[superdog]

Hiya,

I'm sure a lot of people have heard this one and I am keen to know how you all responded to it. ( makes me mad btw).


My h says to me "it must be great to have the moral high ground and how i am self righteous". This is normally after anything is said regarding our family etc.

Now if we have the moral high ground, did they not give it to us? If you never profess to being perfect how can we be self righteous?

How to you respond to such remarks and why do they continue to say this?

SD
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[limitless]

Hi Super,

I thought I would send you are reply....as I have been thinking about your question quite a bit today.

My h says to me "it must be great to have the moral high ground and how i am self righteous". This is normally after anything is said regarding our family etc.

Now if we have the moral high ground, did they not give it to us?

This statement from your H says more about how he is feeling about himself vs. what he thinks/feels about you and the family.

Either you are projecting an air of moral high ground in your dealings with him, or he is perceiving such an air - whether it is there, or not.

Did they give us moral high ground?  I guess the answer for most of us LBS is YES...as the MLCers abandon us (either emotionally, physically, or both) - usually for another person.  If we continue to live an honest life.....I guess we get to have the moral high ground?!!??  I can tell you, having the moral high ground doesn't keep me from being lonely.....or sad....or having a feeling of loss.  In fact, the moral high ground hasn't done much for me......not much at all.

When you read the Unconditionals....and learn about detaching with love....I think that there is no place for a moral high ground, on our part.  (That isn't to say that I don't feel that way sometimes...because I do).

I'm not saying that you are acting or speaking in a way to make your H think you feel superior to him.  Even if you aren't....he may still perceive that you are.  After all.  He is the one who left, had an affair.........etc.  And, you did....nothing.  And here you are....after all this time, open to a possible relationship with him.  How does that make him feel?  Probably very unworthy. 

This is something that he needs to work through.  The comment that he has made to you - is sort of like an indignant child - who has misbehaved.....and doesn't want to even acknowledge that he did something wrong.  How dare his parent say that he has lost some privileges?  He is NOT bad!  Why can't they just let it go?  Why can't it just be swept under the carpet and forgotten?  He is a bit angry with you...as he has misbehaved and you know about it!  It would be so much easier if you didn't know and he didn't have to face the responsibilities of his actions!

He has not yet reached a level of humility...a level that he must reach in order to make the next step.  Leave him to figure it out.

How to you respond to such remarks and why do they continue to say this?

That is a tough one.  To deny it....would be to deny how he feels.  To acknowledge it, would be to agree with him that you are carrying an air of moral high ground.

How about  - "Nobody is perfect, H.  Everyone makes mistakes.  We are all human, after all."

L

[Anjae]

How about  - "Nobody is perfect, H.  Everyone makes mistakes.  We are all human, after all."

Love and second this.

We do end up with the moral high ground but like Limitless said it does not makes us feel less lonely, sad or without the feeling of loss. If anything it feels like an hollow "victory". And I think it ends up scaring the MLCer. Not that there is anything that can be done about it.
The MLCer is the one who left, abandon, got someone else.

[Ready2Transform]

I love it too.  There has to be some neutral starting point, and I think this creates it.  There's no blame that can swing either direction from here, and it isn't an empty platitude. 

[leftylulu]

I've been contemplating this question all day. While I have never heard that from mine and I don't think he would say that if he really knew me but I can relate it to a baiting remark. I have found I neither have to react or respond when I find someone trying to bait me. I am getting ready to change careers and it's happened twice where I've had customers try to pull my chain so to speak. I had one customer tell me he replaced me with this amazing person and he thought I would react in a negative way. Instead I told him I was happy he found someone to replace me because it put my mind at ease because I didn't want to leave him hanging. The other one said she was going to let me go looking to see if I was going to flinch and change my mind. To her I didn't say a word. I find them trying to bully me which in my past life I was extremely attracted to bullies. I would have normallly reacted but I find it no longer serves a purpose.

