Compliments & Passive Aggressiveness..Work to do!

[SM34]

http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubb...456#Post2324456

New thread...topic of the day? "Compliments, and Passic Aggressivenss".

At this stage of my journey, I need to explore why I do not find complimenting easy, and how to fix it. Also, I just realized I might be a little passive agressive. Need to explore that too!

So, here we go!

[MrBond]

You know you're analyzing things too much. Just do it. Tell her she looks nice or that she's doing a good job. You do that to your D right? Now do it for your W.

Have you even started any of the GAL activities that you listed before? Whatever happened to the cooking classes, etc.?

[SM34]

Mrbond. Yes you ate right I need to just do it. But the reason I think I need to learn how to do it effectively is because I saw a post by AnotherStander and a follow up by 25 (these were on someone else's thread) where they talked about being specific in your compliments.

I need to find those posts and paste them here as the bases of my learning this skill. But from what I room from those posts, simply saying 'you look nice' is a little generic and maybe not effective.

Those one liners I have been doing those all the time. But those posts were talking about being more specific like in this case it might be 'is that a new shirt? It looks great on you. I like it a lot'.

In the thread is was reading they were talking about the difference between just saying you are an awesome mom, and actually pointing out a specific thing like hey I saw how you made that game with D, good job, you are an awesome mother.

That's what made me think there is more to learn as far as complimenting.

As far as gal, no I have not started the cooking class. I have been spending a lot of time.with D3 helping her with some new games and things to hep with her speech. When we went to the speech evaulatiin test they gave us things to try with her and I went out and bought the little.games they told.us about and have started working with her on it.

It is a lot of fun hanging with D3 to teach her. I feel like I am being a good father and being three for her.

Tonight W is at OM. And D3. Is at MIL. I am going to a friends birthday party

Next week I am going to meet some friends for a game of pool on Tuesday night. I wont tell W. Because I want to just get dressed and tell her I am going out. I'm always giving her too much notice like I care too much about her. Need to just do my own thing.

[MrBond]

Stop analyzing and just DO IT.

I've never seen anyone analyze how to give a compliment so much. Stop asking yourself why you haven't in the past and just do it.

[SM34]

Juicy bit of gossip. Laurie and I had talked during my last coaching call, that it seemed W relationship with OM was beginning to at least not be so awesome like she thought it was at the beginning.

Mother in law, who was a WAW herself 20 years ago, has told me before that the more you engage W, and the more you do stuff with her like go out to a concert or for dinner, the more it will put a strain on the Affair. her AP (who is now her husband) still has insecurities because the relationship did not start the way it should.

Anyway, so when I left for work this morning, my W said she is going to OM's and will be back....drum roll....tomorrow morning! that would be the shortest time since the beginning and the GOAL or event that Laurie told me to watch for. Laurie wanted to see a ONE night trip as a progress indicator because we went from 2 nights (with three full days) twice a week, to 2 nights (with just one full day) a week, to now one night this week, with barely any full day.

Here is the kicker. I'm home now and just picked up our iPad and in the notifications its said OM had sent her a message on FB saying "I don't believe you". Nice! So of course the curiosity was just too much for me.

I opened FB (wife leaves her account logged in on the iPad all the time) and there as no full conversation between them so it must have started on their phones. The only two messages were:

Wife: See. This is what I am F*?K%$G talking about! You have to trust your woman!

OM: I don't believe you.

So it looks like trust is already becoming an issue. How does she think he can trust her if she is willing to leave a 14 year marriage, a three year old daughter, her husband, a house, a brand new car, the chance to be a SAHM forever, and access to money etc.? And she is living with me, she is here at least 5 nights a week, and he is supposed to trust her? He doesn't even trust himself! He hits on married women!

Looks like everything we know about an A and what causes the breakdown is happening. My MIL was right in that they will begin to fight soon if W doesn't leave our house and move in with him. But with not even ONE paying job between the two of them thats not even possible.

Like GH31 told me before, SM stop lol'ing there is nothing funny about the situation you find yourself in. But I just can't help but laugh at this particular situation! LOOOOOL

Why do people insist that their affair is different to all the millions of documented ones? Why do they feel theirs will defy the statistics? Why do people even consider making it their primary relationship? i have a growing respect now for people who confess or get caught in an affair and then end it because their primary relationship is what matters. They see things more clearly than some others.

[Starsky309]

Oy, vey.

