The Art of Not Being Governed

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7Wannabe5
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Re: The Art of Not Being Governed

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Interesting. Makes me wonder whether SIL doesn't view your husband as being more like the Junior Man of the Family, as opposed to obedient child? Sometimes my sisters behave as though it is my job to be their big sister and NOT my job to be the wife/GF of whatever terrible man I am married to or dating. I also sometimes get another similar flavor of this from my children. Possibly related note would be that all of the men with whom I have been in significant relationship definitely erred on the side of being Master of the Art of Not Being Governed.

I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but maybe you are already more ungovernable than you know? Maybe in a charming sort of way; like a cat?

Clarice
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Re: The Art of Not Being Governed

Post by Clarice »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Fri Feb 01, 2019 1:26 pm
Makes me wonder whether SIL doesn't view your husband as being more like the Junior Man of the Family, as opposed to obedient child?
What do you mean? I don't get this one. Which family are you talking about? DH's original? Or DH's own, with me? You say that you get this behavior from your sisters. That means that you are aware of it. DH is not. He refuses to recognize the conflict he is in when his original family disrespects his current family. From my perspective, every time such a situation arises he folds and defaults to his original condition - a powerless baby boy of his first family where his mother used to lock him in a bathroom for disobedience. It was a weird bathroom. You could lock it from the outside. He never rebelled. In my view, he got a bit of a Stockholm syndrome when it comes to his mom (The Queen), dad (her husband), and sister (a princess). Phew... I am digging deep... really upset about that dress. :ugeek:

7Wannabe5
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Re: The Art of Not Being Governed

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I was talking about his family of origin. Anyways, I grok now that what you are describing is something very different. Oddly, it reminds me more of how my married polyamour acted in relationship to his wife vs. his relationship with me. Combination of clueless and passive. It's hard to respect a man who is taking his marching orders from another woman, and one thing I learned in group marital therapy (applied more to others in the group than my situation at the time) is that a woman will often confuse feelings of disrespect and disappointment with feelings of anger. Sounds terribly sexist, but there you have it.

Peanut
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Re: The Art of Not Being Governed

Post by Peanut »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Fri Feb 01, 2019 7:23 am
I am guessing $839 on the social armor. :lol:
No way, NM? I guess 3k. And hey, at least you know it wasn’t made in a sweat shop!

Big sis sounds very dysfunctional. Can you find her a boyfriend to take her focus off your husband?

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Mister Imperceptible
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Re: The Art of Not Being Governed

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

Clarice wrote:
Thu Jan 31, 2019 9:06 pm
Sometimes I forget how detonating optimism can be funnier than it is disheartening, because it can remind us how ridiculous certain kinds of optimism are.

Clarice
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Re: The Art of Not Being Governed

Post by Clarice »

@7Wannabe5:

You got "clueless and passive" right. It took me a long time to understand that. You also got my part correctly - "angry" when the appropriate reaction was sadness and disappointment. I suspected DH's malicious intent, but it was cluelessness. Now the usual sequence is as following:
SIL penetrates the boundaries of our family as if DD and I are not there -> I respond competently and put her back squarely outside the boundaries of our family while remaining sweet and polite -> I feel sadness and disappointment toward DH (It SHOULD be his job!).
This is a much better sequence than it used to be:
SIL penetrates the boundaries of our family - >I demand from DH to fix the situation -> clueless DH gets protective of SIL - > I feel rage - > We fight. I used to say that SIL is carcinogenic to our family. Not anymore. In tough moments I keep reminding myself of DH's redeeming qualities - he's got quite a few of those as well. :D
I am much better in this stuff now, but it is still stressful as evidenced by the dress incident. :lol:

@Peanut:
Big sis sounds very dysfunctional. Can you find her a boyfriend to take her focus off your husband?
That's the thing, Peanut, that's the thing. She is a highly functional individual in all other areas of life. She is also happily married. You didn't see this coming, did you? People are complex. If she was dysfunctional it would be very easy to perceive, to explain, and to respond. It took me many years of "Huh? What did she just say? She could not possibly mean it." until I was able to piece this puzzle together and respond intelligently instead of just feeling bad and demanding DH to fix the situation. But old wounds heal slowly and remain painful provoking the desire to apply a wound dressing from Neiman Marcus. :twisted:

@Augustus:
For my family I had to clearly delineate territorial boundaries.
Me too!

@Mister Imperceptible:
how ridiculous certain kinds of optimism are.
Yes! For me, it was a ridiculous thought of being able to fix DH instead of just resigning myself to the thought that we all (including him) have our blind spots.

Clarice
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Re: The Art of Not Being Governed

Post by Clarice »

I've been doing this ERE thing for more than a year now. I've identified my strengths and weaknesses. And my "gazingus pins". I've lost some focus and intensity over the last couple of months. I need to regain these qualities once I come back from Russia. I've answered my original question, "How will my fascination with ERE affect my marriage?" The answer is "positively." My journey continues.

I'll be back.

Here is my favorite English language song about Russia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38YwdDORmm8

LOVE IT. :twisted:

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fiby41
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Re: How Will My Fascination with ERE Affect My Marriage?

Post by fiby41 »

Clarice wrote:
Tue Oct 09, 2018 11:26 pm
Ha-ha, feel flattered. I'd say more like Anna Karenina than War and Peace.
It's funny to me because for some reason my mind still autocorrects mir-e-vayna ( war and peace) to miravaya vayna (world war) while reading whenever I randomly come across those phrases in Russian.

