ConstantProcess,

I agree that I have to salvage me, not just my marriage.

I am trying to salvage my marriage by telling the truth. This has been done by putting together a timeline that forces me to look at my behavior these past 23+ years.

Also, this process has caused me to start to figure things out about myself.

I know that I have a lot of work to do, to not only save my marriage but to save myself. I know that I have to do more than post on this site and to review the feedback given and put it into practice.

Hopefully, over time, you will see that not only was my marriage salvageable but so was I.

Schoolbus,

I agree with your comments regarding fear.

I was afraid to tell my wife the truth out of fear that the truth would be too much and that she would leave me.
I was afraid to tell my mother as I didn't want to be perceived as a bad person.
I was afraid of telling the truth as I am ashamed of what I have done.
I was afraid of telling the truth as I was afraid of being alone.

Looking at all of my fears - I saw one thing in common - how they would impact/affect me.

Once again, I was thinking about me, not my wife.

I will pick up the book you reccommended as now that I have gotten past tha fear, I now have to figure out my issues.

One other thing that I wanted to bring up that I realize about myself now is that I always said that I didn't want to be like my dad.

My dad would always want to have a new car or update his equipment at his business with something newer and had no concept about paying something off.

My dad would also get up after dinner at holidays and go in the back room and watch TV or take a nap.

My dad was afraid to fly so vacations were where he could drive. My mother had to go by herself or with family if she wanted to go on a particular vacation.

As I learned recently (when telling my mother about my affair/marital problems) that my dad had an affair at some point in their marriage.

My dad was a yeller and screamer at work when something did not go his way.

I guess, I focused on the two things that always bothered me - the spending and yelling - that I tended to focus on those things and neglect the others.

I tried to never have debt, so my wife and I repaired/replaced or bought something only when we had the cash to do so early in our marriage. My focus on money caused me to not take my wife out to dinner or do things that she may have asked for. This caused her to think that I did not want to be seen with her.

I tried not to be a yeller, but I turned out to be a person that didn't listen. Rather than waiting for my wife to finish her point/story, I would jump in and finish my story or talk about my take on the story. I ended up causing her to think that she was not good at conversation due to this.

Also, when in my affair (#2), I would constantly talk on the phone with the OW, my wife would think that it was because she was so great at conversation which caused my wife to be even more self conscious about conversation that she would not start any unless I asked her about her day or something she found interesting.

By focusing on these two things, I turned out to be like my dad anyway. When home, I would go in the back and watch TV while she watched her own things on TV or did her school work.

I would go out with my friends instead of going out with my wife.

I had affairs and almost made my wife feel that she would have to accept me for the way I am and settle for me treating her like a doormat, end up in a situation like my mom - trapped and living her own life while I lead my own life.

Hopefully, we won't end up like that. Hopefully, I can change before I do end up like my dad as I am not, nor ever have been happy with the way he treated my mom.

It is too late to confront him and have him change, but it is not too late for me.

CGIR,


You can control only one person: yourself.


Your father lives in his own agony.
You live in yours.


Regardless of the origin of that agony, you control the handles and steer where you go with it, every single day, every single minute.

You can change your life moving forward.
You cannot change what you have already done.

This is the human condition. The measure of a man is his capacity to change for the better, and maintain that change.


Do not make the error of believing that your destiny is rooted in your PAST.

Your destiny is - and always has been - rooted in each decision you make in the NOW.





You need to fully comprehend this in order to change.




Your destiny is rooted in the decisions you make in the NOW.

Each and every time you are faced with a decision, each time you decide to "do right or to do wrong" - you choose a destiny.

These decisions are made in small ways every single day.

You know each time you make the wrong decision: It is when you make a decision that robs another person of your help, your love, your kindness, your respect, your offer of dignity for them, your humanity toward them.

Each time you decide not to do something for someone else that you KNOW YOU SHOULD DO - is when you are doing something wrong.


It is that simple.

When you find yourself saying things to yourself like,

"Well, it's okay because I really deserve..."
"She doesn't really need this because...."
"It's better if I get what I want because the other person should...."
"That other person has been _______ to me anyway, and so I don't really have to be kind to him/her."


