I just have too much frustration right now. This is due to the fact that for the past 3 and half months I have been more then willing to do what it takes to work on what was a marriage and a relationship. I have had no doubt in mind the reasons and causes for the break down of the marriage and knew I had thee ability and the desire to change the things so I could give the love she needed and wanted and that I could overflow her love bank. I've been unable to do that because she has moved further and further away. I understand that part of that was constant contact and I also understand that part of it was her not being able to open up her feelings and she still will not do that to the extent that it takes to do the hard work.

At this time it is what it is. Shes moving the rest of her things out this weekend (not something I truly want) and wants no contact with me.

I'm more then willing to do the hard work. Until she is also then we'll just move further apart.

ezb,

Maybe the longer term NC is the hard work you need to do! 30 days won't kill you and may help you/and bunny see the situation with more clarity. The more you cling to her the more she wants to escape. The visual I get when I see your relationship is a set of very large claws digging into bunny and sometimes wrapping around her like a cage; I think she may be feeling "devoured" by you.

That very well could be the case Bring. All my intent is is to work on things 100% to try to get the issues of our past resolved. We have never fully both worked on it at the same time to thee extent we should have.

On my end LA has it correct, I do feel abandoned.

Makes for a bad recipe.

You feel abandoned, she feels imprisoned (apologies if this isn't correct, Bunny). 30 days, let her go for 30 days. What are your fears about this? You know you won't die from it, you may feel like you're dying, but the reality is you're not. I'm sure you don't want the relationship of jailer/prisoner, is this correct? You have the keys.

As far as my fears I haven't been able to look at that with a clear mind.

I don't want a jailer/prisoner type of relationship.

I want a loving solutions relationship on even ground. I'm prepared to give that. I feel I wouldn't get that. This is the complete opposite of what it's been though.

You are correct BringItOn. I have felt like a prisoner in this marriage/relationship due to the control and manipulation. I had to account for everything I did. I was told do this or that and I will give you the attention/affection but the invisible hoop I had to jump through would always get higher and higher. Just when I thought I did the correct thing he was asking I would find out later it was not just right or not good enough. I have not been allowed to be myself for a while now. I was critized for everything I did or said.

Something else that needs to be cleared up is that I do not have Bipolar 2 per my therapist. He has told me he has not seen any of the signs of it. He has only seen a person that has strong feelings about things and is not being allowed to express them and be an equal in the relationship.

Just a little more information for everyone to digest.

I had no knowledge of a diagnosis change until now.

I also felt like a prisoner. Everything I did or said was questioned as something else or more to it.

I'd also like to state that long before I knew her there was therapy and prozac involved. Obviously there is blame shifting happening.

Not that I have not or will not own up to mine, I feel I have and do.

Thanks again everyone for the help and insight. I feel some or most of my comments have been taken as hostility. I do not mean it as such and do appreciate time and effort from everyone posting.


Have a good weekend everyone. I need to take care of myself and get myself in order.

Here's a smile for everyone though. I thought this was hilarious:

Little RALPHY was sitting on a park bench munching on one candy bar after another.
After the 6th one a man on the bench across from him said, 'Son, you know eating all that candy isn't good for you. It will give you acne, rot your teeth, and make you fat.'

Little RALPHY replied, 'My grandfather lived to be 107 years old.'

The man asked, 'Did your grandfather eat 6 candy bars at a time?'
Little RALPHY answered, 'No, he minded his own business.

Then let's also tell everyone that you had to ask a couple of weeks ago what I was going to therapy for. What the diagnosis was. And that you could not even remember when I had therapy when I lived in the house.


Before I met you there was never therapy. It was only the prozac due to depression because of a job I could not stand. I was also not on the prozac any longer when we met and had not been for some time.

How is that blame shifting?

ezb, thanks for the Ralphy joke.


I did post to bunny on her thread, and I didn't see a response. It's possible I've missed something, though. I have a thread on EN, bunny, so if I did miss a response you can feel free to let me know there.

Y'all are both welcome to my thread there any time, anyhow. Your post brought up a lot of food for thought for me, because I'm trying to get that control and manipulation, out of my life, too. I don't call it that, I call it DJs, but I think it's pretty much the same thing. So what I'm saying is that if you read cat's thread, or my thread, you may see things froma little different perspective, because you're outside the situation. I know reading back now, I see DJs in my thread that I didn't realize at the time.

Anyhow, I think you and bunny are dealing with the same issues, so any suggestions that I make to you, like Alanon, or getting a plan, I think would be a lifeline for her, too. I am so grateful that there is hope, resources, and solutions. There is no cage unless we act as if there is one there. We are new everyday.

I looked on my post and did not see anything from you or I would have responded.