Clarice
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Re: The Art of Not Being Governed

Post by Clarice »

@fiby41:
Yeah, Russian can be tricky. 😉

Clarice
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How Will My Facination with ERE Affect My Marriage?

Post by Clarice »

A few days before our trip, DH came up to me, put his hand over my shoulder, and asked, "Remember you were talking about this Retirement Extreme thing?". I spilled my coffee on a keyboard. Didn't see this one coming! Uncharacteristically ignoring the spilled coffee, DH continued, "I signed my resignation letter in this Big Silicon Valley Corporation and going to XYZ start up full time after we come back from our Russia trip. There is a huge risk that 1 year from now this start up will be dead and I will be unemployed in the middle of a recession. I was thinking that while we definitely don't have the money to retire, we do have the money to live through my prolonged unemployment. I need your support."
OMG... Rarely, DH allows himself to be that vulnerable. Rarely, I get a chance to be a supportive wife. That was the day!
This start up thing existed in our lives on and off for 3 years. DH is listed there as one of the founding fathers, but he is a distant #2, more like an uncle. The other guy had an idea and did all the leg work, legal work, paperwork. DH implemented the idea - the rough draft, the first model, the prototype. He spent all his evenings and weekends on this projects in the Summer of 2016. The other guy quit his job and had a hard time coming up with the mortgage. DH kept his day job and didn't have a mortgage to pay. The other guy is a brilliant inventor, entusiastic, charming, scattered, and unreliable. DH is a great engineer, pessimistic, critical, focused, and dependable.
It was long, LONG, time in the making, but finally came to fruition... and DH was faced with this fork in the road.
When I started this ERE conversation he felt annoyed and bored. He liked his job. He had no interest in retirement. Why forego things today for the future you don't even want? One year ago, it was all abstract and theoretical. Now with this risk staring him in the face it suddenly became practical. In order not to flinch in the face of this risk he had to fall back on ERE strategies. Suddenly, my talk wasn't crazy anymore. We discussed some practicalities and details.
Who said that? "First they ignore you, then they lough at you, then they fight you, and then you win." I am winning!!!

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Re: The Art of Not Being Governed

Post by jacob »

Change requires vision, a plan, and dissatisfaction with the present. The pieces are coming together.

Jason

Re: The Art of Not Being Governed

Post by Jason »

I don't know. I smell long con.

prognastat
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Re: The Art of Not Being Governed

Post by prognastat »

Glad to hear you're making progress on interesting your spouse in ERE. Now that he sees how it can be valuable not only if you want to retire early, but also in the power and freedom it gives you to pursue what you want without needing to consider finances.

wolf
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Re: The Art of Not Being Governed

Post by wolf »

You know his personality type? Maybe you can give him personalized counsel or advice?

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Mister Imperceptible
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Re: The Art of Not Being Governed

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

The enemy line is weak on the left flank, order the cavalry to charge and ruthlessly exploit it! :twisted:

7Wannabe5
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Re: The Art of Not Being Governed

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

You are encouraging your husband to quit his job in order to go into business with an ENTP?!?!

Clarice
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Re: The Art of Not Being Governed

Post by Clarice »

Thank you, everybody, for your comments. Yes, our situation can be summed up as needing FU money in the face of this high risk endeavor to shield DD first of all if the bet is lost. The difference between long con and Silicon Valley business is a fine line indeed. Probably, a good con has a higher chance of succeeding than a high tech start up. 😉 I totally trust my ISTJ DH when he says that the technical idea is solid.
@7wb5:
Good observation! We know this guy for more than 20 years. He definitely has Introverted Sensing as his inferior function. He finally finished his PhD a couple of years ago encouraged by the lucid observation that people give more money for your start up if you are a Stanford PhD. In analytical psychology ENTP is called a starter type. That's why this guy wanted DH so badly - every starter needs a finisher. DH all these years moved in the opposite direction untill he got to the bottom of his stack - extraverted intuition. He got bored with large corporations - you know, filling forms for every little thing, sitting through sexual harassment prevention trainings, and endless meetings. He wants a new thing ... and who can deliver a new thing better than an ENTP? Nobody!
Last edited by Clarice on Wed Feb 20, 2019 6:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Clarice
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Re: The Art of Not Being Governed

Post by Clarice »

@Augustus:
Thank you. It's too late though. 😒 Everything is done. The ownership is not equal, but it's fair as the father-ship is not equal as well.

suomalainen
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Re: The Art of Not Being Governed

Post by suomalainen »

+1 closely held partnerships can get extremely messy. And nasty. Hope the guy wasn’t a friend...cuz he prolly won’t be at the end of this. And I hope you were more a part of this decision than how you first wrote it. Quitting the job and THEN being like “I need your support.” is kind of a shitty thing to do. At that point you’re backed into a corner, so what else can you do?

And I’m sorry, but I have to:
Augustus wrote:
Wed Feb 20, 2019 1:06 pm
The proof is in the pudding.
Rather, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Else how would you know whether the pudding was tasty?

suomalainen
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Re: The Art of Not Being Governed

Post by suomalainen »

Likely story. Citation, please! Wasn't it Hubble that first came up with it (the expanding universe, not the expanding raisin pudding)?

And that wasn't the grammar hammer (even though I do wield it from time to time - professional hazard). It's a grammatically correct, yet nonsensical, phrase. Getting idioms wrong does bother me.

The proof is in the pudding -> the proof of the pudding is in the eating
For all intensive purposes -> for all intents and purposes
One in the same -> one and the same
Case and point -> case in point

are my pet peeves. It's an annoying quirk of mine. The only one tho. :lol:

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