I am, I guess, fortunate to have a vanisher because I don't have to deal with the antics of the MLCer.

[JD]

 "it must be great to have the moral high ground and how i am self righteous".
Response:
" I'm sorry you  feel that way about me and have that perspective.  Seems to me you've set yourself in a one down position.  The reality is I'm doing what's best for me and the kids."

[superdog]

Thanks for your responses, they all make a lot of sense.

I know that this statement from him is a not about how i am being or what i am saying it's about how he now feels. Which given he says nothing happened with him and OW (which i don't believe) then why feel so morally inferior?

I have ignored his comments so far, but i am tempted the next time to say something along the lines of " i am sorry that you find yourself in the position of having felt the need to take what you yourself clearly percieve to be the moral low ground. Only you could have put yourself there in the choices you made. It seems to me that you are the one with the big hang up here and i guess it's up to you to sort that one out ".

Indeed i am not perfect, but i will also be taking no responsibility for how he feels about what he has done. I have said a bunch of times i am not perfect, but neither am i a cheat a liar and i did not abandon my kids. So i have absolutely nothing to apologise for there.

To me this statement is a lame attempt to put me down in order to make himself feel better.  How clever of him to find something wrong even when i am doing the right things. Well he aint clever enough i reckon !

What d'you think?

SD
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[JD]

To me this statement is a lame attempt to put me down in order to make himself feel better

Could be...alternatively it could be a way to convince himself he's utter dog excreta on your shoe and you're better off without him.

Not your problem either way.  He needs a reality check.  He is a person of worth and value with or without you, but his actions stink.  That in my opinion is the substance of the message you want to relay.

[FindingJoJo]

I found that when my husband says something similar I started to first ignore it as baiting but then I wondered maybe I am doing something that gives him that perception.  Yes they did run off but for me anyway there were many things that I did that I didn't realize how they affected my husband.  So the responses are more along the line of "I am sorry you feel that way, could you let me know what made you feel that and I will work on it.  I don't feel that way but also don't want you to feel like I do."  Sometimes I hear things I don't like but some of what is in it I see where something I did affected him and I work on what I can fix and filter his words.  He does have feelings and needs validation, even if we think they are sick and don't know what they are talking about.  Their feelings are real. 

[superdog]

Many times throughout the first stages of replay when i was getting monster regularly, he would call me Mrs good two shoes and say stuff like i wouldn't do that incase it made me look bad or would get me into trouble etc and would snear. This was major projection because that's actually how HE has been and in crisis mode he wanted to rebel. I'm more of a "so what" type. I have always rebelled only in a less in your face way.

I put two and two together when he said he liked that his "friend" was a non-conformist. That;s who my h would love to be but hasn't got the guts to be. His conflict is that he would love to throw caution to the wind and not care what others think, but he SOOOOOOOO does and restricts himself because of it.  I have caught him copying my behaviour recently. It was actually quite sad if I'm honest.  I'm not a non-conformist in the unclassy way his friend is, but i do not care overly about what others think of what i do.  I think that he admired her attitude, but not her lifestyle, it was a step too far for him. Thats what i believe he learnt from her and from how he felt when he realised other people did not like him that much anymore becuase of it. I remember him saying something he didn't mean to and that was he made friends with someone no one else liked.

So this moral high ground thing is all connected. He enjoyed that position not just with me but with his peers and he doesn't have it anymore and he has placed himself amongst what he previously hated in others. I personally think that he is saying this because he craves it back.

I have values i stick to and i have nothing to change there. My behaviour is consistent with those and always has been. He now hates that he has gone against his own. If the shoe were on the other foot he would not firgive or forget and he assumes that i think the way he does. I only ever refer to me when i am talking about values etc, i am not judgemntal of him that i am aware of. He does enough of that for himself. I don't need to.

It worries me though that he is still projecting at this late stage in the game. But i guess it's down to him not taking responsibility yet.

I'll see if he goes there again on this one.

SD
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