[SM34]

Mr Bond, I AM doing it. But perhaps you missed the post I wrote a few days ago about the history behind the compliments issue.

13 years ago, a year after I met my W, and when I was 21, I was critical of her weight gain. I was young and stupid and even though I didn't care about it for myself, I felt that my college boy buddies were laughing at me having a steady girlfriend who had a "few extra pounds" and not sampling the mass amounts of young college meat going around.


i approached it the wrong way with her and even though I back tracked a few months later after seeing that she was starting to resent me, and I spent 13 years telling her how beautiful she is, she never let go of that. If we reconcile, I want to talk to her about that and clear it up once and for all! I married her 5 years ago with A LOT more weight than when we met. She gave birth to OUR most beautiful baby girl in the whole world. I don't care about her weight! I mean I want her to be healthy so we don't have problems later in life, but not from a vanity perspective. My W is a very beautiful lady and she gets hit on all the time when we are out together.

Examples of situations that I mentioned before:

She spends 45 minutes getting ready infront of a mirror when we are going out. She has the most beautiful face, and the most proportionate features, and the most beautiful green eyes I have ever seen. Her skin is flawless. She can literally go completely natural and she would still get hit on. Her hair is so perfect that she wakes up looking like she just brushed and styled it.

But, she spends forever in the bathroom putting foundation on her perfect skin, outlining her perfect eyes, etc.. Then I keep telling her "Babe you are so beautiful. Other women would KILL to have your skin and eyes, and your perfect hair. You can go natural and look beautiful, and all the other women envy you for it.". You know what her response would be? "Are you kidding me? What about this blemish right here?" pointing to only microscopic mark on her face. "Look at my eyes.I look like I havent slept in days, and may hair is a mess!".

When she was pregnant, we had several other friends who were pregnant at the same time. They all went and did these arty pregnancy photo shoots and we were getting those pics in the mail all the time. I thought well what about my wife? She is beautiful. So I said "Hey baby lets go take some pictures of you and your beautiful pregnancy bump!". She said "Are you joking? You don't seriously think I am beautiful when I am the size of a whale do you?". I would answer "Well yes actually I do think you are beautiful with your big bump. That bump has my precious baby in it, and it is the most beautiful sight I have seen in my life". Sounds good right? The response? "You're just saying that. I look like Sh%t".

So thats why complimenting got hard for me. If I over played the compliment, she would say I was just saying that. If i under played it, she would say well don't look too excited about it. I can't win.

Recently, after BD, I came home one day and the whole house was spotless, all my laundry was done and folded, the bathrooms smelled freshly cleaned, there was dinner cooking and the whole house smelled like food, pretty much everything a good wife can do in one day she had done that day. As soon as I noticed I said "WOW honey did you do all of that in one day? The whole looks great and dinner smells wodnerful! good job!". She looked at me with a very plain face and said thats what I always do when you are at work. Of course at that point she is trying to show me that she is still doing her "job" at home even despite not being in love with me.

She got D3 dressed and looking SUPER CUTE for Christmas day. I said "D3 looks great! She is so cute! i love the clothes you picked out for her. Good work!". she said "All i did was get her dressed."

So maybe it is not me that needs help with complimenting, it is her that needs help accepting them as truths =)

I will keep trying to seem sincere with the compliments. Like you all say, it takes months of consistent work for a WAS to even start to believe a change.

[25yearsmlc]

Mr Bond, I AM doing it. But perhaps you missed the post I wrote a few days ago about the history behind the compliments issue.

But now you'll tell us this long story that explains why it's your wife's fault that you have a hard time giving compliments. SIGH...you know, it's not as if more words = more validity..

So, when SHE SAID YOU DO NOT compliment her enough...Either she is lying or she's nuts...right? Hey, Let's look at YOUR OWN WORDS...

YOU said you wanted to "TRY and compliment her", "Try and seem sincere" and to give a compliment, "once a week" and

later you said you'd "begin complimenting her more, WITHIN REASON" (emphasis mine).

Despite the LENGTHY discussion and "history" below --

the only issue is, What are YOU going to do differently, NOW?


13 years ago, a year after I met my W, and when I was 21, I was critical of her weight gain. I was young and stupid and even though I didn't care about it for myself, I felt that my college boy buddies were laughing at me having a steady girlfriend who had a "few extra pounds" and not sampling the mass amounts of young college meat going around.
i approached it the wrong way with her and even though I back tracked a few months later after seeing that she was starting to resent me, and I spent 13 years telling her how beautiful she is, she never let go of that.

