Question of Wife's Behavior

[Character Floss]

Hi All,

 

My wife and I have been separated about three months, and are learning how to talk about and through tough subjects. The answers may lead to reconciliation or not. Sometimes it's hard to talk about, "Do you really want to be with me" and listen to the answers, so such question may be avoided.

 

Two nights ago we had a series of talks and I thought she was finally resolved that she did not want to reconcile. I'm the one who had the affair. I brought it out in MT, and I'd not had one before; it was not a chase and shag event and it devastated our marriage, and it was also a symptom of where things are/were.

 

So we don't talk for a day. We have no kids or joint assets so I actually prepare draft documents (my state allows pro se and I think it could be done that way/it has fill in the blank forms). She texts me "good night," however (found it today) and called this morning.

 

She says, "We are not that far apart. I see love like a road and at times it is covered with gravel washed in from the railroad tracks by a storm...but underneath it is the road. I went through 36 hours being angry with you and thinking no loving thoughts and realized, the road is still there...we just need to clean off the gravel."

 

Mind you when she asked the source of my anger (not sure it is anger--but to her, if I do not want to be back with her, it "must" be anger), and I said, "Well if I am not going to be with XXX (affair partner), I may not ever be with anyone, and certainly not you."

 

One would think that would be enough. I'd been avoiding saying something that blunt, but she kept pressing and pressing. She said "GOOD-BYE" and hung up the phone, and our marriage therapist confirmed she wanted out.

 

The final piece is this: She spoke a lot of reuniting out of honoring the commitment, and that as long as I speak kindly to her, and act in a loving manner, even if it is out of my commitment to honor, and not wanting to be with HER, that is fine by her. She told me that commitment began with her on our wedding day.

 

Today she volunteered that such commitment began when we'd known each other a couple of months, before our engagement, when one evening I shared my life story and all its skeletons with her. "I decided then to accept you and to be with you to face anything in your life, in whatever capacity would be permitted."

 

When my ex-wife wanted to reconcile and asked my (now) wife to back off, stating, "We had nine years, we have two kids, I want to see if we can reconcile," my then fiancée/now wife told her, "No. He's mine...you don't understand the commitment I made to him." (SEE ABOVE)

 

My wife is not desperately willing to do anything I want to have me back...but she sees this in terms of an almost cosmic commitment...

 

Does this sound rational to you? It sounds (now, in hindsight) almost like the behavior that might motivate a stalker or somesuch. I mean, if she told me, in effect, that her heart was with someone else, I would want the marriage to end/accept that. I wouldn't want her with me "out of honor," I would not think think it could work between us long-term with that, and I also would want her to be happy even if it meant my loss.

 

So...does her behavior sound healthy? She is either the most-together and loving woman in this city of 200,000, or this really needs some exploration...thoughts?

[Yasuandio]

Post your original marriage, and now an affair to contend with, I wouldn't question anything of this woman, especially the subtle implication she in nuts.

 

Did it ever occur to you that she stands beside you as your partner in marriage, as she pledged to do? Who the heck cares if she made this vow once she heard of your "skeletons," prior to the formal cerimony? What more do you want, dude? From your descriptor, she really seemed to be more loyal to you than a bloody canine.

 

Maybe you should try not to have affairs, "chase and shag," nor others. What are you expecting? Your discussion of "pro se" and asset division seems so cold, and callous. Whilst she's thoughtfully weighing a fine analogy of trying to sweep the gravel away, in regards to the aftermath of your inappropriate conduct.

 

Now you are wondering, is her behavior rational? Is she in some sort of cosmic reality? What do you expect when you shock your spouse with an affair that is deeper than a "chase and shag?" She sounds like a thoughtful, loving, creative woman trying to express her pain. You sir, sound like the typical gas-lighter, that has already been embedded in the ugly deed for some time, and conveniently blame-shifts it onto your already suffering spouse. And, to top it off, you make subtle implication that she must be losing it. Classic.

[coopster]

Hi All,

 

My wife and I have been separated about three months, and are learning how to talk about and through tough subjects. The answers may lead to reconciliation or not. Sometimes it's hard to talk about, "Do you really want to be with me" and listen to the answers, so such question may be avoided.

 

Two nights ago we had a series of talks and I thought she was finally resolved that she did not want to reconcile. I'm the one who had the affair. I brought it out in MT, and I'd not had one before; it was not a chase and shag event and it devastated our marriage, and it was also a symptom of where things are/were.

 

So we don't talk for a day. We have no kids or joint assets so I actually prepare draft documents (my state allows pro se and I think it could be done that way/it has fill in the blank forms). She texts me "good night," however (found it today) and called this morning.

