mom0f4boys <momsh...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> Sorry to double-post,
Your other post is about taking action. "Actions speak
louder than words" and about you taking responsibility
to deal with the issues. I'm not much interested in the
details as they come from a different culture than I do,
but they are a good start.
I think of it this way - Either actions can follow thoughts
or thoughts can follow actions. Thought can lead to
decision, decision to both habit of thought and action,
action to habit of body, habit of thought and habit of body
to emotion. If you ask couples in long term arranged
marriages they often re****t deep love that grew slowly.
This sequence of thought to emotion is how it happened.
The program you quoted doesn't speak in terms of what
happens in arranged marriages like that and it does
not describe the mental process from decision to
emotion, but it does supply the decision and action.
Good starting point though I'd use different tactics.
"To know me is to love me". You know your husband.
So know decide to love him the way folks in arranged
marriages acheive it. Let it build over time. Different
than the early giddy time, but longer lasting.
> but this is to Doug, because I have been
> following other threads and I detect a certain anger about 'women
> trying to change men'. =A0Haha.. "detect", more like picked it up off
> the ground like a penny.
If you read anger then you read it from yourself. I was
doing the sounding board thing trying to work out the
issues. Okay, you've now gone through the sounding
board thing on the history of picking and violence so you
no longer have any charge on it, right? Does your husband
also lack charge on it? After all you did call the cops on
him and that was only two years ago. If I were your
husband I would be very withdrawn in my trust after that.
So ask yourself - Given that you read your own anger
into my message, have you managed to completely
drop any emotional charge over this history given that
you have now worked the sounding board thing on it on
the group several times in the last year? If so then it's
time to move on to other issues.
> =A0 =A0 About 3 weeks ago, my husband decided to clean the garage, and
ha=
d
> our 2nd son help him. =A0They were working along pretty good when I went
> out there, and I took my coffee out to watch and help. =A0(I'm not much
> help, physically, because my back is crooked and I can't move heavy
> things without paying for it). =A0I was more of the 'pain in the ass'
> kind of help, you'd say.
Been there, done that. Pain in the butt help is so called
complaining constantly aka my MIL. So to me pointing out
alternative ways of doing stuff is helpful plus a little
distracting.
> My husband is awesome at steady hard work,
> but gets stressed and bogged down with organizational tasks.
So consider him as ADHD. I know, if your life works well
it is no appropriate to call it a disorder, shrug, but that's
how acronyms work sometimes. Try "Driven to Distraction"
at the library and see if the coping strategies work. Basically
I do well with more micromanagement than most but it needs
to be done kindly. Degree of ADHD is not something that
can be changed with a merely infinite amount of ranodm
effort, so consider the strategies recommended by an expert.
> My husband found his box of old
> photo albums from when he was in the Marines, and he was just goig to
> find another spot to stick it, but I said "Hey... take some of those
> albums out! =A0When you are putting the boys to bed, you guys can go
> through that stuff and you can tell them your stories..."
Now you're working on why you loved him in the first
place, right? So much for hating him. Why did you
love him enough to marry him and have 4 children with
him? What changed so you now hate him? Do you
actually hate him or do you hate the fact that you have
expectations that don't fit who he actually is? That's
your working area now I think.
> I'm not trying to CHANGE my husband.
Uh huh. Like I believe that given your next statement.
> I just want him to come alive.
AllYou! already addressed that.
Treating him as ADHD and using coping strategies is
effective even if he's low on the ADHD symptom scale.
That's an activity plan that to me is likely to have more
long term impact than an action plan from your other post
that chafes.
Reviewing why you loved him and what changed. That's
your attitude plan. Ponder it and discuss with him how
your relation****p has changed. How much of it has been
him changing away from what you loved and how much
has been you changing away from the you that gave that
love.
A bit of perspective you're not likely to agree with - Going
to college does not change your intellectual state. All it
does is give your intellect tools and material to work with.
If your attitude towards him changed before and after
college that's a very shallow view of what intellect is and
it ignores laudible traits like "awesome at steady hard
work". See the two of you as completing each other,
is that something that can work for you?
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