Umm...okay.

So am I right in that part of this is trying to maintain your image as well?

Since you ARE a divorce attorney and you know your husband so well, could you not force him to have supervised visitation, based on his mental issues and any possible noncompliances?

Isn't YOUR happiness worth anything? Do you REALLY think the kids are better off with him around?

Why did you sacrifice so much when it was not enthusiastically agreed upon?

You're very bitter, not unjustified, mind you, but you are. Do you really think you can keep living like this and not have this reflect on your parenting/work relationships?

WOW,

I have been reading your thread from the beginning. I was so reactive to your first posts, I had to wait until I figured out why.

I react to your current circumstances from three places--one, as a child whose mother died and her father remarried; two, as a wife who lived in resentment for most of my marriage, as well as her life; and three, as a daughter who heard her stepmother say something important two years ago.

The parts of your posts that nicked the child in me were the "her son" "her child" "the child" "his son" references. "My stepson" didn't leap out at me. The last post, where you call him a disturbed child really got to me.

That's me...not you doing, btw.

Next, as a woman who loved resentment more than her marriage, I learned about amends...and how many I had to make to others.

Amends are how we heal the past since we cannot change it. Amends have three steps...owning what you did, why you did it and how you won't do it again.

Seems to me, your H did the last step first. So he's partially made his amends to you. What I hear you asking is how you can get him to do the other two parts. You already know that answer--you cannot make another make amends. You can only make sure YOU make yours.

Here's what I see (from my own filter, my experience): You harmed and re-injured yourself over the last four years. You crossed your own boundaries, did not amend, repeatedly, and those are the amends you are most desirous and fixated on...rather than focused.

I used to do what I call emotional cutting...lie awake at night and remember terrible things I did to others...things I'd said, done, not done...and bash myself. What that masked was my daytime habit of focusing on what others had done to me, not done, said and not said. I would dwell on the harshest statements, made years, even decades, ago...and feel the cut, the burn as freshly made.

And it was fresh...as if they were stabbing me again...only I was really doing it, right then, wasn't I? I held the knife...I took it from the other person and continued on, choosing to believe they were doing it though they had stopped.

I lived in a blame game...assigning blame, naming and locating the pain, by remembering and repeating--not realizing I was making the pain fresh, re-injuring. Which is why I wasn't healing.

The only way out of this loop, this constant dance, was for me to make a resentment timeline...going back through all the years of my marriage...which were 15 at the time. I had to write down the event where the resentment was made...each injury...this was an assignment given to both me and my DH to do.

Funny thing...as I meticulously dug out each one, wrote it down...I began to see a pattern...where I didn't exercise my choice...skipped over it...and in retrospect, saw where each time I could have chosen to not do/say that which I would resent.

Now what I had at the time I wrote the timeline, was a number of Al-Anon meetings under my belt. I didn't realize, when encouraging others to write their resentment timelines here on MB, was that I had the understanding of my power and limits as a human on this earth.

I already had realized I could not be the cause, control or cure for anyone else. That we are all equal, that it is inherent. That humans do and don't do.

I also had the rudiments, at the time, of MB...learning what LB's were, especially my penchant for DJs. So maybe I could see in my nine-page, single spaced, typed resentment timeline what some others didn't as they wrote theirs.

I know that in writing it, I freed myself. My resentment evaporated like a large puddle in sunlight. Took a little time; every resentment I caught my part of, my creation and nurturing helped to dissipate the others.

Resentment is self-inflicted, and can be self-healing.

Takes doing amends to ourselves. Here is what I did or chose not to do (own it); here was my thinking at the time, my true intent, and the lie I told myself; and here is where it isn't allowed anymore in myself because here is where it violates my own code.

I grew up hearing "his girls" "his daughter" when my stepmother was resentful, hurt and lashing out. I was eight when my mother died...and she was an alcoholic, with a 10th-grade education, who worked at a bank for 11 years of the marriage while they waited to adopt children, since she couldn't have any. I was the second daughter and she was diagnosed with leukemia a year after I arrived. So she was dying, off and on, off and on, for pretty much our whole life together.

