Do you know what Gaslighting is...? (wife, married, love, single)
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I would like to make this clear and understood to him, because I do care about his future and his happiness, we had a lot of years together after all, and I fear that he will do this again and it will ruin relationships for him in the future...and he gets limited opportunities to have them, and can't afford to eff them up. But at some point, I've got to stop trying to help. It isn't my problem.
Oh, gawd, Sonic. Why on this good earth do you give a rat's arse about his happiness? That man deserves absolutely none.
You're right. It's not your problem. Let karma handle him. Seriously.
Oh, gawd, Sonic. Why on this good earth do you give a rat's arse about his happiness? That man deserves absolutely none.
You're right. It's not your problem. Let karma handle him. Seriously.
I feel sorry for him. Because I am a happy person, drawn to happiness, capable of creating, nurturing and building it. I will always be essentially happy, if only because I know how to be grateful for what I have. And one day, I won't have his negativity in my life anymore.
He, on the other hand, will be stuck with himself for the rest of his days. Demanding his happiness from others and never satisfied no matter what anyone does for him.
I tried to help enlighten him on this, I tried to help him for so long. But...it's a lost cause. It shames me to admit that I wasted half my life (thus far) and didn't accomplish more good. I'm no longer so invested in his outcome, beyond trying to make sure our kids are alright and everything, worrying about the house and the finances and so on. But I don't wish anything bad on him. If someone else can teach him what I failed to, I'd be very happy for them both. I don't need or want any revenge, any justice, any karma to smite him...I just want to be free.
Oh, gawd, Sonic. Why on this good earth do you give a rat's arse about his happiness? That man deserves absolutely none.
You're right. It's not your problem. Let karma handle him. Seriously.
when one is in a marriage and this happens....part of you wants to change/help them...
even if I do agree with you, I can understand the why's of your question....
I feel sorry for him. Because I am a happy person, drawn to happiness, capable of creating, nurturing and building it. I will always be essentially happy, if only because I know how to be grateful for what I have. And one day, I won't have his negativity in my life anymore.
He, on the other hand, will be stuck with himself for the rest of his days. Demanding his happiness from others and never satisfied no matter what anyone does for him.
I tried to help enlighten him on this, I tried to help him for so long. But...it's a lost cause. It shames me to admit that I wasted half my life (thus far) and didn't accomplish more good. I'm no longer so invested in his outcome, beyond trying to make sure our kids are alright and everything, worrying about the house and the finances and so on. But I don't wish anything bad on him. If someone else can teach him what I failed to, I'd be very happy for them both. I don't need or want any revenge, any justice, any karma to smite him...I just want to be free.
Sounds like my ex-SO, who had narcissistic tendencies.
You're right not to worry about him. People like him can't be fixed. Whatever someone destroyed or suffocated in him when he was a child is permanently gone.
But don't feel like you wasted half of your life. You have kids from the marriage. That's not a waste, especially if your care keeps them from turning out like him.
Sounds like my ex-SO, who had narcissistic tendencies.
You're right not to worry about him. People like him can't be fixed. Whatever someone destroyed or suffocated in him when he was a child is permanently gone.
But don't feel like you wasted half of your life. You have kids from the marriage. That's not a waste, especially if your care keeps them from turning out like him.
And you are as free as you let yourself be.
No, you are right...perhaps it's more accurate to say that I wasted a lot of time and energy during those years trying to help, counsel, and nurture him into something he probably isn't capable of becoming.
Another example of a woman trying too hard to change a man, because I was too young to know it wasn't a sensible endeavor to undertake. Certainly not to make him more pleasing to me, but to make him into someone who could live with himself.
I think of a life as a gift, we get this chance to do what we will...why would anyone choose to spend the years they are given wallowing in misery?
I've rendered him powerless by not caring about his opinion. He's done his best to try and paint every relationship I've undertaken since in the most negative of possible lights, hoping to get me to believe that I made a huge mistake in walking away from him. But I've done more growing and learning and coming to self awareness, in the last year, than I did in the 18 that we were together. The people I love now, and who love me, are therapeutic, positive, and supportive influences. The one relationship where I was doing what my culture and family expected of me was the most harmful and damaging one of all. Likely because I invested so much into it in the first place.
Anyone ever gaslight yourself as a defense mechanism? There were incidents in our relationship where I'd try to discuss my feelings or an issue I had with him, only to have him blow up at me so severely that I'd back down to a position of "I'm sorry, this is my problem, I need therapy and I never should have bothered you with it." Basically I was saying, "Stop yelling at me. I'm just not right in the head." as a means of surrender so he'd leave me alone, and then box up my feelings again for a few more years...
Probably the biggest and most damaging form of this that occurred in my marriage, was in regards to my sexuality, and social behavior.
