Your experience with lack of affection and intimacy?

Skip to: New Posts  Last Post
Page:  Next »
Posted by OutofHisCloset
July 4, 2021 6:51 am
#31

"I have a duty to try and get her to accept this [that she is a lesbian]."   

 No, you don't.  Moreover, you can't, and it isn't something you should even be trying to do.   This is one of the harder lessons we all have to learn.  TGT is not ours to fight or manage; that is for our spouses to do, and whether or not they do or will is out of our hands.  

  It doesn't matter whether "TGT lies at the heart of her mental issues" or whether it is "not for [your] benefit, but for [your] son's,"  YOU cannot GET HER to accept anything, whether it is for you or for your son.  You don't have that kind of power.  You can insist, you can beg, you can explain, but SHE is the one who has to do this work.  Not you, not you helping or pushing her.  Not you  Her.  She, not you, is the person who is gay, and she is the person who has to come to terms with this--or not. 

   Even the most generous and loving impulse of a spouse cannot accomplish this coming-to-terms for the gay spouse, and, in fact, because we are married to them, we complicate that coming to terms with themselves by our very presence, let alone our efforts to help.  The history or our marriage, their history of suppressing or denying their sexuality, the years of projections, their need to rationalize their behavior, their fear of a life lived honestly as a gay person, even their love of us, such at is may be--all these make their job more fraught.  We have to get out of the way, not double down on our efforts to "fix" our spouse and our spouse's problems.  

   She is the one who has to deal with her conflicted self and sexuality.  If she has a "deeply repressed and denied unconscious true self" she's going to come to terms with that, or not, because SHE decides she needs to do so, not because you do.  You can't make her do anything.

  Your job is to focus on yourself, and to understanding and healing from the "whole fragile ego and self-hatred thing projected on to" you.   The only mind you have control of or over here is yours.   Accepting that is a tough but necessary step in your own healing.

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (July 4, 2021 7:04 am)

 
Posted by Ordinary guy
July 4, 2021 7:23 am
#32

Well the long and short of it is:

From a risk point of view as a Father, do I step away and leave my son in the house in the hope that he doesn’t become someone else to project on. How would you feel if you put your own self interest above that of your own son, only to see him suffer in anyway for it?

Nietzsche said “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how”.

If I can find the “why”, I will then deal with the how.

4877 days….


And now here is my secret, a very simple secret. It is only with the heart that one can see clearly that which is essential is invisible to the eye.
 
Posted by OutofHisCloset
July 4, 2021 10:16 am
#33

Of course you don't abandon your son.  What you do is plot a course for parenting that accounts for a partner's disordered behavior.  

By the way, I do have a son.  And he was always my first concern in the whole trans nightmare and divorce.  He still is. 

 
Posted by Lynne
July 4, 2021 11:25 am
#34

The why to live is for your child.  The why to get away from the abuser is to heal so you can be a good father.  Your intelligence, wit, and compassion for others comes through in your posts.  When you start to recover from the abuse you will have much to offer other people in addition to your son. 

 
Posted by Ordinary guy
July 4, 2021 11:40 am
#35

Lynne wrote:

The why to live is for your child.  The why to get away from the abuser is to heal so you can be a good father.  Your intelligence, wit, and compassion for others comes through in your posts.  When you start to recover from the abuse you will have much to offer other people in addition to your son. 

Thank you Lynne, I find your freely offered and kind words personally touching. A shaft of sunlight in my grey. X


And now here is my secret, a very simple secret. It is only with the heart that one can see clearly that which is essential is invisible to the eye.
 
Posted by Upside
July 5, 2021 2:12 pm
#36

longwayhome wrote:

Perhaps if these situations were out in the open and research was actually conducted, there would be better therapies that could be developed and real help could be offered to people instead of what we are all trying to do on our own.

You've hit the nail on the head.

Wishing there were avenues to fund this work. It seems SSN is doing initial research, but their focus seems (rightfully) split. Research is necessary to properly communicate the severity of the issue and advocate for the creation of proper support therapies and material.

longwayhome wrote:

Edited to add: you want to see the real damage it does, read the stories on the new subreddit. It’s mental abuse and they can’t stop it to help themselves. There in one telling her story now. This woman is in pure mental anguish and she is allowing herself to be subjected to this. My heart breaks for her. All to stay in her MOM.
https://www.reddit.com/r/StraightBiPartners/

This sub brings me to tears.

MJM wrote:

I don't excuse my GIDXH's terrible behavior.  Understanding it gives me humanity and grace. Healing's not a zero sum game.

Helpful. Thank you, MJM.

 
Posted by Ellexoh_nz Online!
July 5, 2021 3:38 pm
#37

longwayhome wrote:

........Edited to add: you want to see the real damage it does, read the stories on the new subreddit......

I read them and find it very difficult to not comment

Elle
 


KIA KAHA                       
 
Posted by lily
July 5, 2021 3:50 pm
#38

Ordinary guy wrote:

It is not within my power to help her realise anything. If we are dealing with deep seated denial, then the psychological manifestation of this is evident in the vulnerable self behaviours. This takes the form of projection on to me in the form of abuse. The trope that developed over the last few years was that I was “always in the way”.  I couldn’t understand what exactly I was in the way of, until I stepped back and looked at the changes in behaviour over a period of years. I asked if she would entertain the idea of going to relationship counselling to help us rediscover some sort of intimate connection in an effort to help me recover from the deep depression I am battling. I also said that I am being treated in line with domestic abuse recovery. I asked if at the very least, the abusive behaviour could stop to allow myself some breathing space and that I was frankly becoming increasingly desperate and suicidal. What did I get as a response. That I have effectively been a cancer in her life for the last thirty years and that we should just call it a day and split up. I have said over and over again that I want to try and work things out, but there is no desire on her part to even acknowledge the fact that her treatment of me is abnormal at all.
 If TGT lies at the her mental issues, then I think that as a fellow human let alone husband I have a duty to try and get her to accept this. This is not for my benefit, but for my son’s. He does not need to see his Mother behave like this. I don’t want him to think that this is what a relationship with anyone should look like. This whole fragile ego and self-hatred thing projected on to me  could be down to a deeply repressed and denied unconscious true self.