 

She says, "We are not that far apart. I see love like a road and at times it is covered with gravel washed in from the railroad tracks by a storm...but underneath it is the road. I went through 36 hours being angry with you and thinking no loving thoughts and realized, the road is still there...we just need to clean off the gravel."

 

Mind you when she asked the source of my anger (not sure it is anger--but to her, if I do not want to be back with her, it "must" be anger), and I said, "Well if I am not going to be with XXX (affair partner), I may not ever be with anyone, and certainly not you."

 

One would think that would be enough. I'd been avoiding saying something that blunt, but she kept pressing and pressing. She said "GOOD-BYE" and hung up the phone, and our marriage therapist confirmed she wanted out.

 

The final piece is this: She spoke a lot of reuniting out of honoring the commitment, and that as long as I speak kindly to her, and act in a loving manner, even if it is out of my commitment to honor, and not wanting to be with HER, that is fine by her. She told me that commitment began with her on our wedding day.

 

Today she volunteered that such commitment began when we'd known each other a couple of months, before our engagement, when one evening I shared my life story and all its skeletons with her. "I decided then to accept you and to be with you to face anything in your life, in whatever capacity would be permitted."

 

When my ex-wife wanted to reconcile and asked my (now) wife to back off, stating, "We had nine years, we have two kids, I want to see if we can reconcile," my then fiancée/now wife told her, "No. He's mine...you don't understand the commitment I made to him." (SEE ABOVE)

 

My wife is not desperately willing to do anything I want to have me back...but she sees this in terms of an almost cosmic commitment...

 

Does this sound rational to you? It sounds (now, in hindsight) almost like the behavior that might motivate a stalker or somesuch. I mean, if she told me, in effect, that her heart was with someone else, I would want the marriage to end/accept that. I wouldn't want her with me "out of honor," I would not think think it could work between us long-term with that, and I also would want her to be happy even if it meant my loss.

 

So...does her behavior sound healthy? She is either the most-together and loving woman in this city of 200,000, or this really needs some exploration...thoughts?

 

 

in bold...IT TAKES 2

 

What are YOU prepared to do that she "

My wife is not desperately willing to do anything I want to have me back...but she sees this in terms of an almost cosmic commitment...

 

 

defne "cosmic" for me

[tojaz]

My wife is not desperately willing to do anything I want to have me back...but she sees this in terms of an almost cosmic commitment...

 

Does this sound rational to you? It sounds (now, in hindsight) almost like the behavior that might motivate a stalker or somesuch. I mean, if she told me, in effect, that her heart was with someone else, I would want the marriage to end/accept that. I wouldn't want her with me "out of honor," I would not think think it could work between us long-term with that, and I also would want her to be happy even if it meant my loss.

 

So...does her behavior sound healthy? She is either the most-together and loving woman in this city of 200,000, or this really needs some exploration...thoughts?

 

One of the most haunting memories of my divorce is my now ex saying "Cant you see your completely obsessed with me?" There was a lot said in those times of course, but thats the one that really hit home. Why? Because I was a husband trying to rebuild a relationship with his wife. Here I am sitting across from the woman i had been madly in love with for over a dozen years, Lived with for near a decade, bought a home, given her my name, and shes talking to me like some guy she had found lurking in her bushes.

 

That was the first stroke of her literally deleting me from her life. I am effectively the equivelant of the missing minutes of the Nixon tapes. I imagine her now, 3 years later in a home of her own and probably doing quite well, probably with a few of the gifts I gave her, or momentos of vacations. Possibly riding the little bike I rebuilt for her.... but these things no longer have a story, they are just meaningless objects, its all carefully hidden away... a gap of dead air in the middle of her life.

 

That's the way she needed it to be, and I think that's the way you need it to be to CF. Her behavior sounds very normal although it does sound like she is acting desperately to save her marriage. The "stalker" is something your choosing to see.

 

TOJAZ

[trippi1432]

Backstory <---- I think that is relevant to a lot of what you are asking her. Actually, from that story, your wife (3rd one to be exact, and I'm terribly sorry about your first wife) has asked several times what she needed to do while you were having the affair and asked that the two of you sever ties to the woman that was a friend to the both of you.

 

You've acted on impulse before...not an affair, mind you....but you took on a second marriage before you allowed yourself time to grieve. The issues you have with falling out of love and not caring as much anymore have everything to do with you and nothing to do with what your wife is or isn't doing.