Anytime you are blameshifting or justifying why you should not have to do the "good thing" for the other person

you are doing the WRONG THING.

It is this simple.


Even when the "other person"

is you.


SB

Well I don't really deserve such respect that you should care what I think or see in you. I doubt I have done a perfect job in my life either What I do here on this site is talk to my friends and share the truth free of charge and no strings. I do it because I can and its my responsibity to myself and the rest of the world to be a friend to people. Ultimatly I do it for me and my own selfish reasons. I want to live in a better world with less people in pain.

The effects of behavior take some time to get over. What SB is saying and I am in total agreement the behavior can change in an instant when you make a good decision.

Guess what? Guilt is worthless after a certain point once those decisions are made. The actions of a good decision bring about consequences. The inaction also brings them about. Everything you do or don't do has consequences. We can mull them over and end up parylized or live in guilt and/or hopelessness or make a change by decision. To many times we think its no use, I've ruined it all, let me seek solice in what I am used to as we chain ourselves to who we were.


I read about how you felt about your father and your efforts to be different and felt what you feared most came upon you anyway. I can realate to that and much the same issues except the adultry. My Dad was short tempered, wanted things his way, obsessed about money and paranoid. I also have fallout from that in my life even though I have dodged some bullits.

Point being is it is how some people handle those issues, and what is really important to them. When I forgave my father for those things I was not bound to the extremes and thier effect on me. Even though sometimes I struggle with self-worth because money seems to be so important I have to realize what it is really worth compared to relationship. If it doesn't serve people, they are serving it, and it makes a poor God.

You have burned your hand on the hat stove of porn and its basis in telling you that you can have more, your life is not good, take this counterfiet and get what you can because everybody else has more than you and you deserve it. Did that hurt and cause you to seek help? Yes. So you have what it takes to change, you understand consequences from action. Your marrige suffered because you didn't put the time into maintaining it. It was the relationship you wanted to last your whole life at one time right? The inaction and bad decisions that led to dissatisfaction on both parts also had consequences.

Your life can change as quikly as a decision. You are sick of this right? Decide to act differently and trust those actions. Don't think about it or evaluate what you think will be the outcome. Trust that.

You are saving yourself when you take your life out of your hands and place it in Gods. He waits for you to decide because he is not a trickster or a slave driver. Consequences exist and if they didn't the planet would stop spinning, He never withholds that information. He said thier would be trials and tribulation, that someday we would pass away from the earth, but most important that if we trust in Him we would live free and our spirits would know the joy of redemtion thru his grace. In that gutsy trust in him and not in the world or the things in it, we will learn he loves us more than we will ever know or ever would love Him. Everything is free will choice and not a panicky reaching out in self gratification that just leaves us empty and in more fear later anyway.

God is in charge, he changes not, he allows us to suffer consequences so we can make the changes nessesary to live free. He is the authority and knows what we are and all human weakness and all he wants is a relationship with us based on that reality. He is used in the masculine sense because Men initiate though action, not that women don't mind you. He goes after us and reasons with us. Its not mumbo jumbo black magic that takes years of study to understand that.

God is not a man that he can lie. So if you are waiting to discuss the mistakes he made and try to catch him in a selfish motive good luck. Jesus was fully man and fully God and he died for us while we hated him for revealing the truth about us. Thats how much he loves us and makes time for us.

Trust in his authority of love. He is the author of it and the world attains real value through it.

Don't just consider it based on your evaluation of your life experiances or what you might blame him for in your frustration. Trust him and let Him turn your curses into blessings and restore what you have lost. Its the only source that can do that, but its your decsision. God doesn't want slaves that love him cause he made them. He wants you free in a free will choice.


You are here and working towards a better marriage and I am glad you are. Thats the last of my preaching and the extent of my capability to help you be free. You don't have to worry if I see a change in you or not. My vision is clouded by my humanity anyway. I hope this helps you to seek knowledge from the scriptures and the character of God who knows you inside and out. We all need Him, but only those who seek Him will find Him. Guess we are blessed though that pain that brought us there huh?

****edit****

Schoolbus,

You said - Do not make the error of believing that your destiny is rooted in your PAST.

