The pace of the one who is struggling most

[Sonic]

Originally Posted by AnotherConfused

I don't really think I was at fault, NovemberRain, but my husband sure wants me to think so. Apparently he thinks I should have wanted to dance the last 15 minutes before midnight with him, and the fact that I hadn't looked around to see if he was in the room yet before I asked C to dance was a sign I really don't care about him. He seems to think the room was full of couples seeking out their sweethearts at two dances before midnight, and I was the only wife in the room who wasn't bothering to look for her husband.

I keep saying, "I can't meet your expectations if I don't know what they are," and he keeps saying, "Any reasonable person would have understood that we should be together for the 15 minutes before midnight."

Oh this sounds so familiar. I'm sorry you are struggling with the same problems

One thing that helped in my situation (at least a bit), was figuring out our different languages of love. http://www.5lovelanguages.com/learn-...ove-languages/ (I'm not promoting the book)

Sorry, I haven't read the whole topic so I don't know if this has been discussed before.

In any case, if you speak different love languages, you can do as much as ever to make your husband feel special and yet he might not, if you aren't speaking the same language.

Like, I like receiving gifts, but he couldn't care less. So I could shower him with gifts and it wouldn't help one bit. However, he likes quality time, so I can give him this and make him feel valued.

Maybe opening the discussion about this would make him realize that you are not willingly neglecting him?

[dingedheart]

Sounds like a great event ...sorry about the ending. I know nothing of the dance world, is it normal to have several floors going at once. I assume each floor had a theme or music style. Was it common for him to go to that style and you to go to where you spent the night? Or was he trying to avoid seeing you with C. Is it possible that he popped in from time to time and every time he did he saw the to of you together just out of coincidence ? I picture this like a large hotel with ball rooms across the hall from one another. Did you ever seek him out during the evening to dance with him or go check in with him? ...outside of asking him to come find you just before midnight to catch the last dance and the kiss?

The 11:45 thing sounds a lot like PMS...just emotions spilling out...Men have to learn early on these type out bursts are going to happen ...they're not going to make sense a percentage of the time. I'd look at it like that and forget it.

[AnotherConfused]

We hashed this all out for several hours yesterday. Why does love have to complicate things so much? It seems like he was living in another world that night at the dance, interpreting all sorts of things in the worst possible light, so that missing that second-to-last dance with me seemed like the final slap in his face.

For example, he determined that my smile was brighter when I danced with C than when I danced with him. I went upstairs to dance with him a few times, but instead of his usual style of dancing with me, which is close, eye to eye, and communicative, he was trying all these flashy steps and huge movements and spinning me round and round in a really packed crowd, apparently because someone had told him he was a good dancer and someone else had told him she liked his energy and someone else had told him the correct frame involved looking beyond your partner's shoulder (rather than in your wife's eyes?). So I came along and asked him not to spin so much, it was making me nauseous, and that I couldn't follow his random footwork, and some other comments along those lines, and totally offended him. He figured I like dancing with everyone else but him. (I also asked C to spin me less, when I started to get nauseous at one point with him.)

Apparently he also happened to be in the main hall for all 3 times I danced with C, which led him to the conclusion I'd been dancing with him all night. (He did know I had only danced once with him in the whole first half of the night, though, so it was still not a logical conclusion if you ask me.) He concluded from my asking C for the second-to-last dance before midnight that C and I had prearranged that so we could be together as close to midnight as possible, and he concluded from the post-dance hug (something I do with most partners, something very common in this crowd) that C and I were kissing. I have explicitly promised not to kiss C in public. When I left our argument after midnight and went to chat with other people, he concluded that I was saying bad things about him. When I went alone to get my coat and street shoes after the dance, and he later found his coat on the floor, he concluded I had dumped his coat on the floor on purpose. It just seems like I could do no right, and was guilty of all sorts of imagined wrongs.

On the plus side, he had very good things to say about the experience of L's party a couple of weeks back, in contrast. He thought that L showed a lot of integrity in his interactions with him and with me that night. We had gone to great pains to make sure we barely spoke to each other that night, and to only dance together once. I guess in the future that's what I'll need to do with C -treat him with more distance than I normally would, if my husband is present. Lesson learned.

[AnnabelMore]

So, does he at least understand that he was being irrational?

[AnotherConfused]

Originally Posted by AnnabelMore

So, does he at least understand that he was being irrational?

No. He concedes that he jumped to some wrong conclusions, but thinks he was using sound logic to reach them. And he still thinks I was very much in the wrong for not looking for him for that dance. Bottom line, I guess he doesn't feel like I want to be with him as much as he wants to be with me. And right now, I don't. But when we're not fighting I do, and I don't know how to show it any better than I have been.

[Phy]

Sorry to say this, but it sounds like the wrong person learned the wrong lesson here ... This is really a case of perseverance that goes in a completely unhealthy direction. He needs to wake up, before he is pushing you too far away with this behavior.

And you shouldn't support this development by yielding under the pressure he is putting onto you. If there is any chance for him to see what is going on here, it will be by your unwavering refusal to take the blame and make him search for more appropriate explanation for what has gone wrong. When you buckle he doesn't have a reason to waste any thought on the matter now or in the future.

I know that this is easier said than done and I am sorry that this situation is so unpleasant, but I see a certain danger of this developing into a pattern that will ruin your relationship in the long run.

[SNeacail]

At such an events, where my husband and I tend to seperate and go our own ways, I go out of my way to schedule ahead of time, regular times to check in with each other (at least once an hour). I'm the one that will get paranoid or will find a corner to brood in and feel neglected if I don't take a few minutes every so often to at least talk to my husband.

[dingedheart]

where did she buckle? ...By having that extra dance she had planned with C. I didn't think she admit wrong doing at all.

Who knows how long he watched them dance and talk together...and the looks exchanged. And then a different energy (possibly just in his mind ) occurred when they were together. Here's where you could get into obligatory actions. Or that feeling. And then the spiral starts.

Are these dance events usually set up with multi floors going at once? Did he do what he'd normally does in terms of music and style. Did you? Did you years ago split up at these things.

[nycindie]

Originally Posted by dingedheart

Are these dance events usually set up with multi floors going at once? Did he do what he'd normally does in terms of music and style. Did you? Did you years ago split up at these things.

Partner dancing is like a subculture with its own set of norms. To me, how they went about it that night sounds quite common for that activity.

[Magdlyn]

Wow. I am sorry, but all these accusations are horrible and triggering for me, because my ex used to be the same way. And we weren't poly. His low self esteem led him to all kinds of similar paranoid conclusions. Your smile was brighter? You let C spin you more? You mustve been talking about him after your argument? You must've thrown his coat on the floor???

Paranoid BS. He is projecting his worst fears of being replaced onto you, imagining you as this vindictive hyper-sexual devious monster, who must be laughing at him behind his back.

Seriously, this man seems way too strange and jealous to ever be comfortable with you AROUND other men, period, much less having any very limited sexual contact with any. Dancing itself is too much for him.

I'd say your being poly when married to him is a lost cause. No wonder you're pissed and don't want to talk to him.