Look at any post, in the bottom-right corner you will see the word    "Quote

Instead of clicking on reply or typing in the posting box at the end of the thread, click the word "Quote" instead. This starts a reply with the other person's post already inserted into YOUR post with quote formatting in square brackets at the beginning and end. You can type above or below the quote. You can also delete parts of the quote if there is only a sentence or two you want to high light in your reply. Never delete any part of the square bracket section at the beginning or end of the quotation.

You should never modify someone's quote in such a way as to change the meaning of it. General etiquette is to only remove entire sentences that aren't relevant to your comment.

This is on a PC - I don't know what this board looks like on mobile devices.

See what I did here...... 

Josie wrote:

How the hell do you put the "quote" someone said that you like in the white box? Daryl says - "I deleted your other sentences and added this one - I'm a bad boy! LOL" 

Last edited by Daryl (August 29, 2017 11:20 pm)

Hey, sometimes going off the rails a bit helps us all focus on who and what we are to others, and examine if that's the same way we want to keep coming across.  To evaluate if it's working for our intended purposes.  It's not a bad thing.  It's valuable in its own right.

I think this board is most valuable to the readers when we have a lot of voices on the board.  We all have different things to offer based on our personal style of communication and our experiences.  And we need them all.  We need the people who come along side those that are hurting and say, "I hear you.  We're here for you."  We need those that say, "Have you thought about what you want to do?".  And we need those who say, "You partner is treating you very poorly - please take care of yourself."  And we need everything in-between, too.

Rob brought up a good point when he said that sometimes, we're rushing others as if we're actually speaking back to our old selves in our past.  That's a really good point.  I can certainly be accused of that.  It seems so easy to just tell someone to get out when you're not the one doing it.  That's always been true.  And it seems even easier to get out when we've done so ourselves - especially if it was long enough ago that we've forgotten some of that acute pain and fear.  Instead, we see that we're okay now, and that it's all water under the bridge for us.  But that's not the current situation for most of us, and I'll try to do better to remember to be gentle in that way.  I'm an impatient person when it comes to trying to help others get their lives on track.  It took me forEVer, and yet I want everyone else to hurry up and get to happy.  It's not fair.  And I'll try to do better in curtailing that urge.

Kel

Last edited by Kel (August 30, 2017 9:55 am)

That's really great, Josie!  I'm so glad you were able to push yourself through some tough stuff because you realized that it was better than the alternative.  It's interesting how much difference that ONE thing makes though - the realization part.  I think most people can be strong enough to navigate through something they feel they have no choice but to endure - illness, heartache, situations that cannot be changed. Or that they can navigate through something optional, if they have an end in sight.  If they know it's temporary.  It's when we don't see it as necessary any longer (what do I get out of it in the end?) or realize that this isn't necessarily temporary that things begin to change.  For me, being able to endure another 20+ years of suffering seemed to hold no prize at the end.  No one was going to give me a trophy if I made it through 50 years of being unhappy.  Hell, no one was even going to look at me as having accomplished something worthwhile.  No one says, "I admire my parents - they stuck it out through decades of misery together!" 

I got really stuck wrapped up in the thinking that I could just keep coasting until I got things to change.  That all I had to do was wait long enough, give him enough feedback about what I wanted and how badly I needed that, and then just..... wait.  Be patient, help him to be able to give to me in the way that I needed him to, make opportunities for things to change.  I did that over and over and over again for a decade and a half.  When that didn't appear to be working, I tried to convince myself that I wanted too much.  That I wasn't entitled to happiness in every.single.area of my life.  My head believed that, I think.  My heart just never got on board.  I kept telling it to quiet down, to wait, to stop being so needy.  It wouldn't listen.  Then I got to the point where I realized that things weren't going to change in this very important area of my marriage.  And that led me to need to think on the decision of whether I was capable and wanting to just let go of the possibility of change and just accept my situation already.  And I WANTED to - for a myriad of reason.    But I just.couldn't.do.it.  Not that I wouldn't LET myself do it - I was trying to do it, and I couldn't.  I eventually came to the conclusion that it didn't matter if me needing intimacy in my marriage was a need or a want, or within or outside of my control.  What mattered was that I wasn't happy, and I didn't see that changing, and I didn't see me becoming okay with essentially choosing to be unhappy.  THEN I was able to access the fuel to blast into the mess so that I could arrive at the other side of it.  Because I couldn't choose to NOT do it and live with the consequences.

