eye - that was beautiful - that should be on your thread!
briut - i dont care where you got that tefilloh from - its pure gold! thanks!!

Well, I still love that little tefiloh I scribbled down yesterday. It's just that it feels so rough sometimes to focus on enjoying what's come my way. Sometimes, I'm just not ready to view things as entirely good. I'm pretty far along that road, but I'm not there yet.

In the meantime, though, I'll just keep saying:

RBS'O, I'm not asking You to help me GET everything I WANT.
I AM asking You to help me WANT everything I GET.

(some fractured version of the Serenity Prayer says something about the "courage to change those things I can not accept." I love it.)

I am reading your latest posts and I am feeling much like you say. So maybe I can add my experience, if it has anything to do with your thougts. Here it goes:

Not long ago I was taking the garbage out and then saw the bin was all dirty. A bad sight for tears. I was thinking: I just want to help out a bit, but why am I doing this, isn't my wife in charge of the kitchen, do I have to clean the bin also, doesn't she ever clean the bin!!!??? I felt frustrated and angry at my wife for never cleaning the bin.

But then, baruch Hashem, I remembered the book Marriage from Pliskin, where it says that one can look at things from oneself. Like if your wife does a mistake, think what it would be like if you yourself were to make that mistake.

So I started thinking: I forgot to clean the bin. Uf, what to do? Hey no problem, no harm done, I can clean it in a minute and it will be ok.

Well that felt great. I puted the bin back into place and looked at my wife with a smile. I was thinking, thanks for not saying anything about my mistake and thanks for the smile and a kiss.

Well she does the most beautiful smile.

Ups I am getting off track.

That's beautiful!

Eye.nonymous wrote on 18 Aug 2010 11:32:
Yehoshua, I'd LIKE to say that's beautiful, also. But my own naarishkeit gets in the way. Namely, I seem to have such a high need for a predictable world where I know what I've taken it on to accomplish, and where I know others have claimed the role.

I do the food shopping; my wife takes out the trash. I do the boys carpool, she does the girls. I pay the business bills, she does the family.

The issue is NOT whether it's fair or balanced or whatever. The problem is, it would drive me crazy if she decides to "surprise" me with a load of groceries one day. (I would have gone shopping also, and suddenly there's too much food and it will spoil). I don't want to return the trashcan to our driveway because she'll lose "ownership" of the job and never do it again. I could go on and on to justify my pathetic and sick mindset. But it's how I feel.

So for me, it's easy to do something a little "extra" and unexpected. Flowers. Even a love note, I suppose. The old "pick up a broom" story, okay. But to take on "her" job, and to have her take on "my" job, as random events, and to destroy that predictability of "this is mine to handle in life, and that is for me NOT to handle, etc" -- would hurt.

How sick is that.

Sorry to hijack the discussion, but it's my thread, so I guess I can ask -- what do I DO about these feelings??? Thanks.

Let's be specific - how would you feel if your wife asked you to take out the garbage?

silentbattle wrote on 19 Aug 2010 18:14:
I'm really find with a clear, direct, evenheaded REQUEST. It's the idea that she's not "reliable" to even try and fulfill her commitments that drives me meshuga.

If she says "I can't drive this carpool, would you?" that's much easier than her simply non-showing and kids are left on the street corner. (No, this doesn't happen much. But even once....)

It can sometimes get to the extreme where I feel she's walking away from her end of the "deal" just bdafka to show me I have no "right" to rely on her.

I didn't say I'm logical or sane or anything else; I'm just saying that these are my feelings.

SB: did that answer your question? What WAS your question?

So you want to feel that you can rely on your wife to do what she's agreed to do? That doesn't seem wrong to me...

Forgive me, please Hashem, allow me to apologize.

You are right, I didn't want to sound like better than thou. G-d forbid. Above all, I do not think it is sick, I think it is as normal as it gets. Truly, please, no joke. I can't get pregnant, women and men are not the same, everyone has his own role, thus everything can be done better. It's probably why I can't repair my car or operate, I call the mechanic or the doctor. Roles are vital.

But what happens, when the repairman doesn't do the job right? That is a bad situation, you need your car and you don't want to offend the repairman. Hm, what if that is a repairwoman and the repairwoman is your wife. On the other hand, maybe you can walk to work? You could go around with a sign saying: "Save Mother Earth".

Please Hashem, I am joking just now to provoke a smile. Jokes about marriage, oy. The truth is, I don't know what to write. You are addressing an important issue. Oy. I hate to say it, but I would talk to my wife in a very nice tone, very careful and honest. Of course a huge fight would follow, then hopefully we would make up quickly, because I love her and then ask Hashem to allow me to try to help her be more responsible in everydaylife.

Briut, may Hashem give me the strength like yours to make it so far and allow me to face challenges like you do, with humility and open mind.

I apologize for any bad words, this was just my opinion and please G-d hopefully I did not offend you in any way.

All the best!

Shui: no need for apologizing, certainly not to me and prob not to HKBH either. Your words are wise.

SB: Oy, are you gonna learn a lot in shana rishona. OF COURSE it's unreasonable to expect her to do what she promises. First, expecting anything of anyone is wrong -- we're each an independent human being etc; no expectations allowed.

