Brit The irony is that despite being a passive guy myself, I don't think I'd ask you to go easy on him. I could say gee Brit go easy on the poor guy! I know though that even if you tried to see through your husbands passiveness which he still seems to have, eventually you'd run out of patience and leave him again.
A common complaint amongst "nice guys" is that no matter how nice they are it's never appreciated. I think its because deep down women mistrust nice guys, they somehow know that all the niceness comes with a covert contract.
"I may not be very attractive but I'm nice to you so I expect you to want sex"
I guess what I'm trying to say is that unless he manages to change himself you just won't last with him. One of the keys to successfully DBing is working on yourself so as to not make the same relationship mistakes. As an LBS not only is he not working on himself, but making the same mistakes with another woman.
I always like your insight GB because I do think you really get my sitch. I read yours and I think me and your W did have some of the same issues.
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I guess what I'm trying to say is that unless he manages to change himself you just won't last with him. One of the keys to successfully DBing is working on yourself so as to not make the same relationship mistakes. As an LBS not only is he not working on himself, but making the same mistakes with another woman.
I agree with this A LOT. The self sabotage part of me often thinks in particular he's not changing, he's doing the same things with someone else...screw it....go do your thing. But that's counteractive to what I REALLY want which is to NOT be the person that I was in the M. And I have to fix that first.
Caution the following is mind reading and I know I shouldn't be doing it: I believe that he feels like all this is temporary. Me not dating, me saying that we can fix this, me saying that I have feelings. And he puts away his guilt or hurt about the sitch by saying that this is my phase of crying all the time, he already went through it (he has actually said this) and I'll move on too and it will be fine. He said early on during my Change of Heart that I wasn't myself right now. That Brit is confident and happy and self assured and independent and that I just needed to calm down and then we could "see where we were at" Maybe we could date, blah, blah, blah. He told me he loved that girl.
I also feel like anything he thinks or feels about us can easily be shoved aside because it comes with PROBLEMS and GF at the moment has none.
I honestly think he's going to come back until when he sees that he's missing out. When I no longer represent all the problems and hurt, but when he thinks I'm being an idiot by letting her get away.
/MINDREADING
I'm seeing that it's easy to detach when you're angry. It's easy to not be hurt if you tell yourself that maybe you don't want them back. (Which isn't even true.) Can you love someone when you don't agree with their actions? Can you love someone and let them make choices even when those choices hurt you? And can you do THAT while keeping enough detachment to not take it personally, not see it as a rejection, and not be a victim.
Today I had to go somewhere literally across the street from his place of work. Normally I would have said hi or at least texted and said that I was going to be there. But since Mr Bond used that word "smothering" I'm now seeing that sometimes we can put a WHOLE LOT of pursuing and manipulation under the heading of being friendly and polite. So I did and said nothing. It was very strange knowing I was that close to him and not mentioning it. But my new mantra is space and distance.
Ok so you sabotaged your dates with seemingly good men.
Why do you feel unworthy of happiness? I am not saying they were the gates to heaven but you thought they might be, why? And why would you kill it?
Look at that question(s) again and again I am not asking what it appears I am asking on the first read.
Sometimes our subconcious takes the best care of us.
Is Brit the one who will turn her bloom to the sun that shines the brightest?
Where does your nourishment come from and why?
It's taken me a week or so....but....are you saying that maybe my subconcious knew that I wasn't ready to date or be in a relationship?
Am I the one who turns my bloom to the sun that shines the brightest? No, I'm not materialistic. I say that, I believe that about myself. But there are things in my life that contradict that. I need to look at more closer.
I have no idea where my nourishment comes from. but I'd like to think it was from within and not from an outside source...that's the place I'd like to get to.
Brit Oh god please don't tell me you read through the 3 or 4 threads of misery I wrote. To be honest they're kinda embarrassing. I was so desperate to keep something that was almost non-existent that I conceded to a lot of things which I'm ashamed to have conceded to.
It was almost like the more I yielded the more she despised me. It wasn't until I finally put the breaks to a LOT of things that things started turning around.
It was hard though, but my life is so much better. My marriage is 5 times better than it was at this point last year, we still have some serious issues, but it feels like it can be achieved.
Those were some scary days as I held on to myself and stood up for myself.
For years W took the lead, and seriously resented me for it. I was just tryin to be "egalitarian".
In a democracy of 2 someone has to be the tie breaker, I deferred to her, since it felt easier. Afterall I didn't want to piss off my wife. Which led to the oh so painful.
Oh we did that. He never chose anything by the end even though I was practically screaming that I didn't want to choose dinner tonight!!!! MIL loves to say he's do laid back he's horizontal.
I'm starting to see that some people decide to change like you and others are more comfortable not changing like your cousin. What I want for him doesn't matter. He thinks he can be who he always was in this R and because she and I are different it'll be different. Who knows?
I have decided that I am going to work on myself so much that when I'm healed and whole I'm be the most eligible bachelorette in the world! I'm just trusting a higher power that one day in the future I'll have someone in my life...no need to worry about it now!