 

She's not a stalker, she's a woman who was just as much in love with you when she fought for you and didn't allow a recon between you and a second wife you had been divorced from for 3.5 years. She's willing to fight for you now....but not on your terms. And she shouldn't be willing to do what you want her to do to win you back. She also told you goodbye in marriage counseling because the affair came out with Ann....a "good" friend to you both.

 

She is a good woman....if you weren't in an affair fog, you would see that by your own accounting of your relationship.

[Character Floss]

Bad writing, not my point...

 

I am the one who has to do...I get all that.

 

Yes, when we were newly engaged my ex asked her to stand back, and she would not...

 

Yes, this is my only affair...but it isn't a matter of how many, really...the damage is there from the first or only...

 

It is love, it may also be fear of abandonment (as her ex-husband left her two or three times but came back before divorcing, and remarrying within a couple of months).

 

Well...MC was interesting today...just leave it at that...but I agree, if we get back together it must/should be me meeting her terms...not asking for/looking for anything other than that.

[tojaz]

Bad writing, not my point...

 

I am the one who has to do...I get all that.

 

Yes, when we were newly engaged my ex asked her to stand back, and she would not...

 

Yes, this is my only affair...but it isn't a matter of how many, really...the damage is there from the first or only...

 

It is love, it may also be fear of abandonment (as her ex-husband left her two or three times but came back before divorcing, and remarrying within a couple of months).

 

Well...MC was interesting today...just leave it at that...but I agree, if we get back together it must/should be me meeting her terms...not asking for/looking for anything other than that.

 

So what is it that you are looking for CF?

[trippi1432]

Bad writing, not my point...

 

I am the one who has to do...I get all that.

 

Yes, when we were newly engaged my ex asked her to stand back, and she would not...

 

Yes, this is my only affair...but it isn't a matter of how many, really...the damage is there from the first or only...

 

It is love, it may also be fear of abandonment (as her ex-husband left her two or three times but came back before divorcing, and remarrying within a couple of months).

 

Well...MC was interesting today...just leave it at that...but I agree, if we get back together it must/should be me meeting her terms...not asking for/looking for anything other than that.

 

Not necessarily bad writing and perhaps not your point, but none-the-less, your thoughts in a mixed up world of safe versus exciting. See, exciting has no expectations, no commitment...the freedom to walk away. As to your marriage, you are correct...the damage is done, so where to go from here??

 

Fear of being abandoned is huge, so is the fear of loving someone so much it literally hurts when YOU feel they don't love you back <--- that is where you put yourself by not ultimately dealing with your own grief.

 

Infidelity is right up there with that. You and your wife both have something so much in common, but one of you is refusing to see it.

[Character Floss]

Fear of being abandoned is huge, so is the fear of loving someone so much it literally hurts when YOU feel they don't love you back <--- that is where you put yourself by not ultimately dealing with your own grief.

 

Infidelity is right up there with that. You and your wife both have something so much in common, but one of you is refusing to see it.

 

I got the last part...I am refusing to see it. I see the first part as both applying to my wife...not me...the fear of abandonment, the pain of loving and not being loved in return.

 

Will you connect the dot to "not ulimately dealing with [my] own grief?"

 

Thank you.

[trippi1432]

CF - based on your back story over in Infidelity, you speak quite often of your love waning and actually get to a point of indifference and even a little apathy after you had worked hard on your own therapy (professional or just general insight?) and no longer needed, what you felt the relationship had become.....a parent.

 

Certainly, you needed emotional support while going through the divorce to your second wife, but I get this general feeling that you have felt emotionally abandoned for quite a while. I'm sure you know that it is common to go through many stages of abandonment grief or the loss of a loved one, one of those symptoms are running hot and cold in future relationships/marriages.

 

Just something to explore CF...

[Character Floss]

I had not considered future relationship difficulties in response to losing my first wife.

 

The IC is with a darned good PsyD over whose eyes I cannot pull any wool, it seems. I've worked with her on/off since about 2003, I think.

 

FTR, my second wife and I had been divorced a couple of years before my (current) wife and I began going out. My ex came back into the picture and shortly after our engagement was made known, asked my (now) wife to stand down, back off, and let us (ex-wife and me) have a chance for reconciliation. Understandably (or not) my wife refused to back off, and in fact took an opportunity to tell my ex-wife that I had not intended to marry her, etc.

 

That is an example of the parental, "Mama Bear" behavior. Both my ex-wife and wife are fairly dominant, though with the one it has manifested more in the Mama-Bear, smothering manner, and with my ex, more in the simple control manner.

 

The bottom line is that in both cases, I gave them the power to "control" me, to varying degrees; I have no one to blame but myself. I cannot claim either one manipulated me, because while there is truth in that, the bottom line is that I gave my consent, even if grudgingly.

