SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

WTR,

The fact the you are here and asking this question of us and yourself, is encouraging. It shows that you see the problem, you recognize it as a problem, and are not afraid to face it.

Fear of facing your flaws, mistakes and weaknesses, I believe leads to defensiveness.

My ExWW’s defensiveness killed our reconciliation-outright. I would attribute her defensiveness, and the root causes of her defensiveness, as THE lead factor, that not only killed our reconciliation, but also predisposed her to cheating in the first place.

Humility is such a strength. Have you ever noticed how we all gravitate towards those who are humble, and the endearing quality of self deprecating humor. We all prefer listeners over talkers. Humility leads to: personal growth, stronger teamwork, better problem solving, empathy, stronger relationships, etc.

Humility allows you to boldly and honestly look at your silly ass self, without contempt, judgment or fear. It allows you, and others, to be human. It allows you to own your mistakes and objectively correct or adapt to your flaws.

This is just a theory of mine, but it seems many of the contributing factors of defensiveness, or symptoms of defensiveness, are also contributing factors to infidelity: low self esteem, insecurity, childhood trauma, fear of rejection, learned behaviors, inability to honestly introspect, obstacle to emotional intimacy, obstacle to accountability and the control of manipulative behaviors.

If you don’t get a handle on your defensiveness and what causes you to be defensive, your R will greatly suffer.

As I said, the fact that you’re here, see this, recognize it as a problem is very encouraging. My ExWW didn’t make it that far. She just couldn’t wrap her mind around the concept for whatever reasons. This sucks for her because humility also leads to self forgiveness.

[This message edited by RealityBlows at 8:39 PM, Saturday, September 21st]

I am also not religious and have been trying to separate my worth from particular outcomes. Not because I don't want them or because they aren't important, but because, like people have said, that thinking puts me in a fear response and does not help me be kind or helpful and ultimately takes me further from those outcomes. It is an illusion of control that makes us try to control things in destructive ways.

Steps two and three in a twelve step program (SLAA), the Radical Acceptance DBT skill, and the book Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach, have helped with seeing this from a more secular perspective, but it is something I have to try to come back to several times every day. I've written a version of the third step prayer that works with my belief system and I've been trying to think it to myself each morning.

I have only looked at it a little, but maybe also try looking at the concept of acting "as if" regarding a higher power.

Pleasebeflexable, thank you and that makes sense and is very helpful. And thank you RealityBlows, I struggle greatly with humility and entitlement, and is a major weakness of mine and contributing factor to my terrible actions, and certainly to my defensiveness.

Your defensiveness is a wall your betrayed spouse does not have the energy to climb. All she/he wants to do is climb back to you. Do not make the climb impossible because of your ego.

Mysoltice,

That is so very true. Well said.

When you lower your defenses and allow your spouse in, it’s incredibly intimate. When you make yourself vulnerable to your spouse, trusting them with your deepest secrets, and uncomfortable truths, it takes your relationship leagues to new depths. It’s incredibly bonding. Trust begets trust. Her trusting you begins with you trusting her.

yet I am struggling with how to come up with a sturdy salvation plan

What about this for a start - most people aren't conscious of what their salvation plan is/what they believe makes them worthwhile. They are acting on it without understanding, without reflection or intention. It couldn't hurt to be intentional rather than reflexive. What is something that you believe would make you a worthwhile person? What about - I am worthwhile because I'm making progress toward listening to other people in a way that makes them feel heard and seen? I am worthwhile because I am making progress toward being less defensive? I am worthwhile because I'm doing things that I know are wise even though they feel frightening or counterintuitive? Bonus points for writing down things that you have already accomplished that you can look at when you need fortifying - staying with your wife and family, having a job, etc. What do you believe would make you a worthwhile person?

without Jesus

I understand the hesitation. I wasn't Christian before coming to SI. And I wasn't drawn to religion per se. I saw the wisdom, peace, self-love, compassion, and humor in Maia, and I thought "I want what she's got!" And then I pestered her! That woman endured hours of my questions. Thank goodness it was religion and not mushrooms or riding wild horses or some kind of nonsense, I would have done whatever she said to get what I saw in her.

Can I interest you in Generic Creator Deity? Or are you totally atheistically certain that you are an accident of atoms? The good thing about Generic Creator Deity is that it gives you a direction to pray. Then Generic Creator Deity can start working in you. Prayer is powerful! I've had some extraordinary unexplainable answers to prayer. Yours can be quite simple. When you need to get out of your head, use the "Wow" prayer and meditate on something beautiful in creation. When you need help, when you are tempted to be defensive, just say quietly "help me, help me, please help me." Then see what happens.

Also, read Wild at Heart by John Eldredge. He's good with men who have put up defenses.

