OK can I have another 2 days to think on this one?!! You know I am already thinking about this, but its late and I have an early flight tomorrow so perfect time to mull this one over.

Ill be honest (OH GOD) I am missing my H a lot right now. He came to the house yesterday whilst I was out to pick up post. I don't even know why I miss him, he has treated me so poorly, I think I have spent too much time reading success story threads about WH where the fog lifts and they come back with tail between the legs. I read Mimis thread and Mortarmans, and probably given me some kind of false hope. However, someplace in my heart is telling me that he will do this, but my head is telling me another. I am trying to self protect as I am frightened that somehow I will hear word that he has MOVED on, and I am still stuck.

Thats where I am right now, I am quite sad and a bit lifeless. Trying to move forward but not really getting anywhere just yet. I suppose it takes time, I am doing all the right actions, making plans getting out, being sociable, but am waiting for some sign that he is hurting.

Back for more when I have though this one through.

Dusty Springfield - I just don't know what to do with myself? OR I only want to be with you?

We all want the best for your harmony even me ok??

Give yourself permission to be still. Accept that is where you are. Decide to stop being frantic. Just be still for a bit, OK?

When you keep trying to move forward when are aren't ready, you are avoiding feeling the things you need to feel because you want to replace them with good feelings.

This does not work. Please trust me.

Just let the feelings come -- they come in waves, and then they retreat. And they do retreat. It seems like the wave will take you out with it, but it won't, and as you become more grounded in your truth of who you are and what you want, the waves still come but they no longer threaten to take you with them when they go out.

There is very little you need to decide right now besides who you surround yourself with. Everything else can wait.

Glad your back on track harmony,

I posted to someone yesterday about keeping a journal reguarding thoughts, feelings and the emotional state you find yourself in daily.

Its a very useful tool for anybody, but especially those who are at an impass as to where thier life is going, and how they got where they are.

We all have blind spots, all of us, a weakness that we must learn to cope with in a healthy way. Some of learn early and the wall, (boundary), that we put up to protect ourselves, from ourselves, gets built and we accept it as a part of living.

Its funny how many people who have forgotten when they learned those lessons they were also hurt, afraid, scared and were racked with guilt and confusion that led to denial and desparate repeating of bad decisions....well ..you get my point.

Many people learn when they are children from adults who really care about them, and the practices the have to adopt to deal with thier emotional issues become habits after they work at them awhile making mistakes, getting burned and discplined and taught by there parental figures, until the habits are natural.

But then comes to some the assumption and arrogance that they were not taught those things by someone who took the time and sacrifice to love them, and they start to judge others who did not have that benifet. Well..they are only fooling themselves aren't they? They weren't tough and gifted, they were blessed, and humility and openess had much more to do with there boundaries than their own special abilities they now presume to possess naturally. They just forgot that at some point they trusted the right person.

Some of us are thankful for the people who helped us and pass on what we know graceously as a free gift as it should be. Some people sell it with the price that they must be looked at with awe like they never had to learn and grow and that they were born with all-knowledge. Some use others weaknesses to manipulate and put themselves above others to use them. The first although not perfect people are secure. The last are still fearful that someone will find out they are really weak and frail as they sometimes even think they can fool others if they can believe thier own bu11crap.

As you read and learn here I want to encourage you that you are not any less of a person because you screwed up. Thats what us humans do. When its bad we tell it like it is because the truth will not hurt you as much as more desception will, and it would be decieving to just tell you its OK, there are no consequences, especially if your in a bad place making bad decisions.

When we get to a certain age most of us have learned to dodge certain bullits but sometimes assume we are ready for anything because , "well, we should be shouldn't we?" The problem is that many times we are not, and get involved with people for all the wrong reasons that feel so right at the moment. What is really sad is when its with the wrong people too.

Then we have to look at ourselves again and realize our triggers, our drives, our makeup thru introspection and reason. It doesn't seem fair, we want it to be different, but it is exactly fair because the lessons we learn were allways needed for us in the situation we now are in, and we are in that situation, and the only way to beat it is to go through it.