Your destiny is - and always has been - rooted in each decision you make in the NOW.

Don't you think there is at least some truth in your past influencing or having some influence on your present?

While I do agree with your statement that - Your destiny is rooted in the decisions you make in the NOW.

I do feel that there has to be something that causes an individual to repeat a mistake or repeat a lie.

I'm not saying that I don't make a choice to lie or deceive - I fully understand at that moment, I have a choice.

I guess I just think that there is some underlying reason for repeating the behavior.

I do appreciate your feedback, as well as that of others that have taken the time to post, and hope that you continue to post. I know that I have taken a lot of what is posted here to heart and do feel that I am learning/improving daily. Also, I finally ordered the book from the Arbinger Institute and look forward to providing you with some feedback in the coming weeks.

Thanks,

CGIR

CGIR,

I was raised by a man who was physically abusive. He once pushed my head into a toilet and flushed it.

He once beat me for walking home from school on the "wrong" street (???) because I simply varied the route home by taking one block differently than I usually did. This means......he followed me every day to and from school.

He once beat me for taking candy from his room - candy that I never knew existed. He beat me again for lying about not stealing the candy. Later on, my older brother confessed to me that he took the candy. I asked why he didn't tell Dad - and my brother said, "Dad would just have beaten you more, for having me lie for you. Don't you get it?" My brother "got it".

He beat me for sitting down "too hard". He beat me for being in the living room, for going out the back door, for going out the front door, for not going out the back door, for not going out the front door.....for cleaning my room.....for not cleaning my room...for doing the dishes "too loud", and then for not making noise while doing the dishes which was "mocking him".

I could very easily have CHOSEN to repeat this pattern.

I would have had the perfect excuse.


I lived in an abusive home. My father made my life crazy. It was unpredictable, it was frightening, it was emotionally and physically draining. I had no peace. I lived in fear of my own home. I spent many hours hiding in my own closet, to avoid being seen or heard, because that was the safest thing to do.

Or, maybe not. If he had ever found me in there......who knows?


The point is


I CHOSE.


When my children were born

I CHOSE NEVER TO HIT THEM.

I CHOSE to discipline differently.

I CHOSE to love instead.


What a difference it made in MY LIFE. Not to mention theirs.



Do you see that you can CHOOSE now to be different, still?


Your destiny begins anew every single day.


SB

CGIR, what SB said is exactly right. We must deal with awful people in our life and yes, bad things happen to good people too anyways.

If we don't deal with them and the effects on us the bad things win. We must choose, we can choose, how to react and make decisions to think and believe in something better.

Once it happens to you, and you feel the pain of it, you must decide if it owns you, or if you will fight to live outside of it.

I don't believe you would want to continue what has allready caused you sorrow, and you are here for help. If you believe that you are not working to get better and its not positive to do this in your life your beliving a lie. Instead of waiting for you to spend years spinning in circles rtying to "fix" yourself and understand everything before you do it, I for one will tell you to jump in the pool and start doing waht you know is right. If you don't know it yet don't do waht is wrong. I know you have heard this from people here, so do it and get courage later. Act on faith and envision a life free of fear, then act like your free, pretty soon it will be natural.


My Dad did not beat me but it sure seemed he would like to. SB made a decision to be differnt for himself and his children. I know my decision to do that has blessed my children also. They are way better off at thier age than me or my late wife was and it was the decision to love them that made the difference.

What is love now? Is it a decision also? Yes it is. It isn't self serving or afraid of itself. I will state its serving others and caring about them and thier needs even when they don't appreciate it. Just like a child doesn't know or appreciate things outside of thier comprehension. Your a child of God, learn how he loves you and wants to guide you as He sets you free. Learn to love yourself and do what is right for you and your wife.

IMO you will have to learn how he loves you first, then it will be easy to want to fight for that and walk away from the past, and these decisions will be so easy it will be like rolling off a log.

Like I said before, when you see how you have been duped by your own thoghts and the negative spirtual influence brought into your life and others, you will get mad and fight. Know there is a way for your life to change, and reguardless of the past it starts right now.

Good one SB, reminds me of " His mercys are new every morning"

Schoolbus,

I do see your point and I know that my future will come down to choices.

