What your describing is not strange. Its just part of the process. It takes two things up front for somone to change.
To see that there is a problem and realise it
Time working on it with professionals who are no longer in woods lost and alone.

Whatever MB can do for you it will still bring intimacy to you both in a unigue way if you use the principles. He is afraid of feeling good about sex right now. This is to be expected reguardless of your circumstances. He has trust issues from way back allready and brought that to the marriage. Which in his part he fel back into a comfortable mindset after getting married by shutting down. It must have been a surprise to him also that he reacted that way when he was having great sex with you before marriage. But reguardless it happened and he went into protection mode.

The old stuff like "Sex ends after marriage" is a comfortable way to separtate the two when its easier to live two seperate lives outside the childlike state of trust for each other. The walls go up, and you can even cause problems with these protective attitudes.


You will need to see H into MB and believing in it before you see him embracing the concepts. He has been deeply hurt in the past and is protecting himself. Most men go there easily and there are a lot of other ppl out there who are part of "The He-man Women haters Club" where they can lick thier wounds together.

It takes time W02, Little bits of fog break away, the connection will come back, But anything worth having is worth working for right?

Hang in there

Will continue to hang in there for as long as it takes!

That you are reading makes me very proud of you, not that you need my approval or even want it.

Understanding the material is of even greater importance. Right now I am working with a lady who has read some, but does not understand anything. She also is resenting me a great deal, which is very ok. Better she gets mad at me instead of her husband.

Larry

What are some ways to short circuit an instinct...such as an angry outburst?

I don't understand the question.

Larry

I was reading about instincts and habits in the basic concepts section and Dr. Harley says you can't change an instinct but you can short circuit it and I couldn't quite figure out how to do that.

We can't change our instincts, but we can short-circuit their approach to a problem. If I have an instinct to have angry outbursts, it doesn't mean that I must actually have one. I can create new habits that prevent me from losing my temper. Bad habits are hard to replace with good habits, especially when they are driven by instinct, but it can be done. And, in marriage, it must be done if it is to be successful.


this was what I was referring to.

count to ten.

He he. . . Got to that one did 'ja. I applaud you, actually reading and relating. So many on here don't. The ones who do move to grown up status. The ones who don't are doomed to keep repeating the same old garbage, whilst expecting a different result.

What SSO said. . . Yep!

Replace a bad habit with a good one. When about to blow up, count to ten. Or:

1. Smile. Ok, grimace. This gives the other person time to run in fear or cower as their personality dictates.

2. Imagine that you are about to emit gas. Er, flatulate. This usually inhibits women and it might work. Or, it will run everyone off so you can blow up in complete privacy.

3. Don't let small offensives stack up to an explosion. Deal with them as they happen. Calmly state after each one that you have only three more before you go into orbit. The other person will want to film that for NASA.

4. Imagine that each offense you stack up is like having a baby. As you absorb and stuff more and more, the baby grows until you are going to the bathroom every five minutes. Just before you explode, you will be in the bathroom and the only result is a lot of echoes.

I will try to think of more.

Larry

It is such a second nature for me to blow up that I can't seem to think before it happens, is there anything I can do to put into practice before I get angry that might help prevent an outburst?

W02,

Ok this is an easy one. Well, it will sound easy anyway.

My father used to say the two great motivators in life were Fear and Greed.
I think he was right, but there are others as well. So let�s talk instincts. Usually, they are there to help us achieve something. So let�s take FEAR. What instincts do we have that help us address FEAR? The short answer: fight or flight. Right?

What is anger? It is a secondary emotion driven by primary ones: pain, anxiety, frustration, etc. You instinct isn�t to get angry, it is to protect yourself from�

So let�s say it is fear. If you cannot run from what you fear, pain for example, then you must put up defenses and fight. If you don�t want to fight, then you avoid, which is really running right.

Your habits and responses are not your instincts. The habits and responses are your defenses and you can choose a different way to defend yourself without changing your instincts.

