I still waste my time getting resentful at my wife, because I come home and there are chores to do. I am prioritising these as I see them, taking the attitude that if they are not finished then if she is bothered she will take them up. I felt slightly guilty that I was avoiding my younger son by getting started on them, but if he is bothered he can do something to get me done quicker. I have been so tired over the past week, I am making the effort to get some extra sleep. I hope that I am not over sleeping, I do not remember being this tired when my son was ill. Soar well Grey Heron
Hi, it is the weekend and my do I wish that my wife were all over me. I think that I expect sex at the weekend and have done so for a long while now. I get myself into a real mood on a Friday evening if Mrs Heron is not offering it, she usually keeps it hidden, so I have many miserable Friday's. I have once again threatened to take the actions of love, as the 12 steppers used to tell me, in the hope that I shall get better and that she will feel more cared for. Yesterday morning at the cashpoint (ATM) my eyes briefly met those of a woman next to me, I took a while to get over the shot of dopamine that precipitated. Soar Well
This may sound totally male and careless and inconsiderate. It is a wifes duty to open her legs for her man. Without this the relationship is a friendship. While we all have things which bother us consideration is fine as long as it does not become consideration for one and denial for the other.
Thank you @Bobo, that is not the first time I have been given that advice. I agree that one man's right to free speech is another's culturally offensive opinion. At the end of the day there is room for compromise on both sides. I do not want to be shagging a corpse who is only interested in ticking it off her to do list, I may as well be in front of the laptop gland in my hand. Similarly me and her must move the agenda on to re-establish something that we lost a long time ago. We are supposed to be making an effort every week to make time for each other, but I get the feeling that I am driving that. Whilst it is not reason for me to walk out on her, I do feel that I have a legitimate justification to be more "selfish". I use the term selfish because I mean true to my values, ones that we clash over. So I am saying to her 'If you had been more reasonable then I could have denied this part of me' which is wrong again. Recently I have been feeling that the growth has stopped. As I have tried to restart the process there have been powerful set backs. I have tried to view these as distractions to the task in hand and not become disheartened at having to do something that I did not plan for. It is because of my disheartened energy that they fell out of practice in the first place.
Been evaluating what I have been reading on here over the past fortnight. It has occurred to me that I must snatch control of my balls back from my wife. I have been scared of the collateral damage, and frankly I still am. The status quo is not acceptable yet until now I have not seen the need to rock the boat. I have actions and she in my opinion has actions. My actions include focussing on those things I have identified to do and not to keep starting one thing after another. The stressful part of that pledge is which things to drop? I live my life with many projects on the boil with no focus on acheiving any of them. Over the course of this journal I have begun to read a number of books. Some of them I have finished, eventually, but then I am not clear about what the book is saying because along the way I have dipped into that one or have not had the time to do anything with what I have read. Self-care is not selfish I will see what happens when I get that clarity of sight. Soar well
Since you went to the effort of getting it serviced, have you managed to get out on the commuter bike yet? Maybe going for a ride will give you a nice break and an opportunity to reflect on things. You seem like quite an introspective person - and your Mrs seems like like hard work at times. I can empathise with that.
Hi All, @forlorn The commuter bike service was not the success I expected. Still working on servicing the hybrid myself to be comfortable riding that in August. With regard to my post on 26th June, only partially interested in sex because I have brought a cold into the house. Been trying to force the conversation onto more frequent sex, her body image is distorting her validity. This may be a hang over from years ago when I did make an issue of it. Unfortunately, I have also noticed an escalation of materialistic thoughts. I am questioning whether the two are linked. Soar Well
I am beginning to wonder where I get off. had my haircut in a unisex salon at the weekend. I was sat waiting, reading a magazine of my own. I could not help over-hearing a customer complaining about a man, sounds like he is really lost. I was trying to read but I also concluded that I was well off not being in the market if I might meet her. When she got up to leave I think I recognised her as a woman I may have referenced here in the past. What ever the case, I keep thinking of this woman and how I could rescue her and fix her. At work I have been more productive than recently, there is room to be better. I am relishing the thought of relinquishing my duty as governor at the school. At the same time I know there is another governor role at a different school and my mind also keeps thinking about increasing my stake in one of two social enterprises in my neighbourhood. So there is a part of me that is looking forward to making my life smaller, to do some of those self directed things on my to do list, whilst I am also excited by the opportunity to expand my life in a different direction. All the time I have this urge, guilt maybe, to spend time with my wife and children. When I look at some of the people who inspire me I wonder when they have down time for their families. More likely I wonder what I am doing wrong to be so ineffective. I have a role that I feel should be performed if I am to be involved yet I do not even meet that minimum. I found a video by is it 'Kilto Shetty'? He wishes that he had thought of this but it seems to be true of me, "I am not who I think I am, I am not who you think I am but I am who I think that you think that I am" that is so me so out of touch with who I really am, guess it is more meditation and soon. Soar Well
As you are reading this I can say that I have regained the ability to post here from home. Unfortunately I have compromised my filters to do so. I have to say that I am doing fine, it feels like several gears have slotted into place over the past week and hopefully the fruits of these will be seen for some time to come. I hope to explain the reasons for my optimism in my next few posts here. As I say there is a spring to my step and even though I have noticed women, the bike moves faster when I think there is a woman to catch up to, I am not physically affected by them like I have been. Show me a P-subs picture in a newspaper or here on the internet and I do ask myself when I can next get the opportunity to view P, but I am brushing that off too. Thinking about P does not have to mean some of the negative outcomes that I have had before, and reported here, hopefully this will continue just so long as I am growing. Soar Well
Well I am not so confident in my resilience today but I am still moving forward. I have spent some time with NMMNG and having taken the time to sit with one breaking free activity I am getting clarity on my aggression towards the chores. Unconsciously I have created a covert contract around this and my wife is not keeping up her side of this contract. I am trying to focus on being less connected to this and doing things because I am able to do this and it matters to me that it gets done.
