Because the opposite of LOVE is INDIFFERENCE is the correct answer. Something about love and hate only being slightly different.
I think kazump is right on one thing, you can't figure him out right now and you can't change how he thinks he feels. All you can do is wait and he either will or won't come to his senses.
Email & MSN Messenger: Becca_1975@msn.com
Yesterday Is History
Tomorrow is a Mystery.
Today is a Gift.
That Is Why It Is Called "The Present"
Hey, Becca and ka_zump! I'm certainly not trying to "figure H out" to change him. I'm simply doing what I believe many others on the boards are doing: Speculating. Probing. Wondering. Sure, it drives us crazy, but we think about it anyway, right? I'm either thinking about it alone, or sharing my thoughts with folks on the boards to try to get real feedback on some real issues in my life.
I'm simply doing what I believe many others on the boards are doing: Speculating. Probing. Wondering.
Yes, however, speculating and assuming and mind reading and all that jazz is what people not on this board do too, and those of us here need to attempt to overcome those tendencies because they don't work and only serve up misery. Much like doing therapy. There are sites I've frequented where people are left to their own devices, and there are folks on there posting for *years* still stuck in ranting and resentment and vengeful thoughts and misery, encouraged to stay stuck by others still stuck themselves (misery loves company, I guess), all the while their WASs have long departed and moved on. I was on one of those boards and flooded with PMs almost every time I posted, indicating to me that people seriously need to know the ways out of their pain, but there was so much anger and antagonism on that board that I couldn't stay there, it wasn't helpful to me. Let's do better than them. Because we can.
those of us here need to attempt to overcome those tendencies because they don't work and only serve up misery
Good. We have a problem. What's the solution? Step feeling? Stop thinking? Stop wondering? Or are you suggesting that when we're thinking and feeling, that we just keep that to ourselves because that's the healthy thing to do?
I guess everybody handles these sitches differently; I feel good that I'm at the place that I am only four months into my sitch -- and four months from delivering the child of the man who left me. And I didn't get here by not thinking. I don't think it hurts to feel and wonder -- and it shouldn't hurt to acknowledge when I am doing so.
Saw that you wrote this on someone else's thread. And it made sense to me. Seems this is what I'm trying to do:
My thinking, to put it in quasi-military terms, is that you have to see things from the "enemy's" viewpoint. You have to think like they do, isn't that right?
Good. We have a problem. What's the solution? Step feeling? Stop thinking? Stop wondering? Or are you suggesting that when we're thinking and feeling, that we just keep that to ourselves because that's the healthy thing to do?
To stop thinking via processes that deliver hurt. "Assumptions" and speculation", for instance, are based on what? They're guesses, conjecture, based on interpretation, which means they're filtered through a bias. Then dwelling on those assumptions creates further assumptions, but meanwhile delivering misery. Only to find out later that, sigh of relief, it wasn't what you thought in the first place.
Instead, change the way one is dealing with these thoughts to a more practical, beneficial, healthier mode. You'll find that feelings follow thoughts, and if the processes in the thinking involved are healthier, so will the feelings be too.
In fact, your statement reflects "all or nothing" thinking, which is another distortive reasoning process, though right now your perception of your statement is that of honestly asking a question, which you are, but which is processed through that type of reasoning nonetheless. I'm not being critical of you by writing this, I'm addressing the process used instead. Your statement gives the option to "not making assumptions or speculating" as leaving only "What then? Stop thinking completely", when it's not one or the other.
There's a book called "Feeling Good" that delves into this topic in detail which I'd recommend to anyone.
Hey, NYS. I guess that's making better sense. In other words -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- instead of "stop thinking," you're saying to "stop thinking the way you are"? Call me a literal interpreter, I guess. I don't mind being told I have a problem, but I'd also like to be given possible solutions. A book referral is a great way to do that, so thanks.
In other words -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- instead of "stop thinking," you're saying to "stop thinking the way you are"?
Yep, partly.
Nothing changes in reality, to let go of the way we innately tend to think makes some feel as if their denying the facts. That's not the case, we're just handling the facts in a more realistic sense.
I'll give another example to illustrate that. When LBSs think thoughts like, "I'm alone, and I dread I'll be alone the rest of my life!", that's a common enough thought, no? Yet, the reality is, one will probably NOT be alone the entire rest of their lives, unless they're a hermit or are extremely repugnant. The reality is also that these very same people have had others fall in love with them in their lives, and no doubt, they can attract people and have yet others fall in love with them. Why would that ability fall off the face of the earth all of a sudden? And to take that perception of being "alone" now and project it to be constant to the very end of our lives, is a long, long time for anything in this world to remain constant. The only constant in this world is that things change. And that type of thinking doesn't factor in unforeseen circumstances nor one's own involvement in making things happen in their life, instead it's a rather resigning type thought. What else is wrong with that thought? That it hinges on feeling alone because one certain person out of the world is no longer in a relationship with us? That didn't bother us before we met them. That no one who's been left behind in the history of mankind has ever found love again?
Yet that thinking has a powerful pull to it, because it involves the emotions. Fear, for example, is involved with that reasoning, and fear is a powerful motivator.
But what's happening instead is that nothing's changed in real life, but their perception has... because of the trauma they experienced bringing on a depression of sorts that brings with it that kind of negative reasoning.
Likewise, changing that reasoning to something more realistic helps release us from this depression and also makes life more workable for us because we then are dealing with things the way they really are, rather than filtered through sabotaging depressive distortions.