I wanted to ask you again if you had an IC? I agree you should talk and spend time with you GFs and your Moms sister, that sounds wonderful, but you allready said you were somewhat embarrased to be to needy to them and because you are a professional don't you think they could help you as you can others in your profession? Also there is no need to feel guilty with a professional and they could be capable way beyond your GFs. You need to start looking because the right one for you might be hard to find, even if you can afford the best.

Slowly I have been able to piece your story together as it pertains to your Mom and Dad. The last bit that I suspected hit home today when I read about how Mom and stepdad got together. So I don't wanna dis both your parents, I know you are protective of them, as you are of everyone you love, but I understand more about what triggers you and why you are a "fixer" Much of what you needed to learn about protecting yourself was denied you as a child, and you assume guilt to some degree naturally because others let it be that way.

I am not a professional counselor, but I know about the effects of unrealistic guilt placed upon a child and how it messes with you. I suggest you see someone about that professionally, and as to your healing and growth here, come to grips with the effects your childhood has made on you, so you can recognize those triggers Harmony, and understand what draws you into these relationships.

I pray you can see how awesome of a young lady you are and accept that you have to stop jumping ship on yourself.

Please keep posting and take this time for some unashamed digging into yourself at the speed you can handle. God isn't finished with you yet, and He knows how important you are even when you don't, and you are worth ever second . LIke from these angels here.

Slow down, breathe, listen, read, and learn. Believe me, you will find it a priveledge soon enough, don't hurt yourself again by thinking you can't do better that OM and slipping backwards like that. Come here and post and we will help you be strong. You can bet the bank on that.

So true Seeking, very wise, thanks for this, I need to remind myself of that also.

Wishin and hoping by Dusty Springfield. Good tune.

The question you need to ask is do you miss your H, or do you miss being close to someone, sharing with someone, feeling comfort being with someone?

You made the comment about only seeing the good in people, and yet you see the bad in your Dad, your step Dad, and your exBF, right?

Here is the trick from my point of view, you look for their core values, yep their boundaries and you see if they have them, and how they protect them. You pick men this way in my mind. Do their values match their actions.

What make people special in my mind is not that they have flaws, but how they overcome those flaws, which means do they see their flaws. This coupled with the idea of boundaries and how we address them, is what determines good people from less desirable people.

Your H overcame (I presume) his drug issues, but he did not overcome the mindset that led to it. Given your history with your father, and step-Dad, you were willing forgive your H's past foibles, but you did not examine his boundaries and how he addressed his weaknesses.

This gets easier for you to do as you address your flaws, your boundaries, and how you much effort you will put in to protect them. As you do this I believe you will be better equipped to find a man to share your life with and rear children with, but it takes you understanding yourself, your boundaries, your needs and your goals for life.

Hence all of the preaching about boundaries etc.

Hope you have a good trip.

JL

Yes I know you care, thanks SR, tough times thats all

Oh God help!

I came home from business trip, was dashing around getting ready for dinner/drinks with GF and in walks H! Usually he has come to the house when I am out, not when he can see my car on the drive. The last time he did that was when he was drunk.

I already notice that he has been in during the day already to pick up post whilst I have been out, so not sure why he had to come back again.

I completely ignore him whilst he is sat in the office, he has locked the door behind him too. I carry on getting ready ignoring the fact he is in the house, he is there for about 30 mins.

Maybe is sat there waiting for me to go to him but I completely ignore him. Anyway my friend pulls up outside, waiting for me in the taxi, he sees the taxi and leaves the house just before me and I don't even see him.

Then I am a bit annoyed as I am meeting my GF looking forward to seeeing her and am all flustered. He certainly manages to time it well!

I am sat with my GF in the bar having some wine and snacks and my H drives past in his truck and looks right through the window! Then 30 mins later he does it again! Making sure that I see him. What is going on? Is this him cracking?

I was so strong I didn't buckle or break Plan B, I have you guys and this place to thank for that. I just acted competely indifferent.

He is acting very strange, can anyone make any sense of it?

