Thanks for those quotes, Mel. That's very helpful.

After your husband eliminated angry outbursts, how did he respond to your independent behavior, until it was eliminated? (Assuming I've got the order correct.)

I asked Prisca about anger management again, and she's updated her position on the subject to "I don't care what you do with your own time." So I think I will plan on seeing what comes from the seminar, and move forward into some kind of anger management class afterward if it looks like that's not enough.

Thanks, Chris. I did somewhat break that pattern this time. Step 4 didn't happen. I simply told Prisca Monday night what was upsetting me. Tuesday she did respond verbally, with many disrespectful judgments. I wasn't prepared for this, because, you know, we've rarely done this differently from the cycle you describe, before. And so there's a new trigger I need to learn to avoid AO'ing over.

Again, I'm not justifying. Just acknowledging that as of Tuesday I did not yet have my anger managed for such a situation.

I repeat what I said yesterday morning: I will do better.

The path through this was to let the whole thing go and meet Prisca's emotional needs despite the fact that she had ceased to meet mine. It's a path I have walked before, and a path I can walk again. I took an abusive path instead. I will do better. Understanding exactly what happened will help that.

Even if her Step 3 is DJ rather than silence, the truth still holds.

Try the step 4 I suggested, and see what happens.

I'm not a man and I don't do AO so maybe my opinion doesn't seem that logical or sensible to you, but I have experience on the receiving end of AO.

Just try it & see.

I can't completely implement your step 4 suggestion, because at the time I was making the decision, I was coming home from work, and my only other choice would have been to not come home. I can't just go do something else; she depends on me to get home and help with the children and the household and to spend time on her.

And now she has added "I hate being married to you."

markos...

Huge kudos for your honesty in your post owning that you AO'd with intent...

Use that. To eliminate your AO's, revoke your permission to act out your emotions...

State, don't demonstrate.

Rewind you going to the car to call her that day...with the intent to AO...

And in your call, instead, you stated "I really want to yell and plead right now. I'm hurting a lot and I want to strike back at you for striking at me."

Radical honesty is your key out...because when we act out our emotions (and you both do...most of us are do), we feel we are really communicating...and we aren't. We know in order to understand an AO, you gotta DJ. That's what I found.

So stating you really want to and don't broke it for me. That and breathing...listening and repeating.

As for your two rules...listening to her as vent or as solver...

I vote for just listening to her...not assuming she's venting...or asking you to solve without asking. Listen to check yourself you're even really hearing what she's saying...and I'd ask Prisca to do the same...for a two month period...act like you guys don't speak the same language...

which would help break the cycle Chris pointed out...the language of abuse and reactivity. You both want to break out of it, free yourself to really cherish your partner.

And don't discount your presence...on Monday night, staying with her in the kitchen while she baked...appreciating each other's presence in your mind would have led your heart. And that's when seeing her process, you could have handed her the butter from the fridge when she needed it and smiled.

Not talking and focusing on appreciation, admiration and how much you love your wife and marriage...without all the doing (to earn love), and more on the being...will radiate. Even without words. If you don't discount it.

Know that Prisca knows her IB hurts you. That her silent treatment, the shut out hurts you. Know that she knows she hurts you. Acceptance. And take yourself out of it...because it was about her...and you staying lovingly present...not to solve, sooth, change her feelings...to BE with her, while she goes through her stuff...is how you respect she chooses her actions.

If instead you spend that time comparing what she was doing to what you wished she was doing, then you will stoke your resentment, righteous anger (what I had to rev up to AO), all her shortcomings, her fault...and yes, you went longer before you let loose...because you promised if you held out, you'd really tell her off tomorrow (maybe not if she did this or didn't do this the next morning...which was the tripwire the next day when she DJ'd).

LA

I'll be honest, Markos.

I'm married to a guy with an AO problem.

And most days, I feel a lot like Prisca.

I think at one point I considered doing that. I knew what the right thing to do was; I simply didn't do it.

Pleading is angry outburst?


This is apparently what I did. And it resulted in her telling me the next day that she was running late to her ladies' event because I hadn't helped her.


If I'd known she needed the butter. I tried to ask if I could hand her things when she was pushing past me to get to the fridge.


I don't think so. She disagrees with me that it was independent behavior.

