Whine whine

Romans 7:6

But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

Is that what you mean?

I am amazed how the strength of sin is in the law yet we hear from so many how we are sinners but are not taught that Mercy triumphs over judgement. My catholic friend refers to it as reaching into the Arc and pulling out the law and showing it to us but that they bypass the Mercy seat which was placed on top of the Arc where the Son sits. The arc was were the ten commandments were put and The mercy seat now reigns. We are supposed to be bondservants of Christ now. Right?

One of the most awesome things I learned was that Jesus hated religion. Because it was mans invention.

I have herad it said Religion was Man trying to imitate God and Christianity was allowing God to reach out to Man.


I guess the "rules" thing I was talking about was just a respect for the rules. As paul said the rules,(law) was good.

Ok im gonna go do somethin else for awhile ttyl. Maybe ill read the thread

I have had a friend who is not familiar with MB or the things I've posted here say the same thing. I am all to willing to accept when somone points out a potential character defect that may or may not be there, but not so willing to accept when someone compliements or sees a virtue.

Which is spiritually and personally dishonest and sign of false humilty. Which is part of the dark side.

I guess by dark side is that I often feel plagued by my flaws. By the belief that "if they really knew me they wouldn't like me." When in fact, it's our honesty about our flaws which endear us to those who matter. Those flaws may be fodder for self-righteous, insecure people who need to tear me down to feel better about themselves. But they don't ultimately matter, and the sooner I realize that their conditional admiration and acceptance is worthless, the happier I will become.

I think by dark side, with regard to MB, is the ultimate truth that I don't really WANT intimacy with the person who is my husband. That is the truth and real. However, my "wants" are what has gotten me in this mess. I don't trust my "wants". So I amm willing to act as if in order to do something different, even if it is against my wants, or better put, against my will. Because my will is what got me here, and is imperfect.

I look at other folks posting on this board trying to save their marriages, and it's because they WANT to save their marriages. Me, I want to want to save my marriage. And I have had many years of self-justication and sacrifice and resentment and just plain poor behavior toward my husband. So for me, cleaning up my side of the street is very much about eliminating the bad stuff that I do to sabatoge my relationship, because if I do it in this marriage, I would do it in any marriage and serial monogamy won't change that. I know that it is wiser to bllom where I'm planted, even if I don't "feel" like it and even if I can't honestly say that I "want" it.

The problem is that I am sure that I communicate this attitude non-verbally to my husband. Not sure how to change that.

I don't want to focus on him so much right now, but I would like to share this. When we started dating, I truly felt (and still do) that he was less interested in persuing me as he was interested in persuing a relationship with me, even a bad or mediocre one. And I can say the same for me. I was in love with the idea of marriage, family, etc. I was never in love with him as a person, and had a lot of doubts aboutb him as a person, and thought that God would do all the work of making us compatible.

What I realize now is that I don't want him to persue a "relationship" with me. Nor do I want him to persue ME for the sake of being with me, because I don't want to be anyone's prize, goal, or God. Rather, I want him to persue the same thing I'm persuing for his own sake, and for the sake of the persuit, and to find that we are both on the same path.

This, I believe, is the starting point for a relationship with me. It is not everyone's starting point. But it is mine. The spiritual journey, the search for emotional maturity. What other people on this thread and others have suggested is that I ought to consider having a different starting point. But for me, right now today, I don't want a different starting point. I like the one I have, it seems the most spiritually, emotionally, intellectually and physically honest to me, and my vow was to be true. And I can't be true to anyone else if I'm not true to myself.

Luckily part of persuing my own path and following my own code is to provide caring love for my spouse and to eliminate the behaviors that he asks me to eliminate.

I realize that for me being in such deep withdrawl as I am from time to time, I will have fits and starts. I accept that and just take it one day at a time.

Absolutely.

Jesus said he came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.

Thinkin, if you followed the MB concepts to restore romantic love to your marriage, would that meet your goal of wanting your marriage? If your H were in romantic love with you specifically, and you with him specifically, would that meet your goal?

I understand completly why you want to start right where you are even though you feel rather disinterested in the marriage or Hubby.
Not wanting intimacy can probably be said by many of the members of marriage that are teetering on the brink of wanting to escape from a loveless marriage.
You are here to see if you can want to stay or at least have a POJA with Hubby that you can be enthusiastic about right?

Do you feel that there is a place inside you that desires romance? I saw where you stated you could be more passionate, that you "were capable of so much more".

I guess thats what at best we can help with. From what I read you are not, or feel you will never be, "in-love" with your H.

Love and in-love, two different things aren't they? I also married my first wife in part because I wanted to be settled down at the ripe old age of 18. Honestly I knew we were too young but she insisted it would be ok and i worried to much. Anyway I understand.

Romantic love happens in the mind in my opinion and thats what we have to deal with is our minds.

Well you have the ability to endure while still loving that seems obviuos. Im hoping God sets a lightning bolt of romance from your H to you. I know he gave us to each other to enjoy as "The marriage bed is undefiled". but romance needs to be there.

I am sure God will honor you as you honor Him. Maybe with all the openess you have been showing him you will be surprised. You are doing all you can and very well I think.

I will pray that your marriage gets the jolt you both need to be drawn together. I know you are not expecting that from anyone but you wont be able to argue with God if he makes it happen, and you know its Him.

He is the God of miracles

I think Mark1952 said a while back that it is very hard to sustain the actions of MB if we don't really believe they will work, and for me it is a question of belief. Or lack of.

