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Post by elkclan2 on Sept 17, 2019 3:01:06 GMT -5
Yes, very good. I read some of the John Gottman stuff when I was unhappily married. It made me realise things were pretty hopeless. I think it also helped me choose better the 2nd time around. My guy is far from perfect, but like the blog post says - the vibe is very good. Our imperfections mesh well (except for untidyness - which we both are). And Im never in doubt that he wants me to be happy. And we have so much fun. And we have weird fun that many other people wouldn't find fun. Everything from dirty sex (which a lot of people, but not everyone would find fun) to a shared love of live folk gigs (smaller set of people?) to spending hours looking at carbonate rocks (a surprisingly small set of people). But we also have fun when we do clean up the house, build a bike shed in the garden, prepare dinner, etc. Life isn't 100% fun, but my partner makes my life more fun than it would otherwise be.
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Post by elkclan2 on Sept 17, 2019 2:46:51 GMT -5
When you're dealing with personality disorders - like NPD, BPD, etc - or even hard wired personality facets like being asexual - why chasing can be super important. It tells you it's not fixable - certainly not by you and not by the other person either. It will also indicate what kind of divorce experience you're gonna have. It's just sometimes hard to get out of the why-chasing phase and onto the decision-making phase.
Divorce is expensive, painful and upsetting - especially if you have children. It has to be worth it. So a period of reflection - why-chasing if you will - is reasonable.
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Post by elkclan2 on Sept 16, 2019 12:50:32 GMT -5
My mother is - I'm 99% sure - NPD. Both of her marriages were sexless. She is unable to get joy from giving. And probably once the initial phase of limerence is over people like that just go down to their normal libido level and enjoy seeing you beg them for attention more than they enjoy the physical act of intimacy.
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Post by elkclan2 on Sept 4, 2019 3:13:20 GMT -5
I used to do endless calculations, the total number of sex acts in an average marriage times years versus our sex life. I resented the "owed" sex acts. I would tick the sexless days on the calendar and so on. But in the end it becomes pointless. I an never going to get the past back and whether it has been a week, a month or a year she never builds up a head of sexual pressure as I do. In the end we all return to the implacable advice of Baza, poop or get off the pot. This is known in my head as "the math stage". I was in this stage in my mid-30's. The math stage!!! I realised at one point that I'd had more sex with my college boyfriend of a year and a half than I'd had with my husband of a decade and a half. I outsourced after that. And then we separated. And then I found someone I really am compatible with and we have plenty of sex.
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Post by elkclan2 on Aug 29, 2019 4:02:25 GMT -5
It is quite normal. But it also passes. You will get through this.
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Post by elkclan2 on Aug 24, 2019 1:23:51 GMT -5
worksforme2 my partner and I have already talked about what would happen if - due to some kind of physical circumstance - we found ourselves in a sexless marriage. Definitely outsourcing. But also - this time - staying in this relationship. Who is to say what we'd really do faced with the circumstances, if say there was also a lack of other physical intimacy.
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Post by elkclan2 on Aug 24, 2019 1:14:02 GMT -5
My ex always walked ahead of me. Would cross the road without me. Not just once or twice, but consistently. Would do it even while I was heavily pregnant. I'm not a fast walker, I know this. My partner now is a fast walker. But I rarely get left behind. This past weekend I got left behind. He works in a field science and he met up with a former colleague who was helping him walk through a field trip and she zoomed ahead and he kept up with her and it was rough terrain and I have a dodgy ankle so though I could have gone faster I didn't feel confident doing so. But he was always checking on me.
On the other hand, I'm owning my own issues. I'm getting physio and trying to get fitter to make sure that I can do better at keeping up in certain situations.
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Post by elkclan2 on Aug 23, 2019 5:36:31 GMT -5
It is hard to get female domestic violence onto the political debate. When men hurt women they leave physical scars and wounds. The mental damage has physical evidence. When women hurt, they go for the mental first and the scars they leave are tiny. The same with rape, women totally refuse to believe women can rape men and some of the comnents are as bad as male comments from the 50s and 60s This isn't always true. Men can also be emotionally abusive. My ex was emotionally, verbally and financially abusive. They can also use threats of violence without leaving a mark. My ex used to hit stuff near me. It was still physically intimidating, but it didn't leave a mark. Abusive people tend to use their best weapons against you. A woman is less likely to use physical violence against a man because it's not her best tool. An abusive person will use the tool that's easiest for them. For all people, that's verbal abuse first. For many men and some women it's physical abuse -it also depends on what's the best tool to use against your victim. When I started playing rugby, my ex's physical threats stopped. I guess I didn't look like such an easy target or at least it was obvious that I could take a beating and still come back. But (and sorry no citation but it is findable) there is good evidence that where abusers have used physical violence they've escalated from verbal or emotional abuse pretty much all the time. And in my book - physical violence is always emotional abuse, too. ETA: It's very hard to get emotional abuse taken seriously. There have been some legislative attempts in some jurisdictions. But the standard of proof is understandably high.
