Deprogramming

[Justanotherschmuck]

Heres a question that has me bouncing back and forth to a different opinion every single day.

 

A divorce finally happens. You didn't INITIATE IT, or WANT IT. You 've been blindsided and are trying to balance feelings of loss, hate, fear, confusion and anxiety. Hardly the situation to be in when critical thinking is neccesary.

 

 

How do or did you guys figure out what personal characteristics are LEGITIMATE weakness and which are those your wife (or husband) was simply critisizing you for because of her dislike for you? In other words, my wife would complain about a HUGE amount of personality traits that I have. I know some are things I NEED to change. I'm also smart enough to know that many many things I did annoyed her simply because it was ME doing them. How do I HONESTLY catagorize them?

 

I know there are other websites that say that if it bugs your mate, its legitimate. After a year of thinking that site over, I say BULL. Counting on someone else to HONESTLY critique you, especially when they are emotionally skewed to one side, is ludicris. But I know I need and can become a better person. Just how do I tell if I NEED to change a certain quality.

 

To show you where my wifes head was at. When we wasted out time going to MC, the counselor insisted that, in a marriage, the blame for problems is ALWAYS shared between the two parties, not always equally, but shared nontheless. After fighting him on that for a while, she finally admitted to it.

 

"Ok, he's 99.9% of the blame. I'm 0.1%. And she was DEAD serious. I didn't stand a chance.

 

Thanks for any input.

[silverfish]

You may not find out til you meet someone else. I think there are certain things to do with communication that I definately have a problem with. How you deal with problems together was the biggest issue for me and my ex husband.

i was like your wife at MC too.I realise now I wanted to be right and I went there thinking I would get validation that he was the one in the wrong. Looking back on it now it seems so wrong!

He basically stopped talking to me about everything because he was too scared of me jumping down his throat.

I've calmed down now. We've talked about it a lot since we split up and made our peace with eachother. I think a bit of space or a break at the time may have helped us to realise these things....

[chrissreef]

I feel like and she's made me feel like this is my fault. I've gone over and over in my head everything I've done that she dislikes and realized that most weren't communicated to me well on her part. She's passive aggresive and uses the silent treatment to deal with conflict. I've also been reminded that it takes two to tango.

 

When she says some things I did wrong now, I can usually tell if it's out of anger or legit by whether or not she's contradicting herself from what she's said in our relationship.

 

then "yes yes yes!!!"

now "i couldn't say no to the engagement, it was so sweet but it's like your forced me, i never thought we should have gotten engaged"

(umm, you wanted me to ask you months before and both you and your friends wondered why I didn't ask sooner)

 

then "you play your game a lot"

(umm, that doesn't tell me it's a serious issue to you - and you even help me in the game)

now "you were more interessted in your game than me"

 

then "i think you're addicted to porn"

(umm, you look at porn too and we do it all the time. this doesn't tell me it's a serious issue to you or that it hurts you)

now "porn hurts me, i can't be with someone that looks at porn" (and now she's dating a guy and complains his sex drive sucks)

 

then "i can't believe 3 of our friends broke off their engagements in the last year!"

(umm, this doesn't tell me we're having any issues)

now "i'm leaving"

 

then her "i think we should go to MC... we give it two weeks me "still want to go to MC?" her "no, i think we're good"

(umm, so I think we're good)

now "i always wanted to go to MC and suggested it several times"

 

then "i'm not happy" (while watching tv"

(I suggest she find a hobby or make a lists of things she'd be interested in doing and she agreed... which I find out now she meant she wasn't happy in our relationship because we had stopped going out and was staying in/watching movies more)

 

breakup occurs... and now all of these things come up and she acts like it was all my fault.

 

anyway, dunno if that helped, I feel like i'm ranting/rambling lol

[silverfish]

You are ranting but also laughing,which is good. God she sounds like me on a bad day ten yrs ago....

My problem was low self esteem. I sabotaged a lot of stuff because either I thought it wasnt good enough when it was what it was, or I wasn't good enough.

I blamed not being honest in my opinions on my ex, and I got angry with him for not being able to guess what I was REALLY thinking. Stupid man took everything I said at face value!!!

I could talk myself into believing anything if I want. It took me ages to figure out I was even doing this.

My ex H would try and talk to me but he would admit himself, he could not keep up with the endless information I threw at him. It became like 'white noise' to him in the end.

You really need to put your foot down in these situations without losing your temper - easier said than done.......we used to have a red card / yellow card thing going on for our kids and he jokingly used it on me once.