They had horrific fights, my parents. They weren't fiscally, emotionally, even physically responsible folks. They were my family. My father was my father because he did the job. Not because he did it well.

He was there. She was there.

Until she wasn't any longer.

And a bit less than a year later, my father married again. He married a woman who couldn't have children of her own. We then oscillated between her belief that she only married him to be a mother and the belief that she took on his children to be married to him.

I loved her as much as my first mother. She did the job. Doesn't mean she did it well. She did the best she could with what she knew.

She had many of the same beliefs you do...my father didn't make enough (she had money from her divorce and family inheritance); would compare her to my first mother; wasn't contributing enough, monetarily, parentally; was a self-indulgent spender; loved her money, not her.

I heard a lot of it...little pitchers have big ears.

What I know for a fact is that my father doesn't know how to grieve. He never did. I know this because he told me this a year and half ago as we were driving to bury. I asked him how he has grieved in his life...his mother, wife, brother, father, best friend, nephew.

He said he doesn't grieve, doesn't know how.

Understandable to me, then, that I hadn't learned from him how to grieve, just as I didn't learn how to heal my resentments.

I believe they are kin to each other...you may have been attracted to your H for learning how to cease resenting and him to you, to learn how to grieve well.

Just as I created daily resentments, I have since learned so, too, is there daily events for grieving. We learn to grieve what has passed and what didn't come to pass. We grieve unmet expectations...and there is where those two things, grief and resentment, intersect.

Within our power as human beings...no one can do our grieving for us...just as they cannot stop our resentment.

When we focus on our demands for others' amends instead of minding that we do our own, to others and to ourselves, our resentment becomes bitterness.

WhoDat (here on MB) changed a quote (that Cinderella has in her sigline by Harold Kraus), "Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die." Corrodes even the surest heart, blocks love deposits, skews our perception, trashes our life experience and drains our own love banks...and it looks as if our partner is doing it.

When they may have stopped.

Our limits include not being able to go back and unsay what we said...or say what we didn't back then. We cannot undo a single word, a specific action or inaction. You're right--we can only amend...and see if the pain remains fresh, if we are doing it to ourself.

We can be very wishful...and when we don't respect the past as NOT happening right now (if it isn't), spend our mental energy on what we wish didn't happen, then we will continue to feel those emotions again and again. Because we are choose our focus, our beliefs...and our emotions result from them and our actions.

We can do much harm to others in our lives. I believe we do tiny and great harm every day. Only we control what we do. We can live in the illusion we control others...get them, make them, cause-control-cure them...we don't.

As long as you continue to compare yourself to H's dead wife, in ANY way...you injure yourself and only you are holding the knife now. Would you consider that comparing yourself to others, as my stepmother did, has wrought great pain, frustration and resentment in your life? In your relationships with others? You choose to compare...you have no control over others comparing you. I believe you will not do to yourself what you will not allow yourself to do to others...

when you compare inside, you will compare your H to others...in your past, your present and your future. And you do NOT like being compared. Yet you do it. You chose to do so.

You learned you couldn't stop your H from doing so...look to where you have done so to the detriment of your marriage. Yourself. Your children. Not to blame or shame...to own and amend.

You may discover that loving feelings result. Vast forgiveness may flood your life...and you may live in understanding, respect, abundant love with your H, as a result doing this loving act.

About what my stepmother said before she died..."You have hurt me soooooo much, LA. I can't tell you how much you've hurt me in my life." I loved her for 35 years and I heard this often. There is no defense, no being sorry for her feeling that way. She felt it. She created, grew and nurtured it...even as I harmed her in those years...where in the end, I had owned, said why, and why I wouldn't do it again. I didn't control her acceptance of my amends.

I just know I did them. I often lost my focus, too, and wanted to demand she do hers (heck, I did mine!!)...humans do and don't do.

And we can choose to love, anyway.

LA

Great post LA,

Thanks for sharing so much. It really touched me hearing your story and your recovery.