What I found helped was letting go of the outcome. Discussing divorce calmly, crying about it then accepting the idea of a divorce. After that, you can then open up fully, with the idea that your partner may or may not divorce you and you no longer can stop it if it's what they choose based on what they see.

Once you fully accept the divorce fully, as a possible - or better, probable - reality, you no longer try to hide and defend yourself because you accept that all may be lost anyway. So you might as well expose yourself and let them see you and stop protecting because there's nothing left to try to save. I don't know if that's clear! But it helped me.

First of all, you realizing what you are doing and how this may be further causing hurt to your BS, is a great first step.

Unfortunately, it took me a long time to stop being defensive and the worst of all is that I thought they were legitimate "answers", until one day, during a big argument between me and my BS it came to me like an epiphany that what I was doing was indeed being defensive and I was not listening as actively and empathetically as I could and should, but rather to answer. I guess, seeing him in all this pain is what finally made me wake up and realize how wrong, super hurtful and unfair my behavior towards him was and that the last thing I wanted was to cause him more pain.

What I would advise you is, whenever they speak about their pain, try to always have in mind that you need to actively listen to them, really listen - not listen to give an answer back - until it becomes a habit, the norm. Also, knowing how much it hurts them when you have this kind of behavior is another powerful way to keep you from acting in a way that only seemingly protects you but tears them and any chance of R further apart. Try to connect with the love you feel for them and with the pain they feel, which they never asked for to begin with.

It might not come natural at first and it might take practice, but you can get there.

Pippin,

Sorry for the non-response. I continue to struggle with how to use the board and everyone's advice and input...I am clearly still choosing cowardice and defensive protection of my ego.

You wrote, "What is something that you believe would make you a worthwhile person? What about - I am worthwhile because I'm making progress toward listening to other people in a way that makes them feel heard and seen? I am worthwhile because I am making progress toward being less defensive? I am worthwhile because I'm doing things that I know are wise even though they feel frightening or counterintuitive? Bonus points for writing down things that you have already accomplished that you can look at when you need fortifying - staying with your wife and family, having a job, etc. What do you believe would make you a worthwhile person?"

I continue to use shame as my driving emotion and choosing either fight or flight defense mechanisms instead of being open and vulnerable. I keep choosing me over my betrayed spouse, and in doing so I have not moved the needle one bit.

I don't know the answer to your question, "what would make me a worthwhile person?" Every time I think of anything the chain I have forged with all my choices reminds me that I am in fact an asshole and not worthy of her, my great kids, the image other see of me because they don't know the truth about choices I have made or kind of selfish narcassist I really am. Only my betrayed spouse truly knows who I am and she sees me for who and what I am, and I cannot hang my hat on partial credit that I try and give myself like you elude to above.

Even all this comes across as smarmy word salad that isn't really change.

Mage,
Thank you. I sill THINK defensively, even when keeping my mouth shut. She can see it in my expressions and body language, and then I chose to turn thoughts of shame into frustration and frustration into defensive responses. How do get to a place where I am not choosing to think defensively? Yes I control my thoughts, and I try and listen with empathy and from a position of no authority or right because it is me who did all this. Yet I wallow and have a pity party for woe is me feeling bad about myself for my choices and actions, or for being "yelled at" like I am some child, and shut down on being a kind, empathetic listener to her and her pain..

Any advice from anyone on how to change my thoughts away from my selfish shame wallowing is very apricated.

I don't know if it would be helpful for you at all, but I recently completed my fourth step moral inventory for S.L.A.A. For this step, you look at the resentments you've had throughout your life, starting at childhood, and explain your role in them. You write down your character defects involved in your role and in the way you see the situation. Some of my repeating ones were victim mentality and unwillingness to accept the other person is a child of God and perhaps spiritually sick like me (this doesn't have to be a religious thing--it can just be about seeing the person as human and suffering like all humans do). It has helped me some in new interactions to consider my role, character defects, and how they affect my perception of things.

WTR, you said this:

me feeling bad about myself for my choices and actions, or for being "yelled at" like I am some child

Were you yelled at as a child a lot? By whom?

Consider that maybe your reaction to criticism (or perceived criticism) still comes from a place of that frightened child. And on your own time, not during an argument or anything, ask yourself if you are now in a different position than that child. In terms of 'survivorship' ability. So that you intellectually understand that you being wrong --or you being right but perceived wrong -- has not the same impact as it did when you were little. And the current you, even with a track record of being an arse to other people, are still good enough to protect that little boy much better than he could at the time. So that he can put his guard down, and it is now your job to interact with the world.

If serious self-help books don't work (for me they rarely do) - maybe consider fiction? Try Clockwork Orange - a book or a film. Maybe it could help you bridge in your mind between atrocious behaviour of a person and their intrinsic value as a human being. It's a short book but shockingly brutal. Do you think that innovative 'rehab' in the book was justified? Why/why not?

