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I like what you said SB, and I saw three people the other day, walking down the street together, all texting to other people at the same time.

Less is more sometimes huh?

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This is such an awesome thread. Really.

Thank you, hopestochange, for starting the thread, and thank you, schoolbus, for your wisdom and readiness to share it.

I have much to contemplate.


<just another superwoman sometimes falling apart>


Me: FWW 31
DH: BH 32
M: April 2001
DSs b 2005 and 2006
EA began summer~autumn 2009, D-Day1 Feb 2010
EA went uglier until NC-letters mid-June 2010
Discovering MB site end of June 2010
D-Day 2 Jul 7, 2010, followed by 2 other D-days (Jul 14, 2010, and Jul 31?, 2010)

Falling back in love - or so it seemed...
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Again - thanks. Yes, I do not realize what is going on around me enough of the time. I feel much calmer and able to cope with everything when I *am* connected to things. I also know exactly what you mean by "accomplishing" things but not really doing them - I always feel like I have a huge to-do list and am happy when I cross something off of it, but I don't feel a big sense of accomplishment.

Took a nice walk with the dogs tonight - no cell phone, yay. Nice and dark and distraction free. smile I am really trying to live in the moment and recognize what is going on around me. I just feel much less overwhelmed - which I think lowers my stress which also lessens any compulsion I have to lie or omit things. When I'm relaxed things just come easier - I disassociate less as well, so it's a nice positive feedback loop.

I think DH and I might have discovered a mutual hobby today - we went indoor rock climbing and both *really* enjoyed it. Very good for concentration and also for working through things. It's really a team sport, since one of us will be manning the rope and keeping the other one from falling while one climbs. Very trust developing! DH was impressed that I kept going on a tough wall, rather than giving up. I was honestly thinking about how my not giving up on the wall would show that I can push myself through hard spots - I know it's not the same as doing it emotionally, but I was thinking that I need to learn to exert more effort and push myself so why not start there?

We had a tough night Thursday - a fight which DH said for the first time a while didn't feel like a "normal married people fight." In a strange way while I am sorry that we had one of our "old fashioned dysfunctional fights" I am glad that lately he's felt like they were more "normal" fights.

I'm very glad to hear that others are finding good things in the thread - thanks SB, CP and everyone for your input.

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Wow - rock climbing.

Takes me back many years! My H was once a rock climber and got himself into a very precarious position. He froze up there (free climbing). After working himself up the rock, he came down the safe side, which took many many hours. He was very late coming home.

He never went again, and since that point in time has had a fear of heights. He told me he had a moment where he almost lost his life up there. He could have died, and he realized that he almost lost everything in that moment. He was a wreck for about a week, worn out from the fear and the walk out of the forest back to the car.


I just asked him if he wanted to go rock climbing. He said, "He// no."

It was way back for him, in 1979. Stuck with him!


I would like to go again.......but this is something we have mutually agreed we would not do. I'm cool with it.



Read The Prophet. Gibran takes you into poetic place for living in the moment.

SB


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Bad bad night. Relationship jeopardizing. I pushed him aside. He wanted to go on his computer (together); I wanted to make out (was wearing sexy lingerie even, which he had bought me). He confronted me about not getting a second job. He saw it as dishonest that I hadn't done it yet - making a commitment and not living up to it. He read this thread and thought that I wasn't being honest enough here, since I hadn't said that I hadn't gotten the second job yet. I guess that is dishonesty. I hadn't done it yet. I fully intended to. But I didn't. And I was pushing him out - I read a book, was talking to him about it, while he was online (he wanted me to join him in looking at the websites).

I told him I'd been slow in posting the ad looking for extra work. He asked why. I said (honestly) because I couldn't find the right time and because I felt foolish posting the ad.

He said that he has offered me up trust and love on a silver platter and I have spit on it. I know that's how he feels. I did it again, pushing him away. He took money from my allowance, sent me upstairs to sleep.

I want to shut the world out very badly right now. He's at work; don't know if he will be home tonight. I spent the night with our niece, which was nice. I also cleaned the kitchen floor, figuring I should keep up with things that I have promised to do (keep the house nice).

I keep sabotaging this. Something must be "more important" to me - probably my foolish independence and my fear of connecting. I think that if I go back to childhood, I didn't connect because I didn't want to get hurt. Stupid that it continues.

Ready for the tough love here...

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He "took money" from your "allowance" and sent you to bed?