I know that eliminating a behavior will come down to a choice.

As you have said before - at that moment, I can make the right choice/decision or I can go down the same path I have before by making the wrong choice.

It is time to grow up, not blame anyone/anything but myself and start making the right choices.

I keep looking for a reason as to why I continue to do the wrong thing after a period of time and like you said, it's because I chose to.

Thanks once again for the feedback and for sharing your history.

CGIR,

You deserve to know my story so you can completely understand why I can tell you that your destiny is not rooted in where you came from, or what has happened to you in your past, or who raised you, or how you lived, or ANY OF IT.

Your destiny begins anew every day. It is all in the choices YOU make, every moment.

I can say this, because of who I was, where I came from, and the choices I made to become who I am - today.

You already know that I am a child of physical abuse from my family of origin.

I have disclosed on this website that I was raped as a child. There were multiple instances. I have not told the entire story, because no one, so far, has come along who needed to hear it all.

No one, until you. I want you to understand that this is difficult for me, and that as I write to you I find that I am crying. This may take more than one post. Bear with me.

This story is important, because anyone can blame their past for the bad decisions they make today. Certainly I could. I could use the anger I carried from my father's near constant beatings to make bad decisions, to be mean, to be hurtful to my kids, and in today's society many people would actually EXCUSE ME FOR IT because

after all

"her daddy beat her when she was young". Is this a valid excuse?
No. But, many use it and many accept it.

Here is another part of my story. The details are known to only a very few in my personal life.

When I was 7, my oldest brother began to molest and rape me regularly. It was a very strange thing to me, because he was the beloved child of the family. He was at the time in the early stages of drug and alcohol abuse, only I never knew it. He was much older than I was, and I did not have the understanding of what was really happening. He then made introductions of me to his friends, and of course they too had some interactions with me. Those times were one-time deals, thankfully.

In all, my brother's abuse lasted about three years. There was a brief hiatus, when my parents were unable to care for the children because of financial issues and we were all farmed out to our aunts and uncles to live. It resumed when we all returned to one home.

In all, between my brother, his friends, and his recruitment of one of my other brothers, there were a total of five young men who abused me sexually in one form or another by the time I was ten. I was finally able to avoid him, by fixing it so that I slept with my younger nieces and had others nearby so this could no longer happen.

I could not go to my parents for help. The situation with my father is apparent, he was abusive and it would have been physically risky to myself (let alone my brothers) to have anything disclosed. There was also the emotional issue that was placed on me that somehow this was my fault.


I could, of course, as an adult looking back on all of this, say to anyone

"I have a right to be messed up, angry, and to act out in any way I please. I was sexually and physically abused as a child."


Some people would agree. Some would buy this excuse.

I do not.



To be continued.

Continued.

So, after molestations, rapes, and physical abuse, where did I go from there?

Well, I was cared for by an older sister who lived in the home with the family of origin. She, her husband, and her FOUR little girls lived with us.

As a teenager, she babysat me. One of the things she did was have boys over. She used me as the lookout, while she and the boys went upstairs.

She became pregnant with her first child and got married. Many years later, it was disclosed that the child was not the child of her husband, but of that man's BROTHER.

This sister also had an affair with her first child's HUSBAND.

This sister also had a very long term affair with another man during the course of her 18 year marriage, while living in the home with my family.

She had another affair

with one of the men

who molested me.


Isn't this cozy.




I could use this as an excuse for being raised in a very crazy-making home, being emotionally abused.

Many would agree, and say that I had a right to be angry and to act out.

I could very well make a case to act out and be just about as messed up as anyone down on the corner smoking crack.

I don't think it is a good enough excuse, though.

I spent my teenage years begging God to release me from the memories of being raped. I fought against that anger and rage inside of me, and pleaded nightly for the memories to be forever removed from my mind.

God's answer was "no".


The plan for me was to learn something. I'm pretty stubborn, so it took awhile. I had other plans, even though the universe wanted to lead me down one path - I had to do things MY way and go the hardest road possible.

So I did try the alcohol route. That fell through for me. I got sick and tired of being worthless. I messed up at work, and I messed up at marriage.

