Help, Wife, Ex-Boyfriends, Facebook, and Cancer

[yesult]

course she isn't going to like my advice...she is behaving similarly to your wife.
She isn't going to ever agree. LOL She likes being the center of attention that she received while being sick. Told ya it was addictive.

I see John. So if you ever got cancer or any life threatening illness, any selfishness on your part is clearly a norm. And afterwards, once you've recovered, the same, simply because it's 'addicting'.

Interestingly enough, not everyone is like that.

You comments are idiotic.  No one likes being sick, and certainly no one likes having cancer.  Your comments are way off-base, offensive to the max.  May you learn empathy and compassion before it strikes you or your wife.

Agree.

To the OP - your wife shouldn't be bringing up old boyfriends and rubbing them in your face. If it was me, I'd be concerned as well. Friends I understand - but old boyfriends? Particularly ones that you suspect she's been intimate with.

Can you give her an ultimatum in some other area of your life that will hurt her? If one spouse is acting unreasonably and the other doesn't respond by force at times (and I don't mean violence, or revenge, but just doing something that puts the spouse out and that they can't ignore, like refusing to talk to them at ALL or something until they wake up to their behaviour.) Taking necessary action can save a relationship at times and is called for. For example a woman moving out of home the first or second time a husband hits her and refusing to come back until he says more then just sorry. Counselling, accountability group, public humiliation through telling family and friends, whatever. Words can be cheap at times and sometimes stronger action is needed to nip something in the bud before it spirals out of control.

Refusing to talk or do anything for her unless she goes to counselling could help. To say that you've been feeling as if you 'don't care anymore' is a serious situation to be in.

prayers are with you


PS. Also when someone faces a life threatening situation (as I have as well), stress can compound because of everything you're dealing with, and you can do things without thinking. Blame, fret, stress. The potential of dying is not a fun one for most people, particularly people who are still young. The physiological impacts can be huge. If you're ever read Lance Armstrong books about his fight with cancer, you'll notice that the cancer trust he set up afterwards was primarily for cancer survivors. Why survivors? Because people who haven't been through something like that have no idea how devastating a life threatening illness can be to your psyche. Nor what it can take to pick up the pieces and get yourself back to living a normal life again.

People who haven't been there can assume that once you get the all clear you can just go back to being a normal person, but that isn't reality for many people. For a survivor, suddenly they have to live with the reality that they arn't immortal, could lose it all again 'like that' and can be feeling like they're living on borrowed time. All that they worked for could be swept away in another illness. To try to get 'back into it' can seem in some odd sort of way as almost fruitless. Like why put all that in to what you could lose?

For myself, God showed me that I had a 'borrowed time' mentality about a year ago and healed me of it, after almost dying from pneumonia 12 years ago. I'd been completely unaware of it yet living with a different worldview ever since. It wasn't that I didn't care, but just couldn't 'relax' in life again the same way so to speak. Which can be an easy thing to blame someone for as being 'illogical' but unless you've been there you can't judge or really understand. A near miss accident is in a different category to surviving a life threatening illness.

Also when someone feels like they could possibly die, they can reach out for love in many different directions to not only give themselves more strength and will to fight, but to encourage themselves. To remind themselves that they have worth and are loved and have been loved. That life is worth living and there are many things to prove it.

Being insensitive regarding old boyfriends is still over the line though. However try to put yourself in her shoes more before you write her off as cheating, or moving towards it.
Your wife might have just gotten frantic and was feeling unloved or less loved and now that she's gotten over it she's still feeling shaken and unsure. That can make you less sensitive or rational. Basically love her, show her she's wrong, but don't dump her for something she hasn't done yet (and might not even be purposely guilty of.)

[Mac]

Agree with you Mac, she is acting very badly, and by the way, welcome back, I have missed your posts.

Had to deal with a death in the family. I have been posting from time to time on the politics forum as well.

Thanks though.

[chosenone]

Agree with you Mac, she is acting very badly, and by the way, welcome back, I have missed your posts.

Had to deal with a death in the family. I have been posting from time to time on the politics forum as well.

Thanks though.

 Ok Mac sorry abut the death in your family, and I dont go to the politics forum so thats why I hadnt read any of your posts.
God Bless

[JohnDB]

course she isn't going to like my advice...she is behaving similarly to your wife.
She isn't going to ever agree. LOL She likes being the center of attention that she received while being sick. Told ya it was addictive.

I see John. So if you ever got cancer or any life threatening illness, any selfishness on your part is clearly a norm. And afterwards, once you've recovered, the same, simply because it's 'addicting'.

Interestingly enough, not everyone is like that.