Sounds like he had a nice ol' fit when you didn't give into his demands to spend the evening the way he wanted.

Also sounds like the two of you do not use negotiation or POJA to come up with solutions that make you both happy.

Does he know about MB? Have ya'll tried using the program together?


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BTW, you might click "notify" and ask the Mods to move your thread to MB101. You will get more attention and help with the MB program there.


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Somewhere inside of you there needs to be a switch you find. That switch exists. It turns on and says to you that there are other people around you, and there is value in sharing their dreams and hopes, and what they love. There can be a joy in watching other people simply love what they are doing. You don't even have to like the activity at all.

Here is how to enjoy something you don't even like:

Let's say you are at a concert for a Country music band. You hate Country music. In fact, you listen only to Rap and Hip-Hop, and if anyone were to hear Country coming from the block you live on, you might be mortified.

Your husband loves Country, and he has been given two tickets to see Brad Paisley in concert. Front row - center tickets. His dream concert. These tickets are for the night of your anniversary, and you find yourself agreeing to go, even though you know in your heart your brain might just explode. So, you go.

There you are! Brad Paisley is pretty good-looking, and you can entertain yourself by just that alone at least for the first few minutes, and ignore the sounds he makes. LOL

How do you find true enjoyment in this situation, though? That is the question. How do you ever "connect" with your husband when you are not doing something YOU WANT to do?

Easy.

Look at your husband. Get into his mind while he watches the musicians. Get the perspective of your man, and open your heart to the human-ness of him. Here is a person, who loves what he is seeing, where he is, and what he is hearing and doing right at the moment. He is filled with pleasure. Feel that WITH him, enjoy that feeling and be happy FOR him - feel the love of humanity within you that there can be this much joy in a person, that you are contributing to happiness right now. Within this, find a sense of joining him, being a part of him.

Then, look at the musicians. These are people who are doing what they love for a living. They are enjoying an intertwining link with one another via music; then, they link with the people who are listening. An interchange of souls and minds playing out right there - for pleasure and happiness - and you can just stand there and watch and be happy for them as a bystander soaking it up as a human event, in its beauty as it occurs.

Look now at the crowd. Look at one person, or the entire group of people. You can see each person and breathe them in, taking in the essence of being human there from them. The excitement, the happiness, the joy of life. It is all around you.


That's how you enjoy something that you "don't like" or "isn't what you wanted to do".
Schoolbus, this is not MB advice. It goes against POJA and encourages sacrifice. Sacrifice only leads to the destruction of love, not to the building of it.

Moreover, going along and doing something with your spouse that you do not enjoy only ENCOURAGES dishonesty. Instead of being honest with your spouse about how you are not going to enjoy the activity, you let your spouse believe that you are enthusiastic and will enjoy it.

Originally Posted by Dr. Harley
The Policy of Joint Agreement also avoids the worst advice of our Giver and Taker. In the state of Intimacy, we are encouraged by our Giver to sacrifice our own happiness so that the other person can be happy. In the state of Conflict, we are encouraged by our Taker to let our spouses sacrifice so that we can be happy. Neither of these are worthy objectives because in both cases someone gets hurt.

In marriage, your interests and your spouses interests should be considered simultaneously. One of you should not suffer for the benefit of the other, even willingly, because when either of you suffer, one is gaining at the other's expense. If you both care about each other, you will not let the other suffer so that you can have what you want. When you are willing to let the other sacrifice for you, you are momentarily lapsing into a state of selfishness that must somehow be corrected before damage is done. The Policy of Joint Agreement provides that correction.

The Policy of Joint Agreement

More links for you to read, Hope:
Four Guidelines for Successful Negotiation
Emotional Honesty



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Originally Posted by schoolbus
[
Here is how to enjoy something you don't even like:

Let's say you are at a concert for a Country music band. You hate Country music. In fact, you listen only to Rap and Hip-Hop, and if anyone were to hear Country coming from the block you live on, you might be mortified.


schoolbus, the solution is to scratch country music from your recreational list entirely. Going to a concert you hate is a sure fire way to develop incompatibility because people will not do things they hate for long. People who make sacrifices KEEP SCORE. When the score is not even, they make demands to settle the score. That is a renters strategy, not a buyers strategy. A buyers strategy is to go to a concert you BOTH like so you both enjoy the evening. That is win/win versus win/lose.

