Coffeegirl, which article is it?

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2688015

Let us know what you think

I think my W has more Type A resentment than me due to my past IB and SD behavior. While I had a lot of type B resentment, I never thought about the fact that my actions were causing resentment (type a) in her and it most likely was worse because it made more LB withdrawals.

I haven't been fully committed to POJA because I was only thinking of MY resentment about the things she was preventing me from doing.

If type A resentment could truly last for the life of the memory, how do you ever deal with it? What can I do to make amends or make it better for her?

Listening to the radio clip on "what to do with resentment" as posted by BrainHurts...

Per Dr Harley in the clip, the H needs a carefully crafted plan to get his W integrated back in the house and H needs to learn to accomodate her by using POJA. I see how POJA is the solution going forward, but still no answer about what to do with the past...?

I see you posted to Dr Harley. Perhaps you could tell people here what he said.

In reply to this, I tols him that I understand I should not have gone to the meeting but I'd like to know if there is any way I can amend the situation and resentment, since it's in the past. I also asked if there is any way I should address all my W's resentments from all my past transgressions. I do want to make it better for her.


This means to me that I need to stop being so rigid with commitments. It is important to be flexible and allow my W to have the freedom to change her mind any time, including before and during the agreed on activity. If either of us changes our mind about our enthusiasm, then we go back to POJA and negotiate. Am I understanding correctly?

I see that Dr Harley replied again just a while ago.

In summary, Dr Harley told you that you must not trigger your wife's resentments about your past IB (and other ways you hurt her).

Not triggering past resentments is the way to erase the ongoing resentment she feels today.

He was also telling you that in the longer term, you won't feel much resentment over the fact that you missed that meeting (had you not gone). If you think about it, in the bigger scheme of things, NOT going to something is rarely something that you feel resentment about for the rest of your life. It's a shame, but life goes on. If the marriage gradually improves to becoming happy, non-attendance at an event won't even be felt as a loss at all one day.

In a marriage, though, if a spouse is hurt by something that the other spouse positively chose to do, that disregarded their feelings, that resentment will be deeper and longer lasting than the resentment at missing an event. When you choose to do something regardless of the fact that you knew your wife did not want you to do it, you are making a positive statement that you care less about her feelings than of your own, or of those of the sponsor whose time you might have wasted.

Had you used POJA and negotiation properly, you would have abandoned the idea of going to that meeting. You might have felt some resentment at that, but had you negotiated with your wife and encouraged her to see your point of view about the importance of the meeting, you might have come to another arrangement that allowed you achieve the objectives of the missed meeting. The result would have been a win-win, not a win-lose outcome.

You need to realise that a win-lose solution is really a lose-lose solution in the longer term. Your wife, who was the loser, is now convinced that it is pointless your saying you will do MB and POJA with her; you are still the selfish man that she has decided to get away from in a few months, and she will be better off without you.

You, on the other hand, were the winner, but what have you actually won long term? You "won" your attendance at the meeting, but you triggered your wife's long-standing resentment, and confirmed her view that you are not the man she wants to be married to, so you have lost the marriage in the long run.

IB is not a win for the IB-er in a marriage. It is always a loss for both spouses.

A lot of Dr Harley's critics see POJA as the power of veto. They criticise it because, as far as they can see, its only purpose is to give one spouse the power to wreck the other spouse's plans and make them unhappy, by saying "no, I don't want you to do that". Regardless of how important the event or desired activity would be, the vetoing spouse gets to say "no", and the desiring spouse has to put up with that. For critics, POJA would only make an unhappy marriage, full of disagreements, worse.

Critics see POJA is as a perfect tool for the spiteful spouse to rule the roost. I get the sense that you have seen it like that.

As long as you see POJA as "things she was preventing me from doing", you will not want to use it and you will enforce your IB on your wife, and you will fail to rescue your marriage from the divorce that is already a certainty as things stand.

If you can begin to see POJA as a way of preventing you from doing things that hurt your wife, and as a way of ensuring that win-win agreements are reached about everything, you can turn your divorce around.

If you see your marriage as one of extraordinary care and protection of your wife, then POJA is the only process that makes sense. You could not contemplate taking decisions that hurt your wife if her feelings and perspectives are your primary concern. You could not conceive of ever doing something that benefits you at her expense.

