Mr JK - right answers don't count here.

If you can find the recording for this song in I-Tunes, you ought to play it every time you act differently than you answer. If you've heard the song "Dream Big", it was originally recorded by Ryan Shupe and the Rubber Band along with this song (the whole CD is good, but this song speaks to you, personally.)


Good luck to you in keeping your wife captive anymore while you behave rudely and badly. Don't blame her, fix yourself!

WS's lie, we all know that and I'm sure that you would agree with that Mr.JK,
since dishonesty allowed your A to happen and continue.

So that lying, is one of the LB's that needs to be addressed and fixed.
The fact that you initially did not acknowledge the woman that you were gawking at, when your wife asked you about her, says that you still have that habit of dishonesty.

This was to avoid getting into trouble with your wife, and make yourself look better.

I steal posts sometimes, quite often from Mark, he's not yelled at me yet and I hope that Schoolbus won't either!

Here is a part of a post that will be of help to you, if you choose to believe it.

MrJK: I don't care if you like me either....

But I WAS in your shoes four years ago.

Look how far I have come. And look how far you have.

If JK's bar too high for you? Do you think she is being too tough on you?

JK isn't nearly as tough as Flamingo.

We have done the same things as you two. The MB Weekend, the follow-up consulting, and read the books. We didn't pay for an MC, but I paid for some IC since.

So, according to JK, your in or about the same spot as you were before the affair.

You may feel that your not. But the only true barometer of that is JK. Not you. Flamingo is my guage, and if she isn't happy, then I am working on something else.

The Lowes incident is a very small piece of this. There is so much more. It just happens to be the catalyst of change that needs to be made.

Are you willing?

LG

It wasn't so much anger as it was me starting to withdraw. It's a really REALLY bad habit of mine. When I got home from work JK announced that she was taking our son our without me. She changed her mind when I told her that doing that would be hurtful to me. Then we had a discussion that centered on how my JK believes that I am passive/aggressive. These discussions always include a number of what feels to me like disrespectful judgments and so they tend to put me way off-balance. Add to that the fact that we had gone out, I had promised not to "be vague," and I was paranoid about looking anywhere but at the floor. I wasn't exactly Mr. Charisma.

JK pointed out that I was being 'mean' to her so I tried getting out of it by telling her that I was sorry and giving her a kiss but it was too late. She left the restaurant and we (my son and I) finished up quickly and left.

Still looking for the right sized wrench KaylaAndy. Shoot, it's got to be in this toolbox somewhere...

Thanks for the lyrics. Actually I'm more of an indie rock guy. I'm listening to Edmonton by the Rural Alberta Advantage where the first line is "What'll I do if you never want to come back?"

Seems appropriate for the moment.

I didn't say that. I'm just saying that the only opinion that matters to me is JK's.




I'm glad she did. I suppose that I bears repeating that we are here because of me, I am completely aware of this and I am responsible for fixing it.

I wish that JK had raised the bar ages ago so that I would have gotten my stuff in gear much earlier. I'm not blaiming her here, BTW. It's my own fault that we haven't made much more progress.

Nevertheless, here we are and I'm determined to make it work. JK is worth the effort, JK matters so very much to me.

W/drawal isn't an emotion it is an action.

There's nothing wrong w/ feeling angry.

Not. One. Thing.

Do you believe that?



Independent behavior is an LB.



Good job telling her how that action would make you feel. And she did a good job changing her mind to include you.

But, you still felt hurt/angry that she wanted to go out w/o you, didn't you?



Off balanced? Not angry?



What does that mean? How does one not be vague? And why did you promise not to be vague if you didn't want to?



Paranoid? Really? Or were you just angry b/c of the LBs that had been dropped earlier?


You weren't even close to this, were you? You behaved badly, didn't you?

MJK,

Is this a fair summary of what happened?

When you got home, JK told you she and your son were going out to dinner w/o you. When you told her how hurtful that would be to you, she agreed to allow you to come w/ them.

Even though she changed her mind, you were still hurt/angry about it. Instead of saying so, you clammed up, but began to allow your anger to "leak out".

When she began to feel your leaks, she started to DJ you. Complaining not just about your present behavior, but taking swipes at your mental health too.

