One week later

beta80

It's been a week since I reached the breaking point and posted this, and later my triage, and I'm amazed a the difference this week made and how little actual effort it took.

Following your advice, I read NMMNG and it's like it was written specifically for me. During the week I started changing the way I think and behave, and holy s**t, what a difference. Only now I understand the red pill thing. I'm starting to see the matrix!

So I took the red pill and finally understood that I will be happy and I will have a fulfilling sex life no matter what - with my wife if it works, with someone else if the relationship doesn't improve. But this took an enormous amount of pressure off my shoulders. I'm not having sex anyway, so do I care whether she's momentarily angry at me? No. I started reclaiming my integrity back - do the things I want to do because I want to do them. Started paying attention at covert contracts. Stopped begging.

Nothing happened at first, but on Thursday I started seeing some signs: she started becoming more physical towards me. Where previously I had to ask/beg for a kiss and a hug, she started initiating more.

On Friday during breakfast she was talking about some mild annoyance at her workplace that has being going on for weeks. I always listened to the same story patiently and helpfully offered the same advice every time. Not this time. As soon as she paused for a breath, I abruptly changed the topic to, of all things, the weather. We talked for a while and the called me up on it - "I was talking about something important and you started talking about the weather". So I found myself replying "We've talked about this exact same thing a million times, has something changed? Is something different now?". She shut up and we barely talked for the rest of breakfast. Normally I'd feel anxious at this situation and asked her to tell me about the issue after a few minutes, but this time I just didn't care. And what happened? She went back to normal! HOLY SH*T I SET A BOUNDARY!

On Friday night, we watched an episodes of a series in bed, as we usually do (TV in the bedroom is the devil - guess who insisted to put it there). "We" had to wake up relatively early on Saturday because she was going to the doctor's (routine check). She insisted in watching a second episode, which would mean I'd have to sleep less to wake up in time for breakfast (and I hate sleeping less). At first I refused, but she insisted so much I ended up accepting. A partial defeat? Sure, but I just cancelled my alarm clock, didn't wake up with her, didn't have breakfast with her. Sort of a win!

As soon as she was on the way to her doctor and I was having breakfast at home, she texted me - "can you research this for me?". There was no reason to ask me; she had a 1 hour train ride and pretty good 3G, so... I recognized this as a shit test but still answered "sure" with the intention of ignoring the request, but I later realized it was passive/aggressive. So I just ignored it and when she came back and asked, I told her "no, I didn't search, was something wrong with your 3G?"

Later that day I planned an evening out - movie and dinner. I basically picked the movie (we both wanted to watch it), the theater and the time, what restaurant, and how to get there. He protested mildly throughout all of this, to the point of complaining "we're doing everything the way you want!", which was kind of the point She put her best pissed off face, she huffed and puffed, and kept this act for half an hour after we left home, while I forced myself to ignore her - and once again, after a while her mood magically improved and we had a very pleasant evening out.

(continued)

beta80

Finally, on Sunday, she hugged me and gave me a passionate kiss, completely unprovoked. This is a rare occurrence! Later, when she was doing the dishes (another rare occurrence!), I hugged her from behind, pushed myself against her, and kissed her neck in an openly erotic way. After maybe 15 seconds I left and proceeded as normal, as if it was no big deal. She remarked "hmmm, that was nice". I ignored the comment

So... I'm fully aware that all of these are very small things, but they are small things in the right direction, and now I'm consciously aware of what's going on and why! It really is like taking the red pill.

I'm posting this because I don't want to lose this awareness, as it had happened the previous times I "started" the MAP. During the week I was thinking "oh, I need to write about this". Having posted here last Monday made all the difference in the world! Hear that, lurkers of the forum? Come out of the closet!

beta80

I'm still making breakfast during the week, though. I'm not ready to stop doing that by default. I'll probably do it gradually and/or use if I need to enforce some broken boundary - e.g. if she misbehaves badly and doesn't apologize, I'll just sleep in. Making her breakfast should be a prize, not the default!

Frank_London

Awesome. Go you. This was so good to read.

beta80 said:

So I took the red pill and finally understood that I will be happy and I will have a fulfilling sex life no matter what - with my wife if it works, with someone else if the relationship doesn't improve. But this took an enormous amount of pressure off my shoulders. I'm not having sex anyway, so do I care whether she's momentarily angry at me? No. I started reclaiming my integrity back - do the things I want to do because I want to do them. Started paying attention at covert contracts. Stopped begging.

Love it! This will all get quoted back at you in the future if you backslide.

Balance

I had the same eye opening experience when reading NMMNG. Great job taking the advice to read it AND the MAP efforts you have started to put in.

Small steps initially are a great way to start, the main thing is that you keep up the momentum. You might find yourself going through some unusual internal struggles as you keep moving forward, which from what I've seen in myself and others seems to be par for the course.

Writing is a great idea too, to keep yourself focused and accountable, whether here, in a journal (er, captain's log) or a combination of the two.

pocketaces

Good job, keep it up!

Reborn

Excellent work, it was a real pleasure to read that. Be careful not to drift into getting vindictive, it's not about punishing her

beta80 said:

,  I told her "no, I didn't search, was something wrong with your 3G?"

That's getting near to sarcasm

hoping4better

You are on the right path. stay strong, be brave.  don't fear her emotions or pissing her off.  Lift.

PhoenixDown

Yeah, you're veering dangerously into PA territory.

TimSim1971

 

beta80 said:

I'm still making breakfast during the week, though. I'm not ready to stop doing that by default. I'll probably do it gradually and/or use if I need to enforce some broken boundary - e.g. if she misbehaves badly and doesn't apologize, I'll just sleep in. Making her breakfast should be a prize, not the default!

If it's something you like to do..then do it. Don't make it either a punishment or a reward. Just another awesome thing, your awesome-self does in the course of another awesome day in your life.

beta80

Thanks a lot for the feedback, especially for pointing out the P/A nature of my thinking. Clearly I still have a long way to go until I start thinking "right"

PandaBear7

You made the decision on what type of life you want--that's the hard part. The rest is managing your day-to-day to support that decision. Something I borrowed from author John Maxwell.