Once you start accepting the veto power as a good thing, and once you move on from there to negotiating (which does not mean applying pressure to get your way), you can ask your wife to try and understand your perspective on outcomes that you would like to achieve (like staying sober), and you can, together, think of paths to achieve those outcomes that do not hurt either of you. Your wife is not a silly, thoughtless woman who would cut off her nose to spite her face. She does not want to see you begin drinking again. She only asks that you do not put AA and sponsors above her, and what is wrong with that?

POJA is not a weapon that she can use against you to prevent you from doing things you want to do. POJA is an asset that creates win-win solutions.

Wouldn't Dr. Harley say to separate from either an alcoholic or abusuve spouse?

AA's very premise is that Once An Alcoholic, Always An Alcoholic.

In the 24 Hours A Day Book, Thought For The Day, the most popular reading is from January 6th. In abbreviated form, that reading say: "Sobriety is the most important thing in my life. Without that, I have nothing else."

Just because a person has a Period on not drinking or using, does not translate to being adequately and truly sober. That requires a dedication to taking the 12 Steps and Living the Steps.

Especially when a person is a Newbie to the 12 Step Program, it is vital for their continued success at staying sober and living sober, to embrace as many meetings as possible. Some suggest doing at least 90 meetings in 90 days. Most recovery treatment facilities drill this concept into all newbies heads.

Although marriage and your Spouse Also are supposed to be the number 1 priority, missing meetings and jeopardizing ones sobriety also needs to be the priority to remain sober.

I feel that until a long term foundation of sobriety is achieved, it may be better to remain focused with that as the primary goal.

There is such a high occurrence of relapse if sobriety is not given the utmost of seriousness that it deserves, as it is an ever present potential for whole life destruction.

LTL

Well - that's not what Dr Harley posted to him! He and I posted exactly what he said, and it wasn't that!

I feel that it's very wrong of you to give advice that is directly counter to what Dr Harley told him.

MM went to the meeting despite his wife's asking him not to go. She was very clear in her objection. MM went anyway. He then felt his wife's resentment, and realised that he had harmed his broken marriage even further. He asked Dr Harley what he should have done. What if his wife had never agreed to his going to the meeting? What if that had caused him to miss the meeting altogether? Wouldn't that have been wrong, and wouldn't it have caused resentment in MM?

MM is coaching with Dr H, and Dr H knows very well that this was an AA meeting. Yet he did not say that MM should have gone to the meeting against his wife's objections. MM posted this already, but I'll post Dr H's reply again:


That advice is clear, direct and unambiguous.

Sorry.

I had searched this whole thread prior to posting, but missed that, probably due to scrolling quickly on a small cell phone screen.

LTL

Sugarcane and LTL, thanks for the comments. I'd prefer to stay anonymous with my 12 step program as it is based on AA (the original 12 step), but it is not AA. Dr Harley knows about my addiction and recovery, however.

To address this comment about "90 in 90", I have discussed it with my sponsor - not at his suggestion but at my own questioning because I heard other people talking about it in our meetings. My sponsor and group have not ever suggested or drilled it into me. In fact, my sponsor takes the stance that it is up to the individual to decide. The point of 90 in 90 is to develop the necessary habits for long term recovery. However, it is possible to recover without doing 90 in 90 and this is the path I have chosen with the input from my sponsor.

In fact, when I talked to him last week about my W not wanting me to attend the meeting on Friday, he helped me see that I don't need to be so rigid and controlling. "Life happens". He also said that I need to consider her part of my recovery and include her in the process by getting her input on my plan. Sounded striking similar to POJA... It may seem contrary to the 12 step "putting sobriety ahead of all else", but it's actually not. My sobriety is highly important but in order for me to recover and stay sober, I have to develop intimate connections with the people around me, including W, my group, my sponsor and a higher power (difficult for me) while at the same time not "acting out". My addiction is based on a self-centric, controlling attitude and a big ego; as well as my inability to develop close relationships. Sobriety (not acting out) is foundational but only a piece of the puzzle.

