Manners Maketh the man
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| Tue, 12-21-2004 - 12:54am |
Reading a post on another thread a few minutes ago, made me stop and think.. about how it is so important in a relationship for a man to show a little chivalry along the way... What makes these men tick? Why did I let xOM get away with it when my H is the perfect gentleman.. always caring.. always there... always concerned?? What makes us go into these situations which eventually seem to be much worse than the ones we are already in..
Do you belive that once I was on my way to xOM house and it started pouring cats and dogs. I called him and told him I did not have an umbrella.. so please come downstairs because the walk to the entrance of the building was a distance from the curb. He said oh what the h... get wet it won't harm you. Well I did not want to get wet which is why I asked him in the first place right?? I should have turned the cab and gone right back home. But I did not. I got drenched but went and met him.. Foolish me
Am i well rid of this man or what????
Another time, i left his house real late and instead of walking me to a cab, he let me walk through a pretty shadey neighbourhood becuase the cabs were a distance away. Without a care in the world.. whats going to happen was his attitude.. and it was 1 am.
Am i well rid of this man or what????
As I go through the healing process, I keep remembering the things that were NOT OK during our relationship. Is this normal? I just cannot understand how I let him get away with all this nonsense. What a jerk!!
Sorry, just wanted to vent because sometimes I truly hate myself for letting him treat me like garbage
Trish

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Trish,
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(Big smile) Ok, I can only assume you meant me and my xOM who had NO CLUE that he was suppose to open a door for a woman!! :-) At the time I thought it was *cute* because he was only 25...but now looking back on it, I think it was pathetic! I think I (bold underlined and highlighted) was pathetic!
I get together with 3 female friends once every couple of months for breakfast to 'catch up'. We usually rotate homes that we meet at. While in the midst of my A - breakfast was to be at my house. I remember talking to xOM later that day and telling him how my H had cooked us all breakfast. Do you know what that loser said??? "I would never cook breakfast for all your friends - maybe for you, but not for a bunch of your friends!" Gee - thanks, ya big sweetie pie!!
This reminds me of a Dirks Bentley song...it's called "What was I thinking???"
Diva
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Trish,
What you are going through is perfectly normal when it comes to purging all aspects of a toxic relationship. Now that you are out of the "eye of the tornado", you will find yourself periodically sucked into the strong peripheral winds until they finally pass. Similar to that "bubble" we refer to on here.
You saw what you wanted to see while with this man, even though my guess is that many times your gut told you his behavior was anything but chivalrous at times. Now you are facing the aftermath of yours and his actions instead of rationalizing them away. It's a good thing. You are seeing the whole picture instead of excluding the ugly parts that were there all along.
You are at the beginning of the cleansing process,
Diva yes, it was your post :-) That got me thinking immediately about how unchivalrous my xOM really was.. and how I had overlooked it all. Your xOM seems very similar to mine. Mine was totally clueless to how a woman should be treated as well as totally indifferent to her feelings and requests, few as they were.
Id thanks for your post,yes your guess is so right, I used to think often during the relationship that his behaviour was totally unchivalrous, but overlooked it, trying to think of and keep at the surface his few good points, which now I cannot even count on the fingers of one hand...
Keep smiling
Trish
Well Trish my XOM had a ton of manners. Always opened the door for me, was a real gentleman etc...but big deal. He was still the devil in disguise. His manners and charm are part of his way of sucking in women.
He had manners but that didnt' stop him from being a complete idiot at times and being what I now know to be abuse. Actually at the time I knew it was abuse and I made it very clear to him that he was abusive. I always brought up things from the past, even when he told me that he was sorry a thousand times and tried so hard to make it up to me. I feel a little guilty now for being so hard on him. I was so very hurt though, and couldn't see past my pain to give him the chance that he so desperately wanted to prove that he was a good man and worthy of me giving up my family for.
The fact that your XOM could be such a putz says alot about him as a person and you should be so GLAD that you have this man out of your life! It is amazing what a woman would put up with. Let me guess, he didn't give you cab money either.
Trish you do what you need to do to get past this...and if that means remembering that this man had NO manners then so be it.
Jazzdiva
Well said Newsgal. In a marriage there are going to be hurtful things done and said. It is part of the picture that we don't see or want to believe when we have the veil on and we're all starry eyed and stupid. That doesn't mean that we should get divorced or have affairs.