Yes Harmony,

He is checking on you. Fine for him to cheat, not fine for you to cheat. You were with GF and he had to check to see if you and Gf were picking up some guys.

Pretty simple really. This will change and end when you decide to do it, not before. If he wanted to speak with you he would have but he did not.

You need to really think about your future and how much longer you want to remain in this game.

JL

God I love this place, so true.

It is so frustrating, why does he want to do that? Why not let me be? Why not speak up if he is hurting and missing me?

I am so proud of myself when he came to the house I just got on with what I was doing and ignored him! Beforehand I would have fuss, fuss, fussed him.

I cant put up with this any longer, time to turn up the heat and move on.

Lock the doors.

It is Friday night and all and he might have a few and decide he wants to have a chat about you ignoring him and then going out and having a nice evening.

There are a lot of ways his mind could spin the evening.

Exactly what JL has said.

Also, think about how YOU feel about it.

What happened when you saw him drive past? How did you know he drove past again? Why didn't you leave when he drove past the first time?

We told you that he would escalate. You are being so helpful and he has started STALKING you. Is there anywhere you can stay for a while.

Also, him always coming into the house, YOUR house needs to stop. IS there anyway you can stop that? He is getting his home fix. He is getting his Harmony fix. In Plan B, you are supposed to cut off ALL EN meeting. See, you can tell when he has been home. I bet you even take comfort in it sometimes. I can even wager that if he didn't come "home" for a few weeks, and you didn't see him, you would feel full on withdrawal.

I know that you are going to say that there is this and that and that is why you can't do it. There is ALWAYS a way. There is the easy way, a harder way, and the right way. You CAN do this.

Just to note, there were no guys everytime my H drove past just me and my GF having dinner. I sense more to come this weekend, something has kicked into him, he knows I am serious.

Doors are locked, there is no way he is getting in. I think you could be right. I am so tired as I have had a long day, that hopefully I will pass out and if he does come round I wont hear a thing.

Hiya Scotland

I was sat by the window, and he stopped so I would see him, there was no one in the car with him. I thought he may be heading to the bar, and then didn;t think anything of it until he did it again.





Yes good point, there are places I can stay but I feel being at home keeps me grounded, I am worried if I go anywhere I won't feel as in control as I do at the moment. Will think serious about this.


I was going to pose this as a question on my thread, before tonight happened. I have been thinking about this. I did mention to SH about changing the locks so H could not get in at all, SH said not to do this for the moment. However, I could lock the front door from the inside and go out the back door so H could not get in the house. Worried this will fire him up as I feel at the moment, him having access to the house allows him to check up on me and let me know he is 'around'.



Annoyingly so I did take comfort. If he didn't come home for a few weeks I would be in full on withdrawal, I started to even go through it the last couple of days.

Good post Scotland.

Well have that police # handy and don't be afraid to use it. Its possible he will test you this weekend.

JL and scotty allready have said what I feel also about this sitch....


Pray that you stay safe..

Be sure to post tommoroww

Sounds like you need new locks ;P

Time to lock him out. The time has passed for you to allow him to be in there without you and be there then...when you arrive home.

Check with an attorney and get all the locks changed.

Hey Harmony,

What do you do for a living? Just small talk really, I am syncing my new 3g my kids gave me for my Bday so I had some time to kill.

Its funny, I used to work AT&T as a data tech back in the late 80s, B4 the internet commercialization in the 90s. Lol. Back then I was a gifted Tech who got hired as one of the most qualified on the east coast. I just could pick up things quikly really, if I had any gift it was an empty mind..lol. But,(not supposed to start a sentence with a but am i?), but then I had a terminal and a modem at home and could call into the main comp so I could....look at a black screen with green letters, and run small programs, I wouldn't call it very special.

When they gave us the ability to make our own homepage in 1995 I jumped right in and made one with the app they gave us from the ISP, and it was cool then, but that was 15 years ago. Since then, my kids can show me stuff, I didn't stay in the field really and if you don't use it, you lose it and well, I really only dabble now and fix/build my own PCs out of practical need, not because I am into it like others are.