LTL, you are right that there are some concepts in 12 Step that are contrary to MB and my challenge is to balance these ideas with input from my W, this forum, Dr H, my sponsor and group. Ultimately, it comes down to me "accepting the things I cannot change and having the strength to change the things that I can".

Also, there are options for me to attend meetings that I can POJA with W. There are meetings during the early mornings, mid day and evenings... so while I may not be able to do 90 in 90, maybe I can achieve 35 in 90 while getting agreement from W on a schedule that works for both of us. It was an "ah ha" moment for me on Friday to learn this and see that there is an option for "win-win". I screwed it up on Thursday night and Friday when I didn't see it that way and forced my decision on my W. I was wrong, and as Dr Harley and Sugarcane pointed out, it created resentment in my W that I cannot remove. However, the next time I can POJA.

I did not bring up my plan with my W this weekend and I should have. After writing this, it's a good reminder that I need to open up this discussion with her...

I don't have all the answers, so please keep me honest... re-reading my message above seems like maybe I'm writing with hubris and a "know it all" attitude. I refuse to edit it as I'd like your comments... am I lacking humility?

Understood.

This is a bit too much detail of your programme for my tastes.

I'd like to focus you getting you to understand and embrace POJA. I posted a great deal about win-lose and resentment etc, but your reply barely acknowledged those points. You haven't yet shown any understanding of how POJA benefits you and is not a tool for your wife to control you. Your reply seemed to focus more on details of how you can get to meetings than on how you can rescue your marriage from the resentment caused by IB.

Indeed. I can see that POJA is nowhere near instinctive for you, yet.

Do the details make you feel uncomfortable or is it just the fact that it's not MB focused? I'd like to know because I think sometimes I say things that make others feel uncomfortable and I don't realize it.

I admittedly got distracted by the 12 step comments. I will look at your posts again.

You're not focusing on what you should be here to discuss: IB and POJA.

If I am understanding correctly, the reason you are saying "veto power" is a good thing is because it prevents me from doing things that will hurt my W and cause resentment. By rejecting her veto, I am basically saying that her feelings don't matter. is that correct?

And, what do you mean to move on from veto power to negotiating? I will need to maintain the attitude that she has veto power throughout the negotiation because I don't want her to lose. I understand the long term goal is for win-win, but for now, do I need to accept some losses of my own so she can win, ie. a lose (me)-win (her) scenario until a time comes when she is willing to hear my perspective to get to win-win? Is that Plan A?

By refusing to commit IB, you leave a blank space for the final decision open. You want x solution, (such as going to a meeting to stay sober) but your wife does not.

By refusing x solution, you keep a space open for the right solution. With negotiation skills you will both be able to insert a 'y' solution (another way to stay sober) - one you both entusiastically agree to.

That's because your solution was not the right one. It isn't the right one until you get to a win, win.

It isn't about 'accepting a loss' - it's about accepting that your idea was NOT a win. It did not really fit.

If you have two arms, you need a coat with two arms.
If you have two people to cross the lake, you need a two person rowboat.

If there are two of you, you need a two-person solution.

MM-

If you read the above words �90 in 90�, study them, internalize them, and change your behavior accordingly, your addiction problem and your wife�s resentment problem will be managed. I promise.

Now if you do that, then your wife will be willing to stick around. SHE (not your sponsor) provides your greatest chance to build intimate connection. That is the point of the MB online program and it will work if you follow it properly. But you have to make it safe first, for your wife.

Just ask yourself before you do ANYTHING. Would my wife feel ENTHUSIASTIC about this? When you are tempted to act out, turn your behavior TOWARD your wife instead of AWAY from your wife. Send a compliment or call her to offer support and see how her day is going. I know that this is easier said than done, but it is a good habit to get into.

BTW, you wouldn�t be having such problems with which meetings to attend if you were planning your week every Sunday afternoon. Why aren�t you doing that with your wife? It is a basic first step for the program. Plan in your 15 hours as a PRIORITY over everything else.

Don�t quit the online program! Don�t let your 12 step distract you. You might think that doing your 12 step will prove to your wife that you are serious about managing your addiction. But it will not matter if you put that in front of your wife and marriage. Following POJA will give you a better outcome than the 12 step, but with better results for your marriage and family.