My husband will never see this. He would probably tear it up without reading it. But my heart is bursting & this is what I wish I could relate to him:<P>To My Husband:<BR>What must you feel like?. Its been months for us. I have been reading books & trying to change. No, actually not trying, I AM changing. Not falsely for you or faking, but genuinely to be a better person. To learn about myself & my faults & how I have hurt you and others. To figure out what it is I want from life & can reasonably expect from being married. To learn better behaviours. To be able to cope with conflict in a more understanding manner. Someone mentioned happiness coming from within, and that is THE KEY!!. <P>We let outside stresses, dissappointments etc. build & blow & paid too much attention to the wrong things. We needed to TALK in a non-combative manner & tell each other how we felt & what we wanted from each other. We never did. We had the politics from the job, etc to distract us from ourselves. I dont want revenge or to hurt you. I want you to see that I really want to repair & rebuild this marriage. I really feel it is worth saving & can be better. Your withdrawal from me has been an extremely painful eye opener. I SWEAR I did not know or realize the extent of your feelings before now. <P>Do my attempts to change feel weird to you? How? We lost some sense of SELF, and independence. We should not depend on each other to be the others' whole world. I have to find that within myself. You must find this within yourself. I only realize this now. What we do is SHARE the joys we find in life.<P>What if I could provide you with some of whats been missing, starting now???. No more rejection & withdrawal. It was not always this way. I feel you took our recent difficult times & reflected that back on past yrs that really were not always that way. PLEASE BE OPEN TO MY EFFORTS.<BR>What if you find the changes I am making in myself actually are bringing about some changes in you too? Let go of the past. Just let it go. It cannot be undone. Start from RIGHT NOW. To paraphrase from a book I am reading by Phil McGraw called "Relationship Rescue" - he says something like "I am going to ask you to let go of your security blanket and free fall"<P>What is it you really want from a me?? Give me the chance to be there for you as much as I can. Ask me also what I would like from you? Anything you might be willing to do for me? <BR>Now I am not talking about blame! ("you never. . you always . . etc). That's in the past. What is the real thing you want? Why do you feel I don't love you or maybe never did? That I only married you for comfort?? How can I now show you otherwise from my heart? Did I make you feel rejected? Did I make you think by my actions that I just didn't care? Are you willing to look deep in your heart for the emotions you have been burying for so long. I see your insecurities & lack of confidence now. Though its been there before I did not see it then. How can I help us to face our fears and talk to each other from the heart? <P>Do you think I'd be better off with someone else? No way. We have a history together. I am discovering the mistakes I made in my own actions and want to learn from them. I do not want to repeat them. But I want to learn about myself with YOU by my side. Still waters run deep. My love for you is true and real. I accept the good with the bad. ALL OF YOU. All your True Colors. There is no pretense about us. We just buried our fears within us until that emotional volcano just blew. I am sorry I hurt you. We are both in a lot of pain right now & I want us both to heal. Please give us a chance to rebuild this marriage. It will be different and much better than before. We are wiser. <BR>It is never too late to learn something new. JUMP!!<BR>

Dear CLG<P>I could envision receiving that letter from my W. What can I say? I am here with her not with GF. All the things I have written on my post are my real feelings. Perhaps I shouldn’t write anymore cause the more I express my thoughts and emotions the more I realise that the love I had with W is really dead. <P>Your husband is in a situation I was in about 3 years ago, about a year before I left home to work abroad. At that time I didn’t feel like my W loved me, I have done my job as a husband by planting my seeds on her and will continue to do so as provider of the family and that was it. I wasn’t too bothered because that emptiness and coldness I felt was normal. I just couldn’t stand being around her, we had arguments etc etc, I had to get out and I did. <P>For you I think you can still work it out because he probably still loves you. He’s only angry now. About his relationship with that woman you mentioned perhaps its nothing, he probably need someone he could talk to. Its very hard for him to talk to you because if you act or appear to him the way u sound (the desperation, neediness) in some of ur postings then u will just put him off, irritate him or even make him angry. I am sorry CLG if this is too harsh but I am just trying to tell what its like on the other side. Your H’s feelings could be different. Almost everyday my W asks me are we really doing this, am I staying for good? I just look at her and smile, I am very indifferent to her.<P>Unlike you my W didn’t bother, she just let it be and now she tells me all those times she really loved me and wanted me. How could she say that? I ‘ve said it before I feel like I’ve been cheated of my happiness. She said lets just erase the past 5 years of our lives and go back to where we once were. I honestly can’t and don’t want to forget what has happen to my life in the past 5 years. Can people actually erase it all and forget everything? <P>Hang in there and relax I guess. Whats the success ratio of people (either one sided or both) wanting to rebuild their marriage?<BR>

