Bruce - Mindy's husband

[Chrysallis]

Good morning

I thought of another insident

Mindy felt unsafe because i have been putting pressure on her and one time it wasb to be reconciled . when i do that it brings up feelings of the past of when i did not get my way and i would ,get angry, hit her, pinch her cuss her , minipulate her all gto get my way . Of course she would be frietened when i still try to control her.

 

another thing was telling my daughter to bring her family over for pizza on the deck . Another form of minipulation to make Mindy feel bad and if everone writes me off as a failure that is okay because that is what i deserve .

 

Do men actually believe that hitting pinching cussing and manipulating will earn them love rather than disdain? If someone did that to you would you love that person or would you want to annihilate that person? How can you expect Mindy to love you when you have behaved like her enemy instead of the person who protects her and makes her feel safe? Why make her feel bad? Your assignment is to make her feel safe relaxed and loved FIRST, then and only then will she be able to love you back. Have you ever watched Beauty and the Beast? It has the same message. Your roaring and hurting her IS NOT going to get you what you want.

[Kay]

Let's get back to the day, less than a month ago, when you barged into Mindy's safe place - her home (and it is only safe because YOU are not living in this house) and you DEMANDED SEX IMMEDIATELY! It was only AFTER seeing the affect that your control had over her, that you were satisfied, and then, you laughed it off and walked back out the door, calling it "just a joke".

 

Come on, Bruce, admit it! You love the feeling of POWER you get from seeing your wife in fear of you! You can then tell yourself that you are stil in control, and this control makes you feel like a REAL MAN! No woman is ever going to control YOU, no matter what anyone says!

 

THIS is how your mind still works,Bruce, or you wouldn't still be doing these things!

 

THIS is TRUTH, BRUCE!! and, GOD will NOT be MOCKED!

Edited July 15, 2011 by Kay

[Bruce]

Not a good morning . How could it be a good morning when Mindy is hurting and sick and all because of me and my actions , still trying to control and menipulate her . still wanting to do thjings my way and yes still angry and resentful . Maybe im angry and resentful because all these peaple are putting pressure on me to change and i am way to comfortable how i am . So thank you Lord for bringing this pressure on thgrough your servants. So no, it is not a very good morning .And yes Mindy of course percieved i was asking for sex . I may have decieved myself , but to mindy it was real and it seemed controling . Im sure it was scary because look how i have tried to control all these years to get what i want . and when i did not get what i wanted ,i became mean and abusive and nasty, very mind boggling actually .

Even i would not hang out with someone who treated me like that . Who would? Really it is all my fault and can blame no one else at all. It really is up to me . how could it be any other way ? I simply have to take the responsibility of it. Least of all would i blame Mindy after the terrible ways i have treated her and still do . June pointed ut that i seem to do good for others ,but not my wife . I can see that . To do good for others and still be selfish to Mindy . I should won,t to bless her more than anyone else . Thanks for all the help for helping me see some of these things , Please don,t give up allthough i would not blame you , i stilldesperatly need a clearer understanding of how my thinking is so screwed up.

Good question kay .Do i love the feeling of power? If you say it then i will believe it . It makes since even if it is hard to admit it . Thank you for pointing it out . I need to replace that power with gentleness goodness and mercy . Lord help me and please have mercy on my soul . I need it .

[Bruce]

DO men actually blieve they will get what they want by being mean. I don,t think so . We are just so decieved we actually think our wife is the problem . Now how could we be so blind . When i think of some of the things i have done it is unbelievable ,but yet i think my wife should love me . How dumb can that be ?we just are so blind to the truth and even think someone else is wrong and we are not . I have not watched beauty and the beast . I have simply been a terrible husband , making life all abouit me . I was allways ruining the family trips by controlling them and doing what i wanted, i neglected our children and disiplined them in anger ,i refused to help Mindy in the housework because i thought my own time was to valuable, even when i worked on remodle projects it had to be when i wanted and how i wanted with no concern for her clean house , let her deal with the mess . Just in case anyone thought i was a saint you can see i was far from it . Alol of gthese things and more just slowely beat Mindy down and destroyed her spirit. it must have made her feel hopeless,mistreated and uncared for. I was very insinsitive to her needs and her heart.I did not value her opinions which had to make her feel like she was not listened to or cherished . I am sorry that any one should have to live like that and yet i made my own flesh and lovely wife do it . All i can say is Lord have mercy on my soul , it is my only hope. Actually i woulod not blame mindy if she moved to alaska in hopes of never seeing me again .