I did try smoking dope. I got pretty bored of doing nothing, and watching other people do about the same thing. I never seemed to accomplish any of those grand ideas I had while stoned, and never seemed to remember quite what they were when I wasn't!



Finally, somewhere in there, I figured out that

I WANTED MORE FOR MYSELF.

I got sick of being angry, sick of being short of the mark of who I thought I was

I was NOT this person I thought I was, deep inside.


Inside, I thought I was a moral person, capable of greatness, capable of honesty. I thought I WAS honest, actually. I thought that I was this very intelligent person who got things done, had great thoughts, and was going places.

When I got out of THAT fog

I saw myself for REAL.

I saw that I was lying to myself. I saw that I was using my past as the excuse for not doing anything with my life. I had anchored myself to all this bad stuff that had happened to me.

I was cemented in everything that had happened to me - because I had

chosen

to anchor myself


RIGHT THERE

to the man who beat me and all of his anger
to the boy who raped me and his alcohol and self-pity
to the other boys who raped and fondled me and all of their empty courage
to the sister who lived in a cesspool of lies and deceit


I was anchored to people who were so pitiful, so low, so broken


and I had placed myself

where?

Was I with them? No
Was I beneath them? No

Actually, I was stronger than they were. After all, they were the broken dregs of society, not even remorseful for their actions as far as I knew. They could not even admit them.

I was above that - at least where I was, I was ADMITTING I was a mess.

And

I was starting over.

I
was
starting
over.


Oh my.


Not only was I stronger than they were,
I was capable

of


CHOOSING MY OWN DESTINY.


Now,

Didn't that make me the smart one?


Now, with this newfound strength,

I looked again at these perpetrators, and suddenly they looked....

so very small.


To be continued.

Con't again...sorry.

As I stood there, feeling strong, and seeing them so very small,

I realized something.


These poor pitiful creatures were truly the only link to those events of my past. They were the anchors. I had to cast them from me.

The only way to free them from me?

I forgave them. Because to see them in their brokenness like this made me fully understand them. I was, truly, the very least of their worries.


And they, truly, were now the least of mine. They were no threat to me. They were more of a threat to themselves, now. And, BTW, still are (at least the ones I know still).



Could I hang onto all of this - the physical, emotional, sexual abuse, the alcohol and drug use, and say,

"This was my past, and it caused me to be like this. I am a liar and a cheater and I still do it because of what happened to me growing up."

I could.

Would it make ANY SENSE to blame it all on that?


No.

Because through all of this

I knew:

It was wrong to rape me.
It was wrong to beat me.
It was wrong to cheat on my husband.
It was wrong to lie.
It was wrong to do drugs.
It was wrong to abuse alcohol.
It was wrong to encourage child molestation.



Nowhere in there did I ever once question the correctness of these acts towards me.

Nowhere in there did I ever once think that my own behaviors when I was doing dope or booze was "right".


Because when it comes down to it,

the revelation was


I was strong enough to make my own choices, and I could choose my own destiny.




When I saw the truth in this


I began that very moment to make choices that were right.


I stopped dope and alcohol. I never regretted it.

I signed up for college, and attended class. I actually went to the library, read the books, did the work. I graduated with a 4.0. I received scholarships every semester. In graduate school, I earned the departmental scholarship and the university paid my tuition to go to school there.

I earned the top scores on the national exams in my field - 99th percentile.

I was the first inductee into my school's Hall of Fame.

I could go on. The point is, that just one year prior, I was smoking dope, earning minimum wage, and making up excuses as to why


I COULD CHEAT ON MY HUSBAND.



Then,

I changed my destiny.


Why don't you?


SB

The space between those choices is, for me, so hard to navigate. I wish for flashing neon signs, but more often than not I see shades of darkness, no shade more appealing than the other.

Well SB, that was brave. Thank you for your honesty and openess.

Many of the same thoghts I to have adopted for the same reasons. I was sexually abused by my Male cousin when i was 7 and... didn't have a relationship where I could even tell my Dad much less get him to stand up for me. He would just blame me anyways.

My cousin was allways a mess anyway and he too showed who he was later on in life. Drugs, couldn't hold a job, lived with his Mom till she died and never had any relationships that amounted to squat.