By the time you got to the restaurant, you were seething...or pretty close to it. And when you thought about how you had to figure out how not to be vague... or passive aggressive... and be careful not to look at any other women, you had created quite a pot of resentment stew for yourself...

And you were "leaking" bigtime.

Did I come close?

I think it's fair. I'm sure JK would have a different take

I don't think that there was any residual anger at all from the son thing. There may have been some leftover resentment from the P/A discussion but mostly I was subdued and not interacting very well with JK. Nothing overt, mind you, just a lack of smiles, touches, and so on. JK is very sensitive to my moods and has lately had a very short fuse when it comes to tolerating anything other than 'good' from me.

Being 'vague' is basically my natural form of communication. I tend to communicate with the least amount of information possible and wait for a response before delivering more. This makes JK crazy because she is a BIG communicator of both fact and emotion and she wants this style returned. To her, my brevity is a indicator of P/A behavior because to her my lack of generosity with communication is a form of control. Regardless, I've been trying to communicate better with more content of both fact and emotion for Kim's sake.

That's not all it was. You were not honest w/ her when she asked you what was wrong, were you?



Why do you do this?

It sounds like something one would do if one were trying to keep things hidden.

Example 1

JK: MJK, what's wrong?

MJK: I'm just trying not to look at other women.

TRUTH: You were PO about what MJ said earlier.

Example 2

JK: I saw you looking at that woman.

MJK: What woman?

JK: The woman I saw you gawking at in there w/ the tube top.

MJK: Ohhhh, THAT woman.

This is called lying, MJK.

Not a communication style.



This isn't about her being frustrated b/c you are the strong silent type. She is frustrated that you are not being honest w/ her.

Lying is a Huge, and I mean HUGE love buster.

And the fact that you poo poo this away as if it is simply a matter of a communication style preference is absolutely infuriating!

And yes, crazy making/gaslighting.

That's what JK believes. I'm making a huge effort to do a better job at this. I'm trying to remind myself not to stop after the first sentence but to continue with the thought by explaining why I feel that way or what brought me to that conclusion. It's a struggle for me to break the habits of years and years of communicating this way. In my previous relationships this had never been a problem as I tended to be with women who were far more self absorbed than JK.

Lying, to me, is a completely separate issue and an even bigger LB for JK. I agree that my reaction to being confronted was initially poor. I tried to fix that as soon as I realized what I was doing. I'm not sure what else I can do about that except be aware of this tendency in me and try to repress it.

I'm open to any and all suggestions about any of this. My recent conversations with JK have led me to believe that I need therapy to, at a minimum, determine who and what I really am and them presumably take steps to make things better.

Do you find that any of these apply? (If they do, it might give you a framework for a therapeutic specialty, so that you don't wind up with a therapist that doesn't address the core issues)

1. Adult children of alcoholics guess at what normal behavior is.

2. Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty following a project through from beginning to end.

3. Adult children of alcoholics lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth.

4. Adult children of alcoholics judge themselves without mercy.

5. Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty having fun.

6. Adult children of alcoholics take themselves very seriously.

7. Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty with intimate relationships.

8. Adult children of alcoholics overreact to changes over which they have no control.

9. Adult children of alcoholics constantly seek approval and affirmation.

10. Adult children of alcoholics usually feel that they are different from other people.

11. Adult children of alcoholics are super responsible or super irresponsible.

12. Adult children of alcoholics are extremely loyal, even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved.

13. Adult children of alcoholics are impulsive. They tend to lock themselves into a course of action without giving serious consideration to alternative behaviors or possible consequences. This impulsively leads to confusion, self-loathing and loss of control over their environment. In addition, they spend an excessive amount of energy cleaning up the mess.

Yes, being aware is helpful. Of course doing the right things so that you don't feel the need to lie about it later is even more helpful.

Another suggestion would be to apologize as soon as possible when you have lied....told a half truth...down played a lie.

Have you apologized for lying about the girl in the store?

Or about having lied about why you were angry at dinner?

If not, hop to it.

Not only will it give JK something to feel positive about...and even hopeful that you will change your behavior, but it will make YOU feel better about yourself too.