[Kay]

And yes Mindy of course percieved i was asking for sex

 

Bruce, I can assure you that Mindy does not perceive you as "asking" for sex! She says that you "demanded" sex. There is a huge difference between the two. So either YOU are lying, or Mindy is lying!

 

Which is it? And, Mindy did not feel that you were "being a little pushy", when you "asked" for sex, either. She said that you DEMANDED SEX NOW!

 

So, when you twist the truth, it shows us where your heart is - basically, still making it out that your wife is a liar and you the victim.

 

God = Love, but God is also "Truth" Whey you speak truth in love, you are a man of God's own heart!

 

We are all still waiting for "TRUTH"

 

Kay

Edited July 18, 2011 by Kay

[J_W]

what other boundaries are you violating??

[Bruce]

Thank you for pointing out the truth. I want to believe Mindy from now on and if she says i demanded sex then i demanded sex . I said i want sex and that sounds like demanding to me . Actually i could have even said give me sex .I have been cruel and demanding what i want all my life and of course walking all over Mindy to get what i want . There is no end to the heartache aqnd tormoil i have brought to you to the point of destroying you.

I am so sorry for demanding sex causing you no doubt to feelscared and shamed and taken advantage of . I am sure you were very frightened thinking i would force my way on you . I am even sure it felt like i was . It was so selfish and uncaring and thinking of my self and not you .

I want to be more understanding of what is going on in your heart and your feelings . I am going to work on change here . You deserve better .

Bruce

[Kay]

I said i want sex and that sounds like demanding to me . Actually i could have even said give me sex

 

Okay, good! Now, we are getting somewhere. So, why then, did you tell us a few days ago that you "asked for sex"? Do you see why saying this on your string, would hurt Mindy?

 

Do you see that when you minimize the truth, or downplay it like it wasn't a big deal, how it pushes your wife to want nothing to do with you?

 

Your wife responds to YOU, Bruce! You initiate and she responds. Come on, you KNOW this stuff!

 

Look at where you are at right now? Heck, you can't even go on the deck anymore, even by yourself! You pushed her back away again, by you caring about YOU!

 

So, let us get this turned around! Yes?

 

June asked you to post what other boundaries you pushed? Can you think about some things you might have done to hurt Mindy, just this past weekend? I know of 2 incidents. I could easily tell you what they are, but, I want YOU to talk about it. If you don't know what you did, then that brings a lot of fear to Mindy. It would show her that you aren't putting her feelings first.

 

Her heart must always be thought about before decisions are made by you. Make sense?

Edited July 19, 2011 by Kay

[Bruce]

Going to have to think on two things i did to hurt her over the weekend Kay .

The only thing that comes to mind on short order could be when i went out to the garden to help pull the hose and hoe the weeds . I did not want her to have to do it on her own . what could seem like blessing my wife could actually be more about me if i did it for my benifit instead of hers .

[Bruce]

Thank you Kay for helping me see where i am doing wrong.

[Kay]

Keep thinking about the 2 incidents that bothered your wife.

 

Also, please answer this question....

 

So, why then, did you tell us a few days ago that you "asked for sex"?