During them growing up, my children asked me how to do stuff or to set stuff up for them, and I did it or taught them. Now my 24 year old sells Iphones and manages an AT&T store, and my 19 year old knows Photoshop way more than I ever cared to learn. Ah how sweet is it when the student surpasses the teacher.

I was one of those guys who would read about all the cool things you could do with a gadget, and then of course, we only do three things with it, lol, then of course it becomes outdated. Like VCRS, and you gotta read the new instructions on the new gadget.

Well as you probably guessed this is just a bunch of junk Im talking about and has nothing really to do with your sitch. Just thought I would not be really heavy for a couple of paragraphs, been a tough week here for you. But I can't resist talking a bit about whats happening now with your WH, so here goes...

First, I want to ask you to get the locks changed. I would prefer that that advice came from Dr. Harley, but he had different advice. From what I have heard you say, WH seems like he might become dangerous to himself or others. Did you paint a different picture for Dr. H about him? Did you exclude information that we have? Because this is his site and we are here because we support and respect his work, I hesitate to advise you anything that goes against his advice. I would rather err on the side of caution though and guess that Dr H does not have a clear picture of what is going on with your Hs head. Harmony, I would blame you for that if my guess is right and you were protecting H like it seems you have a tendency to do, if you ommitted or glossed over what has been happening. Been there, done that, and its not the right thing to do when you seeking help.

So here is another guess Harmony, based on life experience, what I know about you from this site, and what little history of people in your life that you have revealed here.

You have all the normal drives a woman has towards relationship, but try to make up for the shortcomings of others you have been close to. Because inside you, there is desire to be close to everybody and help them, a nurturing drive. Thats a wonderful quality BTW, but many times our strengths can also be our weakness, and that is one place you need to work on in your boundary work, where do you draw the line? Only after you yourself had done something as despicable as have an affair on your husband did you seek help, and like many times in your life your habit of looking for a way to fix the situation by changing yourself and giving more, you came here for help in doing that.

See, that inner quality brought you here, only after you saw how you broke down, and you knew better than to act like that. That fear served you well.

Now its time for you to face the fact that in that unbalanced behavior, the one where you just keep being nice until people crap on you and inside you react and throw your hands up and do what your emotions tell you, is dangerous for you and anyone around you. I hope you understand what I am telling you and I am communicating it right. I am going through this to help you understand that the problem as it affects you and your relationships is not something you can ignore if you want them to be healthy.

I think its entirely possible you see how this effects you, and maybe you don't. I am talking about the reactions, triggers, and drives that influence you, and the possible loss of control you feel. I am talking about the helplessness you felt as a child, how you dealt with it then, and how it effects your life now.

When children get scared, especially when thier desire is to be loved by the most important authority figures in thier life, thier parents, they respond in many different ways. There is no cut and dry, exact science to it, but there is a simple way to understand it, basically, its fight or flight, but its panic and reaction when they are young, because thier brain has not developed enough yet to deal with the crazy stuff they are going through, and the survival instinct takes over.

So they think and act in whatever way makes them feel safe. Kids need thier parents and they also mimic what they do and that is normal. When they realize that one or the other has problems they will not feel safe if they can't play the problem down in the mind and adjust themselves to acceptance. Sometimes they accept very poor treatment,(to put it mildly), only to internalize guilt and responsibility that they should never have owned. Thier reactions can range from trying to fix whatever problems they percieve,(fight), to running away, (flight). Sometimes, they accept these roles forced upon them, and continue to reenact them thoughout thier lives, even seeking the situations they have suffered in as children, because they are so familiar to them, and we tend to be creatures of habit.

You mentioned that you idealized your Dad in your young life. I believe you loved him and missed him like most kids do. You havn't mentioned how your relationship with stepdad was but you did mention that he left his wife for your mom. It sounds to me like you also go to her sister and find her a source of support and don't see your Mom as a good source. These things made me think.

This is what my guess is and what I am believing right now about what happened. If I am right then it makes sense in what I believe also how and why your choices in men have come about, how you treat them, and what you expect to be treated like, and what you think you deserve. It also might answer the question as to why you don't insist on being treated better, don't communicate that clearly, and leave so much up to chance and wishful thinking.