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Post by elkclan2 on Aug 23, 2019 5:03:37 GMT -5
My ex wasn't asexual, but he clearly preferred masturbating over sex with me and always did. It's on me that I accepted the behaviour. It's on him that he was willing to string me along to keep a partner and not be alone. TBH, he seems quite happy using our son as the audience for his monologues, his hobby playmate and emotional support animal. This, of course, is not good parenting and will leave him pretty lonely at some point. I think he'd like to have a romantic partner, but I don't think he's able to make the compromises that would require. Such as basic reciprocity...
He also revealed in our first and only session of marriage therapy that he had always found me ''romantically and intellectually attractive but not physically attractive". Whether that was always true or if he had convinced himself that he'd always felt that way doesn't really matter. I definitely wish he'd been honest about it, but it didn't benefit him to do so and he frankly lacked the introspective ability to realise that was on him and he shouldn't have pretended otherwise.
So I guess I have my why.
If I had found out that he was having a physical affair I would have been miffed. Not outraged, but definitely miffed. Because he'd strung me along pretending we could have a good sex life if only I'd done x, y, z. Although it would have also made me quite happy in that it would have given me an easy out. I nearly took an out when he had an emotional affair while being jobless and relying on me to do his employment search. I should have taken it. That's on me.
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Post by elkclan2 on Aug 14, 2019 3:08:15 GMT -5
People know divorce is a shit experience even if the marriage was worse! But I did have people say to me "I usually say 'Sorry', but in your case - congratulations." :-)
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Post by elkclan2 on Aug 10, 2019 4:07:06 GMT -5
<quote>I was raised the same way, but with my dad. Everyone had to tiptoe around to make sure he didn't get upset and then pacify him when he did. So I ended up being that way with my refuser.</quote>
Me, too - though it was my mother. Unless my dad was drunk.... yikes.
I'm a pacifier and if that doesn't work - avoider.
I find it really, really, really hard to speak up about my needs until it becomes a crisis.
Please go get some therapy - think of it as coaching to help you live the life you want to live. Helping you practice and learn.
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Post by elkclan2 on Aug 10, 2019 3:49:49 GMT -5
Hey, JMX. This shit is hard. It's hard to pull the trigger. But as someone who is out and who dithered for ages and ages - you can do this. Living with that kind of disregard will erode you. It's acid on the soul.
And it's not a necessarily a fairy tale to find someone who loves you and thinks about you. What may be a fairy tale is finding someone who loves and cares about you AND Tennessee beats Alabama this October.
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Post by elkclan2 on Aug 9, 2019 3:50:31 GMT -5
My mom is a narcissist. My dad is an alcoholic. I really did not know any better. It took me a long time to figure out that relationships weren't like that. My marriage was less shouty and dramatic than my family of origin, so I thought I was trading up. Maybe I was.
We did a lot of pacifying and rug sweeping in my family. And I guess I also learned my place in the cycle of abuse, too. I'm still not sure if I've unlearned that, but finding a partner who isn't abusive was a good step. There is still a lot of abuse in the family dynamic, because we both still have to deal with emotionally abusive exes and their impact on us and more importantly our children. Our kids are learning dysfunctional interpersonal dynamics and yes it has an impact on their behaviour, just like it had an impact on mine. Still learning how to deal with that.
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Post by elkclan2 on Aug 9, 2019 2:54:38 GMT -5
Yes, agree with separate bedrooms. I can see both sides of the argument, but in my case, I knew my ex wouldn't leave the bedroom, so I did. I made my own space.
Movement. New activities. Accomplishment - this one can be difficult when your self-esteem is already low. Start small. It doesn't have to be an accomplishment that anyone else would recognise, but learning a new skill or pushing your boundaries a little bit.
Enjoy your own company. Go and do fun stuff by yourself, just for you.
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Post by elkclan2 on Jul 19, 2019 2:34:32 GMT -5
@workingonit - you got this.
I wanted to comment on the being with someone else thing. I wasn't with anyone else for two years after separation. The sadness does fade as you've discovered. But the loneliness doesn't always. What happens instead is that you realise how lonely you were inside the marriage and how that loneliness is so much worse than loneliness from actually being alone. The loneliness from being alone is actionable - you go out, you seek out, you make connection.
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