SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hurtbeyondtime, forevergone,

With respect for your opinions, you don't know my family situation. I agree that after all I have done my relationship with my wife is very screwed up because that is what I have shared with you, but there is more to this family to take into account and that is exactly why my wife has said. Believe me, if she doesn't want me here, she will let me know.

I have tried keeping up with your posts since the beginning. This is not to jump down your throat about anything. I am so new that I do not want to step over the boundaries of what I am able to say so I will not mention the name of a book but there is one that addresses exactly what you are doing. You keep posting and people keep responding and nothing changes. What you are doing is playing “Yes but......”. Believe it or not it is about power. Before I explain to you about what you were doing I want to explain that every single person on the planet wants power over themselves and their environment. It is as natural as breathing. Something happens in childhood that allows us too much power or not enough and so we begin the journey of making sure we have it and keep it no matter what. In your marriage your power were the secrets that you kept from your wife and the things that you said and did to her. It made you the most powerful one in the family. It wrecked your marriage but you kept the power. Now you have transferred that very same need to this group of people trying to help you. You keep setting up scenarios and they come on with many very well thought out suggestions and you always say, “Yes but.....”. It means that you are controlling the dialogue. It may be a different kind of power structure from the one you have in your marriage but it is power nevertheless. That is why you need to get yourself into therapy as soon as possible. You have to learn to share power in a marriage. If you don’t the marriage will not work. Right now your wife has yanked her power back and you do not know what to do about it so you bring your problems here. The issues are much deeper than what you are discussing here. The issues are what you are going to do about excepting that if you are married you are one of a couple. So far you have given a lot of words to that effect but you have done practically nothing about actions. Keep posting. These are wonderful, wonderful people giving you great information but until you get to the issue you keep hiding from you’re not going to get anywhere. Good luck.

By the way, I am the adult child of a cheating parent. It was an exit affair after years of two people not sharing a darn thing about what they thought. They both remarried, moved away and I lost my family home.

Cooley2here,

I am very interested in what you are saying and I am not disagreeing with you. I have had so many issues with my wife because I always give her an explanation. Yesterday she specifically said to me, "why can't you just say yes [BS Name]". Every time this happens she immediately loses her patience and tells me I am being defensive and I am just so confused by it all. I can see my explanations, what she sees as defensiveness is a form of power control. This is very upsetting to think about because it has been going on for so long.

You probably said, “Yes, well I do so and so, or I think so but.....”. I am not sure you are getting what I mean. What you are doing is making sure that nothing moves. You have everything stopped in its tracks because you are afraid if you let anything moveyou will lose power. You have to learn to trust your wife. Right now the only person you trust is yourself. Unfortunately your Wife does not trust you at all. This behavior of yours is a holdover from childhood. It does not matter how many well intentioned, goodhearted people come on here and try to help you unless you are willing to say what needs to be said when it needs to be said, and do what needs to be done when it needs to be done nothing moves. Well, your wife might move to divorce but I don’t think that’s what you want. Find out how to share power with others. The reason this is so hard to break is because your manipulation is completely unconscious. You do not see what you do because you have done it for so long. Only someone who can help you dig down deep and find out how to stop this behavior will it stop. Manipulation is done by all of us from birth to death but we usually try to do what is good for ourselves and others. In your case you only did what was good for you. This does not make you a bad person it just makes you someone completely ignorant of how you are manipulating the world around you and why it keeps things in such a mess.

Several waywards are very clear about how they had to completely change their behaviors and their thinking before they could fix their marriages. You haven’t gotten to the place where you can fix anything until you recognize what you are doing under the surface.

Cooley2here,

It is hard because I don't feel like I am being defensive or manipulative but my BS will immediately point out the defensiveness and leave me feeling very confused. I think I need to do more listening to what she is saying even when I am not feeling it, I should not be trusting my feelings because like you said it has gone on for my whole life.