What do you “just know” about your spouses’ behavior? Can you predict when your spouse is going to be in a good mood or a bad mood? What would you like to suggest to your spouse that you can predict a negative response to?
I love Michele’s statement that while “you think you ‘re predicting the future, you’re actually creating it.”
From the workbook, “When you expect negative outcomes, you telecast your expectations in very sublte ways. So subtle, that you’re not even aware that you’re doing it” But your partner picks up these messages and responds negatively. In other words, you’re creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
It’s absolutely true. You know it. And I know it.
So …. Let’s examine an example like this.
When can you expect a certain behavior from your spouse? I’d encourage you maybe even to go back to the situation that you described in your previous example or two. Because especially in our worst situation, when we’re in the midst of it, and we go down that same old same old path………….we just KNOW what we’re in for…..so we respond accordingly. WHAT IS THIS SITUATION????
How do you expect him/her to disappoint you?
And how do you act?
Come, on…..what are you saying….what are you doing…..get specific?
What does your face look like?
What is your body language?
sg Love is PATIENT, love is KIND, LOVE never fails / DB since 2001
Well, good question. During my marriage I could have answered this with no problem. I almost alway knew what my H was going through, how he felt, and what could make that better (or worse) for him. I often found my self adjusting to calm him, ease stress, or cheer him up. As we lived together for so long, I also knew what was going on in his life that was effecting him..job, home life, health, family, etc.
However, the difficult problem is that once he began his affair, all that changed. The 30 years of knowledge I had built became almost useless as the influence of the OW also was effecting him. Added to that was my own emotional confusion due to the revelation of the affair and there is a formula for disaster. Then him leaving has made it even harder. In the last year I have had to relearn what to do based on partial information or lies.
The first step was learning when he was lying, something I had never had to learn before. The second was learning how to deal with his overwhelming guilt, again a new experience. The third was to learn to separate what were feelings he was having about us vs feeling he was having due to some fight or involvement with OW. The very nature of his inconsistent behavior has been the hardest thing to deal with. Mix with that my H is making every effort to hide or deny what he feels and to mislead me when possible, it is no small task to know what to do.
Little by little I have learned his "new" behaviors. It is sad to have to do this, to learn to spot a lie and not react to it. But your are right it can be done. To be in the present and deal onlt with what I now see, rather than go on what I once knew.
sg, i know exactly a situation that i can always predict the outcome, but I keep doing it anyway, hoping for a different one. i say to my h what are you doing, we need to move forward. i, of course, am hoping he will say he has changed his mind about the d. of course, he doesnt. he says yes we do need to move forward and i cry. everytime.
now i am thinking (because i am sharp as a tack - not) first of all, dont say anything about our r. if it does come up, validate his feelings, say very little and dont cry.
how's that? i got it, now the problem is, that is how it goes in my head. then it happens and i become a blubbering fool.
so i guess i will act as if i hear him and i will be fine. ok thats it right. ok. so for next time, this is what i am going to do.
let me know if i got it right, please and i will let you know if i do it.
Last week in the MC session I went to, the C had us practice a wonderful form of communication. It was very much the DB approach. In essence you say to a person I when I do this how do you feel? The other person tells you and you listen and validate..yea I understand. If it is a negative feeling you say do you think that was my intent? The other person says no. Then you say, what would you have needed from me to not feel that way? And then you listen and accept the answer and behave accordingly.
However the MC stressed that for this to work, each person must be willing to take responsibility for their own feelings and behavior. And further each person must accept the fact that their behavior effects the others feeling, but does not CAUSE the others feeling. Our feeling are our own. That is the purpose of the intent question and the follow up question. It is a way of acknowledging we may effect another's feelings without intent to do harm and then are looking for a way to amend that.
Unfortunately, if we continue to validate and adjust our behavior according it is with the understanding that our spouse will at some point do the same. What if they don't? What do you do when your spouse is unwilling or unable to accept that his behavior also affects others or is unwilling to either validate others or amend his behavior accordingly? In other words is unwilling to take responsibility for himself. Can progress be made?
sg, I have a question to ask. On another thread, someone stated that filing for divorce is well described in DBing and it is called the last resort technique. I reread the section in "The Divorce Remedy" and I do not have my copy of Divorce Busting because I loaned it out. Is that accurate? When I was reading The Divorce Remedy section on LRT I could not find anything that said to use filing for divorce as a means of DBing.
Thanks for any help you can give me in clarifying this.
Me:56, W:51 D:26,S:24,S:22 Married:18 Bomb 9/27/06 Separated 11/27/06 Divorced 10/6/08 Leaving it up to God
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
