Not commendable? I don't understand. I/ we have had outside help but it's not okay to share or ask for input from this community?
He did not attack you!
Unbelievable.
Thanks for the reminder TT! I heard that book title years ago, time to see if it's still around. I won't be staying with the forum but I really appreciate you sharing your experience.
With respect, he did.
I am very sad you have decided not to stay. I think you have much to offer us, and, hopefully, we could do the same for you.
The book was very helpful to me at the time. Hoping that you can still find it. As Shalimar said it’s often best to put people on ignore. I am on 4 forums and what’s allowed varies greatly. I also think being on forums has toughened me up because my feelings now get hurt much less. I would look at how all aspects of your life will change and if that’s what you want.
Hmmm. I would tend to think that an insensitive nature would be more problematic in effectively dealing with others. I have also found ample evidence of self centred behaviour along the whole spectrum of sensitivity, or lack thereof.I guess I meant that neither a sensitive nor a self-centered, inward-looking nature is productive when trying to look outward and deal with others.
The opposite of 'sensitive', in this case, is not 'insensitive', it is 'outward looking'. Carl Jung said it's all about introverts and extroverts, I paraphrase.
Sounds like you pretty much came up with your own solution. You stated what you don't want, and that you guys have grown together. You guys have been together for 30 years and from what I gather, the love is there. My husb and I are very different - we've been married almost 40 years. I thought about leaving many times. I had a lot of work to do within myself, because if I left, I would take my broken self with me. We get along MUCH better these days. The biggest key for us is accepting each other as we are. That was not easy AT ALL. But worth it.I have struggled with dysthymia (ongoing low grade depression) since my teen years. I dated little and had few love relationships due to this, and from being a highly sensitive person who felt overwhelmed by the needs of others. (Also having had a narcissistic, very difficult parent probably set me up for that.) It's a given that someone like me would not have kids for those reasons.
About 30 years ago, I met someone who wanted to marry me, and rather than run from relationships again I wanted to give it a try, even though this person knew I was not especially wild about getting married. He also struggles with hereditary depression, though I didn't know how deeply that went until some years went by. We are also quite different from each other. Our main accomplishment in staying married is learning to live with, respect and grow into better humans with another person. I'm very proud of that and so is he.
So here we are 30 years later, and I'm still feeling challenged by being so different. (Add that we're out of shape, fat, and beginning to have health problems.) We are totally not in sync and rarely are. I'm interested in consistently eating healthy and he never has been. So we eat separately and always have. I'm always ready for walks or adventures and he never is, and almost always has a reason not to go. Most vacations have been taken on my own.
I am always *waiting* for him. He spends a lot of time sleeping, even though he has been treated for depression. (He's retired, I'm not.) He'll go to the doctor at my insistence but doesn't seem interested in taking care of himself well and never has. We enjoy watching TV together and talking at the end of the day and that's about it. Being companions. That is enough for him and he doesn't fret about the rest.
He has been affected by PTSD and had a very difficult upbringing, but has really grown as a person and so have I. That is the greatest gift we have given each other. But I'm just wondering if it's worth it to stay because it's frustrating and difficult being with someone so different for so long. Or whether it's just my ongoing dysthymia making things worse than they are.
Wondering if this is more common than I realize and how others cope. Staying together for security's sake of course is a strategy, but when I am feeling agitated and depressed I just wonder if I've been selling myself short for 30 years despite how we have grown together.
Keep in mind I am a deep thinker, seriously thoughtful and pragmatic...plus very loyal ... so I'm not likely to take well to lighthearted suggestions of kicking someone to the curb.
I am not looking for a different person or some other romantic kind of love and never have. I love and care for him. I think I just may be one of those people who should have stayed single. I'm sure it hasn't felt good to him either for me to want him to do differently all the time, but he says he'd be lost without me.
I love your avatar, RadishRose. I'm inhaling from here.