It wasn't a tripwire I was aware of, at that point in time. I did expect (yes -- premeditated resentment, I know), that if I refrained from love busters this time she would realize how she had hurt me and stop pulling away from me.

It is a tripwire I am aware of, now. And as I said, education helps.

Oh Markos.

I'm so sorry.

I've said that to my husband (hate being married to him).

As hard as it is to hear, it's not really about hating being married to you--it's about being in so much pain.

She is in so much pain, Markos!

She is not dealing with it well, and I"m sorry she is barbing you as you move through this process together....(even if it doesn't feel together)

((((((Markos))))))

I think Prisca has every right to feel hurt by my angry outburst. I don't think I was justifiable at all.

The barb of the comment doesn't hurt near as much as Monday night's independent behavior. I really just posted it to try to give enough context to the anger management discussion to show that Prisca's not really saying she wants me to go.

(Although I'll probably use it as an excuse to go, after we get through MB weekend, if it appears that what I can get through MB coaching isn't sufficient.)

Hokey smokes do I have some reading to catch up on...

Mark, I was just reading you on another thread commenting that when you were going through this you had someone who had been through MB before talking to you, but not really encouraging you to keep plugging along.

So let me summarize:
Things got bad Monday night when I didn't expect it. I kept plugging along longer than I have in the past, but not long enough. I went back to the old abusive habits. Damage done. Time to get back to doing to what I'm supposed to.

Hi Markos,

I wanted to tell you about my first marriage/exH.

His AO's had worn me down. I hated living with a volcano. I asked for a D. H promised to change.

He could go a week or so without blowing up, but no longer.

Looking back now, I'd say it would have taken about a YEAR of him not blowing his top before I would have believed he had really changed and felt comfortable to open up to him.

I divorced him.

You must ELIMINATE AO's. They will be the death of your marriage. She's been very clear, she's VERY unhappy about this.

No matter WHAT she does, an AO does NOT resolve the problem. Has it? Has she EVER responded well to an AO? Of course not.

You get a temporary relief from your anxiety, and she get's screaming lune. Does that sound reasonable? Of course not.

The ball is SQUARELY in your court.

Good luck.

What Drucilla said made me think. She may be testing you. Can't believe you are for real.

Angry because if you CAN change now, why didn't you/couldn't you before?

Angry because she is so ingrained in her old ways of doing things and you're making her reexmine all of this.

Angry because she has a little bit of hope and it scares her.

Angry because she feels your resentment (maybe it isn't really there but she is feeling it based on past experiences).

Angry because she knew she was IBing and was mad at herself but couldn't stop herself.

I am not saying she IS testing you that would be a DJ...I'm just saying that if someone has acted a certain way over a certain period of time, one does have a tendency to test...

In case you couldn't tell, I am projecting. :-)

DH has wanted me to re-iterate this for you. There was no Abuse or AOing in our relationship, though I have experienced it in the past. However it took the first 2 years of his patient work to get me to truly open up to him the way he needed. He did it by being loving and meeting my needs without ever once pressuring me about it. (I met his needs too, he wasn't Plan Aing) I naturally am just an emotionally closed off person in many ways, it took him 2 years to break through my natural defenses.

I think Sunny's statements, as well, are beneficial to think about.

Thanks for chiming in, Vibrissa's DH!

(And thanks to everyone else for the great comments in the last few posts.)

Markos,


I had gathered that as being the summary already...

re: Chris's suggestion about changing step 4: Remember that cryptic message about

Measure with a micrometer
Mark with chalk
Cut with an axe
Fit with a hammer
Beat to fit
Paint to match

Remember that? Relate her changing step 4 to my fourth step above.

If we focus on the minute details of our lives yet only really approximate a way of acting based on our beliefs, that is, we really only identify and define what we believe in so far as it benefits us in some way at the time and so justify acting the way we do because of those beliefs, and then using brute force attempt to implement that plan to act, without really having identified in ourselves why we should act the way we say we plan to act, we end up with a less than precise method of interaction with a lot of jagged and loose ends that have to be dealt with.

So when our plan doesn't fit the problems we experience, we try to make the problem fit. It's the old square peg into a round hole problem. If things don't go just the way we planned for them to go, we want to MAKE what our solution is fit the problem without really considering the solution itself to see if it needs to be modified in order to fit the problem we are presented with at the moment.