You are a soul that inspires me.

- TTM

TTM,

Just like blame and offense, part of being human is that we must take inspiration...can't be given.

I've taken inspiration in your sharing, too. You know that.

Mutuality.

Good to know what you're reaching for. I saw your reply on your thread...had WoW on my mind, though. I'll respond tomorrow, 'k?

LA

Why did you sacrifice so much when it was not enthusiastically agreed upon?

i wasw told by the therapists that is should put aside my boundaries and expect less and that when he was done i would get it in heaping measure.. that has not happened...

Now i have years of boundaries that i need to put back inplace and everytime i do i am met with anger opossition, attacks for setting "appropriate " boundaries

must have a job
don't compare me
be involved in the children
reach out to me if you want a relationship ship with me
plan time for us
be affectionate
be kind with your words

I really am not bitter about this.. i realize that my comments have sounded that way but through my postings i believe i have gotten the strenght to stop denying myself and to kindly say, this is not what i want for my life.. for my children. in hopes that it would be met with enthusiasm and of course , i can do that and i would get it in heaping measure

that has not occurred.. now what?

Thank you so much for your kind post

as i wrote to Solee.. I have been able to release the resentment of the past and try to go forward with a large part attributable to the ability to express my frustration with my situation..
as so many have pointed out , i lost myself and let myself be abused .. i did not stand firm to my convicition or my boundaries.. i am responsible for that and i have forgiven myself for that.. i do not compare myself to his insanity and delusion of his 2nd wife.. there is no comparison and to allow a damaged man to beat me down for his own twisted needs is my problem for allowing it.. i no longer do that..

however to accept that he is never going to see me for what i am due to his damaged view and the rose colored overlay of wife 2 is what i struggle with.. THere is no hope for intimacy if for all the ugly your husband expresses, you have to say to him don't do it or you have to discount it as the ravings of a delusion man.. there is also no hope for intimacy if you set minial boundaries, job, affection, child involvement, time alone, etc and are met not only with resistance but with ugliness and further withdrawal for setting a boundary.

your post is confusing because it seems to say that if you let go of resentment everthing else will be fine

I have forgiven myself for allowing it and my part in the crazy from the last four years, i have allowed myself the right to say no more, i deserve better.. i have forgiven him for what he has said and have even given him an out as being damaged and hurting and some of the word being the process of working through the counselling .. but what now?

how do i reassert my life, my peace, my self esteem, my boundaries, etc, in order to not allow myself to be in a compromised situation that i later resent, and yet all the while remain in a relationship that has not healing, no moving forward, no ability to discuss or grow.. without developing more resentment for the lack of his meeting my needs even in a minimal way...

how do i remain in a relationship , where the slightest nice request.. " hey, we both have been working alot this week, do you think we could spend some time holding each other tonight since we are both getting off early" .. is met with attack and accusations that i am demanding more than he can give and that he is perfectly happy cooexisting , why do i have to ask for more, raging that i will never be satisfied, he is sick of me asking for more.. and then topping it off with i am just not sexually attracted to you or anyone right now, i don't want to be with anyone.. i respond do you need to talk to someone about that ... does it concern you?.. no, it doesn't concern me except that i have been pretending to enjoying being affectionate with you for four years and i really do not enjoy it and it is highly uncompfrotable to me to know that you want so much from me and i just have to fake it in order to make you happy!!.. all of this was said to me last night!!

ALl of this from can we spend time together?

I don't think i have past resentment, i think i am having to daily give up boundaries and daily give up resentments about allowing the breaking of boundaries and mean ness..

what do i do about that?

you seem so wise.. any advise on how to take this man who was nice as long as he could live in fantasy world about his life and who now is mean an d resentful to me...

Are you saying i should just allow his meaness and resentment and anger due to the fact i set one boundary that he could not have a third person in pour relationship? and he is still angry about it?

Are you saying i should stick it out and see if his resentment releases.. because that means dropping my boundaries to allow such a person in my life and to be in a non-needs meeting relationship.. simply roommates?

