understand why he put things like this off and by doing so he loses the moment. Later I felt guilty over my response. I then came on here and read what others wrote and realized this is the same P/A dance we do.

So my question to anyone willing to answer/advise is, what is a healthy way for myself on how to handle situations like these?

I just emailed WH that I want a divorce. That's the way it's been going, but neither one of us has actually said it. And since he's P/A to the extreme I have no idea what he might think about it. I don't know that he ever shows or says what he honestly feels about anything. Sadly, I do wonder. I wonder if there was any real love there. I want to believe that there was.

But I think, the truth is, I was just part of a game that went on too long. How do you ever really get over that? Oh, the tangled webs we weave....