Myself I held jobs and had lots of good relationships because I refused to be a victim, or at least act like one, which is the same thing.

I wasn't beaten or gang raped and my abuse is minor compared to yours, but I know what it means to feel like its all your fault and break out of that cycle. My drug abuse was heavier but short lived at 15-16 as I realized too I was all alone and drugs would only kill me fast. I also looked at the people who felt sorry for themselves and how gutless they really were.

Thats when I realized I did not know anything about what it took others to survive or how discipline, so often an abused word by selfish people wishing to play on my guilt and insecurity to control me for thier own selfish means, really had a place in my life but would set me free, not enslave me.

I thought about the many young people who died to give me freedom even though they knew the Government was corrupt. I thought about the person who would never realize thier dreams but worked two crappy jobs just to give thier kids a roof and a hot meal,and a chance at a life better than thiers, with less pain.

I realized I would never know thier struggles and probably would not appreciate them if they told me. They wouldn't anyways, they didn't want me to understand them like they did. That would take experiencing the same.

I realized drugs were a cowards way out and I would not be a coward even though i was scared to death and had 0 confidance because of my past, or whatever emotional damage caused by my fathers indiffernce to me.

I realized feeling sorry for myself was deadly. All the druggies I knew and did feel sorry for themselves were emotional midgets that as much as they tried to get get something for nothing or rip off "the man" they were going backwards. They were selfish and stubborn cowards and I was not being rebellious and brave acting like them, I was being a baby.

I realized the more I looked for ways to please myself, the farther I was away from loving anyone. I didn't know anything at all reallly. I wanted a good life, and I would never appreciate one unless I went out and did it myself.

That was my revelation at 17. Now that I lokked at the hole I had dug for myself I felt even more guilty and was scared that my life was heading downhill. How could I prove that I was not the person I was pegged to be to everyone that I now realized were right about school, and the foolishness of the people I hung out with? How could I change the guilt I felt from falling in with them and the drug abuse, or the abuse of honest hardworking people who I dis-respected? I was in a trap of my own making. Yes I could blame it on life and others. Maybe they played a part. It was up to me to change it.

I went straight, dumped all my "friends" and started listening to those who had been trying to reach me all along. I started learning, I still am. The world looked very differnt then when I realized I didn't know what to do at all, and when I did the things I was told and opened my eyes and ears to the crazy notion that I could change simply by doing it.

What people thought did not condemn me to the point of backing down from who I was. The past was just a memory and thier insecure attempts at pidgeon-holing me were thier problem. I would stick to the plan and even if I had skeletons in my closet they would eventually be replaced even in my own eyes, who cares about thiers.

All it took was to be scared of what I had become and the road I was taking, and make better decisions based on less selfish desires and open my eyes to something higher than my own perception.

I still find myself at differnt crossroads now. Some of them hard to navigate but one things for sure with me as it is for everyone else. Actions change your life.

Until you jump in and make a change you will spin in cycles. I still need to learn and will all of my life. If I base my future on my past, or let anyone else do so, I will have more of the same. Good or bad we are the masters of our own destinys. Let no-one or nothing hold you back from being who you want to be, especially your own knowlege and judgement of yourself based on your past. You can be your own worse enemy trying to fix it instaed of just changing your actions to reflect who you want to be.

CGIR, I saw this the other day and have been sharing it with everybody. It was from an Email and was supposed to reflect a letter from God....

Should you find yourself the victim of other people's bitterness , ignorance , smallness or insecurities , remember , things could be worse. You could be one of them!

Nobody can stop you from changing your mind, decisions, and actions unless you let them. The past is not the now. Now is the time for change. It allways is and is allways possible.

Schoolbus, thank you so much for sharing your story.

While I haven't experienced nearly what you have, I have had my own share of dysfunction, abuse and pain. I, like you, realized I could let it define me - let it dictate the rest of my life, or I could let it go and CHOSE to have a different, better life.