So our solution is often to use a bigger hammer and try once again to make the peg go in the hole. The problem with this strategy is that both the peg and the whole end up with damage that renders both of them unusable. In marriage it usually requires that both the hole and the peg receive a bit of tweaking in order that they fit together. This is really what MB is all about, fine tuning our lifestyles so that we become compatible with each other.

Seldom can I get my wife to "discuss the state of the union" with me by brow-beating her, DJing her motives and intentions, AOs that serve only the purpose of making her feel inferior and inadequate, or by demanding that she discuss things with me.

So when the piece doesn't fit, it's time to make changes and the only things that I can change at all are those things that are within MY boundaries; that is, they must be things that are about ME. By continuing to press for her "cooperation" when she is in Withdrawal or Conflict, means that I am still attempting to enforce my own requirements. I am not following POJA since I am basically demanding that things occur the way I envision them and I am not taking her feelings into account at all. If I were taking her feelings into account, I would not be trying to force MY solution onto her problem but would be seeking a joint solution that we can both be happy with. (Don't start down the road of "if she would just..." because THAT is exactly what I am talking about here)

So now we try to force the piece we made, without really taking the whole project into account, fit... on the job site where we have limited capabilities of modifying things and so we try to force the issue further and then end up with a mess that we then have to paint over and hope nobody notices the shoddy workmanship.

Three men were each swinging a huge hammer, chipping pieces off of a giant boulder. A traveler arrived and asked them what they were doing. One answered right away, "It should be obvious what we are doing. We're making little rocks out of big rocks."

The second says, "I don't know about him, but I am trying to earn enough money to feed my family."

The third one turns to the traveler and says, "We're building a beautiful cathedral! Let me show you the drawings of what it will look like and the stone we are making for the wall right below the stained glass window."

All three men were doing the same work. All three were doing the same thing all day long. One saw only the labor. The second saw the motivation for working at all and the third saw the vision of the goal and kept it in the forefront of his thoughts. All expected to get paid. All expected to have to keep swinging that hammer. All expected to someday have completed their work. Only one remembered the purpose of all the hard work and the goal of all the making little rocks out of big rocks.

So we keep chipping away at the rock that WE are responsible for so that the goal might be achieved in the long run. Until the goal is achieved, our labors cannot cease; we have to keep trying. But we can't rush the process and send an incomplete stone to the stone masons because it would never fit where it belongs and the project itself will have to stop while we rework the piece we rushed to complete, leaving parts of the job undone so that we might see the fruits of our efforts sooner.

When I describe Plan A, beyond the stick side of the process and focusing on the carrot part, I say there are three parts. 1) Meet her Emotional Needs 2) Avoid all Love Busters and 3) Have no expectations. It is having expectations go unmet that causes us to try to rush the process. It is looking for immediate success that makes us give up on the plan and begin to settle for less, not only from our spouse but from ourselves as well.

Two way overdone phrases that apply, I think...

She will never care how much you know until she knows how much you care. This will not come from telling her but from showing her what you are willing to do in order to have a great marriage with her.

It only takes one aweshit to wipe out ten thousand attaboyz. When the old love bucket is leaking and the love is draining away, you can't make up for another whole in the bucket by turning on a fire hose. You have to fill the bucket consistently over time, day after day, week after week, month after month and begin to plug the hole that you made before by overcoming the things that put the holes there to begin with. Any new holes show a lack of real change and now you have to overcome THAT problem by the same slow process of filling the bucket a cup at a time while trying to show your desire to have it fill up by plugging those holes.

It is EASIER to get a new bucket. It is FASTER to get a new bucket. It is SIMPLER to get a new bucket. It is LESS WORK to get a new bucket. Of course the new bucket will be full of holes in short order and you'll be right back to where you stared, just with a newer bucket. If you want to save THIS bucket, stop putting holes in it for any reason at all, even by accident and keep filling it up whenever you get the chance.

Right now she is protecting her bucket and is keeping it away from you so you can't put any more holes in it. In the process, she is also keeping it away from you and making it harder to fill it up. Stop making holes. Fix any you can find and fill it when she lets you close enough to put something in.

Back to work...(Both of us)

Mark (aka:Metaphor Man)

I started down that road and stopped three times during this paragraph, actually...