If we reconcile, I want to talk to her about that and clear it up once and for all!
What stops you from clearing it up now? Not as a tactic but as a normal discussion.

Is it possible you don't want to compliment her BECAUSE you don't think she really deserves it b/c of OM? ANd that's why you attach a reconciliation to the concept of explaining yourself and your behavior from all those years ago, which I can only assume you have never done. What's with that? You say you have had 13 years of compliments wasted b/c she won't let go of your cruel comments from 13 years ago.

Why not clear up your hurtful behavior from then, NOW?



I married her 5 years ago with A LOT more weight than when we met. She gave birth to OUR most beautiful baby girl in the whole world. I don't care about her weight!

why even mention it then?

I mean I want her to be healthy so we don't have problems later in life, but not from a vanity perspective. My W is a very beautiful lady and she gets hit on all the time when we are out together.

Examples of situations that I mentioned before:


Seriously...we get it.


She spends 45 minutes getting ready infront of a mirror when we are going out. She has the most beautiful face, and the most proportionate features, and the most beautiful green eyes I have ever seen. Her skin is flawless. She can literally go completely natural and she would still get hit on. Her hair is so perfect that she wakes up looking like she just brushed and styled it.

Just tell her these things when it feels authentic. "Flawless skin" should not be said if SHE is looking at a blemish, true. But when she looks HER best, let her know the specifics. I said "specificity = believability" b/c generic compliments that are vague are seen as lazy and don't have much weight attached.

IF SHE IS HEAVY in her eyes, then don't tell her she's not (unless she is anorexic or unhealthy about it).

But, she spends forever in the bathroom putting foundation on her perfect skin, outlining her perfect eyes, etc.. Then I keep telling her "Babe you are so beautiful. Other women would KILL to have your skin and eyes, and your perfect hair. You can go natural and look beautiful, and all the other women envy you for it.". You know what her response would be? "Are you kidding me? What about this blemish right here?" pointing to only microscopic mark on her face. "Look at my eyes.I look like I havent slept in days, and may hair is a mess!".

Perhaps she believes the REASON you tell her this about herself, is b/c you want her to hurry up. Your implication might be seen as saying that she's "taking too long", so maybe your ulterior motive comes up for her.

When she was pregnant, we had several other friends who were pregnant at the same time. They all went and did these arty pregnancy photo shoots and we were getting those pics in the mail all the time. I thought well what about my wife? She is beautiful. So I said "Hey baby lets go take some pictures of you and your beautiful pregnancy bump!". She said "Are you joking? You don't seriously think I am beautiful when I am the size of a whale do you?". I would answer "Well yes actually I do think you are beautiful with your big bump. That bump has my precious baby in it, and it is the most beautiful sight I have seen in my life". Sounds good right? The response? "You're just saying that. I look like Sh%t".

A lot of pregnant women break out or gain so much weight that they don't see themselves as beautiful, or womanly or fertile and desirable. I attended a personal growth workshop when I was pregnant with our 2nd child & I mostly credit that for my paradigm shift about pregnancy and attraction.

It was an adjustment for ME to make, but once I did, pregnancy was a lot more of a joy. And I felt attractive to my h and that made a huge difference in our intimacy during pregnancy.

So thats why complimenting got hard for me. If I over played the compliment, she would say I was just saying that. If i under played it, she would say well don't look too excited about it. I can't win.

You want to give up? Why not look at the comments YOU made above, about compliments. You seem to think they "cost" you something b/c you added the words "within reason" which struck me as odd.

Plus "aiming" for a compliment a WEEK means to me that you really did not do it often. At least not in her memory and HER MEMORY is what counts here.

Despite your examples (and you sure do give A LOT)...my advice is the same.


Recently, after BD, I came home one day and the whole house was spotless, all my laundry was done and folded, the bathrooms smelled freshly cleaned, there was dinner cooking and the whole house smelled like food, pretty much everything a good wife can do in one day she had done that day. As soon as I noticed I said "WOW honey did you do all of that in one day? The whole looks great and dinner smells wodnerful! good job!". She looked at me with a very plain face and said thats what I always do when you are at work. Of course at that point she is trying to show me that she is still doing her "job" at home even despite not being in love with me.