 

I do not feel my first marriage was like that, and this may be affair fog, but I don't think things with my AP were that way (remember we knew each other almost two years before the affair, knew it was wrong (no justification), and tried not to have the PA, while still maintaining the friendship).

 

What came together Saturday as a piece of this was my role as the parent/confidant of my mother when I was rather small (pre-teen onward). I had thought that being put into a care-giving role had prepared me, however inappropriately, for adult-hood. What I realized is that I learned not to consider my wants/needs...or that I had them...in order to meet my mother's needs. Perhaps because she did not parent me appropriately, I never learned how to parent myself.

 

That is my quest now, accepting that I alone am responsible not only for my well-being, satisfaction, etc., and not only for my decisions, but also to "parent" myself: to set and maintain boundaries; to limit myself when necessary; to affirm myself; to protect myself.

 

My AP has had several years of intense IC due to her own issues and she got this/models it, so I found in her someone who "got" what I had to put in place. Again, the friendship never felt parental or controlled, etc.

 

So that is where I am at. It all flowed so well in IC when I began to open up, and the pieces came together...so much so that I regret that the session was not recorded. As I remember bits and pieces of what I said, I am jotting them down.

 

And to a degree, this frightens my wife (she has said as much) as well as makes her glad we are finding such things out about ourselves.

 

My affair-fog paradigm (assuming that is all it was) was this: I can live without my wife. I can live without my AP. I won't be bothered living without my wife, but I don't want to live without my AP.

[tojaz]

Reading some of your backstory and your last post CF. I want to throw a theory to you.

 

You speak of being "controlled" by your wife. You also speak of growing up in a caregiver role in your younger years and that this may have attributed to that.

 

Look at how you met "Ann" in effect it was you retaking that caregiver role, which in a way is a position of influence, rather then feeling controlled. You speak about how it is much easier to relate to "Ann"

 

Since I really don't want to lead you anywhere, I'll stop there, but it is something to think about and can be a major factor in the affair fog and possibly trading one troubled relationship for another, just with different troubles.

 

TOJAZ

[findingnemo]

CF, I don't know if I stated my opinion of Ann in the other thread. Well, it's not good. She has major problems and you are simply jumping into the role of caretaker for her. It seems that either you are attracted to very strong personalities, or you allow other people's issues to become important to you. At least more I important than your own. Forget about Ann.

 

Your W is fighting for the M. I don't think she's a stalker but she knows how to get you to do what she wants. She knows how to communicate her needs. Perhaps it's a function of hearing only one side of the story, but to me it's pretty clear you've made up your mind. You don't want to stay in your M. So why the back and forth? Now that she's decided she's done, great, right? It's over. Why are you feeling uncomfortable about her decision? How she finally got to that place is irrelevant. She got there....and that's what you wanted. Now just go ahead with D.

[trippi1432]

CF - If I may ask, what was your first marriage like?

 

I've noticed that you do not speak of it very much except for what I found in your Infidelity postings:

 

First wife (one who died...not at honeymoom...but 6.5 years into marriage, 8 years into knowing one another): I knew, BOOM, I wanted to be in her life forever and I pursued her.

 

Second wife: she pursued me, but the attraction was mutual.

 

Current wife: more of a, "Hmm, what makes sense, this makes sense" coupled with her rescuing me. I did break up a few times before we were married and she really cast it in "eternal terms," if you will...giving in to my carnal nature, etc...did some weird things (sat on my foot so I might hurt her to get out the door), and I felt worn down. This last October I told her I wanted out, and she told me I had two hours to get everything I ever wanted out (house is in her name). I was fine with that...told her that, started packing...knew what I could leave behind (MOST STUFF), but was OK...so then she started begging please, just listen to her...that talk (mainly her talking) went on four hours, non-stop, till I was damned near falling asleep and said, "OK, I won't go." I was worn out mentally/emotionally. I am sure she was.

 

Where I have trouble saying "NO" is when the other person pleads/asks, "Just listen to me." With us that has usually turned into her talking for several hours...and again, with her background, too often cast against some eternal backdrop.

 

There's my anger.

Edited May 15, 2012 by trippi1432
Additional info

[Character Floss]

CF - If I may ask, what was your first marriage like?

 

I've noticed that you do not speak of it very much except for what I found in your Infidelity postings:

 

My first wife...we were best friends, buddies, before the "coup de foudre," as the French say...the moment when I realized she was a beautiful woman as well. She was three years my senior, and we met through a class at the local Presbyterian church (her father was a presbyterian pastor, though more of a writer/translator/editor).