Your H fears women. Why? pain from past experiences. What does he do? He pushes you away and avoids intimacy. Now his instincts also tell him that women are good, they provide many things to him, but his primary instinct is to avoid pain, so he defends. Now he could also avoid this pain by realize his instincts are right, but his method could be more fool proof. He could love you and encourage you to love him, so that YOU become his protector, then he doesn�t need to defend or run�he doesn�t fear you any longer. Has he changed his instincts? No! He has changed how he protects himself by having you defend him rather than he having to defend himself and he does this by letting you in and you proving that you can be trusted and will defend him.

Are you seeing what I am saying? An AO is the same thing. The instinct to avoid, pain, fear, anxiety, etc. is strong. This issue is how best to do this. Does anger really protect you? Probably not, but does for a short time, but the harm it does often leads to more of what you were avoiding in the first place by defending yourself with an AO.

Does this make sense? I hope so.

God Bless,

JL

Yes, you outbursting is a HABIT since you have done it for years. Habits can be broken by many means. Google "How to break bad habits" and find out how to break this habit.

You can use many methods to change and break this bad habit, and you will be surprised at how quickly the habit is broken.

I broke my bad habit of LB'ing on my husband when he confronted me about it and told me he was trying to be the best husband possible and I kept hurting his feelings and blaming him for stuff.

It hit me hard and I cried. I begged him to point out to me right away if I ever LB';d him again. I promised to never do it again but told him I may slip up a couple times.

Just like quitting smoking or quitting eating fats and sugars, you can quit outbursting and getting angry.

Once you stop getting angry and outbursting for good, you will feel such an accomplishment. Your entire life will be happier.

Ask your husband how he feels when you outburst on him. It will make you want to change that bag habit of yours. Ask your husband to help you change yourself.

OK...I have noticed the more I talk about this(AO) the more aware of it I become. I actually avoided an AO last night. I had ask Hubby for the remote to set the DVR, didn't have to change the channel. I even told him I wasn't changing the channel. He could still watch tv while I set it, three button pushes and I would be done. But, he wouldn't hand it to me. He kept it away, and kept a tight grip on it. And I'm sitting there and I realize I'm getting angry because I was frustrated. I was able to just take a cleansing breath, and just take 10 seconds. I asked him for the remote again and he's turning to hand me a different one from the one I needed and I just grabbed the one I needed and he calls me a b#$ch. I really don't get the whole control the remote thing, especially when it doesn't interfere with what he's watching. I'm also getting tired of being called THAT name. I broke up with a boyfriend years ago because he called me that, it just hurts. The worse I've ever called him was a butt, no not the other word I mostly tell him he's acting like a butt.

I will ask him how he feels when I outburst on him.

wife_02,

You would be surprised at the amount of men who view losing control of the remote is like losing control of the household. Like he is not man of the house if he gives you the remote. It's trivial, but some men do believe this. Also your husband feels he has lost control of a great portion of the marriage since your infidelity. He is holding on to whatever control he does have over anything.

He seems to LB you quite a bit. Calling your wife a B***** does not fly in my book. I called my wife that once when I was 20, (I will be 44 this month) I have not called her that ever again because I saw the hurt in her eyes when I said it.

Good for you for recognizing the LB'ing and short circuit process.

You just stop doing it. If you stop doing it long enough, you retrain yourself.

The problem here is not your AO's but that he is abusive. He is an abuser. I wouldn't tolerate that but about one time. I would politely show him to the door and explain to him he won�t be talking to me like that again. Use firmness when you explain this to him and leave your pistol in its holster.

wife_02

I thought I might help to answer this question:




I used to get angry very easily - I mean VERY EASILY!!!! Given my background, it was not surprising. Then I realized that this anger came from a source that was not related to the event that I was getting angry about. I was using a pot of anger about my past as ammunition for anything that made me even a tiny bit mad - and that I was inappropriately angry for things that really didn't require the level of anger I was using!