4877 days….
 

OG. a couple of questions, how old is your son and is he similar to you - ie are you friends with him, does he have a sense of humour you enjoy, is he intelligent and kindly?

You are being treated for domestic abuse recovery and you've already had a heart attack - it's a warning sign you don't want to ignore.  Nor is the domestic abuse.  

The idea that she is hiding from herself and would be nicer if she wasn't is a furphy.  denial doesn't mean don't know it means not telling.  not telling you that is.

when you ask her to stop the abuse and she calls you a cancer in her life that is DARVO.  It's deliberate, comes as natural as breathing to an abusive type - now she is the victim and you are her punching bag.  

It seems to me that you are smarting under the unfairness of it.  She gets to waltz off into the sunset with her girlfriend while you face the massive losses of a divorce.  You hurt, she doesn't.  

 

 
Posted by OutofHisCloset
July 5, 2021 10:21 pm
#39

Maria,
 Reddit is a public forum.  The subs aren't private.  You may not be able to post without registering, but anything anyone posts is public.  Everyone on Reddit knows this.  If you want to keep something private, you don't post on Reddit.  The same is true of this Forum.  

 

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (July 5, 2021 10:23 pm)

 
Posted by Ordinary guy
July 6, 2021 5:40 am
#40

lily wrote:

Ordinary guy wrote:

It is not within my power to help her realise anything. If we are dealing with deep seated denial, then the psychological manifestation of this is evident in the vulnerable self behaviours. This takes the form of projection on to me in the form of abuse. The trope that developed over the last few years was that I was “always in the way”.  I couldn’t understand what exactly I was in the way of, until I stepped back and looked at the changes in behaviour over a period of years. I asked if she would entertain the idea of going to relationship counselling to help us rediscover some sort of intimate connection in an effort to help me recover from the deep depression I am battling. I also said that I am being treated in line with domestic abuse recovery. I asked if at the very least, the abusive behaviour could stop to allow myself some breathing space and that I was frankly becoming increasingly desperate and suicidal. What did I get as a response. That I have effectively been a cancer in her life for the last thirty years and that we should just call it a day and split up. I have said over and over again that I want to try and work things out, but there is no desire on her part to even acknowledge the fact that her treatment of me is abnormal at all.
 If TGT lies at the her mental issues, then I think that as a fellow human let alone husband I have a duty to try and get her to accept this. This is not for my benefit, but for my son’s. He does not need to see his Mother behave like this. I don’t want him to think that this is what a relationship with anyone should look like. This whole fragile ego and self-hatred thing projected on to me  could be down to a deeply repressed and denied unconscious true self.

4877 days….
 

OG. a couple of questions, how old is your son and is he similar to you - ie are you friends with him, does he have a sense of humour you enjoy, is he intelligent and kindly?

You are being treated for domestic abuse recovery and you've already had a heart attack - it's a warning sign you don't want to ignore.  Nor is the domestic abuse.  

The idea that she is hiding from herself and would be nicer if she wasn't is a furphy.  denial doesn't mean don't know it means not telling.  not telling you that is.

when you ask her to stop the abuse and she calls you a cancer in her life that is DARVO.  It's deliberate, comes as natural as breathing to an abusive type - now she is the victim and you are her punching bag.  

It seems to me that you are smarting under the unfairness of it.  She gets to waltz off into the sunset with her girlfriend while you face the massive losses of a divorce.  You hurt, she doesn't.  

 

One of the first things to alert me to an under lying issue here was the fact that there was no other man or desire to seek one out. I even said that I could live with that if it made her happy. Yes, it would hurt but “shit happens”. In life. If I am repeatedly told that I am never enough then go and find a man that is, or shut up and put up. If this has been (and I expect to be) a lifelong issue of a failure to understand this unconscious preference, then there is a possibility that the conscious mind has set TGT behind its own “firewall” creating a state of self denial. I am taking a very careful and almost surgical approach to finding the hidden truth. I could give in to emotion and charge in like a bull in a china shop only to find that:

A) II am wrong, and there is another underlying reason that ‘i’ will then struggle to uncover.

B) I am right, and there is a complete shutdown a full breakdown in communication as the last defence.

C) I am right, and the subsequent out pouring of repression leads to collateral emotional damage to my son and wife.

D) I am right and the sudden revelation leads to a personal identity crisis and realisation of the genuine damage done.

One of the things I know for sure is that my wife does not have any self-righteousness in her make-up. She does not present a sense of entitlement and has always struggled with self-esteem and confidence. This may be due to repression and denial of true self. She is not an inherently “bad” person and cares deeply for others. I think that if she was conscious of this issue, then she would be terrified of the reaction it would get from our personal circle if it was made known. Yes, I have been hurt in all of this, but I do not want any more casualties if I can help it. I am being driven away for no apparent reason as far as I can tell. I think that if I was just to give up and leave, then after a suitable period of time another sapphic rainbow butterfly would emerge without any recrimination or shame. I would be the bad guy who abandoned the marriage and no one would ever know what I have been through.fThe closer I get, the more defensive obstacles I come up against. I want the truth for all of our sakes. That will be my “why” that leads to my “how”.

4879 days…..


And now here is my secret, a very simple secret. It is only with the heart that one can see clearly that which is essential is invisible to the eye.
 


Page:  Next »

 
Main page
Login
Desktop format