I don't think that is what was intended in a marriage

you said...You learned you couldn't stop your H from doing so...look to where you have done so to the detriment of your marriage. Yourself. Your children. Not to blame or shame...to own and amend.

i can't stop my husband from doing so.. i have accepted that , but that does not mean i have to allow him to continue to perpetrate such ugly on myself and the children.. does it?

i don't want to live with someone who has so much resentment towrds me for removing something that should have never been there in the first place.. so much resentment that it affected me at all... so much resentment that he no longer wants to reach out to me ... so much resentment of as he calls it " popping his bubble" or "safe place" that he does not try to work on our relationship anymore and if i request even the slightest anything above and beyond what he says he FEELS like doing i am met with anger and meanness...

Are you saying i should stay with such meanness and allow such and then daily give up my resentment for allowing myself to be in a reltiosnhip with such a person.. in order to stay in a relationship.. isn't life too short for that?

just for the record.. i have never called my stepson, my step son, i tell everyone i have 5 children not 4 and and a step.. i call him his name.. most of the time i call the boys sweetie.. i treat them all equally.. even though it is difficult sometimes.. i punish him less than the others.. i spend more time doing hoemwork with him thatn the others.. he needs it.. i buy more clothes for him than the others because he has a clothes issue and it is not worth fighting about..i cook him as well as all of the others a special meal to their liking each week...

HOwever, i have been hogtied in my ability to get help psychological help.. i have consistently whenever an issue arrises for my two from my previous.. but i do not have the medical authorization to do such from his father.. i have not been allowed to punish him.. i have to wait for his father to come home to punish him...and he rarely deals with the issue until we have met a crisis like today a referral to the principal which i tried to get him to address earlier this week.. but he did not.

the child has issues of anger and violence.. he tore up his room out of anger for a friend not being able to go to the skate park this last weekend.. he can not go alone.. i would prefer him not go at all without adult supervision.. he is 13.. there are drugs and bad kids there .. but his father thinks it is ok.. so i have to go along.. because when i said something and he made a limit of oonly with a parent he then went to the child and told him it was my stupoid rule and he only went along with me to keep the peace.. all i did was say i did not think it was a good idea due to documented criminal activity over there.. he makes a rule and then tells the child that it is my fault.. i am the heavy,, so i have removed myself from that position.. i make no rules for him ... except basic house rules.. my problem is not with the child and lack of acceptance with the child but that i have no way to rescue him and help him.. my problem is with the father and his attitude towards this child and this child's special and seperateness..

my h does not do this with our two.. we seem to work well with boundaries with them but they are only 3 and 1 1/2

just wanted to set the record straight

Thank you for your response to my post, WoW.


Maybe what I'm seeing is like a trigger for a traumatic experience, i.e., an affair...the A isn't happening anymore, yet you trigger with daily? Could that be closer to what you're experiencing? Have you read about how to manage triggers?


Did you do your amends for that? Own those choices, those actions and non-actions to your partner?


You believe that your H is beating you down with malicious intent and conscious awareness, is that correct? You believe that he has an EN for beating you down, making you less than in his mind?

How can you allow or not allow his words and actions? You can choose your reponse...only you can--your responsibility--would you consider there is no such thing as allowing or not? He could be saying/doing same things in a closet...and you have no more power. You have the power to remove yourself as he is saying/doing in your presence...that's it. You can do it progressively, pre-determinedly, in stages, all or nothing...your choice...your boundaries...not around HIS behavior...around your own.

You call his previous belief/perception of his 2nd wife delusion...would you consider that we all perceive one another, both with reality and fantasy? How often does your perception of someone overlap with who you want them to be, how you want them to respond (and sometimes they do and don't) or not respond? Between the roles we have (which are responsibilities we've added to ourselves) and who we really are, gets very messy. Separating our "stuff"--our own beliefs, thoughts, perceptions, feelings from what we actually do/say...has been really important for me to inject respect into my relationships. His perceptions of his 2nd wife are his...not the truth, his truth. You said that currently, his beliefs are different than they were in regards to her.