I was guilty of expecting too much from my husb. After working on my inner self, I do things that I enjoy, he does things that he enjoy (mainly watch a lot of TV). But that's ok, that's not my thing but we do enjoy good movies together, and we keep it movin'. Your post is ON POINT
Till death do us part, except of course, for a good reason.I agree with getting to know one's self. I have had to literally search deep within myself to face challenging in my life. It was not easy at all. I've been in counseling for a few years which was well worth it. Counseling helped (when I found a therapist that was a good fit for me).The key words in your statement is "should have". Should have, would have, could have are perpetual questions we all have of ourselves and of one another. And, they are unanswerable as well. That is both the allure of them and the agony of them. Wondering what may have been is a perpetual game one plays with one's self when dissatisfied. And, clearly dissatisfied you are.
The struggle of life is to know one's self so that you can make clear decisions for and about yourself. But, as you surely know knowing one's self so clearly well at any given moment is nearly impossible given all the variables about ourselves and in what pushes and pulls on us. Given this, then what you assert or think you know about others in your life is far less than you think you know and even more obscure than what you know of yourself. And thus your relationship to others in respect to yourself is an even a greater unknown.
These are my suggestions. First, stop being so analytical of yourself. You really know little of yourself so who are you to analyze yourself objectively? Second, stop being so analytical of others. Stop having such high confidence in what you only think you know. You know little of yourself so what makes you an expert with respect to others? If you really want to know the truth about yourself (and that is the only one whom you really can know ANYTHING about) then seek counseling to help you discover that and then to help guide you.
Counseling does not stop with just the knowing. On-going guidance is just as important. You've reached out to others here for 'guidance'. That's a fact. But, truly the only one who can guide you is a counselor who objectively knows you well, and who knows you better than you think you know about yourself.
I agree 100%. This is why it's soooo important to work on inner self. I use to literally take everything someone said to me negative personally because I was a people pleaser. I would get super defensive. Working on my inner self helped a lot. I now understand people have heavy baggage and may take it out on others. If they have a problem with me, and I haven't contributed to he problem, then it's their problem to iron out, not mine.
I have the Audio Book version, it's an excellent source for making such a life changing decision as leaving or staying with someone. Try Ebay for used books or Audio books, is where I got my copy.
I have struggled with dysthymia (ongoing low grade depression) since my teen years. I dated little and had few love relationships due to this, and from being a highly sensitive person who felt overwhelmed by the needs of others. (Also having had a narcissistic, very difficult parent probably set me up for that.) It's a given that someone like me would not have kids for those reasons.
About 30 years ago, I met someone who wanted to marry me, and rather than run from relationships again I wanted to give it a try, even though this person knew I was not especially wild about getting married. He also struggles with hereditary depression, though I didn't know how deeply that went until some years went by. We are also quite different from each other. Our main accomplishment in staying married is learning to live with, respect and grow into better humans with another person. I'm very proud of that and so is he.
So here we are 30 years later, and I'm still feeling challenged by being so different. (Add that we're out of shape, fat, and beginning to have health problems.) We are totally not in sync and rarely are. I'm interested in consistently eating healthy and he never has been. So we eat separately and always have. I'm always ready for walks or adventures and he never is, and almost always has a reason not to go. Most vacations have been taken on my own.
I am always *waiting* for him. He spends a lot of time sleeping, even though he has been treated for depression. (He's retired, I'm not.) He'll go to the doctor at my insistence but doesn't seem interested in taking care of himself well and never has. We enjoy watching TV together and talking at the end of the day and that's about it. Being companions. That is enough for him and he doesn't fret about the rest.
He has been affected by PTSD and had a very difficult upbringing, but has really grown as a person and so have I. That is the greatest gift we have given each other. But I'm just wondering if it's worth it to stay because it's frustrating and difficult being with someone so different for so long. Or whether it's just my ongoing dysthymia making things worse than they are.
Wondering if this is more common than I realize and how others cope. Staying together for security's sake of course is a strategy, but when I am feeling agitated and depressed I just wonder if I've been selling myself short for 30 years despite how we have grown together.
Keep in mind I am a deep thinker, seriously thoughtful and pragmatic...plus very loyal ... so I'm not likely to take well to lighthearted suggestions of kicking someone to the curb.
I am not looking for a different person or some other romantic kind of love and never have. I love and care for him. I think I just may be one of those people who should have stayed single. I'm sure it hasn't felt good to him either for me to want him to do differently all the time, but he says he'd be lost without me.