I explained this in another post of mine about selecting restaurants. And I will add that this strategy has worked remarkably well for my H and I. We enjoy going out to dinner because we find restaurants that we BOTH enjoy. Neither of us wins at the others expense.

Originally Posted by Melodylane
Let's say I hate Chinese food and my H hates Mexican. I love Mexican and he loves Chinese. So I make a compromise with him that he endures Mexican and as an "incentive" I will go suffer through Chinese with him.

Lets say we practice a "compromise" and we go for Mexican one night and Chinese the next night. That means that I will be unhappy on one night and he will be unhappy the next because we are each gaining at the others EXPENSE for one night.

This is called sacrifice. This leads to incompatibility and resentment. It leads to incompatibility because people won't do things that make them unhappy for long. I might go for Chinese 3 or 4 times and tolerate that nasty food, but pretty soon I will be finding reasons to AVOID going out to eat and he will be resentful, because people who practice sacrifice KEEP SCORE. He will be mad because I "OWE" him a Chinese night to pay for his Mexican night sacrifice.

The solution recommended by Marriage Builders avoids all that. Instead of going to ANY restaurant that one spouse doesn't like, the solution is to find a restaurant that BOTH LOVE. Mexican and Chinese are completely OFF our lists. In it's place is a list of restaurants we both like. This solution builds compatibility because it ensures we are BOTH happy and no one sacrifices at the other's expense.

That is win/win versus win/lose.


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


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Found another good one on the practice of win/lose:

Originally Posted by Dr Harley
The secret to understanding your spouse is to think like your spouse's Taker. It's easy to appeal to your spouse's Giver. "If she really loves me, she'll let me do this." or "He'll be thoughtful enough to agree with that, I'm sure." But lasting peace must be forged with your spouse's Taker, so your solutions must appeal to your spouse's most selfish instincts. At the same time, it must also appeal to your own selfish instincts.

Resist one type of solution that your Giver and Taker may suggest the "I'll let you do what you want this time if you let me do what I want next time" solution. For example, imagine that you want to go out with your friends after work, leaving your spouse with the children. So to arrive at an enthusiastic agreement for that thoughtless activity, you suggest that you take the children another night so that your spouse can go out with his or her friends.

What you're really proposing here is that each of you will sacrifice so that the other can have fun. The problem with that arrangement is that you are agreeing to behavior that makes one of you unhappy whenever the other is happy, and as I've said earlier, once you have made an agreement, it can easily turn into a habit.

The Giver and Taker suggest those kinds of win-lose solutions because they don't understand win-win solutions. Their concept of fairness is that if you are both suffering equally, that's fair. My view of negotiation is that by the time you are finished you should have arrived at a solution where neither of you suffers. And each part of the solution should not require either of you to sacrifice so that the other can be happy.

One last point: Whenever a conflict arises, keep in mind the importance of depositing as many love units as possible while avoiding withdrawals. In other words, use the opportunity to find a solution that will make your spouse happy, and avoid solutions that make either of you unhappy.
here


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


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Things are calmer today. Prisca, this was in another forum and it got moved here. I've gotten tons of great advice, thankfully!

I am really going to be working on not checking out in my therapy sessions. I'm also going to be adding another medication, to see if depression is getting in my way (not that it's an excuse but it's an additional challenge if that's playing into it).

I really should remember how lucky I am - most men would have dumped me months if not years ago. I've gotten lucky because of circumstances and the true devotion of someone who hasn't gotten enough of it back.

I think that if I really work at living in the moment, engaging life, I will be calmer and happier. I won't always feel that I'm trying to escape something. I'll just "be". At least that's my goal.

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Originally Posted by hopestochange
I think that if I really work at living in the moment, engaging life, I will be calmer and happier. I won't always feel that I'm trying to escape something. I'll just "be". At least that's my goal.

hopestochange, another path is to remove the things in your life that cause you STRESS. I recognize what you are doing and I have only done that is if I were trying to escape something. I called it compartmentalizing. It was when other parts of my life made me so sick that I would force my mind to refocus on something else. Amazing I didn't have to do that when I cleaned up my life! Is that the kind of thing you mean?


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


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She was at the concert - she loved the band - she was checked out because she was texting other people.


She is not connecting with other people.......she asked advice on how to connect.....the example I gave was not related necessarily on how to like what her husband liked - it was how to CONNECT to people.


How to enjoy things - in general. Perhaps a bad analogy.