What I heard you doing was choosing to compare yourself to her today. Okay, to be accurate, yesterday (and last week).

Not a delusion--an action. I wasn't asking you to change...I was asking you to stop and own your choice of belief, perception, thoughts. From your choices comes your emotions, how you experience your life right now.

To call his stuff "delusion" is a DJ...and as I said, DJs were what was riddling my life experience with fantasy, making it one of want and deprivation...not solely...greatly added to it, though. Eliminating DJs gives clarity to thought, deepens the lines for healthy boundaries, and respects my truth from the truth.

How I am perceiving you isn't The Truth...my stuff...my perception. I'm not assuming this is true for you...I'm asking.

One of the constant consequences of my own DJs was that I want what I wanted, when I wanted it, in the way I wanted it. I had no idea, until I removed them, that I was doing this. So it wasn't enough that my DH met my EN...I discounted and refuted it if the other conditions weren't met as well.

That's what I heard (and that's my filter) when you were asking for your H to do amends for what he said and did in the past.

He is working now...so he is partially meeting your FS EN. Recognizing his actions, separate from his truth, is essential in understanding, I believe. Ack. I digressed.


Why are you choosing to believe he is "never" going to see you for who you are? Where's the reasonableness of that "never"? He fell in love with you...he married you...the never would be a lie to yourself, IMO. One that strikes at your heart, with you holding that knife. Struggle to eradicate that knife from your own hand, WoW. You have that power and choice. Your stuff, not his.

Do you know the difference between acceptance and approval?

Would you consider you're having a difficult time accepting his stuff, how he viewed you, before? Or that you may feel a lot of fear in accepting his stuff altogether, out of your control, and not really about you?

Do you know how to be intimate and experience intimacy? Sounds like you do...because you mentioned boundaries...and if being intimate is in your code, then you will act intimately...which is knowing, owning your own "stuff" and then sharing with your spouse. Doesn't depend on your partner's choices...rests on you and holding yourself to acting to your boundary.

My impression is that you resented him for not telling you that he compared you to his 2nd wife in his thoughts prior to you marrying him...that he wasn't honest and open with you, didn't lay it out, is that close? Did you lay out your requirements for him prior to marriage (one act does not cancel out another...that's not where I'm going)? That in order to be admired and appreciated by you, he would have to have this level of job (not minimal), with this amount of income (or above), this level of time alone (or less), and this amount of child involvement? I ask because I really don't know if you did or not. You may have, from your experience, done this.

I didn't...most of those who come to MB didn't know about scheduling 20 hours of UA...commitment to recreational companionship, the importance of playing together...one-on-one time. And we didn't know about Radical Honesty, the rule of protection or joint agreement, either. So when we knew better, we did better...and our marriages became better.

And sometimes they don't. These are boundaries we commit ourselves to implementing and acting from...not hold our spouse to doing.

My DH cannot withdraw from my boundary. My boundary determines what I do, not what he does. He has his own boundaries...just like me, some he's aware of and others he is not. Easy to interpret boundaries as if his boundary is around me...for instance, he has one for me to not be allowed to yell. Only that's twisted...because that's MY boundary, part of not LBing, around myself.

He doesn't allow himself to raise his voice...and if he does, then he catches himself, apologizes and amends. This one is rare for him...I was the obviously abusive partner. His abuse was very subtle. He has a boundary for not mocking me...and this he slips at...takes him a moment to catch...then he does, owns and stops.

My boundary from respect is that when he does LB, my first enforcement is to state the crossing--takes more awareness for me to do this given my penchant to DJ...and ASSUME he knows where he crossed it, btw--and if he does it again, to remove myself, after saying what for, how long and when I will return to the conversation (same boundary for my own needing a time out to deal with my emotions, reactivity). Third time, remove longer time-wise or table my half of the discussion until the following day at a set time. My fourth enforcement involves separating, which hasn't happened. We don't really get past the second one anymore. Not necessary.

