Is it possible to stop caring about a very emotionally charged issue?

Not right away. Only time fixes that stuff, along with lots of thinking and reflecting.

@Blackberry – I’ve thought about it so much it has become an obsession. I think that that may be part of the problem.

@tedibear Occupy yourself. Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 are coming out soon.

Stop caring sounds to me to be pretty impossible, other than let time pass and hope that the sharp edges will wear off.
Getting over it seems more possible, as one could grab the issue by its horns and deal with it (analyse it, discuss it with friends, seek therapy).

Yes. I just do it somehow, dunno the specifics. All of a sudden bad news is the best news ever kind of thing.

Sounds like you still need to come to terms with this problem/issue. I would break it apart in to smaller pieces, identifiable elements that make up or created this issue. Then take a long hard look at what helped create each and every one of these elements and come to terms with the who-what-where and why of each one. Doing so can help a big overwhelming problem becomes a bunch of perhaps little problems that are more easily solvable one piece at a time. I hope you find your peace.

I guess it really depends upon what the actual problem is. If it is a problem, say of un-warranted jealousy in a marriage, I think that going to a marriage counselor who specializes in cognitive therpay might be very usueful.

On the other hand, if you have a problem where the jealousy came into the marriage because the other person cheated, you might be able to quell those feelings with a few sessions of standard couples counseling, but unless the partner is completely remorseful and doesn’t throw it back into your face (in one of those lovely passive agressive ways) then it is likely to come back fairly often. Once trust has been breached some people can never get it back.

If you have a specific way of dealing with some problem, like your way of parenting vs his way of parenting, or having to deal with an unpleasant in-law (his or yours), then you are really in for a battle. Counseling of some type might be able to help, but unless you or both of you really change your way of thinking or your attitude, which is very difficult, the problem will continue to be a problem.

If you have some type of medical problem, that is treatable, but you constantly worry about it, getting all the correct info you can and then getting some cognitive behavior therapy or biofeedback therapy to learn how to push out the negative thoughts can be helpful.

So it completely depends upon what the problem that you need to get over is. Is it possible for you to give us a little peek at the problem without going into all of the details. We don’t want you to feel embarrassed or scared to tell us, but it might be helpful if we knew at least a little something about the problem.

It is extremely likely, that with this bunch of Flutherers, someone in here has gone through the same or similar problem.

Otherwise, I would suggest that if you are simply having a problem obsessively overthinking the problem that you have, then getting some short term cognitive behavioral therapy is likely to help you.

On the other hand, if there is something happening in your life, job loss, crazy relatives, lack of funds, person with a problem like alcoholism, friend who you want to rescue etc. There are different things that you can do to, if not solve the problem completely, make it more manageable.

Can you give us a hint?

You cannot get past something. You have to go through it. Explore the issue and all of your feelings thoroughly. Perhaps with the help of a professional therapist.

It kind of depends on what the issue is. If it involves rebuilding trust with your partner, that can only take time and repeated good actions.

Your partner’s involvement in the issue makes a difference also. Does he or she want to get past the issue as much as you do? Is he or she doing everything to support you getting over it?

@Cruiser – I know what has created the issue. It isn’t going away. It just… is. And it’s only one problem, so it’s not like I can look at many pieces.

Am going to read the next two answers, will comment if I can.

@marinelife & @Kardamom – I am not ignoring your help, I promise. I just can’t answer right now because I’m going to get all teary and then I have to explain and then there will be a “discussion” that I don’t want to have. It may be a while before I can get back to this to answer – Probably Monday or Tuesday because we’re going away for the weekend. I will continue to read any answers that may be posted, but I’m unlikely to respond until then. But I do appreciate everyone’s input. Thank you.

The issue you identified, is it a real issue or one you made and issue? I find many people make problems out of things that are not really problems. Say you are upset because you do not feel you are getting the attention you like. That is a you thing, because if the facts show he isn’t disappearing for days and avoiding you when he is home, it is more than not, in your mind than anyone else’s. Then you can take the one issue and make a whole suite of issues out of it. You can say the lack of attention, for instance, is a byproduct of a lot of things, an affair, your weight gain, or the weight you THOUGHT you gained, loss of a job, etc. I don’t know what your real issue is but you need to examine why it is such a real issue and if he knows it is a real issue? If it is something physical or tangible that he may not know he is doing or does, like snoring, but can’t help with it, that would be another story.

You have to think through the issue and specifically not avoid it in order to deal with it and “process” it. You might need help in doing that, particularly in the area of having your thoughts “directed” so that you don’t simply “obsess” and think the same things over and over. That’s not helpful or healthful, as you’re discovering.

This is why therapy works. You get to think about the same things from differing perspectives, change your viewpoint, understand sometimes why others have acted as they have, and get to a point of forgiveness and acceptance. You’ll also more than likely have some revelations about “similar things” from your own past, whether you think of them now or not (you may have squelched some of the memories of your own past actions and reactions, for example) that you may also be unknowingly hung up on.