(instead of admitting that you said, "Give me sex NOW!" Surely, you know the difference between asking your wife, and demanding.... I'm curious as to why you chose to minimize the truth? Edited July 19, 2011 by Kay

[Pure in Heart]

next job is to describe how that beautiful 18 year old woman , so full of joy and excitement , offered her hand in marriage to you. she offered her body and soul and heart to a man on her wedding day she thought would love, protect, and care for her the rest of her life. Bruce, try to describe her emotional journey from trusting the promises you made her in courtship , to the shock of your first betrayals , through the methodical taking of her control over her own life . from dating to wedding to children . from the thrill of great hope to shock and horror to the breaking of her heart : try to describe her emotional journey . once you are able to connect with her emotions in a real way , it will make room for the birth of compassion in your heart .

[For Him For Her]

Bruce,

 

Let's stop all dilly dallying around and cut to the chase. You have been here for a very long time. You have heard every single thing said here a minimum of ten times. You know what to do. You can not look anyone truefully in the eyes and say you don't. The issue boils down to one simple choice. Do you want Mindy as your wife? Yes or no?

 

If you did want Mindy as your wife, you would change. Notice I didn't say "willing to change". Willing to change is a not a commitment. A commitment would say " I will change". You have chosen not to change and love Mindy as Christ loved the church. In my eyes, you do not want her as your wife. There is no evidence that you can provide that will prove otherwise. You are going to lose her if you do not change. Period. The cold hard truth.

 

When you stand before God on that faithful day, will you be able to look Him in the eyes and say, "I did everything humanly possible to heal her heart Lord"? At this stage of the game, the answer is a resounding NO. How can you take the gift of His son and all He had to endure and not give your everything? Personally, I would not want to see that kind of disappointment in His eyes.

 

God Bless

David

Edited July 19, 2011 by For Him For Her

[Bruce]

Still thinking about boundaries that i pushed over the weekend

When i was helping in the garden i did say a couple things . That was wrong to open my mouth and ask if i could help . I won,t do that again . I probably should have not went out to the garden . I will have to believe if she needs my help she will ask . That did not help heal her heart which is what i will be committed to. I cdon,t know what else . Please help me out kay, I set in a lawn chair in the yard ? I did get her some food? I am awfully sorry . I thought i was doing the right thing , but somewhere along the way i was self focused otherwise mindy would not say i was pushing the boudaries. By the way i got her some flowers and it is apossibility thatb she said not to get her anything , I simply can,t say on that and if she did i was wrong for not listening better .

 

So the question being why did you say you ask her for sex . Truthfully i don,t think things out as well as i should ,i don,t believe that i meditated on it and thought i would make it look better for myself , but then i have had areal problem with dicieving my mind so i also have to realize ther is a possibility. if if you come back and say i did then i will believe it as truth .ANd you are right about one thing . I do know that i did not say , could we have sex please .

 

I have made life so much about myself that even dating was about me and my feelings with no consideration for mindys feelings or at least very little .I know that i was always trying to force my way on my wife even then and defrauding her . She always had to protect herself and i was not her protecter like i should have been .Surely she felt like her own desires were rejected. I am sure it made nher feel ashamed and bad and dirty. It must have caused confusion in her life even then . Awhile back i was at a young persons gathering and they had six young ladys who were getting married come up front . I just had to tell Lowell and Sara how i took a precious young girl like that and destroyed , which is what i did . mindy was a very precious young girl and she still is , but i took her life away from her .

[Bruce]

Good morning

Now i see says the blind man. Of course she did not want me in the garden with her for i have proven by my actions that i can not be trusted to respect her boundaries . Furthermore if she wanted my help she would ask for it .

So what was going on there . As i look at it . As i seen her out ther lugging the garden hose i thought she needs my help , but more than likely it was all about me because deep down in i had a need to be needed by my wife , so instead of staying away i decided to get my need met again . I think i decieve my mind or as they say in anger management that i bs my mind into beliving something that is not true .

 

You are saying i did not respect your boundaries again and just bring you more hurt and fear . I am not laying my life down like Christ did for me and supply your need to be loved in the way you need loved .

