JJ thank you so much for stopping by, I think your idea is great! Thanks a lot!!!!! I mean that there is no sarcastic tone! Later, Sweet Orange I invite you to visit my thread as often as you like. I need more male perspectives in this.
C2H - Unless you lost fingers in some weird margarita accident, then you may only have the one pointing away from you...
Sorry, couldn't resist
Div- as funny as this sounds, If it's like that, why not go dark for a month so you don't know what they're doing and you have time to remember what life is like when you're really in control of it? I tell ya, that's why I had a bazillion posts for the first few months here...tying up the phone lines so I wouldn't see that he hadn't called (cause it sucks to go out and see on CID that he hadn't even tried to call). You may be surprised what that does to a hot & cold part time partner.
quote:Originally posted by Sparky: RE: Enabling/Rescuing. My therapist said something really helpful about this. She said that it's enabling if I try to figure out how to help others before I know what it is I really want. It's not a problem that I consider others, just that I often put their needs before mine. So I was talking about how reasons why I was living out of the house, and they all had to do with my husband. My therapist asked what it is I wanted, and she asked me to make my decision as if there was no husband. WHAT DO I WANT?!
Well, I want to live in my apartment. It's that simple. Yes, I do have a good situation right now. Yes, I could stay here and would be willing to compromise if asked. These are truths. But the important thing is that I find out what I really want FIRST. I've been doing it backwards.
I do think that for many of us, we feel like we need to befriend our spouses again. That we have to be the nice guy, or we will risk losing our marriage. But the biggest 180 for many of us is to stop taking care of everything. Stop anticipating others' needs before we know what we want. I think it's a much more powerful message than the same old I'll-help-you routine many of us have been in for years.
When you rescue people, they don't learn to make do for themselves. And in the long run, they may resent you for this. Or they may come to expect a certain level of care from people. It makes them less of who they are. And that's not good. In some ways, shaking things up is a good thing.
JJ
Read about Divorce Busting® Telephone Coaching here!
quote:Originally posted by Michele: GD1, You certainly have been through a lot and I completely understand why you're feeling what you're feeling. Whether you would agree to have a marriage of convenience is not really the point in my opinion. You can do it or not do it. Both options are fine. But here's what I think.
One of the things that has become crystal clear from the posts on this board is that doing a 180 or the last resort isn't really about a strategic technique, it's about letting go. Lots of people have commented that unless you truly let go and you exude this belief from every pore of your being, it probably won't have any effect. Your spouse has to sense that you have moved on with your life and that being together isn't your agenda anymore. that's not to say you wouldn't be willing to do it, it's just that your spouse must not sense that you are still hoping, praying, thinking about him much of the time.
I know it's easy for me to say and probably nearly impossible for me to do if I had to, but I can tell from your writing, which is very succinct, BTW, that you are and always have been incredibly focused on your marriage. When things go well in love, GD does fine. When things don't, your life isn't quite right. I understand how you feel, but your husband probably does too. He knows that no matter what happens, you'll be there.
I'm not suggesting that you file for divorce, stop speaking to him or doing some extreme version of going dark, all I'm saying is that you have to do some soul searching about what YOU'D have to do differently for him to sense that you're completely fine without him. Maybe you think you've been there already, I don't know. But from what you write, it seems that your primary project has been your marriage...always.
So, think about it. Can you think of what you could do differently to really, really let go? (Not just a technique, remember, but a major transition in your inner self.)
Hang in there, Michele
JJ
Read about Divorce Busting® Telephone Coaching here!
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