I can do this stuff because I believe it is the right thing to do. But I don't believe it will actually make a tangible difference in my own fulfillment. Just his.

I can learn to be comassionate with regard to his faults and failings, because I desire to be compassionate with everyone (even though I fall drasticly short a lot of the time). But I do not expect the same from him, because I believe that to be an unrealistic expectation.

I can seek first to understand. But I do not expect him to do the same.

Part of the St. Franics prayer goes like this:

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

I have no doubt that I will be and already have been pardoned through this process. And I have no doubt that there will be times when it feels like I am dying inside. But there is no guarantee that I will recieve FROM MY MARRIAGE. Perhaps it is my path to learn how to console, understand and love myself, as well as him, and thus find fulfillment that doesn't depend on him.

I think it is best for me to learn how to be happy without being "in love," just as we say, I can learn "to be happy whether the alcoholic is still drinking or not."

I feel as if I have come full circle here. That I do not believe that he is capable of fulfilling my needs, that I do not believe he would choose to fulfill my needs or abandon the IB to marriage, and that even if he did, that he would be able to draw me out of withdrawl.

I think the reason I'm so down is that I had an incredible day yesterday. I hung out with a new friend who is visiting for a few weeks here in town. She and I just hung out with the kids, then went to an alanon meeting in the evening, then got together with a large group of folks afterwards for dinner and had hours of deep and superficial conversation and just had the best day of my life in a long time. And I felt so rejuvenated. And realized that in order to have a MB marriage, I must give up the thigs that make me most happy, because they do not include my husband and he doesn't really want to be a part of those things. Conversely, he would have to give up the recreational activities and companions that make him most happy, because I cannot enthusiastically join him.

Because MB states that we must make sure our happiest times are spent with our spouse in order to keep our Love Banks full. Because as long as we spend our most happy moments AWAY from our spouse, we will always rather be away from them. And that is where we BOTH are.

Neither one of us can enthusistically deny ourselves of the experiences that are most fullfilling for us. I could do it for a short time, off and on through the years, but then I will have a day like yesterdy that reminds me what living actually feels like, and I will not want to be settling for less than that. So I will choose a marriage of mutual sacrifice where he lets me have my IB, I let him have his IB, and we go on separate paths and treat each otehr with caring love but do not feel romantic love.

And when I think about that scenario, aside from not wanting to damage my kids, I think, what's the point?

And then I do think about the kids, and I remmeber what it was like to grow up in a home with a loveless marriage, and I think, REALLY what's the point.

Maybe I shouldn't be here after all. I'd just be whining about things which are of my own choosing after all.

Ah sorry you feel so bad. I understand what you mean about having fun with your friends.

Don't leave, of course we are here and our choices got us here lol. welcome to the club. Some answers come slow. Hope yur feelin better tommorow

Yeah, maybe.

Probably just lack of UA time bothering me, right?

Thinkin, I love my Alnon group, and the activities we do, but I don't think of them as *more* fun than date nights, getting to know my H again. Our district does fun things I get to invite my H and kids to, like meeting at the beach and the park, and gratitude dinners. And outside of planned program activities, we get together with my program friends, so they are his friends, too, folks he knows he could call if he needed, even though he's not "in program." I don't see this as mutually exclusive, all or nothing, having fun with friends and fun with my family. If anything, these especially non-judgmental folks are very easy to introduce my H to. The same way, I think if all of us MB folks lived in one town, we'd get a long great together, too.

Wouldn't yesterday have been just as much fun if your Hs had joined you two and the kids? We have a Friday night meeting here, that all goes to dinner after, with the partners, sometimes with the kids, too, depends on who shows up. Do you have a weekly meeting like that where you live?

We know that there is a different way to be in a marriage. Our spouses still aren't ready to see this.



Maybe he can't and won't but I bet that if he did, you might come out of withdrawal.



I do believe that it is possible to find activities that both enjoy. It is the giving up of the others, the IB that is the difficult part. Somehow you have to believe that what is to come is better than what has been given up. Difficult to do.


How would your H respond if you showed this too him? Is he at all on board for MB?

Thanks for putting so many of my feelings into words.

He has no interest in doing anything that has anything to do with the program. He tolerates that I do alanon but sees no need for him to come along, even for social stuff. Like this evening, a program couple that I know are having a potluck dinner for that friend of mine who is visiting. I actually offered that my husband and kids come, but he doesn't want to come, and so I will not bring the kids with me by myself (that's a lot for just one person to handle since the youngest is only 1) So I have a choice, go hang out with my program friends at this potluck and have a great time, or stay home and be resentful because I have to sacrifice doing something more fun for something less fun.

No. It would not. Because he wouldn't want to be there, and it would be incredibly draining for me to know that he didn't want to be there. Church is like that too. He goes because I ask him, not because he wants to be there. And it DOOES make a difference. I know I should be grateful that he goes, and I'm not. I would rather he be there, because I know the only reason he goes is to say, "But I go to church with you." So he can hold it over my head.

None of the groups I go to have that sort of comraderie. Most of the married alanons I know are a LOT older than me and do not belong to the more "sociable" groups. My homegroup is mostly divorced women with and without kids. And the other groups I occasially go to are either mostly younger single/divorced my age or do not have social gatherins outside the meetings.

Right now I think it is very self-destructive for me to be here. All I am doing is justifying my negative feelings and just spiraling downward. I have been trying to avoid fighting with my husband. And I just had an AO trying to push him from getting me to talk, and then I lashed out big time, and probably said some really hurtful things, and I really think its' because of what I'm doing here right now.

I think it's better for me to stay away for a while.