I broke the boundaries you set and caused you possibly to feelthat i was very insinsitive to your needs,pressured and disrespected again . I am very sorry for causing all this grife . I will be responsible for my own actions . It was very wrong and selfish of me to come to the garden . It must have frieghtened you . I will not do it again because i want the best for you and healing for your heart.

I am committed to you forever and will spend the rest of my days makingf up to you.

[Pure in Heart]

Bruce,

 

Very good acknowledgement. You are getting better at seeing her boundaries and apologizing. Keep up the good work.

 

Joshua

[Bruce]

Eph 4:28

Let him that stole steal no more; but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.

O Lord i have stolen so much from your precious daughter who you entrusted me with.

 

I even stole her very view of femeninity. The very precious thing you give to me . When Mindy married me i know she trusted me to help fulfill her dreams . I sttole her need to be emotionally , spiriatully and physically loved and cared for . I stole her peace and joy and safety. O God such a terrible theft and no person should have to have all that stolen from them .I stole her worth , her happiness. I stole her security and her very love for life itself. I stole her feeling of value .I made her feel like life was not even worth living any more All the things my wife needed i took from her so Lord help me to work hard that i might have something to give Mindy . Even though i can,t retun everything i stole i will spend the rest of my days making up for the loss .

[Bruce]

My wife mindy of course had great hopes and excitement for life and love and finding a man that would care about her and i destroyed it all. As i said earlier it started in dating with me wanting her for her body more than for who she was and i started chiseling away at her I nreally thought we wou;ld be happy , but of course it was about her making me happy . Even one time when she did not want to date for awhile i managed to get my way and talked her into dating again . When i was gone from her i would need to be back with her in order to get my needs met again . Of course life was all about me because i was so self centered . Then we were going to get married and again i could not wait to have someone love me . Mindy was a very good wife . She wanted to please me and she did all the right things , but in my selfishness it was never enough . I always wanted more . That is the way of it when i was looking to getv my needs met in all the wrong ways and through the wrong peaple . God is the one to supply our needs and then as we get life from Jesus then we have some life to give to our wife . I did it all wrong and just crushed mindys spirit down to nothing .I some how in my screwed up thinking which does not justify me in any way thought that a person got loved through sex . I can see how bisare that was . I just wanted sex constantely espesially when i did not feel loved which was about all the time and yet i had such a loving careing wife . I am sure of that she is a good women . One of the best. I can remember coming home from work at noon and demandind sex . How wierd and screwed up that was . The worst thing about it all was what i was slowly destroying in Mindys heart .Ther was absalutely nothing wrong with mindy , but i would blame her and verbally abuse her when i did not get what i wanted . I was estroying her self worth and minipulating her to get what i wanted . It trually is a terrible story of betrayaland humiliation and mistreatement. As years went by she had to feel more and more violated and not cherished . There come a time when i would het walls to get what i wanted and that had to put terrible fear in her heart.O Lord .Im sure she felt like she did not measure up and was not even a women because i actually told her that . i made her feel empty and exposed and like a real failure and yet i cheated her because i was the failure and the cause of all them years of pain and sorrow . Why would she want to be with me that is easy to understand .

[Pure in Heart]

Bruce,you are going in a great direction.Posting on the forum,unwrapping all the tragic historical events of the past,and learning how to identify with her pain. I commend you on these efforts. Good job. You are taking back ground the enemy has stolen from you. Make sure you put on your spiritual armor every day and be vigilant over your thought life. You are entering a battle, because you are on the cusp of real change.God is after the deep places in your heart, and this is very serious business. Seek an encounter with God,and have an honest heart before him. He will be faithful to lead you every step of the way. in Christ, Joshua

[Kay]

Hi Bruce,

 

I, too, am glad to see you at a better place.