What ever we do to others we do to ourselves even more. If we lie to others, we are lying to ourselves. And then we get to the point where we don't trust ourselves. How awful is THAT?

So, you need to pay attention to your selftalk too. If you say to yourself that as soon as you get done w/ your lunch you will go outside and cut the grass, then see that you DO IT! It is a small step in learning to trust yourself again.

And if you are careful and watchful over yourself, it will lead to riding dirt bikes w/ your stepson like you said you would!

How awesome would that be?

But, it starts w/ YOU!



But isn't it the truth?

Didn't the two examples I sited in an earlier post show that is what you did?



If this was JUST about changing your communication style it would be easy!

All you would have to do is repeat to yourself, "Details, JK, needs more details. I will be sure to tell her the conversation I overheard today in great detail."

Easy cheesy.

When was the last time JK got angry at you b/c you were scant on the details that don't concern you? Or her?

Details make conversations more interesting to women. But, boring conversations don't piss us off.

Dishonesty does.

Geee....all 14 fit me...

no doubt Karma - these are not traits we choose, but traits we acquire as a matter of survival. There are a number of them I've overcome, but still have work to do on others.

And here I was thinking it was something else wrong with me.

At least I can have a concrete idea now.

(Sorry to T/J! )

KaylaAndy thanks.

I don't think this applies to me. I'm the product of a differnet dynamic although it may have been just as disfunctional.

Besides communicating with detail I also struggle with expressing and sometimes even identifying emotions. I haven't been to therapy but my feeling is that this is a product of my extreme, almost debilitating, shyness as a child. I learned to suppress emotions and never learned how to adequately and constructively express them.

I don't know if that was a product of outside stimuli or if it was just bological for me.

I don't think so, good point.



The interesting thing about this is that JK pointed out to me that there are only four base emotions, mad, sad, scared, and glad. I didn't see myself as being 'mad' with the resentment that I was holding but since that particular emotion falls under the �mad� category then I guess that�s what I was.

I told you that I have trouble sometimes identifying my own emotions!

So, yes, I�ll apologize for that one too.



Maybe for you, for me it�s necessary that I be completely �present� in the moment and that requires some real work on my part. Not easy cheesy.

Good job w/ your apologies!!

MJK,

I asked you earlier if you believe that there is nothing wrong w/ feeling anger, and you didn't reply.

I asked you if you were feeling angry at dinner and you said no, but you w/drew.

Of course, w/drawal is NOT an emotion. It is a response to feeling angry.

I just posted this on JK's thread...


Does any of this ring true for you?



I'm sorry.

I guess I just thought that a lack of details was not the main issue. It could easily be addressed by JK asking you questions.

Being a man of few words can describe most men. It is NORMAL. Most women roll their eyes at their H's when they didn't notice things that we wouldn't have missed, but we don't get upset over it.

The issue of w/holding information about you or JK IS a more serious issue.

Did you read the thread on EP's? It was linked over on JK's thread, while you were still reading and posting over there.

Here is another thread. Anatomy of Adultery

This one is on the steps of how an A starts.

I was recently rereading it.
It's one of the most painful threads to read.
It takes a BS back to how the most horrible and debilitating event of your M, unfolded. I read and I see how these steps are mirrored in my own H's A.
And because these steps were kept a secret, there was nothing that I could do to stop this A from happening.

Realize this, this not knowing that our spouse was capable of this deceit, and did it to perfection right in front of our faces, is no easy feat to overcome.
This is where the EP's come in. The are steps that you do, to protect us from fearing the unknown, one that we really have no control over.


Take note of the steps that you do, or almost do, now. (in the first 5 or so, can't remember exactly )
While you believe that you will never have another A, every one of the actions required in those steps, are triggers and red flags for a BS.
These are the actions that you must stop and prevent, in order to convince JK that your #1 priority is to make her feel safe and protected from a repeat A.

These obvious and not so obvious behaviours, scream at us that our WS is still present and not thinking of us.
It's pretty much saying that we don't matter, that you the spouse who had the A, you don't care about our feelings.
Basically, your feelings are more important than the hurt that you caused us.


You didn't acknowledge the post that I quoted by schoolbus.
Do you see yourself thinking like that?
If so, have you practiced what she suggested?