Talk to a professional: a therapist, minister, priest or rabbi, or just a nonjudgemental, thoughtful and patient friend.

To put it another way: you don’t want to stop caring, but you want to stop obsessing. They’re very different things. So, to answer your question another way: Yes, it’s possible to defuse some of the emotional charge of things that matter – and should matter – very much to you.

I am with @marinelife on this. If this is a big issue and something that is still causing you emotional torment, you need to deal with it. To do that though, you probably need to talk it through with someone who can help you resolve whatever left over anguish there is. Go and talk to a counsellor and get some help with moving on.

@tedibear I think you have to figure out how you can help yourself. If I’m on the right track, I think it’ll boil down to you letting go, accepting yourself, and gaining your confidence back…in other words, loving and accepting yourself as you are.

How did you start feeling this way? Have you thoroughly dealt with/addressed the underlying issue?

Are you catastrophizing a tiny issue(or maybe even a non-issue)? I think you must be if you think you’re obsessing over it

For now, {{{Hugs}}}

@tedibear without knowing it is hard to offer help. A singular issue often does have many parts…the things that led up to it and the feelings that came to fruition because of it. If another person is involved….the hardest thing to do when you are hurt is to own your hurt and not let it interfere with what you need to do to resolve this issue and may even require review of what this other person is experiencing and feeling as well. I hope you find your answer!

@tedibear No problem. I completely understand. I get that just thinking about this particular problem is hard and then having to discuss it is no picnic either. If you feel up to listing the problem later, that will be good. If you can’t, then hopefully you can glean some ideas from all of the theoretical troubles that we’ve thrown out there with our subsequent ideas for getting a handle on them. If you need to go through our lists to find your solution, that’s perfectly OK. : )

One important aspect of this question is whether the thing you need to get past directly involves your husband or something dissappointing your husband has either done, or something about his personality you have trouble dealing with. I am not assuming he is the cause in the scenerio, it might ne unrelated to your marriage but your husband might be frustrated with how you are handling something? I’m guessing a lot here. I respect that you can’t or don’t want to talk about the details now, I am not trying to pull out information, just wanting to tell you the assumptioms I am thinking, so you know where my answer comes from, and can discard my thoughts if they simply don’t apply to your situation.

Generally I believe people can reframe situations in their head so their anxiety level can come down, and many times they can put it behind them. I don’t think there always has to be a mourning ritual, of denial, sadness, anger, acceptance. If your husband specifically did something, I think it can be very difficult to get over something quickly, because you are with him every day. If it is a one time thing that happened, and you never have to deal with that person or situation again, then sometimes if I try to understand where they were coming from I can feel better.

Not sure my answer applies. I hope you feel better :(.

@all – I finally have a bit of time to come back to this. First, thank you to everyone. Within all of your words, I found some good things to think about, and I think that changing how I’m feeling may be possible. I’ve been through therapy enough times to know that I need a different route, so I may look into CBT.

For those of you who may be wondering, the issue boils down to this: it really upsets me that my husband doesn’t think I’m physically attractive. I know that he loves me, he thinks I’m a wonderful person, a good friend and a good wife. I get that those are the most important things, really I do. It’s just hard to know that no matter what, I can’t be what he wants in a physical way. I feel like he’s with me in spite of my looks, which hurts. We’ve tried to talk about this, but I can’t do it without crying a lot. He keeps pulling out the “looks aren’t important to me” card, which of course is complete crap. He also claims that there are no women out there who are intelligent, nice, kind and great-looking. I know better, but he isn’t dissuaded from this idea. If looks didn’t matter, there wouldn’t be any looking. Anywho, that’s what’s going on.

For those of you who remember this question, I will say that he has gotten better about actually saying good things about me “the person” or about things that I have done. But the looks thing, well I think besides the fact that I don’t look like what he would prefer, I’m also running into an “INFP” issue. INFP is his Myers-Briggs type. Because he sincerely believes that you should value a person for who they are and not what they look like, he is being very stubborn about understanding that this is hard for me. He isn’t going to change, and I’m not going to magically get better looking without involving a great deal of surgery so the only thing left is to change my feelings.

Fluthertherapy has helped me immensely to see my issues. It has also helped open my husband’s eyes to how people view him.

I happen to agree with a comment posted on the linked thread: you should allow him to read these posts. It may help bring him into your reality.

It appears from things you’ve written here that your husband lacks empathy and has no desire to alter his perception of what you need for your marriage to feel successful to you.

He is with you for reasons other than looks. I don’t actually see any problem with that. His attraction to you is deeper than appearance. The issue I see is that you need something he is unwilling to give.

It appears to me that you are willing to alter your physical, and emotional self. Continue on your path @tedibear.