 

She'd been raised in Mexico and Colombia, did not like me at first and somehow we became friends. After my "aha" moment we spent about three months with me as Pepe Le Pew, and she, the poor cat with a can of paint spilled down her back.

 

We loved one another, and we were young. After five years of marriage we had a child, a daughter, and she was able to stay home with her. We shared the cooking but my wife, staying home, picked up more of the slack for laundry than I did. She did not have the greatest stamina, weakened by a congential heart defect. I think neither of us knew the potential severity of it. I've been in the medical field for about 19 years now, and I wish I had known/her cardiologist had explained the dangers of atrial fibrillation to us. She went into A-fib when I was on a business/training trip, and while I hurried home, she had a stroke a few days later and within five days of that stroke was declared brain dead.

 

We loved one another. I don't think either of us felt weak and needy around the other, nor did we feel dominating or dominated. It seemed to be a wonderful coming together of equals...but then again, we did not ask ourselves such questions in those days, as young as we were.

 

Admittedly our sex life was disastrous, to the point where I was happy not to consider trying to have a sex life. About a month or two before she died, my wife told me that she'd been thinking and maybe the problem was not me (hoping to make love more than once a month), but may have been more "her" issue, a byproduct of how she was raised (cold, unaffectionate home without much display of intimacy; the traditional "christian" burdens of being a good girl because boys just can't help themselves, etc).

 

That was more than 20 years ago...it is difficult not to set up a cult around her, because by this time our failures are not even distant memories and I simply miss her.

 

It took two years for me to come to grips with the fact I was angry that she had died, angry that she had left/abandoned me when she was (it seemed to me) more competent at living. I never asked, "Why?" I thought in terms of, "Why not? People die every day." Two years later, after being remarried, I finally faced that anger. My catharsis involved burning the bible she had given me, page by page, in my fireplace while doing everthing from weeping to yelling to silent prayer. You get the picture. I was fortunate to have been hers for a few years.

[Character Floss]

The fact is she did not decide she was done.

 

The MC has been very particular on drilling in the idea that emotional responses must be respected, noted, taken into account and explored; however, they may not be the best reasons for making a decision.

 

So within 22 hours of having a difficult conversation...where I told her (after repeated questioning) that yes, my thoughts are more with Ann than she, my wife was back to texting, emailing and wanting to talk, viewing this as--temporary or a sign of poor communication.

 

For my part I have begun reading more on "the fog" and have asked her to do so as well. So no, she is not done, does not want to get out, etc. I don't get how she can tell me I am the most hurtful man on earth...yet she wants to be with me and let's not worry about what has left us angry.

 

One thing that says it's not affair fog is that I can see how kind, intelligent and loving my wife is...and how I kept her from meeting my needs by a combination of taking care of her/not expecting much, consciously, and also not being at all in touch with my needs.

 

So I'm not sitting here and saying, "oh bad wife; I was sooo neglected." Was I? To a degree, but a degree that I certainly accepted and at times created.

 

I can understand finding that the more someone knows another, the less compatible/comfortable over the little routines of life things feel/are, without it being an indictment of the party not feeling this way. If we had children together I think I would feel totally differently, as I would have something within the home relationships engaging and valuable.

 

My wife recently chided me for not talking more deeply and often with my stepson (19 and a half). I asked her...would she want much to do with me if I had just beaten up her mother? She did not connect the dots on that...but I guess the difference is this: I see my relationship with my stepson as contingent on a relationship with my wife, while she has told me that she thinks it is independent and even if we divorce, I would/should still keep the relationship with my stepson intact

 

Can she get me to do what she wants? At times in the past she did. When I tried to break the engagement, it was cast in terms of me either following God (marry her) or my natural, carnal desires (breaking up). This was reiterated recently. I guess I now see that as manipulative while she may not.

 

As for Ann--she may be a trainwreck, or she may also be a true overcomer who loves people and is thankful for life, but still has her problems. Whatever...non-issue anymore.

[Owl]

So...what's your goal from here? What's your plan to reach your goal?

[Character Floss]

Continue the MC. Hope that if this is affair fog, the time will help it lift.

 

Listen to my wife and what she has to say (the next item on the agenda is her anger).

 

Use this process to strangle any thoughts of or desires for AP.

 

Don't know the outcome...neither of us are set one way or the other.

 

So in a few months we come to a decision point, and I don't know which way it will go, but at least then it "should" be made based on better information about ourselves and one another. I'll also have plenty of opportunity to back my wife off from pushing herself closer to me than I want at this point, and that skill of hurting her, perhaps, to set some boundaries is a good one.