You are correct...not everyone is like that...there are exceptions. But this is generally speaking the rule of thumb. And it isn't selfishness..it is self centeredness...one can lead to the other but not always. I apologize for any misunderstanding there.

No one wants to be sick. No one wants to see their spouse sick. But there are many many cases of where one spouse is suffering from a life threatening disease like cancer or heart trouble and the other spouse goes into overdrive to compensate and nurture the ill spouse back to health...only for the once ill spouse to leave the nurturing spouse once they are well.

It is the classic, real world story and not a romance novel derived from fiction.

We have within each and every single one of us a sinful nature. It takes a lot to break that habit and none of us ever really succeeds in that. When a lot of care is bestowed on most people they become accustomed to it really easily...and then addicted...much like people can and will get addicted to narcotics or alcohol...but since this isn't a chemical we do not recognize it as an addiction.

Breaking the chains of this sort of addiction requires the addict to be handled in a different manner. yes, the facing of personal death is a shock to some and has some influence in these situations. But the driving force is the self centeredness that is derived from needing so much care. A sick person can't do what a well person can and so they revert to some kind of behavior that they had as a child...when their parents/caregiver did so much for them.

When they are well once again that desire for the attention grows while the nurturing spouse actually exhausted and "running on fumes" finally takes a much needed rest from giving so much care that they kinda let things go on auto pilot...and don't give the attention level that they really should....simply because they are exhausted and spent from doing so for so long. And that is when the crisis mode begins to rear it's ugly head once again.

I don't know of many who have come out of a life threatening illness and been exactly the same afterwards. The sort of things that a person faces during these trials are on many fronts and can play havoc with a person's attitudes tremendously. Getting them to snap back into the person they once were is impossible...but a really close proximity is possible. It takes leadership in the right directions. And that is what I was trying to simply state to the OP.

and then the rest of you about had a coniption fit...

This isn't a gender issue...it is a human nature issue. pure and simple.

[lightshineon]

 Think no matter the eternal issues, they just do not matter or excuse. She is wrong, I am a woman, and you know, somethings are just black and white. Boundaries are just fine, if you do not want some form of accountibility, stay single.

[yesult]

course she isn't going to like my advice...she is behaving similarly to your wife.
She isn't going to ever agree. LOL She likes being the center of attention that she received while being sick. Told ya it was addictive.

I see John. So if you ever got cancer or any life threatening illness, any selfishness on your part is clearly a norm. And afterwards, once you've recovered, the same, simply because it's 'addicting'.

Interestingly enough, not everyone is like that.

You are correct...not everyone is like that...there are exceptions. But this is generally speaking the rule of thumb. And it isn't selfishness..it is self centeredness...one can lead to the other but not always. I apologize for any misunderstanding there.

No one wants to be sick. No one wants to see their spouse sick. But there are many many cases of where one spouse is suffering from a life threatening disease like cancer or heart trouble and the other spouse goes into overdrive to compensate and nurture the ill spouse back to health...only for the once ill spouse to leave the nurturing spouse once they are well.

It is the classic, real world story and not a romance novel derived from fiction.

You've been implying it in this womans case as an absolute. And you may think that this is a rule of thumb, which is self-explanatory as far as I'm concerned.

Breaking the chains of this sort of addiction requires the addict to be handled in a different manner. yes, the facing of personal death is a shock to some and has some influence in these situations. But the driving force is the self centeredness that is derived from needing so much care. A sick person can't do what a well person can and so they revert to some kind of behavior that they had as a child...when their parents/caregiver did so much for them.

When they are well once again that desire for the attention grows while the nurturing spouse actually exhausted and "running on fumes" finally takes a much needed rest from giving so much care that they kinda let things go on auto pilot...and don't give the attention level that they really should....simply because they are exhausted and spent from doing so for so long. And that is when the crisis mode begins to rear it's ugly head once again.

I don't know of many who have come out of a life threatening illness and been exactly the same afterwards. The sort of things that a person faces during these trials are on many fronts and can play havoc with a person's attitudes tremendously. Getting them to snap back into the person they once were is impossible...but a really close proximity is possible. It takes leadership in the right directions. And that is what I was trying to simply state to the OP.


This isn't a gender issue...it is a human nature issue. pure and simple.

So no this is a selfishness and cluelessness issue on your part. As Phoebe stated, it'd probably be a good idea to repent before you end up facing a life threatening illness yourself and having to deal with the reality of your own callous, judgmental attitudes/

Your posts are insulting and belittling and obviously something you genuinely know little about.

[JohnDB]

Hummmm

I think someone is grumpy this moring.

[yesult]

 No, you just made insulting insinuations about a subject you obviously know little about.