Thank you ears and LA for the alnon suggestion. I have a step program I'm currently following that I have yet to "complete". It's not that I refuse to go to alnon it's that I made a choice to follow this program and have already felt I got off track on it and that I need to get back on track with it.

fyi, ezb, I don't think your posts show hostility. I think they show self-aggrandizement. I think they show that, while you understand and acknowledge steps you can take to get bunny back, in the back of your mind you think that if everyone would have just left you alone and she would have gone along with you, you had all the right answers all along. You may not even be aware you feel that way. But that is what many of us sense.

That's not a DJ; it's an observation.

You remind me of an alcoholic, who manages his drinking and can, for all practical purposes, maintain a quite decent life through very careful functioning. That alcoholic suddenly loses access to something he wants, because of the drinking, so he takes steps to get it back, the steps everyone tells him he needs to do. He acknowleges them, he does them, he even accepts the blame for the problem, but all the while in the back of his mind, he never stops thinking 'they just don't get it; I was handling everything just fine, and if they would have just let me do my thing, I would have shown them.'

Now compare that alcoholic to one who loses something he wants, and he literally hits rock bottom. Enough so that he finally understands total humility, goes to God and says 'I'm a wreck, I can't believe I screwed up, I know I'm not worth saving, but I'm going to ask you to, anyway. Tell me what to do.' And he does it. In total humility, he asks everyone in his life to be brutally honest with him, show him where he went wrong, asks for how to reconstruct himself to be as good as everyone else, and crawls his way out of the hole he dug.

I may be way off base, I fully admit that, but the perception I think many of us get, cumulatively based on what and how you write, is that you are the former, not the latter, and that you are still wearing that protective 'shield' about you that doesn't require the total humility. Of course, to you, it won't seem that way, because you're protecting your ego. JMO

Now before you go on about what bunny has wrong, that's not the issue here. If she wants, we can go dig out her thread and work on her, too. But this is your thread, for work on you. So that is what I'm offering.

Sorry, B, my mistake! I rescanned the thread, and I remember now. At the time, I was going to post to you about calling the Harleys, because it seemed like this was going to be a situation where you two were going to need expert help, because the issues were beyond a DIY project. Someone had already posted the same thing to you, so I didn't repost the same thing. I still think that would be a great idea, even for you to call alone if ezb isn't on board with calling together. Or for ezb to call, even if b isn't on board with calling together.

Cat, to use your analogy, the alcoholic who hits bottom, he knows he's got to give up the bottle. But alcoholism is not just about the bottle, it is also about codependency, which another word for control and manipulation. So a person can get off the bottle, or stop the adultery, and still be unaware that there are many other self-defeating behaviors. If you meet long-timers in the program, many work the steps again and again for this reason, because as we grow, we see more maladaptive behavior that we didn't see the signs and feel the signals to change because other signals to change more drastic things were louder and brought more pain.

A poster we had, MOS, described how when we have an illness, or go through a truama like a death of the loved one, we go into survival mode, and try to just make it through, We don't really grieve what we lost until later, when our life is stable again.

Ezb,

What I perceive from your posts...

That you do not use "I feel" accurately. You FEEL emotions. You believe right/wrong. So don't use "I feel this is right".

Why would this matter? So many of us don't distinguish "I feel you are not working on this relationship" as a lie to self. "I feel frustrated" is not a lie.

Because you may then believe you are asking for Bunny's feelings when you're really asking for her beliefs or decisions. "Is this you, right now, working on our marriage by posting here?" Rather than, "Do you feel this is working on our marriage?"

Hey, communication is difficult for all of us...when you go for clarity...striving first to understand with clarity, then be understood clearly...that's where you will experience clarity.

Next...put down that measuring device. For how much, how deep, how long, how wide...leave the how alone for now. "I feel frustrated right now." Put your truth in relation to time and state it. When you feel the urge (and you can see me do this so often...no kettle/pot thing here, 'k?) to measure how deep, how far (progress) see that urge as your urge to control, to manipulate, contain, change and cure.

"I feel frustrated right now and do not trust myself to post." That was me yesterday, reading your thread. I was tired mentally and physically. When you believe "I feel too much frustration right now to do <blank>" then you stepover your choice. You can feel GREAT frustration and act, anyway...not from or because of it.

What's too much? What you feel, you feel. Emotions are. They are signals. Stating what you found when you traced your frustration to your believe "I believe others see me as less than. I do not like others believing I am the bad guy, the problem, what's wrong in our marriage. Those are the DJs which run through my head and I feel really frustrated with not being able to change others' perceptions of me."

When YOU dwell in the past three months of your efforts and compare them to outcome, you're gonna feel a whole lot of emotions...and when you don't pile up what you've done or not done for the last three months, nor look at the outcome...you won't feel a whole lot of emotions. Your CHOICE.

Sit with this...I've repeated this for a purpose. I don't believe you're hearing me. I don't believe you are doing the moment-to-moment work to change for yourself. I see you as changing for outcome as a new way to downward spiral.