[ZacThomas]

I read your story and feel that it is quite complicated. You need counseling which can help you in reducing pressure of your married life. Take care.

[Character Floss]

We spend two to three hours/week in MC, and I have a psychologist I have worked with on/off for the past...six years? Seven years?

 

I see so much of my wrong choices coming in response to choices I made "against" my gut/intuition, so I see this as perhaps a realization of the need to pay attention to my gut and have the cajones to follow it, even if that disappoints or even hurts someone else. Now...intuition/gut is not always right, but some people have a track record of following their gut to utter disaster, and others to ignoring it, with the same results.

 

The big thing I have learned is that I have often ignored that sense, and then BLAMED others (wife, usually) for the results rather than owning the fact I was not willing to buck what someone else expected, and believe that I "deserved" or had a right to follow my gut longing.

 

A hundred and fifty-three years ago when I moved to this town and was finishing my undergraduate degree I was called into the counseling office. The CIA wanted to interview me. Since my (now deceased) wife and I had moved to this town to be part of a little church (just lay members), I reasoned it would be wrong even to consider moving, so I turned the interview down.

 

They probably would not have hired me...but this is a good example of the pattern. If someone wanted to put a christian mythology on it, one could as easily argue that "god called" me out here so that I would stand out even more at a midwestern university than I had at Rutgers (where I was top 5% anyway). Just saying...I was narrow and negatively biased in how I applied my mythology, and that is a good example of how I have not followed my gut (I wanted the interview) and then, to a degree, blamed others (the leader of that church and his expectations, or whatever).

 

Thanks for checking in. I am really enjoying this time in my life now except for the work of the MC and the sadness...but this environment, while having its own stresses, is free of a lot of the annoyances (constant TV, noise, etc) that I realize now I really disliked.

[trippi1432]

Ah..the judge not lest you be judged, that's harsh..that walk backwards through time to find the future of where you are today. Those twists and turns between what is and what could have been...perhaps what should have been but are not.

 

Choices you have made, but own up to them blamelessly to put your hurt above other's, that is the affair fog that you are seeking to learn more about, is it not?

 

MC is hard CF..educated or not. I have 3 college degrees and a lifetime of common sense; however, compassion for other people pits humanity above desire. I feel for you CF, I truly do...because when you come out of this affair fog, I feel that you will finally see that Ann is merely an extension of you trying to save someone in need of saving, when what you have in front of you striving to save you, is the woman who saved you from yourself, but you don't respect.

[2sunny]

We spend two to three hours/week in MC, and I have a psychologist I have worked with on/off for the past...six years? Seven years?

 

I see so much of my wrong choices coming in response to choices I made "against" my gut/intuition, so I see this as perhaps a realization of the need to pay attention to my gut and have the cajones to follow it, even if that disappoints or even hurts someone else. Now...intuition/gut is not always right, but some people have a track record of following their gut to utter disaster, and others to ignoring it, with the same results.

 

The big thing I have learned is that I have often ignored that sense, and then BLAMED others (wife, usually) for the results rather than owning the fact I was not willing to buck what someone else expected, and believe that I "deserved" or had a right to follow my gut longing.

 

A hundred and fifty-three years ago when I moved to this town and was finishing my undergraduate degree I was called into the counseling office. The CIA wanted to interview me. Since my (now deceased) wife and I had moved to this town to be part of a little church (just lay members), I reasoned it would be wrong even to consider moving, so I turned the interview down.

 

They probably would not have hired me...but this is a good example of the pattern. If someone wanted to put a christian mythology on it, one could as easily argue that "god called" me out here so that I would stand out even more at a midwestern university than I had at Rutgers (where I was top 5% anyway). Just saying...I was narrow and negatively biased in how I applied my mythology, and that is a good example of how I have not followed my gut (I wanted the interview) and then, to a degree, blamed others (the leader of that church and his expectations, or whatever).

 

Thanks for checking in. I am really enjoying this time in my life now except for the work of the MC and the sadness...but this environment, while having its own stresses, is free of a lot of the annoyances (constant TV, noise, etc) that I realize now I really disliked.

 

So why we're you so unimportant that you didn't have/want a say in what was best for you?

 

There must be a benefit to YOU allowing others to make decisions against your will - you can then BLAME THEM. But there's always a price.

 

You aren't honoring self when it's done this way. There's no balance.

 

You stuff anger down further and become more resentful.

 

But in the end you can only blame yourself - for not having a voice and speaking your truth.

 

You need time on your own LING TERM - with NO WOMEN - so you can find your best self - and listen to your intuition - and follow what your intuition tells you is best for you. Not best for you based on what anyone else tells you is best.

