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mr. emunah wrote:


Don't worry I won't, not yet anyway. I have to make myself a bit crazier first before I fall.

"Don't do it"? Sage council indeed! But I have yet to meet anyone who was 'saved' by good advice. People eventually do what they feel they need to do whether you or me want them to do it or not...but it is a very nice sentiment! And at least MBJ knows without a shadow of a doubt that you and all of us care abt him! That's a bit o' love right there. Nu, maybe being sincerely cared for can be a saving grace, after all. (But then, caring in person is so much more powerful that caring strictly behind virtual names in virtualrelationshipland...enough out of me on that!)

You wrote, "The other day I asked her when we were going to talk about us. She pushed me off again." How about giving up on that - for it is obvious that you are powerless over her choices - and instead trying to ask her when we are going to talk about her? In other words, leave yourself and even your marriage out of the discussion for a few weeks. You can make your interest and discussion just about one thing: her, how she feels about herself and her plans and her jobs, concerns, whatever...just not about how she feels about you. Let her feel you are interested in her - for when you are interested in her feelings about you (or even about your 'marriage') she knows that is just because it is about you and your needs, feelings, whatever.

If you say, "Well, isn't marriage a teamwork?! Leaving the marriage or me out is pretending she is a single girl and not a married woman! It's denial of reality!" ...well, yeah, it is.

So?

What you have there is not healthy reality, already. Pretending it should be forced into regular marriage relationship is just trying the same thing over and expecting a very different result. Goofy, no? I have done that many times and we will all continue to occasionally, for sure...but you don't need to do that now, MBJ. You can admit things are 'off' - and the solution will not come by trying to force the peg into a square hole.

The solution often comes naturally davka by venturing off-road a while (a few weeks). Maybe all she really needs is a space of her own in your relationship...."Well, she has a huge space already! It's all about her everywhere and nothing about us!" Not necessarily, MBJ. Maybe she feels the resistance to having a real space of her own so she keeps trying to be free - the resistance she feels to it makes her push for more evidence that you give her independence, over and over. And you fond it threatening, so your heart resists it, even as you reluctantly give in. But that's not what she needs, and she senses it. So she pushes further. Is it possible that this is what has been happening? I do not know - I am just suggesting a possibility for you to consider.

By you dropping yourself out of the equation a while (at least a few weeks), she may see you have - that life has - room for her. Your relationship is the context of her life, so she needs to struggle thee more tan anywhere else for independence otherwise she feels she is drowning. Is that normal for all women? Probably not. But it may be your wife's way.

Can you give her that?

If it is what she needs, and if you can give it to her, then she will turn it around and return the favor.

Isn't that what you want, anyway? Or does what you really want have to come to you only in the way you want it to come to you for it to be accepted, in love?

My wife is indeed a very very independant woman. I think it comes from being a latch-key kid in a single parent home. I think for that reason she is not willing to open up and share with me or ask for help, viewing it as a kind of weakness. Of course she does need help and does want to share, but they tend to come out in explosions of frustration.




Now what you say here is very interesting. I had mentioned that all previous attempts for me to communicate with her about this over the last several years has ended up with me whining, because it was all about me and what I wanted. To some extent, I think that I have progressed and I am thinking about what the marriage wants, but maybe you are right and I need to go even a step further. Pamensky does mention this. He said a guy should worry about his wife, and the wife will worry about the rest. What you wrote there just helped drive that point home a little better.
I have mentioned many times that this last two years has been extremely difficult for her and I understand that and for that reason I am trying to be understanding with her. Maybe I am not communicating that enough and she does feel that I am really there for her. Although truth be told these issues have been going on for over 6 years, not just that last 2. (Of course I had serious unaddressed masturbation and porn issues over that span as well. )
Part of the problem is that when I ask her how she is, what is wrong whatever, I ususally get a noncomittal response ans she leaves it at that. Then if I try to pry deeper she gets angry at my intrusion. Of course it wasn't always that way. I guess I have to work on that.

One last thing, in terms of the space thing, she really has had alot of space to work in for a while. I have really tried to give her as much space as she wants. The only space I cannot give her yet is the space to get out of the house. But hopefully soon she will find a job and that one will be solved as well.

I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression. My wife is really a wonderful woman, a great mother, a great friend, and I am not always fair to her. Furthermore that have been perceptible improvements in our relationship, a comfort with each other that I hadn't felt is some time. We just still have a ways to go and many times I feel that I am the only one in the room who cares.

And Dov if you feel better about it you can call me Eli.

you can call me Eli too!
i like the sound of it.

MBJ wrote:


Dear Eli,

Wow, it is obvious that you (and the two of you as well) have made a lot of real progress. Real life is little bits - but a kernel of real change is worth far more than a boat-load of theoretical change or 'madreigos'.

In the quote above I want to make note of one thing. Maybe, just maybe, she gets 'angry at the intrusion' because she percieves (whether fairly or unfairly) that you are ultimately asking her about how she feels about you. That you really want to know what's bothering her because you figure that ultimately it might be about you, the way she feels about you, or the way she feels about being married to you right now.

In any case, that - for her - may be felt as an intrusion. For she may be feeling crappy about herself right then. Just being herself. Making it or bending the issue into something that revolves around her relationship with you would then (takeh) be an intrusion. Like that luxury of wallowing in GOSP (Good Old Self-Pity) is being wrentched from her. It's a rip-off, really. We want to be able to be self-absorbed somtimes. Some of us want to be that way most of the time.

And who is to say that being that way is really bad? Not you or me. Maybe it is horrible for us...but maybe it is precious to her.

Just a thought. I could see things this way becs I know I tend to be so selg-absorbed and immature than there were many times I guided the conversations to me - when they were really only about my wife. It took me years in recovery to really come to believe and trust that my wife:

1- really loves me, and
2- that she can have emotional issues that do not revolve around me.

She is really her own woman, like your wife is. I am not judging - just suggesting a subtle possibility. Think about it and see. If it has nothing to do with you, fine. It may not at all! Ego-centrism is a common motif for us guys, especially the long-term professional hidden, lying, frum porners and masturbaters.

In the mean time, have a great day!

Roses are red
violets are blue
I'm a scizophrenic
and so am I.

Eli I am.



(I'm in a weird mood today)

mr. emunah wrote:

he's a first cousin with Sam I Am.

(I'm actualy just trying to up my post count to pass TZ.)

Sorry Eli for making dirt all over your thread.

Go Fish.

I come back after a few days and I see 6 news posts. Here I am thinking wow I wonder what kind of intelligent discussion I misses on my own thread.
...

Still waiting.

don't hold your breath..

because like they say on this site, eventually you going to have to breath...

you mean breathe