When you check your choices of actions for the last three months and hold them up to your own code, you won't feel the panic, the frustration, the anger or the pain. You will get signals like appreciation, a touch of joy, relief, delight, admiration and maybe a deep sadness. Your emotions signal where your focus is...what your true intent is and if you're acting based on outcome or your code.

Again...rejection-based living is tortuous. I do remember. I see it in my sons...I have passed it on. We all do. Consequences keep coming. You have a chance to change your base right now...and live a new life, especially to example to your children.

That has been my experience...and you have more time than I did. I didn't realize this until one of my sons was already grown and gone...and another on the verge of moving on. I gotta call and make an appt with 'em to amend. How 'bout that?

Willing is not doing. You own you did and didn't do what you promised. "I broke my promise to my XW and to myself, and to my marriage." Period.

You CANNOT change "things"...only yourself. Where is your overflowing love bank from you, to you? You will not love XW forever unless you choose, daily, to love XW. You will not feel loving feelings for XW when you no longer act on your love.

Love is active, not passive...not a result. It's a choice we act on and then feel loving feelings as a result. Think hard about that, ezb...dwell on that...and let me know what comes through.

It's how we can maintain love for a long time...through our own actions (even unrequited love)...still do it for our own payoff...can be a real payoff (keeping our vows) or a false payoff (distracting us from reality). Only we know. That's our responsibility to know.

Your focus is glued to Bunny. Hers is glued to you. Making you the cause, control and cure of her. And she, you. Even if you don't have contact for 30 days straight...and you do what it takes not to...including blocking email, not answering calls, not listening to voicemails, not reading letters or notes...as long as you keep telling yourself she's why you can't; she's why you can; she's the reason to; she is how you; she is not who...all those focus statements...nothing will change in you. You'll still go through her in your own mind to get to you.

It's just the best shot at respecting who Bunny really is and breaking this prison of PURSUER/DISTANCER you guys both have false payoffs in continuing--look, even now, divorced.

Would you consider not focusing on your willingness to do the hard work and focus instead on what you are doing right now?

LA





Would you consider stating to yourself "I am" five times a day, aloud, or whispered to yourself? State it as fact. It is..."I am."

What comes thru is for a long time now I have not loved myself. I feel this has resulted in a lot of things that have happened. I have always tried to be more and as a result I have also wanted her to be more. I became unhappy with me first and then with her. As a result now I realize just how happy I should have been. I have been dwelling on that. I can't change that but I can change the now and the future.


It has been a real payoff in the fact that I have been true to those vows and to my real self. It has also been a false payoff in our relationship.


I feel your correct in this. There have been and is false payoffs in those actions for both of us IMHO. To help understand better are you meaning my pursuing is trying to get the love I feel I need and hanging onto that and therefore getting that false payoff? Are you meaning her distancing herself even further is gaining more control then she has had and getting false payoffs from that?


I need to do that so yes. I haven't wanted to turn away from doing that hard work because in the back of my mind it signals the end.

What does DJ stand for anyway?

I do and have actually thought that cat. Only I know that I'm willing to do the things and change the things that it takes. It does take her knowledge and perceptions to make the things happen. I can change a bunch of things about myself and how I act but if it wasn't what she was seeing or needing then it wasn't going to save our marriage. Thats where the false payoff comes in.


Edited: It's also where I was doing it for the wrong reason. I need to do things to better myself. If there's a result that ends up reuniting us then wonderful, if not then I'm a better person either way.

I was asking so I could listen with a more open and receptive mind. I feel now I did not do that in the past and it's something I'm changing. I was too wrapped up in me and had put too many things on my plate.



What I hear you saying is that I was the cause. You say now that you don't have bipolar at all and that it was me and the things I did that caused your depression, is that correct?

cat,

You had asked me to give my thoughts on the book Codependent No More.

I feel everyone and anyone can label themselves codependent. I have actually stopped reading that book. I believe it might be helpful for some people but it just does not fit my need and I don't feel it's helpful to me. There's been some good points I found in it but I feel anyone believing in the things in that book will end up very lonely. I feel it teaches too much selfishness and thats definately something I don't feel I need more of thats for sure. There is a line between selfishness and caring for yourself and others. I don't feel that book finds that happy medium between the 2. I might pick it back up at a different point in time but now is not the time for me.

Getting it I believed it would help me isolate the ways I might manipulate and control and I have not found that. I'll be concentrating more on my step program now.

I also want to add a view on something. I feel there is way too much over analilazation in the world today. I'm not applying it to just this situation either. Now I'm sure that will come accross wrong and be viewed as me deflecting or viewed that I haven't learned what I should. I do feel it's the case to a certain point though. I still admit my faults and will work to correct them the best I can.