 

You need to find a good sense of yourself - you won't find it as long as you keep handing all your power to these women.

 

Best on your own for a long while - you have work to do.

[Character Floss]

Ah..the judge not lest you be judged, that's harsh..that walk backwards through time to find the future of where you are today. Those twists and turns between what is and what could have been...perhaps what should have been but are not.

 

Choices you have made, but own up to them blamelessly to put your hurt above other's, that is the affair fog that you are seeking to learn more about, is it not?

 

MC is hard CF..educated or not. I have 3 college degrees and a lifetime of common sense; however, compassion for other people pits humanity above desire. I feel for you CF, I truly do...because when you come out of this affair fog, I feel that you will finally see that Ann is merely an extension of you trying to save someone in need of saving, when what you have in front of you striving to save you, is the woman who saved you from yourself, but you don't respect.

 

Thank you for your observations. I did not parse your second paragraph completely...not sure if you meant the Fog is my excuse for placing greater value on my hurts, hurts I might endure by not choosing what I want/seem to want, rather than valuing the hurts of others, those who would be and have been hurt by my choices, thus justifying my selfishness.

 

I don't think I saw Ann as someone to rescue. Rather I was inspired by the steps she took to make her life work, albeit with failures. There was an understanding though...I first tried to electrocute myself when I was four or five, convinced that it was somehow "wrong" that I had been born and things would be better (for others) if I were dead. Ann knows what it is like to step off the ladder...and have the rope break; to hide in the closet knowing her stepfather was coming to her, praying as a chid that God would stop him or end her life...and God not answering as she pleaded...but somehow not losing her belief in there being a God who was yet good, and a life to be lived in kindness.

 

The irony? That you credit my wife with having saved me from myself. That would seem to be something I might try to do with Ann, if you are right. I'm sorry I have a bit of an edge...a rough edge...but part of it may be cultures and roles...tired of having my foot stepped on if we are with company and use a term such as "pissed off," to be told later that "pissed off" is a curse word in the Midwest and I need to avoid/drop it...tired of being taught to fit into a cultural mold that is so foreign...etc. I know what it was like to end the engagement, years ago, and have my (now) wife sit on my foot...daring me to hurt her by shoving her off...until I was willing to sit and let her speak to me, generally casting my decision to end the engagement/relationship in somewhat eternal spiritual terms...that I was turning from God and what He was doing in my life,etc.

 

I was told the same by her when we separated and I did not want to reconcile. I appreciate it, genuinely, and it may also have been manipulative to tell me about it, but there were a half dozen women meeting together with my mother-in-law each night praying for me, and that I would repent. Interesting...as I broke up with Ann and went NC because of the overriding sense of a "presence" with me, at all times, that seemed to repeat the word "SIN" again and again.

 

So...maybe it was an answer to their prayers, and it was the right choice...maybe it was manipulative to tell me that these people were so concerned about my immortal soul based on this, that they held a nightly prayer meeting for me.

 

I still maintain there is some irony in noting my wife as the one who saved me from myself, while offering a critique of the relationship with Ann on a similar basis. When someone is "saved" in a relationship by another, there can easily develop what some call a parent-child dynamic. THAT is what I rebelled against and insisted on leaving...and illusion or truth...that judgment was non-existent in my friendship with Ann. Perhaps my wife and I can get to the point where it will be non-existent with us, but I am not going back to a situation where it still exists. That is non-negotiable.

[Character Floss]

2Sunny--

 

Certainly I get something out of this dynamic. There is the element of blaming others, but I think the greater reward is simply fitting within my learned comfort zone.

 

My psychologist can kick my butt; she knows me well enough that my BS does not fly. Yes--and sorting through my perceptions--after so many years of working together at times, her view is that my relationship with my mother was certainly emotionally incestuous; my purpose/role, after having stolen her figure/prompting my father's affair and generally screwing up her life...was in many ways to be a surrogate for my father. I remember being acutely afraid when I was twelve, thirteen, fourteen that there could have been undercurrents on her part that were not purely emotional; there weren't, thank goodness, but I was picking up the vibes.

 

As I mentioned in another thread, she told me how she was so distraught when she found she was pregnant with me that she tried to will herself to suicide by driving into the path of oncoming trucks...somethng she told me she tried several times, only to pull into her own lane when she thought of my brothers and/or sister who were with her in the car. She told me this so I could see how wonderful it was that I had become "such a joy" in her life.