My H is a complete oaf and I hate his guts, but I'm the exception to the rule here. I think there are many women here with good Husbands and good marriages yet they long for the passion and the attention and all the stuff that goes down the crapper as the years go by and you start becoming a "real" married couple.
Good book to read "Surrendering to Marriage" talks all about that and I highly recommend it. As I said, my situation is different because my husband is mentally ill and abusive, but there are many women with good marriages, even to men with no manners..LOL
Jazzdiva
Undone...
My husband is my second marriage (on paper, at least). The first one, I don't even like to call it a marriage, was a nightmare. He was as you describe your husband: mentally ill and abusive.
Listen, if he is abusing you (and the verbal/emotional/mental abuse is just as hurtful as slaps, pushes, kicks and punches) GET OUT. Doesn't matter what he offers you and your children. Unless he is willing to get counseling and make a REAL change, there is nothing that is worth the sacrifice of your own well being. It took me over two years to realize that things were not going to get any better and that there is no shame in dumping his a$&. He got progressively worse, to the point that I was beginning to fear for my life. I was very young (21) and this guy was a baseball coach (I have lived an interesting life, I suppose), and I thought no one would ever believe this side of him. Actually, I have never talked about this publicly and only my husband, xOM, my minister and two friends know about this (one of the friends was staying with us one night when he threw me against a wall). My parents suspect, but I have never told them everything that happened. I loved the life that came with him. The traveling, the excitement of being around a baseball team, the perks that came with him, that part was hard to give up. He treated me like an object, a slave, even, to wait on him hand and foot, do his laundry. I was not to have friends or contact my family (he would go into a screaming rage). He constantly belittled me and complained that I was a stupid little girl who couldn't do anything right. He had many, many affairs, from about two months after we were "legally joined" right up to the end. I remember the last one driving up to the house in the off-season (the only time we lived together the last year) and him running outside to talk to her. I heard shouting and crying and went outside, and she was standing in the driveway bawling. I asked what was going on, and he screamed, "None of your d--- business!" I ran upstairs, grabbed his clothes and some of his valuable baseball memorabilia, and threw them out the second-story window onto the yard near where they were standing. That provoked him to beat the crap out of me that night and leave. But it was the last time I had to see him until the day we had to meet with our attorneys to sign off on the division of property.
Sorry for writing so much...way too long for a post. But I just want to tell you, just as having an affair is a waste of a good life, so is living in an abusive marriage. I cannot get those years back. And I am still dealing with the effects of it. In fact, I think it has much to do with why I chose my husband (he was not very emotional, almost detatched, not like my fiery first X (I don't want to call him ex-husband because he was never a real husband to me). But over time I came to realize that I did want some fire and passion...but in healthy doses. I think that's what led to the A.
Anyway, sorry for dumping everything here. It's amazing how we spill our guts here, or I do, anyway.
Just don't make the mistake I did and wait for it to to get to the point where you are almost destroyed.
Undone, what Newsgal says here is correct.
Though this entire board is all about the A and ending it, I would agree with her in that, if your husband is treating you abusively, nothing can compensate for it. A woman does not deserve that, nor does she have to put up with it becaues the man is absolutely fantastic in other ways.
Trish
Trish, I appreciate what you and newsgal are telling me but I have made the decision to stay for now and it really is okay. I am not being abused physically, the abuse is more emotional...not even verbal. Just passive aggressive behavior and emotional distance. I have been to a counselor and we decided together that is okay for me to stay as long as I don't deteriorate or allow myself to be affected by it. I have good days, I have bad days, but I'm okay...really.
I won't be living like this for the rest of my life , but right now I am for the sake of my children. I come from a very traditional family, and a divorce is not even fathomable. AT one point I was ready to do it, but that was more so I could marry XOM than any other reason.
Boy, am I a screwed up individual, huh? I envy all these women that have these wonderful husbands to go back to after their A. I'm going back to being alone, and that just makes the whole thing worse.
I am having a really bad day. I am PMS and depressed and feeling weak. I want to call XOM to wish him a Merry Christmas. Times like this I am so ready to break NC. To make matters worse I called last night thinking I"d get his voice mail and he answered! Gee, thats funny, when I really needed to talk to him I'd always get his voice mail or his phone was shut off. NOw he answers because he's just waiting for me to break NC. I feel like a jerk for calling, he probably figures it was me. Why the hell did I do that? I'm losing it girls....I really am. I'm going to screw up NC again, I just know it. I wish I was on meds right now. I am in alot of pain and starting to think about ending my life.
Jazzdiva
Jazzdiva
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