I've always wondered why I've turned out the way I have when, given my past history, most would forgive me for being abusive, unfaithful, etc. Reading your story I saw that it was because I CHOSE to be different than that, to rise above it. I remembered when I was 15 and a boy first broke my heart. After a couple weeks of despair I stood at my locker at school and realized I could let this pain make me bitter and let it forever shape my future relationships, or I could let it go and chose to feel differently. It was a life-altering moment, to realize I could be in control of my feelings, thoughts and behaviors.

Similarly, I could let my past dictate who I am today - forever reacting to the hurtful things done to me, or I could let it go and CHOSE to be in control of my life.

CGIR - you are the product of your CHOICES. When you abdicate the power of choice to your past, to other people's mistakes, you are forever at the mercy of that past. When you take control of your life. When you take responsibility for the path your life has followed, you are empowered to CHANGE the path you are on.

You CHOSE to allow the past to dictate your behavior today. Why? Because you gain some benefit from it. That choice has created the consequences you live with right now. But you are not condemned to always make those choices. You have the power to make better choices.

Your destiny begins anew every day. You chose your own destiny - with every choice you make.

To seeking balance:

That "space between" you speak of is very real. That space is when you are betraying YOURSELF.

That space is when you see that bad choice lining up, and you could be making a move to do the thing that would be right.

Only,

what you are doing in that space

is working out all the "reasons" why your desire to do the thing you know is wrong should be fulfilled - in spite of the fact that it is the wrong choice.

The book I have recommended to CGIR discusses this "space" in fine form. You would love it, because it talks to that space so you understand your thougth process in that moment.

The book uses the story of a businessman who has some problems at work. He truly believes he is fine, and can't figure out why he has so many interpersonal relationship issues. He thinks other people really need to bend to meet his beliefs and way of thinking.

The problem - turns out to be


him.


And the problem is what happens in "the space between". When he makes all those

not so terrific

decisions.


The Arbinger Institute
"Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting out of the box"


Get the book and read it. It sets you up to understand your wrong thinking, your wrong decision making, and why you keep making selfish decisions that crash your world.


Then, look for their other writings, if you dare. This is actually a philosophy group that wrote this book hoping to help "regular folks" like us.

And they hit the nail on the head. It is an easy read, and the story they used can be applied to affair behavior and marriages very easily.

Reminds me of a true story recounted from a friend mine. He and his future Wife used to work in a adult mental health facility.

Occasionally there would be meetings that they would sit in on between the, healthy spouse and the one in treatment.

One day a successful businessman came into the meeting dressed to kill and very concerned about what had happened to his wife, she was disheveled and suffered an emotional breakdown .

He said, "Whats wrong with her, What is the cause of this?" demanding it be dealt with. The therapist/doctors after many weeks evaluating his wife said. "Sir, I'm sorry its you".

I want to give that book to my son. He is headed towards management but doesn't see the connection in management between motivation and your personal relationship with fellow employees. He knows but yet he doesn't act right yet. He is sensitive and caring and stil disciplned about his job and the rules everyone must work with but still impatient and brittle sometimes. Most of that is that he still doesn't realize how to get people to care for themselves while they both fight for a common cause. to prosper honestly. The former of standing for the rules and conduct as a reality while improving interpersonal relationship with co-workers is something that works at every level of relationships. We want to build our co-workers up, not cut them down, so they will have imagination and see a bright future, not a drudgery, and we all have a limited amount of authority there, allways will.

SB, could you post the name of that book again?

But I tell him, so he knows, you don't get longlasting progress when you don't invest in other peoples lives. Being experienced and knowledgeable is something you share, not something you own. Yes you own it and can be proud of it, but sharing it or, teaching it is the more important when you are in authority

Wow. I read posts by BrokenVase and it forced me to read about DGIR. I wanted to know about this timeline that was being written so I asked my wife. She, no longer mothering me, told me to go ask so here I am. I can identify with some, if not all of CGIR's issues.

I have started on discussing the details of my multiple affairs but the pain my W endures is heartbreaking. I realize I've already broken hers and to continue appears to me to be adding salt on the wound. I've read posts that said this is expected but necessary. My concern is the effect on her, which I didn't think about while having my A's. I'm scared of a breakdown. This is not an excuse to try to "get over it" but real concern.

I cane here because I thought that perhaps doing the timeline would be easier for her than telling her but I'm not sure about. that. I need some advice....