Sorry to hear. <BR>I hate to see people in pain & want to fix it! I am learning H has to do this himself. I used to give it back as bad as he gave. I am learning not to, & have been doing pretty good not blowing up with contempt & hostility. The real issue is stress.<BR><p>[This message has been edited by cantletgo (edited June 06, 2001).]

CLG,<P>Then there is the Serenity Prayer:<P>God, grant me the serenity<BR>To accept the things I cannot change,<BR>To change the things I can,<BR>And the Wisdon to know the difference.<P>Next month I'll retire after nearly 39 years of climbing the ladder in a major city police department. And politics is a big part of the game. Bureaucracies aren't going to dissapear just because someone hates them. Indeed, one of the most important goals of any bureaucracy is to perpetuate it's own existance! In order to advance in any organization, one of the basic requirements is that one be politically astute. When we speak of "qualifications", the most important qualification of all is the ability to get along with people. And, it is extremely important that one learn to work in and through an organization. <P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR> <B>My H tried to talk to the higher ups & they referred him back to the lowdowns!!. This has happened my H several times, where they even made assumptions about his skills (wrong) & refused to interview him!! </B> <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Pretty good chance he made a lot of enemies with those tactics. Everyone of the "lowdowns" most likely saw this as an attempt to bypass them, to make a run around their left end. No wonder they made negative assumptions about his skills.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR> <B>He met the qualifications!! </B> <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>No one ever rose in any organization just because he met the qualifications. Neither is anyone "entitled" to rise in an organization solely because of "qualifications". We look for people who seek out and accept responsibility for their own actions. Those who are given to name calling and blaming others condemn themselves to failure, and eventually to the exit door. <P>As one advances in any organization, one becomes more and more dependant upon the ability to get the job done through others. That requires a whole lot of salesmanship, and the product one must sell to co-workers and superiors is trust and confidence in himself. That means the ability to successfully manage around problems like personalities and politics. It means the ability to leave people feeling good about accomplishing organizational goals. The time and place for anger is rare, and even then, used very sparingly. <P>Many people from minority groups can and do advance their careers in spite of their ethnic heritage. They earn and deserve both respect and power in the organization. The most effective are those who advanced inspite of their ethnic origin rather than those who rose because of it. No matter what the law says, the workers in any organization know how to recognize an equal opportunity incompetent as quickly as they recognize an incompetant crony. <P>Has your husband ever wondered if the anger and the temper you describe is adversely affecting his work relationships in the agency where he works? He is deluding himself if he thinks his co-workers aren't every bit as much aware of his temper as you are. Until he chooses to recognize that and accept responsibility for his own actions and his own demeanor, there isn't much you can do.<P>There is anger management training available. But until he decides to accept responsibility for his own emotions, he will continue to experience frustration, a major source of anger. If he refuses to deal with his own anger, he might well consider some other field of endeavor.<P>Prayers and stuff,<P>Bumper<P><p>[This message has been edited by Bumperii (edited June 05, 2001).]

He is where he is today without ever relying on minority equality etc. But he has suffered so much from these beer drinking sports talking cronies that he feels there is nowhere else to turn. <BR>PS: he was never unprofessional or inappropriate on the job. Did confide angrily in a few coworks though.<p>[This message has been edited by cantletgo (edited June 06, 2001).]

PS. To Out of the Fog:<BR>I think I am doing a little better. Off to my appointment this pm & will be referred to long term person! Wish me luck.