That's not him changing...that's me checking myself FIRST...listening and repeating...which helps me not take on his stuff as mine...and checking my discontent (urge to resent) with if I'm discounting or refuting his stuff because I want what I want, when I want it, in the way I want it. I doublecheck myself a lot, btw.

I had to OWN my historical resentment...find out often I was the one with the knife...and then commit to myself to NOT do/say that which I would resent. Which means to make no more resentments today. There is no magic bullet...just daily opportunity.


Does that give you an out, also, for being damaged and hurting? What's an out mean? How is it part of forgiveness? Are you saying you accept you cannot change what he said in the past, that you didn't approve, and you commit to leaving it in the past, along with the past pain, past anger, past resentment? Is that the out you mean? And you commit to doing the same for yourself? That's part of what now to me. Is it for you?

Did he ask for your forgiveness, btw? Did you ask for your own?


I don't know what reasserting your life means...or your peace, your self-esteem, your boundaries. I know that you assert yourself in every moment, which is how you rebuild/build your self-esteem, experience peace through enforcing healthy boundaries around yourself.

Oh, an example of an unhealthy boundary (because that's been niggling at me)..."I commit to not allowing that person to think ill of me." Which would then be your goal...what you act from...often disguised as "not giving them any fodder for disapproval" or something close. (My words are being influenced right now by what I'm reading...which is all four books of "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy"...that's me sharing.

We have all sorts of unhealthy boundaries in us left over from childhood/teenhood...our whole life. Part of our wishfulness...really wishing we had the power to control how others' perceive us...and in your case, most prominantly to me, how another views someone else, too. Understandable. Reasonable. Not respectable.

What your H perceives is about him...his choice of perception...says NOTHING about you and who you are. You're self-defining. We all are. We sure can live as if others do it for us...that's a common fantasy. I lived from that fantasy for 43 years. Sometimes, I slip back into it, too.

You may find yourself in a conflict situation...what I hear you saying in "compromised situation"...we make compromises (our choice)...we cannot BE compromised.

If you will feel resentment when you choose to stay present and listen to your H share his stuff...then hold yourself to your code of honesty and respect and STATE that: "I am feeling instant resentment over your thoughts and feelings right now. I am going to remove myself for a half-hour to re-center myself to hear what you're saying with my DJs hurting me so much."

You listened before...where you said you were sorry for his feelings...instead of saying truthfully..."I know you're feeling this way right now. I wish deeply you weren't feeling pain. I hear you saying you are."

Active listen and repeat...so you can hear that he is struggling mightily with his belief that he is not physically attracted to anyone right now...and his perception that it's been for the full four years of marriage (that wasn't his perception two years ago, was it?). Would you consider when our love banks get drained, feels like they've been sunk forever? That fear of it not being refilled gets us more in our child's perspective...the all or nothing...and always...always gonna feel/think/believe this way? When our adult self KNOWS feelings come and go; that they generate our attraction, as Dr. Harley writes about...meeting ENs, eliminating LBs...changes how attracted we are...that SF is an EMOTIONAL NEED...representative, symbolic...complicated.

My DH identified his important EN of SF as acceptance (not approval)...feeling accepted for who he is...not rejected. He says that when he feels the threat of rejection the most, that's when he craves SF the most. To him it's assurance, security, peace--with some admiration, appreciation and attention as conduits. Through my previous discounting and refuting of his stuff, he craved and focused on SF self-destructively (his life pattern). His distraction.

Are you saying your H doesn't meet your ENs even in minimal ways? Have you identified all your ENs?


I can understand how much pain you experienced while he said what he did. I want to point out his half and your half. He spoke in "I" statements for the most part...here's where he didn't...tell me if they hurt the most--stating his perception as fact--that you demand more than he can give; that you will never be satisfied (separate the hurt from the never and the satisfaction); that you want so much from him.

His stuff not stated as fact: he hears you asking for more, he isn't sexually attracted (links that with affection, cuddling), that he believes he has been pretending (choosing to act affectionately when he doesn't feel like it), feels uncomfortable, and believes he's been faking something.