Sorry that I have been absent for a while. Would like to pull the wool over your eyes, but who is that helping? I am ashamed that I have been neglecting this because I want to see this board help others and me being here and responding to others, I hope, helps to keep the board alive. Been up and down with flatlining and wanting to view P. I have searched suggestive images these give me a dopamine kick better than going straight for the P. A couple of times when I have searched I have been inspired by a colleague who I really could not tolerate a relationship with. I have struggled with my wife's attitude, when she has been miserable I have just wanted to tell her to stop being like that because I go there with her. She is often miserable, I wonder if she is depressed but she has people that she can talk to about that and she worries that I would try to fix her if she admitted it to me. There are things that come up in conversation that make me wonder why we are still married and how on earth we go about tackling these problems. Essentially in some scenarios I hear a friends voice asking "if you feel so strongly about that why are you not divorcing her?" Soar Well
Its the easy way out. Yes, sometimes its the only way but its amazing that when we change self ( no pmo) how that changes the nature of the things in the relationship how the women sense it w/o any outward proof.
Thanks Bobo, to put it simply I will not consider that question until I am in a much better place myself. As you say she may respond to me differently when I have made that growth journey or I might be in a more mature space and able to tolerate what irritates me now. We had sex last weekend and we both enjoyed it, the past couple of times we tried she was not travelling with me and so we abandoned. Soar Well
Hi, I have not really been anywhere, I think that is part of the problem. Not been anywhere to regret, Good, or be uplifted by, Bad. Although I expect that I shall make this a quite long post about where I have been in my head, hopefully good places as well as bad. Firstly, my attitude toward my wife has been in the gutter I mention this and the stories further on because it bothers me how I can feel like this. There is more clarity on what I posted in August. I am presently in the final chapters of NMMNG when I read Les's story at BRA #18 I felt that I should lay aside any attachment I might have to specific outcome then it slowly dawned on me that I am afraid of failure. Failure to maintain a marriage. I have been creating inventories of what my wife has done to frustrate me. We had a joke that sex was too tiring on a night before work, when we have tried it I am a bit of a zombie the next day, but I got cross with her recently when we were feeling close and she said "Not tonight it is a school night". I initiated a conversation with her where I was hoping to make a little progress clearing up the distance between us and we ended up documenting how far we have to go and not really getting anything resolved. I am presently trying to get a handle on managing our money. To be honest my wife can tell you where the money goes better than I can, it is just that neither of us understand at a deeper level. I am trying to establish a short-term budget and making a start on long-term provision and both are difficult concepts to get her to talk to me about, I have not handled it well in the past. So much so that when I have offered to explore something that would benefit her and require sacrifice from me she has turned me down. At which point I think 'stuff you I will do something which benefits our sons'. In the past I have actioned this and that has hurt her. Tonight it has occurred to me that something I do which really annoys her, dismissing her problems and denying they are as big as she makes them out to be, is denying that she has self-esteem issues. Several unfortunate things have happened this evening. If one or two of them happened to me then I would easily let them ride. But I feel she gets really judgemental on herself and the strength of her negative talk is quite disturbing, I wondered if she can talk to herself like that is it any wonder she can speak to me and the boys as she does. I also speculated that if this was going on in her head have the subsequent mishaps been a consequence of her state of mind? There is nothing I can do other than try to be the supporting person that I hope I am and change the way that I challenge her when she has done this. I have been making the effort to go for a walk on the marsh at lunchtimes, this was easy during the summer, as the weather has started to cool I look out of the skylight and think twice. Those days when I say blast I will go are better for me that those when I stay at my desk. Soar Well Grey Heron.