I think this is why it's so important for so many straight spouses to question whether or not their spouse is gay.  They feel that they can keep working on the issue if they only knew it was fixable.  If they truly knew that their spouse was gay and there's no way that anything either individual can do to fix that, then they see the end goal as doomed, and then feel better about stopping action on something that's futile.  Until we know that it's a worthless cause, we'll just keep plugging along.  Gay, in my opinion, IS an obstacle that can't be conquored in a straight relationship.  But it's not the ONLY thing that can make us see that the relationship is beyond repair.  We inherently know that there are plenty of things that straight partners can do to doom their marriages.  Habitual cheating is one.  Lack of trust due to lying and deceipt is another.  When you have all of that too, then the gay thing really shouldh't be the lynchpin anymore.  You're beyond that.  If the other person won't respect you and cherish you and you can't see the relationship recovering, then it doesn't matter what their sexual orientation is.  Declaring them straight will not suddenly fix all those issues.

I suppose there are those out there that don't see their spouse's sexual orientation as being detrimental to whether or not their marriage succeeds.  Maybe they're older and only want their spouse's company, and they still have that and are okay with that.  That wasn't me, though.  I had people ask why I didn't just stay married - I sleep with whomever I want, and he do the same.  This actually told me a lot about how THEY thought - not about how I should think.  I told them I didn't want to do that mostly because I wanted.it.ALL.  I wanted to lay in bed every night with someone that I felt in love with and passionate about.  And it would only work for me if they felt the same way back.  I wanted to dream and plan my future with someone who couldn't wait to see me at the end of every workday apart.  And living two separate lives wasn't going to give me one rich one in either scenario.

Once I knew that bottom line (which was not whether or not he was gay, but whether or not things were ever going to change), I had my answer.  If nothing was going to change, and I couldn't be happy that way, then there was no point in continuing to struggle just so I could say I'd tried a million different ways for years.  If it was all futile anyway, then I was done killing myself to get to a goal that I'd never reach.

Kel

Last edited by Kel (August 30, 2017 1:33 pm)

Ellexoh wrote:

Over 3000 views so far but...
I wonder what the over-riding feeling is about the premise of "standing by/with my partner is...
by those who've read it

In my opinion - if you can be truly happy, more power to you. I fear the reality is that it is more like winning the lottery. Not easy with long odds stacked against you. My caution suggests that there should be limits or boundaries, both in word and deed and also in time. I would also ask what your partner plans to do to 'stand by you'. I think that often gets overlooked.

To me the whole thing is like being in a swamp in a pea-soup fog with no landmarks in sight. Staying put is not a good idea so you have to carefully seek your next steps. Little by little you pick your way along to where the fog starts to thin out. Then you can increase your pace, more certain of your foot steps and destination. Some of us move faster than others but that's OK. As long as you are moving towards a goal line.
 

OutofHisCloset wrote:

Yes, I, too, replied to a post yesterday and it didn't come through.  I'm not sure it was this thread, but there were several acrimonious exchanges about New Zealand and Australia and how far apart they are, and it ended with Lily saying "I'm out of here."  
 I'll say again what I said then/there, because I think it might keep things more cordial and civil: Maybe we ought to stop posting about extraneous things and keep to the reason we're all here, for support and help as a straight spouse. 

This is exactly right. 

I removed a series of posts about the distance from NZ to AUS.  
My reasoning was just as OOHC said:  It was a subject that had nothing to do with the straight spouse experience AND it was argumentative and bordered on insulting to each other.   Acrimonious was a great choice of words.  

It's OK to go off on tangents once in a while.  It's OK to have healthy debate.  It's OK to disagree with each other.  
It's NOT OK to insult or belittle one another on this forum, especially over a topic of discussion that has zero benefit to anyone. 

The result of the arguments in the past few days in this thread is that we've driven away at least three members of this forum and possibly prevented many others from even signing up.  I won't stand for that.  We are a support group designed to show compassion and kindness and we are here to help one another.  

Let's regroup and move forward. 

Thanks!