I hope this helps you.

How do get to a place where I am not choosing to think defensively?

The thought is a reaction, not a result of actually thinking. The behavior is the problem much more than the reacting.

As a first step, how about letting yourself react without acting, then choose to be honest, then to act?

Many psych people believe that actions can change reactions by rewiring one's brain. IOW, if you start acting mindfully to be open and honest, eventually your reaction will change from defensive to open and honest.

I think Sisoon is exactly right, and it echoes something Maia told me a long time ago. She said - the first thought you have is not your responsibility. It comes from FOO, from your fears, from habit, etc. Your SECOND thought is 100% your responsibility, and your actions. So if you have a defensive thought, you can say to yourself, " I'm having a defensive thought. I notice that. Instead of saying it out loud, I'm going to say something different."

Are you interested in changing? Or is that too threatening or scary? You've been coming here a long time with the same pattern. Perhaps you are changing between SI visits, and you come here when you feel defeated.

You are getting great advice, I particularly liked what Pippen talked about in her last post about feeling good about decisions you make and building momentum. This is what is needed. Work on one or two things you want to do better and then keep focused on them. Active listening was an example she gave and I think that is awesome.

Part of the change has to be about practicing different behaviors but sometimes people think it has to be all or nothing or it’s so big they don’t know where to start. Once I made a goal or two and crushed them over time, it did build my momentum and I would feel encouraged to choose something else and try that. Change is slow, it takes mindfulness and intention. You can’t do that with everything all at once. So I just wanted to underline that as great advice and the only rational way to go about this.

I really pressed reply to comment on religion versus spirituality. I am not a religious person at all. However, learning to become a spiritual person was crucial to finding my direction. I liked what please fix me offered from her step by step program. I did not do a formal twelve step. But, what she is saying resembles how I stumbled into my own spiritual practices.

I think most religions kind of say similar things even if the crux of what they believe about creation and who is the higher power. I believe a lot of it boils down to a path towards mental peace. Things like having a gratitude practice seems insignificant, but it truly does rewire your brain after doing it for as little as a month. It changes what we focus on and helps with this momentum we are talking about. Being aware that we are all souls having a human experience, and that our experiences- failures, successes, and everything in between - are in our paths to bring us towards our purpose and prepare us for that along the way.

One spiritual exercise that I practice as much as possible is remembering the child we once were still lives inside of us. We have the opportunity to reparent and nurture that child now that we are grown and have the power to do it. So sometimes I picture her and all she was dealing with and I think about holding her or revisiting things she liked to do so she can interact with those things without the fear, angst, and chaos the first time around. Spending time in nature, coloring, or even revisiting a favorite show or cartoon can start to activate that relationship. It sounds very crazy but this is has been very healing for me.

And then the other aspect is getting still. People think meditation is making your mind quite, but it’s really just a state of observing. The more you can find that space to observe the more you can develop the other relationship that I feel is crucial for spiritual healing. It’s the one with our soul. Our soul is perfect, it’s loving and wise. It is our calm in the storm and if we get good at becoming the observer it allows us to grow our relationship with our higher self. That’s when the epiphanies come. What we need to know is whispered to us, and we feel this perfect love over ourselves because our soul loves our human form and all its imperfections. We are simply on a journey to experience consciousness and our higher selves want us to be present, to surrender our worries, and to find the beauty in life.

It’s a lifelong practice to then begin giving ourselves what we need as we then are not facing the obstacles alone and are better able to connect with the joy meant to be in our hearts.

Hurt people hurt other people. Healed people are in a different thinking pattern that not only helps us, it helps us connect with others without the obstacles our unhealed selves kept in place out of fear.

I still fear abandonment and rejection but I know that whatever I go through is for my highest good, that I am supported by the divinity that is my soul and that we all have that divinity within us. No matter what we have done. But we must strive to love ourselves through nourishing this spirit, and if we do it’s a well that nourishes others. You will find you want to do good and walk a path that feels good, but it takes like Pippen said, choosing a focus until you master it, feels worthy to be that person and to reap its rewards.

Again, read Eckhardt Tolle-or watch his podcasts. Pema Chadron is another. You do not have to belong to a religion to start understanding we are cutting out these parts of ourselves but acknowledging them and nourishing them and building our values and living them- it’s all a spiritual practice and deeper inderstanding. I could not have gotten to this stage of healing without spending a lot of time with those things. I still do because I don’t think we are ever perfectly healed until we go back to being a spirit. There are always going to be new trials here on eart, it’s having a wider perspective of them that helps you cope.

[This message edited by hikingout at 3:11 PM, Monday, January 27th]