She got D3 dressed and looking SUPER CUTE for Christmas day. I said "D3 looks great! She is so cute! i love the clothes you picked out for her. Good work!". she said "All i did was get her dressed."

So maybe it is not me that needs help with complimenting, it is her that needs help accepting them as truths =)




You want to tell HER that when SHE says you don't compliment her enough, SHE IS WRONG.

This is you saying, again, that SHE IS WRONG in how she perceives things, and she is wrong in how things were in the marriage. You are not listening to us.

SIGH...

look, when she does what MOST people do in our culture, which is to play off a compliment b/c it's seen as us being humble,

hold your hand up a bit and tell her "Wait a second w, I really want you to hear this. I need my feelings acknowledge and I really FEEL this is true"...and then say it.

I will keep trying to seem sincere with the compliments. Like you all say, it takes months of consistent work for a WAS to even start to believe a change.

look at your own wording here^^^... I don't think you mean what you say to her. And I guess she picked up on it.

Recently I stayed with my mom at my sister's house. I wanted to give my sister a compliment. Here's the deal.

My mother has vascular dementia and my sister is a saint. Since I only see them a few times a year, I didn't realize how much my sister does for my mom, on a day to day basis

AND how much harder it is for my sister b/c my mom is declining & getting weirdly emotional and confrontational. So I told my sister how much I appreciated it. My sister began to interrupt me to say "oh no big deal..."

BUT I held up my hand for a second & said,

"No wait, sister, don't deflect. Please take this in b/c I want you to hear me & I want to KNOW I've said it.

I really didn't "get it" until this last visit. What you do for our mother is SO HARD and so HUGE and you do it lovingly, 24/7, it's a rare thing to see.

I admire you for this and for being so loving about it. I really think you are who I look to, when I ask myself if I'm being as good and loving a woman as I can be, b/c I see that you really are."

She blushed...but she heard me.

She sort of coughed and said "well thank you" and then I hugged her and we both got a little choked up.

But that^^ is what I mean by getting through to someone. It's longer than most, but it covers a lot more than a typical "looks good on you" compliment.

And when the natural response is to pooh pooh a compliment, it's not always neurosis on the recipient's end. It's a cultural thing.

Plus, if your w is beautiful, she probably hears the generic "you're so hot" comments often. She still needs them, but she also needs sincerely felt words of affirmation that are related to other things and that are specific enough to be taken in.

My sense from you is that there is SO MUCH analysis going on and so much of your "find the secret CODE" that even just an ATTEMPT at "seeming to be sincere" was a goal of yours!

Sorry SM but you come off as a tactician who is strategizing. IF it is words of love that you want to express, who cares about HER reaction? Just express the affirming comments when appropriate.

When the emotions are positive and loving, let things flow naturally.

When the emotions are negative or anger based or fear based, DON'T.

[adinva]

SM, I wonder if you have ever considered the possibility that you might have some extra difficulty reading social cues that is impeding your ability to do things that the rest of us think are normal and obvious.

Clearly you're very smart, and what I'm talking about is not a sign of lack of intelligence, but a lack of emotional awareness that can actually be taught and learned. For this it would be best to have an individual professional work with you one on one to coach you to learn to read cues. I think this is why you're so lost without the instructions and the road map, tactics and research. So you'll know just how to act without actually having to know how to act...you'll be mimicking the right way to act. I hope this doesn't hurt your feelings but it's been kicking around in my mind for quite a while and I think if my hunch is correct that it's what's stopping you from being able to assimilate the help you're being offered.

For most of us, even if we need a nudge to get going, the roadmap is on the facial expressions and cues of the person we're trying to relate to.

The latest thing that caused me to go there with you is the compliment on your daughter's wardrobe. There are other times I've seen you swing wildly from one extreme to another, and here's one again. You're "trying to be sincere and compliment with increased frequency," almost like a robot trying to learn a human skill. So you compliment in an overblown way that reads as patronizing and condescending. Getting so excited over the house being clean on the 1,257th time you've experienced it was understandably odd to your wife. And seeing your D look supercute, another thing that has probably happened approaching 1,000 times now, merited a "good work" on top of a compliment.