Let me explain. Let's say there's a scale of 1 to 10 for anger, and 10 is the most angry you can possibly be, ever. My past event should make a person 10. I store my anger in a pot, ready for use. When something makes me angry, I reach in the pot for ammunition, and throw it out there. Only, I ALWAYS GRABBED ENOUGH FOR A TEN! Didn't matter, I always used a 10 ammunition, even if the situation required a 1 or a 2. Like, let's say someone robbing your house and burning it down, that should be an 8 or 9. Losing your car keys and making yourself late for work might be a 2, but if there was an important meeting, a 3. Dropping a glass and breaking it, a 1.

Get my drift? You rate things yourself, it's YOUR scale. The thing is, you have to stay away from the ammunition pot that keeps feeding you that 10 all the time - because you don't NEED it for everything.

I didn't realize it for a long time.

But what a change in my world when I made that change! My marriage changed, my JOB changed, my LIFE changed. My entire countenance changed, because all of a sudden I was in control - and not the events of the past, not something I always thought was "instinct".

It wasn't. It was ME - out of control.

Wow.

Enlightening for me, wasn't it?

SB

As to your confusion with your husband and his previous statements about "sex is just sex":


He's having problems with intimacy because he USED to believe sex is just sex, and now he has issues with the idea of his "territory" and sex. He realizes that YOU connect sex and intimacy - and he fully understands this. The fact that he is standoffish and can't talk about this is because he DOES understand it all, not the opposite!

He knows that you were looking for intimacy, and that somewhere in this his attitude that sex and intimacy are separate had its contributions to your affairs does bother him. Just so that you know, many men (not ALL men, and also many women as well) are fully capable of separating sex and intimacy, and do have a compartmentalization feature for sex and love/intimacy. They can see the two as separate and unrelated, and therefore may say things as your husband said with "if you want sex, go somewhere and get it" because the intimacy part really does appear separate to them and may not seem a threat. However, your husband NOW has come to understand that this is a threat, and that threat bothers him greatly.

Only he seems to be the type of person who isn't a talker when it comes to processing his ideas and emotions - he seems to be the type who works internally. That's tough, especially on you, because you will have to read his behavior in order to know your progress. He will give you some verbal clues with short phrases and comments, but I suspect that's all.

Hope that helps.

SB

I guess the "remote issues" are issues that come up often in your household. If so, talk to him about it (not during a TV show) and figure out a solution.

He sounds angry at you still or irritated at you. You sound angry and irritated at him.

Why watch TV at all? Why not instead, get rid of your irritations and anger toward one another.

TV watching will do no good if both of you harbor hostility toward one another. Look, you could not leave that remote alone could you. You had to push and push him.

Both of you are creating problems for each other.

Also, if you loved him so much, HOW COULD YOU manage to flirt with, talk with, kiss, arrange a motel to have sex in, lie to your husband, make love with another man, and then go home and look your husband in the eyes having just boinked another man?

Ok, with the remote issue...I surrender it over to him as soon as he comes home, I wanted to set the DVR to record something I wanted to watch later, I had forgotten I could do that online so now he can have his silly remote and will no longer call me a b$%ch, well at least over that. He has however resorted to calling me that whenever I complain, if I say there is a dress I want, he says "want in one hand, @#$% in another and see which weighs more" or "want, want,want". With the dress issue I figured out how I could get it, but he says I just want to spend his money. Oh, did I say I can pay him back? I know it's trivial, but I planned on wearing this dress to at Easter,to a wedding, and it would be perfect to wear for our vow renewal if he ever wants to do that. How can I get him to see that I'm here because I really do love him and not because I want something.(Does it not say love that I will scrub the places he can't reach, pop the pimple on his back and squeeze out the infection on this nasty thing on his leg?I will do whatever he needs me to, I am always there now for whatever he may need me to do, even touch the "eew gross" things when he says "feel this")


A part of me feels I deserve anything he dishes out at me. All the names he'll call me and all the abuse he dishes out, I still think sometimes I deserve it all. I don't deserve intimacy from him, I don't deserve a fulfilling sex life with him, I don't deserve his love.