I see the "nice guy" as a branding of "co-dependent no more" for men. I haven't read the nice guy book but have been to the website. gb, would you agree?
Brit, I agree when gb says if your h doesn't work on himself and want to change that may be a deal breaker.
In my situation, I was a controller-fixer but I think I became more so because of the R. My H never really had ideas of things to do, at least not that he shared with me, so much of the planning was left to me. I planned and executed my a$$ off. It comes easy to me, I'm good at it. I got better at it and become somewhat obsessive. But I wasn't a tyrant.
This "I don't want to argue about it" line always sticks in my craw a bit. My H has said the same thing but we never really argued. Why? Because he didn't. He shut down. There would usually be 2 rounds, this is a great example: We had talked about putting solar panels on our house since it was built. It would make for great resale. I said: "Prices are really good on solar panels right now and with the rebates, etc we would only be paying $xxxx.xx. And then there's the lowered electric bill." H "That's a lot of money." LB "Yeah, but I think it would help with resale if we ever decide to sell the house, the energy efficiency will make it more sellable.. What do you think." This is where he shut down, stopped talking about it and we now have solar panels on the house. He was pi$$ed and that spawned the "disagreement" that led to his final bomb drop.
But the kicker is, he called the contractor who did the work, set the whole thing up and never once again raised an objection.
And this is how most of those discussions went. I would propose something, he might have a differing viewpoint or opinion, I would comeback with more of my side (usually with lots of research, controllers can't be unprepared). These were never really contentious.
And when he says he "just didn't want to argue", he's right but he also didn't want to take a stand, draw a boundary, communicate his side. And I think most women read that as "He doesn't care." And it really boiled down to if I didn't agree with him when he expressed a differing viewpoint he was done, the discussion was over. Again none of this was ever contentious.
When he did really have a plan, I usually agreed. In fact I can't think of a time when I didn't. New truck, OK; 64 Mustang, fine; golf club, OK; shooting club, sounds like fun; new bike, great.
So after that vent, I guess what I'm left with is, I don't want to get back in to "that" R. I want someone who, if he feels strongly about something, will say that and then be able to have me disagree and then come back with more explanation of his viewpoint. Not someone who says "eff it, it's not worth my time" but then resents the fact that it didn't go his way and thinks he's a "nice guy" because he doesn't argue.
I know my faults, I have not been an easy person to live with at times, I do like things to go my way, I can be controlling because I'm afraid of the unknown (less so now), I'm working on all of that and am a very different person than I was 14 months ago.
And I don't think I could tolerate that treatment now.
This was written on very little coffee, hope it makes sense.
Me 57/H 58 M36 S 2.5yrs R 12/13
Let me give up the need to know why things happen as they do. I will never know and constant wondering is constant suffering. Caroline Myss
Not only did it make sense I felt like you were talking about me!!!
That's so true the whole "I didn't want to argue" "I knew you'd just yell at me" That's so not true. We never fought and when I tried to fight or like you say get him to take a stand he would always
He throws in my face that we did "all these things" because it's what I wanted. But like your H he never said or proposed any thing HE wanted. And so I would get insecure and start second guessing "do you really want to have kids or is that because I brought it up?" "well we're not getting any younger we probably should" Which then led me thinking I would never know if he was unhappy in the R, that he would just exist, hang out in the garage, playing with projects and I would be left not knowing if he loved me. Which is what happened....only I got thrown under bus because I left.
He says that he just went along with whatever I wanted and never stood up for himself and he thinks if we got back together it would still happen because of my strong personality. I said "so you don't trust yourself not to slip into that pattern again?" and he said "I hadn't thought it that way but yes" Now I realize of course he hadn't thought of it that way because THAT WAY takes the blame off my strong personality and puts the responsibility for how he reacts in a situation on him.
I am certainly a controller/fixer. MIL once told H's sis that when we're older I'll be the one in the family everyone calls in times of trouble because I can handle things. Instead of feeling proud I thought when do I get to be the irresponsible one?
When I think back to the beginning of our R, he never planned then. There's this whole example of our first date that I won't go into but basically he made me plan it and because of that I almost didn't go....he used the same tactic almost word for word on GF and laughed about it to me. We did have some things that we planned together. By the time he wanted to plan something anything I was already too resentful and angry and would shoot it down.
UGH this discussion is making me angry LOL
Like you bug, I was not an easy person, I wanted my own way, and I can be controlling. I'm working on that. And *if* we tried again I would hope that he would find the space to stand up and state what he wants because I would have stopped being selfish and demanding. It was a cycle I do know that.
Journalling: Today I've been NC for 4 days. Today I managed to go to an appt across the street from H and make no contact. That was actually a bit tough but not nearly as crazy as I've felt in previous situations. Today I've felt calm, upbeat, optimistic, and generally don't feel as helpless or hopeless as I've felt in MONTHS.
I'm not sure if he'll come to drinks on Thursday with our friends who are in town from another country. I'm a bit nervous. It's his choice. I am obviously NC so I'm not bringing it up. My only fear is he'll bring her. I think he'll not come before bringing her because he knows I'll be there. I plan to get there early and leave early since it is a school night.