@tedibear Change your feelings for me is code for you will have to settle. I guess we all settle in some ways. I think most women want to feel beautiful and desired. I don’t care who she is, what she looks like. When you say he does not find you physically attractive, remind me, is it the looks God gave you? Or, is it a comment on your weight, or that you are aging, or out of shape? Do you feel you are attractive, do other people make you feel attractive? Or, is he just not wanting to have sex with you? Or, he still wants to have sex? Or, you just not his type? He comments on other womens beauty and not yours?

@tedibear I am wondering how you know that your husband does not find you physically attractive? Has he had the bad taste to tell you that?

In any case, you could benefit at this point from couples therapy.

You could also ask him to try very hard to compliment you on your physical appearance when he notices it.

For example, perhaps one evening he notices that your eyes are sparking beautifully. He should say so.

Or perhaps one day you are wearing a very attractive outfit. He should tell you that you look good if he thinks that you do.

I am not convinced that he finds you unattractive. I find it hard to believe that he could make love to you if he did.

It’s one thing for him to think you are a raving beauty and another to find you attractive. There is a big range in there, and I am betting that you fall somewhere on that curve.

You may have been attempting to get the truth out of him and overshot.

So here’s something I learned today. He thinks that the term “pretty” is an extreme. Like someone else would say incredibly beautiful, that’s how he takes the word pretty. Different perspective than mine, certainly. Remember the “one to ten” scale that people would use about looks? In my mind, I think of pretty as being about an 8. In his mind it’s a 9.5.

The other thing I struggle to completely understand is that he doesn’t separate how he sees me into looks, personality, heart, mental capacity, etc. He says that when he looks at me he sees the “whole package”, not just what I physically look like. I don’t quite understand because I can step back and look at him like I did when we first met and think, “Yes, he’s good looking.” And he did say that he wouldn’t have continued to have gone out with me if he hadn’t found me reasonably physically attractive.

I tried to tell him how his statement, “I don’t date people for their looks. If I did, I wouldn’t be with you,” made me feel. (This was several years ago that he said it.) I know that he meant that he found there was more to me to love than just looks. I, yet again, failed to be able to clearly explain to him that it felt like he was saying, “I’m dating you in spite of your looks.” He tells me that I twisted his words. I’m willing to admit that I heard something negative along with something positive, but he cannot admit that there was anything even potentially negative in that statement.

I’m going to try to respond to some of the things in your posts. Everyone was so helpful and I don’t want any of you to feel ignored!

@Hypocrisy_Central “The issue you identified, is it a real issue or one you made and issue?” Both. the self-esteem thing if a me-made issue. His lack of rarely recognizing anything physically positive about me is a real thing.

@JLeslie – It hasn’t been so much what he says as what he hasn’t said or won’t say. I am distinctly not his physical “type.” He likes tall, long legs, dark hair, olive skinned women. I am 5’1”, 27 inch inseam, currently dark red hair and I’ll burn way before I ever tan. Yes, we have sex. Oddly, that part is fine. I do some mental work to shut down the negative “voice” in my head, otherwise it wouldn’t be. I just can’t constantly make it stop. “He comments on other women’s beauty and not yours?” It’s very rare for him to remark about a woman’s looks, so when he does, I know it means something really caught his eye about her. He never does it in a lewd, lascivious, mean-spirited or hurtful way. And he does go looking for pictures of specific actresses/celebrities via the internet. Not often, but he does. I told him today that it takes a certain amount of effort to do that and that if he could put some of that effort towards noticing & remarking on something nice about how I look, it would help. It won’t solve the issue, but it will help a bit. I also promised to not “discount” anything nice that he did say.

@marinelife – “In any case, you could benefit at this point from couples therapy.” Yes, we could, but that isn’t going to happen. I’m considering trying to find another therapist. However, I’m also considering trying CBT online.

So, I have lots to ponder. And I need to change my perspective on some things. Gah! I hope I’m up for this and that it’s worth it. Right now, all I can think about is getting the sheets on the bed and getting some rest. Thanks, jellies.

@tedibear It is good that you recognize your part in this dynamic. I really think that you need to stop constantly parsing what your husband says to you as to how it relates to your looks or to how he feels about you.

That way lies madness.

I do think you could benefit from more therapy. You also might check out the book Self Parenting, which is very helpful is hearing your negative self-talk.

@tedibear He needs to understand that he does not have to comment on your overall beauty, he can just pick out a small think that looks great that day. I love that dress on you. Your hair looks great today. Your eyes look beautiful tonight. something like that. You may not be his type, but there are things he probably still finds attractive about you, and you just want to hear it every so often. Maybe word it with the word attractive instead of pretty? Also, he might be perceiving you as needy, which can be annoying, and feel controlling. Not sure that is the case, but just throwing out an idea.

I am 26 and don’t know much about relationships, but I would not be able to stay in your marriage, feeling the way you do.

Not saying you should leave, just that this is definitely not trivial, at least from my perspective.