It's very difficult to try and make changes in yourself when you're in a relationship. Like you, I've resolved not to do anything drastic until I feel as if I am in a better place. Similar to your wife, I have esteem issues. So in reading some of what you said, I feel as if I am not good enough for my spouse. If I change will that upset her because she married the chronic PMO guy? That facade of a person I was is also fighting back. They're old patterns. Eventually, I realized that I'm still me. I still love her. We have not been all that intimate since my admission of addiction and an affair. On my end, it is a punishment of myself. I don't deserve her. I don't deserve sex because I am a terrible person. When she seems awkward because of her own body issues, or the fact that it has been a while for us, I assume she hates me and the moment is over. So yeah. Complicated. Keep moving forward. This is what I am trying. You connected to your spouse once. I'm sure you can do it again. I am not good at it, but I try to be in the present with my partner. I don't want to beat myself up for the past or worry about what she may think of me in the future. I don't know if that helps, but it was nice to let some stress out in your journal, so thanks for that.
Hi, Thanks for the response Missing Self Compassion. Over the weekend, with assistance from my father, I have ticked a couple of jobs off my to do list. At the moment I get so pleased whenever I do this, possibly I also shame myself by saying that I Should Have Already Mastered Everything. This on top of doing a repair job on almost the first opportunity last weekend. It does give me a lift when I do it when I come to talk about it I do feel a fraud. I also bought flowers for my wife for the first-time in quite a while, I enjoyed her reaction and I also avoided answering her questions. We had a harmonious weekend after that it has begun to wear off now which I am having difficulty with, I want to rush in and cheer her up like it is my responsibility and like she has to be happy when I am with her. All that being said I did get out of my tree because we have had an awkward conversation about replacing the printer. I think that given the number of times we print something I want to go over to using a public facility, having our own in my opinion would mean paying several times what they charge per print and getting an inferior product from it. I have tried explaining this to her and the conversation keeps going back to the start, presumably in the hope that I will forget and decide to buy one. I impatient and raised my voice when she hit restart once to often. On Friday I did something wrong which was really trivial. I do not understand why I let it get so big and how I can put it right, without losing face. Something this small would not affect me like this usually someone else can easily shrug their shoulders and put it right. Is this something that happens as we run our fresh install? Soar Well Grey Heron
Oh yes! I feel you. I think I am wound much tighter as I go through recovery. For me PMO is like any drug, an escape. Without it, I feel raw emotionally. So, I lose my temper easier. And sitting in the emotional state gives me more time with those shameful thoughts like "I Should Have Already Mastered Everything." I think this is why the fuse is shorter. I think this is why, like you, I feel as if I am in charge of my spouse's mood. I mean, let me try to fix her instead of myself. Voila, another escape. BTW, not helpful but I am with you on the printer. My spouse is also not keen on my theory and prints everything at her work. Yeah, for like 8 cents a copy, I send things to Staples and pick them up. What a great example of escape again, me talking about printing instead of my emotions. I guess that's why we call this a journey. I'm always learning.
Just a quick post. Been at home this week and I feel wiped out even though I have done nothing to cause it. I do wonder, probably written it elsewhere in this journal, if the inertia of going to work is suppressing a physical message. Taking time and really relaxing allows that physical message to have a voice. I have resigned my post as a governor at the local KS1 school. It felt weird walking out of there after doing so. I believe that I wanted them to ask me to think again and I hope that someone else will tell me that they need me to fill a post in their organisation. Does anybody have some external validation they can spare me? I wanted to have left a greater legacy, there are two chaps who have been and gone who did that. I wonder if I am becoming a fan-boy of Richard Rohr, his writing seems to grab me, I have started to receive his daily meditations via email. I cannot believe how much they chime and how what he writes is counter cultural but so obviously should be the cultural norm. Soar Well
Here I am again, I am feeling quite depressed. Not getting any validation from my wife. I have been in a mood since she said that we aint getting any action this weekend. I am thinking that I should seriously knock off a few Breaking Free Activities. Simply because I am afraid of the failure that it would amount to in saying my wife is really the self-interested woman I want you to believe she is right at this moment I do not want to go too fast this week. I think that the Migraine Headaches I have been getting are presenting differently. The wiped out feeling I wrote about on Wednesday abated slightly on Thursday and floored me on Friday but it was not until I experienced the hangover this morning that it occurred to me it was a Migraine. I am thinking of sleeping in the spare room because I am not seeing the humanity in my wife. I also feel that by doing that I am kicking the dog when it is vulnerable. Soar Well
I spent my day with a migraine as well. For me, I have often struggled with what I see as my wife's self interest. Though, in my relationship I can see so much of that is my own self-loathing I am projecting on her. Not all of it. Like me and PMO, I am sure that some what I perceive as self-interest is her own escape from life's problems. Just saying, I empathize with how you feel. I have a long way to go to find worth within myself and stop relying on others to provide it. Well, I have to find some balance. Of course, I want validation from my spouse. I just cannot rely on it alone. My anxiety and depression twist my thoughts into resentment and mistrust. That makes it tough. I hope you get some rest and can have some compassion for yourself.