Is there a difference between these to you?

Please note your own desire to "fix" his stuff...when you ask if he wants to see someone to cure him of something.

You say "all this from can we spend time together" is a really subtle DJ. He spilled out. His response was not what you expected...much more than that...and my opinion is that you're judging his response instead of hearing his DJs and his honest sharing of what concerns him right now.

When we listen and repeat, we confirm or clarify what we're hearing...which acknowledges and validates his stuff as his. Ours as our own. Helps us to take the knife out of our hands and really hear our partner's experience as their own experience. Truly cuts down on our reactive pain, resentment and frustration. And this is an act of intimacy.

For clarity...you have a boundary of meanness...which I assume means you do not allow yourself to say/do things to hurt your partner; so you also don't allow them to say/do things to hurt you. What if what they say isn't to make you hurt...and it hurts in you, anyway? Does that cross that boundary? Let me rephrase what you say your H said:

"I hear that I'm failing to give you what you need. I believe I need much less than you do to feel happy, like you just being with me. I hear you saying my presence, who I am, is not enough for you which gives me a constant feeling of dissatisfying you, which feels sickening to me inside. When you ask for us to cuddle, I feel pressured, lacking, set-up for rejection. I hear you saying I don't touch you enough for you to be happy, feel loved. I have been lying to you by omission, feel guilty and shameful. I'm confused and resentful over my own deception. I feel like it's been throughout our marriage that I've been deceiving you. And at times, I convinced myself that my acts of affection did make you happy. I know what I'm saying is contradictory. It reflects my own confusion about my stuff."

One of the coolest things about MB is learning that love is a verb...that we act love and the feelings follow. We acting loving and have loving feelings as a result. Your H was saying he acted from his belief, not his feelings, when he gave you affection previously to meet your EN...though he is saying he didn't feel loving feelings as a result.

Many times people come here and say, "I won't do it if I don't feel like it"...have to feel loving feelings to act lovingly.

Just wanted to offer that up to you for consideration. May also be why you chose to not enforce your boundaries from the beginning, chose to have two children with this man while he was attacking you...your many acts of love gave you loving feelings...would you consider these choices as partially an act of fantasy, some self-soothing ideas that after this child he wouldn't...after the next child, he would...something along those lines? We can falsely keep our love banks bobbling in fantasy, btw.

Which is why when we stop with the fantasy, feels like our balance is ripped away suddenly...instead of withdrawals coming out over time.


I'm confused here...are you saying that for at least three years of your marriage, which includes two years of IC for H, that he was nice to you while he saying all that horrific stuff, comparing you to 2nd wife?

And now that he's stopped, his feelings being nothing like he did before for 2nd wife, he's mean and resentful towards you? Are you sharing your POV or stating your perception as fact?


Nothing in what he said last night that you relayed here had a third person in your relationship. I don't understand what you mean here. I remember the 2nd wife, by comparison, being the third party in your marriage. Is that happening now?

Your boundary goes around you...if he does put another person in your marriage, then your boundary enforcements are what? To what's in your power to get the person out of your marriage and then to separate, and final enforcement to divorce?

His anger, resentment, meanness (we can feel mean without doing mean; we can feel anger without acting out our anger, etc.) are his. This is such a really long reply to you that I'm repeating myself as if you don't know this...when I know you do...even from earlier in this epic post. That's my bad. I've been working on this since this morning...

You progressively enforce your boundaries so you can tell your two youngest in ten years that you did everything within your power to keep their family intact...and you respect what you did, how you did it and held to your code of integrity. Doesn't mean you allow meanness...you don't take abuse...I'm asking you also to stop reaching for it.

Thank you reading my posts. And for your bravery and commitment posting here.

LA


Are you saying i should stick it out and see if his resentment releases.. because that means dropping my boundaries to allow such a person in my life and to be in a non-needs meeting relationship.. simply roommates?

I don't think that is what was intended in a marriage
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