Before my ex, I was fearless and shameless in my sexual identity. Yes, as a teenager, I had a lot of sex, and a lot of partners, and many that I probably shouldn't have just because I felt like it. When I say, "I shouldn't have" it's not a matter of propriety, shame, or reputation (I really don't believe I had a trashy reputation for what I did, because of the way I went about it)....it's just a matter of where the line is drawn that demarcates risky behavior. I was young enough to be overconfident, but I got lucky and came out of this with my health intact.
However, I did not feel disrespected by men. I had great conversations with boys and men (some that I had sex with, and many that I did not.) I felt that I was perfectly capable to be liked for who I was, after spending hours discussing politics, philosophy, religion, culture, or any other topic with someone.
Enter my (now ex) husband. He was an older man, high on being with a younger, more attractive girl. All he wanted to do was clutch on tight, keep me away from other men who might take me away, and have my attention all to himself. Every man I spoke to, from friends to acquaintances to ex lovers to coworkers, was a threat. It was vital that he make me understand that "men" only liked me because they wanted to have sex with me, that no man actually viewed me as a person, that every interaction was only a ruse to try and trick me into sex, that my previous behavior (every man I'd slept with up until him) was a regrettable mistake, easily erased by being his one and only forever. He would make an honest woman of me. As soon as I understood that I shouldn't interact with other men. It wasn't that he didn't trust me...he didn't trust THEM. It wasn't that he was afraid I'd be raped, he was afraid one would be so smooth, say just the right things, and override my judgment. Didn't I see how easily it could happen? I should avoid them.
My agency as an individual was nothing compared to that of the other men who stood to threaten what was his. I was not a person. I was an object. A pawn. A piece on the board for any hand to pick up and move at will, and I must only make sure it was his hand alone allowed to do so....failure on my part to avoid other Real People (men) would lead to violence if he had to defend "his territory." I was just a fence post for him to mark. Clearly though, the only man who viewed me as a real person and not a sexual target, was him. He loved me. That was different.
I started to believe it, and I did distance myself and isolate myself from all of my friends. Even my own Mother, because he didn't really like her either. The only friend I remember having that he never had an issue with was this one girl who was very attractive, and he tried to hint that we should either have a threesome, or he should maybe sleep with her. Because "other women don't count" as cheating. I loved that gal, but I said no because I knew it would hurt our marriage.
As unhappy as I was, I made a lot of excuses. I stood between him and the world, explaining and excusing his behavior to everybody. They just didn't understand. He isn't malicious, it's just how he was raised, it's how he sees the world, it's the way he is. He loves me. At least he stayed. That's proof that he loves me, right? Loyalty?
Eventually as the years went by, this little extrovert found society again, community, friends...there were many fights as I defended my right to interact with others. And I began to realize, it was the opposite of what I'd been told. My male friends did in fact respect me as a person...HE was the only one who did not. He was the only one, for whom getting sex from me was a big objective and kept track of and made a thing about. The delusions, for me, started breaking down.
The issue now, is that I was "not perfect in our marriage" (conversations we now have) because I did not make him feel sexually wanted or needed. I have a hard time explaining this to him, but if you basically brainwash a woman into thinking that her sexuality is the reason she isn't a person, her mind, thoughts, opinions, agency, feelings, are not valid because of her female sexuality, and that's just how the world is....she is going to shut down sexually. De-sexualize herself in order to be treated like a human being and not a thing. And only one man ever did that to me. None of the rest really had the chance, or got through my emotional walls enough to make much difference with whatever they thought. I would like to make this clear and understood to him, because I do care about his future and his happiness, we had a lot of years together after all, and I fear that he will do this again and it will ruin relationships for him in the future...and he gets limited opportunities to have them, and can't afford to eff them up. But at some point, I've got to stop trying to help. It isn't my problem.
I think this bold section above is truly how many people feel, male and female. I don't think it makes us crazy, it's just that all relationships go through ups and downs. During those down periods, there tends to always be someone waiting in the wings to get their shot. I obviously want to have less downs and more ups, but I know life doesn't always work out the way we want it. I've listened to enough stories of someone not happy in their relationship or marriage and go seek shelter in another persons arms. It's legitimately a real threat. Sure, I absolutely believe that if a person wants to cheat, they're going to cheat and there's little that we can do to stop them. However, at the end of the day I would hope that both of us would rather put in the maximum effort into our relationship, before seeking shelter from a third party.
I'm just a firm believer that there's always someone out there that's likely a better person than myself who can do everything that I do, and do it a little bit better. It's why I want to be the best person that I can so my partner won't ever have to consider seeking emotional or physical shelter from another person.
I think this bold section above is truly how many people feel, male and female. I don't think it makes us crazy, it's just that all relationships go through ups and downs. During those down periods, there tends to always be someone waiting in the wings to get their shot. I obviously want to have less downs and more ups, but I know life doesn't always work out the way we want it. I've listened to enough stories of someone not happy in their relationship or marriage and go seek shelter in another persons arms. It's legitimately a real threat. Sure, I absolutely believe that if a person wants to cheat, they're going to cheat and there's little that we can do to stop them. However, at the end of the day I would hope that both of us would rather put in the maximum effort into our relationship, before seeking shelter from a third party.