But beyond that:  well, "stuff" happens. She couldn't do what she promised because (insert name of good excuse -- had to take someone to hospital; lost her wallet and couldn't pay for the cab; her mother asked her to come over ASAP; etc). And husbands have to give dan l'kaf zchus. Even when it seems unlikely.

And while this may be all be true (and are you taking notes, my dear chossen friend), it doesn't change my feelings of abandonment.

But that's not an excuse for yelling at her or holding a grudge because of what she didn't accomplish.

The problem is "not in our stars but in ourselves." And maybe the stars are the wives....

Does that help clarify where I'm coming from?

Eye: you've got it down pat, as always. I'll take out my notepad next time I'm  reading. B'hatzlacha, buddy.

Briut wrote on 22 Aug 2010 15:45:


...And I haven't even said anything for a while here!

I'd definitely feel "marginalized" in somebody else's life, (to the extreme would be "I don't matter--to them, or just don't matter")

My son's overseas. I haven't heard peep one. Yeterday I called his mother (we're divorced many years) and she tells me she and him have been chatting away for the last few days.  You bet I felt left out.  It triggered thoughts like, "Well when push comes to shove, she's always been their mom, and I've always been the accessory."  Now I know that's not true, because I instantly remembered (B"H) a talk me and my son had less than a month ago that lasted way over an hour and took us from the effects of doing a 9 to five, to the purpose of life.  He was crying at the end and thanked me several times for "helping him to walk through that".  So I knew that my "accessory" voice was doo doo.

Knowing that I'm not in reality didn't help hardly at all with the non/irrational feelings that I'm not really included in the "inner circle".  (Are we in junior high school here???)

This morning I ask my ex- the "what's wrong with this picture?" questions.  And she says I'm completely misreading the situation.  Now I know I'm out of control because I'm still being paranoid, and I'm powerless.  I daven to restore me to sanity cuz I'm a wreck, and I can't seem to do anything effective.  Maybe half an hour later the phone rings and there he is in living color on the skype screen.  He fills in the gaps about his not calling, and that his mother didn't put him up to the call.  I am restored to sanity.  Not by any effort of my own.  By Hashem organizing what would restore me to sanity.  Because my thirty years of therapy just wasn't cutting it.

So, I am an addict.  I live with varying degrees of desperation unless I keep turning it over, with the little and big things.

I wouldn't know what else to think or do about your situation that it doesn't sound like you've already thought through (is this English we're talking here?).  When my feelings are running that high, and I'm feeling too much intensity, I know I'm out of control, no matter how "right" I may be, or how legitimate my feelings of abandonment, grief, anger are.  Legitimate shmidimate (I think Bard is rubbing off on me).  I'm feeling over the top and I have to admit I'm acting and feeling like an addict--and sulking never works for me, btw (I'm not suggesting that you sound like you're sulking. Please, that's the emes).    At that point I know only Hashem can restore me to sanity.  Not through my own effort.  In that state I can't think clearly enough to do hishtadlut.  I thought about calling him and giving him a lecture about other people's feelings.  I thought what his mother was doing to alienate me from him.  I thought about ignoring him no matter how often he called.  Are these the thoughts of a sane person?  The only "hishtadlut" I could do was to daven.

So for me, I cannot do anything at that point when I'm hurting so bad but daven, beg, cry, whatever.  So I did that.  And then the phone rang.  And my son and I had this amazing talk, full of so much laughter and love.  Thank you, Hashem.  And thank you and thank you for all the miracles you do for me, for us at GYE, for Klal Yisroel, and for keeping this planet spinning.  B'chol yom tamid.

Briutelle, I know you're asking and begging and davening.  He'll tell you exactly in your heart what to do.  If you're still crazy with aching after that, like my story above, then trust He'll take care of things with your wife for you.  He'll make your phone ring.  For Him it's a local call.

Oooh! Just what I needed.  This thread feels familiar in my life right now.

1) My wife is the source of all my problems..
2) Wait, I'm an addict and I know intellectually that I'm the source of my problems
3) But, it sure feels like I'm right and she's wrong, really wrong
4) Remember to breath
5) I think my thinking might be insane, I just can't figure out why at the moment
6) Remember to breath
7) Give it up to God, read some literature to remind me that my wife is destined for me specifically
8 ) Try to go to sleep and take one day at a time

As good as recovery is some days it's just annoying, the 2 year old in me just wants to pout and scream that its not fair and the program is forcing me to act like and adult. 

Difference is that now I know to just hold on and get through this.  It is probably going to be even better when I get out of the tunnel on the other side.

I just want to jump in here with a little more sympathy for the wife...

I feel like I've been in those shoes. I take on the max of my ability to help (if not more), because I really want to help out, and then of course things will come up and I can't always do what I had intened to do. I might even forget (I am human).

Did something come up or did I forget because I wasn't commited to take responsibilty or because that's the way world works and especially when where are working to the max with no margin for error its bound to happen that some commitment won't be filled.

If it never happens to you, maybe your wife is working too hard and your not helping enough 

Thank you, Briut - an excellent point!