 

I have a question for you.... If your wife would be willing to allow you to fix the sump pump, as promised, do you think you can do this without pushing the boundaries? IN other words. You would fix the pump, and still give your wife the space she needs right now. You would NOT ask her to talk with you. You would not invite her to sit in the deck. You would not look to see what she is doing. You would just fix the pump! Do you think you could do this, and are you willing?

 

Kay

[Bruce]

the tongue is a fire a world of iniquity and it has caused a lot of trouble .

Just thinking tonight how many times because i wanted my own way , i have minipulated her . or started out talking nice and then when i did not get what iwanted i would start putting pressure on, such as raising my voice, grabbing mindys arm, or telling her she was no good, giving her the look, threatening her,putting my face in hers and raising voice ,or trying to make her feel guilty. shaming her . I suppose the list could go on as to how i have hurt and abused mindy which must have made her feel lonely and stupid and unable to communicate and torn apart .

And yes i will do whatever Mindy needs . It is only the least i could do after the way i treated her , i only want her to be safe.

[Bruce]

yes i do remember a young women full of excitement and joy . She even stretched me with the things she wanted to do . From going to the zoo to a museum to ice capades to a purdue program . You name it she was full of life . I was not full of life . I was full of death. Poor poor me no one likes me . What a selfish jerk i was . Always wanting my way . Even after being mean to mindy she had life ,but i was just slowly whitling away at her untill i had her whittled down to nothing . I am sure she felt used and abused and whipped and worthless and of no value and of course hollow and impure and . Who would not i mean i raped her and humiliated her and caled her good for nothing and suffocated her and thwarted her plans and took advantage of her and stressed her to the point of causing her to be sick and made her feel like she did not measure up and dirty,dissipointed ,dissrespected ,dominated emmbarresed ,empty exposed and like a failure and very fearfull . Lord have mercy ,how could one rotten selfish man cause so much damage . it really is beyond my comprehension, yet i di all that and so much more . why Mindy is still hear is only by the grace ofd god . I can see that no punishment would be to great for me .

[Kay]

Bruce,

 

Now we are getting somewhere. Your posts are full of humility! This is what we have been after for a very long time. The deeper you dig, the easier it will be for you to see, WHY Mindy runs away from you, as soon as you start pushing the boundariess. You bring it all back to her, and she is afraid, discouraged, and sad.

 

When you get to the place where you allow HER to lead, with you following, you will start to see her coming back again. Slowly, though, very very slowly, because her fear is real. Let her do the leading, Bruce.

 

Find ways of blessing your wife, without pushing. Allow her to teach you, show you. She IS watching every step you take. She notices everything.

 

I'm very glad to see you in this place right now. I am sure it must be a little painful for you to bring up your past failures, but this is nothing compared to what Mindy is going through. Feel her pain!

 

And, the most important thing is to STAY in this place of humility. Keep letting her lead the way. Follow her!

 

Hope this helps!

Kay

Edited July 28, 2011 by Kay

[Bruce]

It is indeed painful to realize how much pain i put mindy through and i don,t want her to feel afraid ,discouraged and sad.

I have brought her way more pain than any one person should have to bare already . For years i wanted my own way and i would compare her to other women and say how she was not as good as them or somehow critisize her for not wanting to do what i did . Come on ,do i think i set the standards or something . Not hardly .I would get annoyed at her or angry at her and do so many unimaginable things . It really is unamaginable when i look at it . I litterally destroyed my precious wife for no other reson than i was so selfish.

Mindy must have felt much fear , anxiety, turmoil inside and embarrassed at me.And yet i tried to make her look like the bad guy when in her heartv she had to know that was not true . That had to be very painful and betraying to her . I am very sorry for it all allthough i know that does not do justice .

[For Him For Her]

Bruce,

 

Everyone here gets what you "did" to hurt Mindy. Mindy and everyone involved here wants to know what you are doing that is blessing her and showing her true agape love. Anything else you write here we can find over and over and over in your thread. So, please only write what you are doing and the effects on her heart and yours.

 

God Bless

David