I'm just a firm believer that there's always someone out there that's likely a better person than myself who can do everything that I do, and do it a little bit better. It's why I want to be the best person that I can so my partner won't ever have to consider seeking emotional or physical shelter from another person.
The problem is the extent to which it is taken, when someone is very easily threatened for no real reason and attempts to control and socially isolate their partner, and doesn't give them any credit for being responsible for their OWN actions and having the agency to make choices.
He was ALWAYS welcome to come and meet my friends. I certainly went out of my way to make HIS friends welcome in our home, and to be close and friendly with all of them, and their families. But mine were "idiots" and "bozos" and he didn't want to meet them or hear about them. Didn't even matter if I was friends with a couple, (a normal mono couple, not swingers or poly) he rejected all of my friends and wanted nothing to do with any social scene but his own, but then also didn't want me to have any social contact outside of his people. He wanted to view them all as a threat.
Fact is, at this point, his love and caring of me went right out the window the minute he didn't own me and get to use me to fulfill his needs in our relationship. Which tells me he didn't see me as a person, didn't love me in any real way, and I might as well have been an object that he was just paranoid someone would steal. There was another man waiting in the wings more or less when we had our issues. Feeling something for that guy was my biggest alarm signal that my marriage was in big trouble, but I didn't cheat. I could have, and I didn't. Instead, I told my husband, hoping we could work on and fix things. The next day he pulled a gun on me, and there was nothing left to save. Funny thing is, the other guy that was there...wasn't my friend, he was my husband's.
The problem is the extent to which it is taken, when someone is very easily threatened for no real reason and attempts to control and socially isolate their partner, and doesn't give them any credit for being responsible for their OWN actions and having the agency to make choices.
He was ALWAYS welcome to come and meet my friends. I certainly went out of my way to make HIS friends welcome in our home, and to be close and friendly with all of them, and their families. But mine were "idiots" and "bozos" and he didn't want to meet them or hear about them. Didn't even matter if I was friends with a couple, (a normal mono couple, not swingers or poly) he rejected all of my friends and wanted nothing to do with any social scene but his own, but then also didn't want me to have any social contact outside of his people. He wanted to view them all as a threat.
Fact is, at this point, his love and caring of me went right out the window the minute he didn't own me and get to use me to fulfill his needs in our relationship. Which tells me he didn't see me as a person, didn't love me in any real way, and I might as well have been an object that he was just paranoid someone would steal. There was another man waiting in the wings more or less when we had our issues. Feeling something for that guy was my biggest alarm signal that my marriage was in big trouble, but I didn't cheat. I could have, and I didn't. Instead, I told my husband, hoping we could work on and fix things. The next day he pulled a gun on me, and there was nothing left to save. Funny thing is, the other guy that was there...wasn't my friend, he was my husband's.
They are still friends to this day.
I see what you're getting at now. Yeah, my girlfriend has met my friends, but I haven't met hers yet. May be meeting some of her friends in the coming months, since she's new to the area. I didn't know that your ex husband didn't want to meet any of your friends or even be involved with them. That's pretty low for sure.
The problem is the extent to which it is taken, when someone is very easily threatened for no real reason and attempts to control and socially isolate their partner, and doesn't give them any credit for being responsible for their OWN actions and having the agency to make choices.
He was ALWAYS welcome to come and meet my friends. I certainly went out of my way to make HIS friends welcome in our home, and to be close and friendly with all of them, and their families. But mine were "idiots" and "bozos" and he didn't want to meet them or hear about them. Didn't even matter if I was friends with a couple, (a normal mono couple, not swingers or poly) he rejected all of my friends and wanted nothing to do with any social scene but his own, but then also didn't want me to have any social contact outside of his people. He wanted to view them all as a threat.
Fact is, at this point, his love and caring of me went right out the window the minute he didn't own me and get to use me to fulfill his needs in our relationship. Which tells me he didn't see me as a person, didn't love me in any real way, and I might as well have been an object that he was just paranoid someone would steal. There was another man waiting in the wings more or less when we had our issues. Feeling something for that guy was my biggest alarm signal that my marriage was in big trouble, but I didn't cheat. I could have, and I didn't. Instead, I told my husband, hoping we could work on and fix things. The next day he pulled a gun on me, and there was nothing left to save. Funny thing is, the other guy that was there...wasn't my friend, he was my husband's.
They are still friends to this day.
my ex cut out all my friends, there was always something wrong with them....he wouldn't allow me any social life with anyone except who he wanted to spend time with. If they hunted or fished, they were in.
One thing you can never do is change anyone unless they want to change...a fixer upper is not a good investment.
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