 

I am not arguing against rights to abortion, but I learned that she and my father tried to arrange an abortion...she was the one who wanted it...but feared the doctors in Puerto Rico would be butchers. I am not alone in this; I am sure there are tens of millions of children in this country born into similar dynamics...functioning, tax-paying, never-unemployed or alcoholic families...but where the children are to meet the needs of the parents, if they are to be, at all, or to make up for such existence.

 

The paradigm has been labeled "The Narcissistic Family" by one set of authors, and for some the damage is intensified because there is no alcoholic; there may be no violent parent; etc.

 

I found that if ever we were giving a ride to a woman or girl, I automatically sat in the back...respect? Who knows. Funny, I am not a sexual submissive...but not a dom either; my wife has been doing a lot of reading and it seems she may feel most comfortable as a true submissive--in which case, she may need a true, but "worthy" and trustworthy, Dom. It's not a role I can live.

 

One typical result is a child--and later an adult--who not only does not recognize his/her needs/wants/desires, or that they have value; but who can go through life subsuming himself/herself into others and meeting their needs. At some point though awareness may come (as it has with me) and the responsibility then shifts onto that (adult) child, to take ownership for his/her life and decisions, and not be bounded by the expectations of others.

 

That is what has been developing within me the past two years or so, and frankly, while almost all churches have manipulative elements, I have come to the point where I won't be complicit in such manipulation with my time and money. That may mean finding the least manipulative place possible; my wife, on the other hand, grew up in a conservative pentecostal family (jeans were to be worn one day a week) and was playing the piano to accompany services and the pastor from the age of fourteen. I am not anti Jimmy Swaggart--but my wife finds more of her time spent listening to his messages (while perhaps doing other things), while I am further and further along the path of, "God is God; I am not; but there are many things where some say, "The Bible Says..." when in fact, it may not; the principle may be deduced, but it may also be reasoned inductively based on the prejudices of the one doing the study.

 

I'm saying it nicely, but you know what I mean.

 

I like the words in a song by Rush: My eyes have just been opened, and they're opened very wide!

 

I appreciate the words found in The Invitation:

 

Oriah Mountain Dreamer | Home

 

It doesn’t interest me

if the story you are telling me

is true.

I want to know if you can

disappoint another

to be true to yourself.

If you can bear

the accusation of betrayal

and not betray your own soul.

If you can be faithless

and therefore trustworthy.

 

It is either gross selfishness, or a maturing.

 

My psychologist bluntly offered that she thought our marriage was ill-conceived at best, when I went to see her after having made love with Ann and knowing I needed to get a handle on myself. She may be right or wrong, but I need to make the decisions.

 

I spent the night of D-Day (it was my telling, not being caught, at MC) with Ann; we did not make love. We had gone NC for some time and it would not have been right. Key lesson: I was cold though, that night (a night I cherish), and I did not wake her up for a blanket! In the morning it struck me like a thunderclap that I was behaving the way I had behaved with my wife, my ex-wife, my mother, perhaps, but not my first wife, I think...and I needed to change things right then. So I brought it up with her and how I had been faithless to myself...

 

No, I don't need to be with a woman, at least not living with, maybe not at all. I feel for the first time since going NC with Ann that it may be more likely than not that my wife and I divorce, and it is sad and OK. Trying to understand and "value" feelings but test them, and not make my choices by them; to separate emotions from deep-seated intution.

 

Thanks for your comments.

[2sunny]

I think you are viewing a R as one person being the Dom and one needing to be the Sub. It's not so. In a healthy R - such as you experienced moreso with your first wife - its all about balance. When it's balanced - one doesn't try to overpower the other - one doesn't need to submit. It's even and respectful.

 

Good balance is effortless. If you (or your wife) have situations where one NEEDS to force things or to "get THEIR way - that's one person trying to take things off balance.

 

Each person has a right to BE their OWN PERSON! To be respected and honored for the beauty of who you are as an individual is key!

 

I lose the beauty of ME if I am trying to please others and it causes me to DO things I don't want to do or things I don't agree with. That's when I know that someone else is trying to force THEIR will upon me. That is when I say NO!

 

I have my own opinion - my own experience and perspective. I don't need others to agree with me - but I sure as heck am not going to ALLOW others to try and FORCE me to be the person I don't INTEND to be in order to make them happy and ME SAD! No way! Good balance doesn't look/feel that way!

 

You decide for you - don't let anyone else try and convince you what makes you happy - that is up to you.

 

Your childhood = see if you can UNLEARN what you've learned - a great book is don Miguel Ruiz "the voice of knowledge. Get it today. It's a quick easy read and should help you immensely in letting go of learned ideas that aren't working for you - letting them go - and finding a way that works to make YOU happy!