HTC is having difficulty connecting to LIFE in general - to people. She needs to put one thing down, look at PEOPLE, see their HUMANITY, find that part of her that connects to them.

She has lost this in herself. She does not even see that she can enjoy what is happening right then and there - she disconnects with the very event that is occurring right under her nose.

The example of the concert wasn't meant to "go against MB advice". It was meant to direct her to SEE HER LIFE and look around. She doesn't do it.

She was happy at the concert in question - my point wasn't actually related to a concert, or POJA, or doing things you don't like to do, not at all.

It was related to connecting to your LIFE.


HTC got my point.

She is experiencing a great deal of difficulty with lying to her husband, being "with him" but not actually connecting with him (texting others, for example), lying to people for reasons that don't seem to make much sense (even to her!), and has in the past spent loads of money and lied to her husband about it.


He is very upset about all of this. She is in counseling now...she is learning fast.


She has read basics, he has only now read the forum, from what I can tell.



Have at it.

Color me gone.

SB




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Originally Posted by Sparkler
This is such an awesome thread. Really.

Thank you, hopestochange, for starting the thread, and thank you, schoolbus, for your wisdom and readiness to share it.

I have much to contemplate.


<just another superwoman sometimes falling apart>

I agree. Schoolbus is my favorite poster on MB. I always learn something from her. I think she is amazing.

She is going to write a book----someday. I hope hope hope she lets me have a copy. Not sure how she would do that without revealing her identity.

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Originally Posted by schoolbus
She was happy at the concert in question - my point wasn't actually related to a concert, or POJA, or doing things you don't like to do, not at all.
But that's not what you said:

Quote
Here is how to enjoy something you don't even like:

Let's say you are at a concert for a Country music band. You hate Country music. In fact, you listen only to Rap and Hip-Hop, and if anyone were to hear Country coming from the block you live on, you might be mortified.

Your husband loves Country, and he has been given two tickets to see Brad Paisley in concert. Front row - center tickets. His dream concert. These tickets are for the night of your anniversary, and you find yourself agreeing to go, even though you know in your heart your brain might just explode. So, you go.

That pretty much goes against everything MB stands for.

Quote
She is experiencing a great deal of difficulty with lying to her husband, being "with him" but not actually connecting with him (texting others, for example), lying to people for reasons that don't seem to make much sense (even to her!), and has in the past spent loads of money and lied to her husband about it.
I believe there is a program here that can help her with all that.


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**edit**

Last edited by Fireproof; 11/16/11 10:41 PM. Reason: TOS disruptive, disrespectful
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A reminder to posters that the purpose of this forum is to learn and discuss Marriage Builder's principles. Please help this poster with the MB program and refrain from promoting personal philosophies. Board members should not be placed in a position to have to debate these concepts on the thread of a poster who is seeking help for her marriage.

We appreciate your cooperation and encourage you to email us with any questions.

Thank you, fireproof

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SB, I hope that you stay in this thread - your advice has been tremendously helpful. In some ways I don't know if I would even still be married if you hadn't written what you have. You have given me tremendous insight into things that I have done for years, and done so in a way that was both direct and caring.

Prisca, the issue at the concert really was one of connection, not of "doing something I don't enjoy." Saying that we jointly agreed to go to the concert is an understatement - while I'm not as into the band as DH is, I really enjoy their music and they put on a great show. Plus, DH just lights up when he sees them, making the concert even more fun. DH is actually a big fan of the marriage builders program and referred me here in the first place, even though he didn't read this thread until recently.

We've also both read surviving an affair and his needs, her needs. We've also both read through this website, and generally practice the marriage builders program.

I think that SB's point was to show how to connect and really notice what your partner is doing and how they're feeling - something that I have a really destructive tendency not to do. At the gentlest level, it could be seen as "not picking up on hints" - in its fullest form it's just closing myself off and going into my own little world. I am working on really opening myself up to everyone. SB's advice on that and on honesty has been very eye opening.

I would love to read a book by SB.

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We've also both read surviving an affair and his needs, her needs. We've also both read through this website, and generally practice the marriage builders program.
With your problem in dishonesty, and your husband's Demands, DJs and AOs, I believe the book you need to be reading is Lovebusters. It will probably be more helpful to you than anything else at this point. You cannot fill a bucket that you are constantly punching holes in.


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How does your UA time look? Getting 15-20 hours each week?


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