Your Dad was violent and your Mom had to seperate from him. We don't know why and if and what his progress was with his problem. Also we don't know about the circumstances your parents went through, what got them together, what attractions they had for each other, or how balanced and mature they were when they first married.

We do know it was hard on the children, and Mom was the only source of explaination for you kids. Also it is obviuos you had a hard time accepting the rejection of your Dad by your Mom. Heck thats normal, Children need to look up to thier parents, especially a young girl to her daddy. Whatever reasons Mom told you, tainted by her own perception, probably made the reasons she had to leave him bring more into the front of your mind how important a good Dad is, and so it started.

As a young girl you felt that fear of abandonment, and you could not accept that Dad didn't love you, so emotionally you accepted that treatment as normal. At least for you anyway, because to reject him would not work with a nurturing nature and that is not love is it? Children get scarred with rejection, they seem to know it feels the same as death and fear it. Children are smart in that way.

So does it all boil down to Daddy issues? Well no, but it probably boils down to authority issues, and the authority of love.

There is also maybe the way your Mom dealt with the divorce also. What your relationship with your stepdad was too. They were now the people who would bring you up and mold your boundaries for you. What kind of examples were they for you? Stepdad left his marriage to be with your Mom. Your Mom was seeing and accepting a married mans attention even if they didn't have a PA. How messed up was her thinking at that time?

She may have been kind to you children, and tell you to love your Dad, and that your Dad loved you, but did she ever explain why she was willing to break up a marriage or accept the affections of a married man? Was she ever able to figure out herself how to survive without a guy in her life?

What was her example of what a man should be? How desparate to be with someone was she? What defines her identity?


MB works when people do, accually perform the actions, that are laid out in the policies of it. All these things I am discussing about your parents is something that should be brought up with an IC. If it was a concern brought up between you and your H while you were working on you marriage while you were discussing DJs,IB, Lovebusters while using the policy of radical honesty whithin and intimate disscussion you would be having a marrige. One that works because you both work at it. It would help you and eventually free you from triggers that drive you to the bad choices in the character of people.

This forum disscusses and supports marriage and the people who want them to be all that they can and were designed to be. So when someone makes really bad desicions the 2X4s come out quikly. The behavior is called for what it is and what it produces in the union of two people. It ussually is defined as right and wrong, and that is a blessing to many because how it started and all the reasons it was manifested does not help the marraige. The goal is for it to stop because its unhealthy for either party. The goal is to point out the behaviuor, not to justify it. If someone is confused as to why they do something and they need to identify thier behaviour, and get help in eliminating it, Its best left up to a competent counsellor. Dr H can identify problems that will effect marriage and realationships. He could also probably be a counselor that can help work through peoples behavior like you WHs and maybe even other people we know. But his talent and job is marriage couseling. You need IC to learn what makes you tick. Its time you were set free from old habits and mindsets that bring you pain. Let people help you Harmony, there are plenty of them that are willing and won't let you down.


Your a tough nut to crack, protecting all these people who have set bad examples and then reacting to being hurt by people with poor character. I really don't know for sure if you just don't know your worth more than that or if it has become so comfortable for you, or a combination of both.

Many of the questions I have asked you have not responded to. I felt it was probably because I make such long posts, and they are full of different issues, but sometimes I think you avoid them because they go to deep. Again issues for IC, which is another important question I asked.

Getting the crap knocked out of you and being the suffering sweet person doesn't get you any respect from others, and getting outragoeusly rebelious and emotional as you cave to the treatment by others will only be the other side of the rollercoaster as you have learned.

I don't want what has hurt you to twist you up inside anymore. Take your time, search yourself, take a breath, and don't give up. Your worth all the time in the world to take care of yourself. Never let anyone convince you differently. There is no hurry. You are more than your bio-clock, and your drive to heal can serve many. How about you get to that?

Ok, four hours for this post, Gotta go and sleep, have an engine to fix tommorow, long way from a a data tech with a nice clean shirt and a company car huh? Lol.