That you couldn't realize this on your own tells me something, but that you then couldn't interpret and adjust based on the information your wife was giving, tells more. That you want to read a book and save forum posts to figure it out, tells even more. What you might have done was attempted the cute-clothes one, with the obsequious "good work" on top, gotten rebuffed, and admitted, you're right honey, I'm trying to tell you more when I notice things and I guess I'm awkward at it but I want to try anyway because I really love what you do. And then, here's the kicker, next time you adjust. Tone it down with the "good work" and "good job." Sounds like puppy training. Based on her feedback you'd pay more attention to things that you haven't already seen hundreds or thousands of times without comment. OR you recognize that you've seen them thousands of times before and yet you still get a kick out of them and wanted to say so this time.

I really hope you can see I mean this compassionately and not critically. I think you may just be wired a little differently and may benefit from a little more targeted F2F help in inter-personal skills than written, online, or telephone coaching could provide. Just wanted to put that out there, and take it as one uneducated opinion.

[swoop]

Your W is very likely in a position where she doesn't allow herself to accept your compliments. That is not to say that she is not "hearing" them. Regardless, words of affirmation DO have an effect on people, especially people who have that as a primary love language.

I have had a rough time with WOA too, as you well know. I have really been trying to make an effort to work on that. Some of the things I have been considering is as follows

1) try to make your compliments specific. I had NO idea how important that was until it was pointed out on my thread, but think about it. If someone at work (just for sake of the conversation lets say you are a coal miner) were to say to you, "good job", it would be nice....but not that big of a deal. You would probably go back to work digging for coal, maybe with a smile on your face, maybe not. However if they were to say, "good job on that last bucket load. You always have been the best pick axer on the entire crew. It is amazing how fast you can dig in this rocky soil". That is a little more specific, and with no doubt, you are going to be proud of hearing that. More than likely, you are going to try to pick axe even harder because you like having someone notice your special abilities. Without a doubt, you want to hear more words of affimation from them.

2)compliments can be about ANYTHING: I had a hard time trying to compliment my wife, because I always thought that meant I was supposed to say she was "pretty". That's not the case. You can compliment your spouse on absolutely anything. Take a moment and REALLY THINK about what your W is good at. Maybe she dresses impecably? Maybe she is an excellent decorator? maybe she really knows how to fit a lot of your stuff in a storage closet? Who knows, maybe she is an excellent driver. Compliment her on your low insurance rates....haha anything, but be sincere and make it hit home with HER.

3)Don't try too hard. Once we figure out how to compliment effectively, it is a natural reaction to try it alot. We want to hone our skills and see the reactions. Don't over do it! That can become really fake sounding, needy, weak and even pressuring to your spouse. I have made a point of trying to compliment my W just once or maybe twice during an interaction. therefore, I don't feel I need to hit it out of the park every time with a bunch of HUGE insightful compliments. I just give her a compliment, make it specific to her, and move on. With time, she will want more and more compliments, and I will be prepared to give them to her, when the time comes.

4) Don't expect a reaction. This one is really important for you, SM34! When we expect a reaction, it completely throws the validity of our compliment out the window. Don't hold out for a reply, don't stare her down looking for something to spark in her eye. Don't be upset if she blows it off like it was no big deal. Just compliment her, be sincere and move on with the conversation. Don't dwell on it or wait for a response. Right now, your W (and mine as well), doesn't want to give you a response. To be honest, they probably HATE that we are complimenting in the first place. The reason being, they feel if we would have done it years ago we very well might not be in this situation with the relationship. That simple fact just pisses our wives off! However, don't think for a second that the compliments are not being heard. They hear them. They just aren't carrying as much weight as they could in the minds of our WAS, at least not now.

5)You can give a compliment that pulls your spouse in. This is the approach I am trying to get better at. For instance you can say something like, "I love your new hair color. It really pulls out your eyes. Do you notice people mentioning how blue your eyes are now?" This is a great compliment because you are flattering her new hair color which she is undoubtedly proud of, and you are also noticing her eyes. She will KNOW that you are looking at her and being sincere. You are not just saying generic thing like,"hey good job". The best part of this compliment is you are also enlisting her to engage you. You are literally making the compliment become part of the conversation and putting ALL of the focus on your wifes great features. That is extremely flattering.


Of course, our W's will probably not reply in a super positive manner to our words of affimration, becasue they don't want us to flatter them. They don't want to acknowledge us being nice and sincere. They don't want us to be a great husband. They want us to be jerks, so it supports their negative outlook... so they can move on....so they can leave. Don't show her that guy. Make her realize things can be better and that she is making a wrong decision. Be THAT guy!