Yes, this is good.
Working through this stuff is good.
Noticing that you feel it is you who is ultimately betraying yourself.
Ask for what purpose you are doing this ? Keep asking until the answer comes. It will take time you need to be persistent. The aim is nearly always about protection and control. The realisation is that you have actually given up control of yourself and that you are no longer providing the protection that you need.
Your partner is making you feel this. She is the key to the door back to real control. She has forced you to the first step of seeking advice and that means you are already on the way. You should thank her for that gift.
All the other advice is great too. Get out and about, exhaust your body, challenge yourself, keep on with the meditation.
You should realise that seeking solice in meditation is false and ultimately having that belief will result in the same feelings of betrayal.
Seek the source of those feelings and allow the anger and sadness to burn through you without thought if you can. Just pure energy.
I am sure your 2 eurocents are worth more than my 2 US cents 
I agree with your above point. The practices connect us with the inner/divine peace. With that as your core, everything else becomes easy (desire,anger, etc…). There are two main roads on the path, surrender through denial or acceptance. If you are going to engage in the world, denial is pretty hard. Learning to accept (and love) yourself is an important first step. Your ego will always tell you that you are not good enough. No need to listen. Confirmation comes from your own soul. Don’t look to others.
Namaste, Jeff
Or that you’re too good, or too whatever - it wants to keep telling things and reviewing/classifying life. Adyashanti talks about it with humor and insight, in
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH3KToKApVo
/
Thank you for the response.
I havn’t responded myself lately as my computer at home is damaged and work has been busy. I have been spending nearly everyday with my partner.
I currently feel this anger/fear dichotomy again. This time triggered by remembering an event where I had lent her money to bail her out of a situation she had created herself. When she returned part of the money, I asked about the rest and she became rageful, listing the things she had done for me, etc., and then she never did pay the rest.
There is anger over this, and fear. I started practicing DM again yesterday and what I noticed is that the anger kicks in a moment after the fear.
I don’t speak up out of fear of conflict.
For what purpose do I betray myself?
I want to ‘get by’ peacefully without conflict.
I don’t want to be pointed out as being selfish. I spent my life trying to please others.
Any thoughts? Will reply later I hope.
Jack
You want to get by ‘peacefully without conflict’. How well are you doing following your route of self betrayal ? Who are you really angry with ?
You do not want others to see you as selfish so you hide you true feelings. Selfish is keeping something to yourself and you are keeping the anger. How can you know you pleased others? you cannot possibly know that, you only pleased yourself by thinking you were doing that.
If you want to change, then realise that all your avoidance of conflict simply causes you far more inner conflict. So you avoided nothing, you got exactly what you wanted and you knew what that would feel like. You chose it.
With change comes effort and sometimes a barrel of unfamiliarity and initial heartache. Whe you try anything new, the results are at first faltering until you learn to get your balance. It may well be that you will change your friends, tastes, job and outlook on life.
Only you can decide this. It doesn’t need a magic wand or 10 years meditation. Simply decide that the way you are now isn’t working becuase you are unhappy. It’s not producing the desired result so do something different.
I’m being a bit tough with you because otherwise you will continue to ask this question and not resolve the situation. Once you learn to handle the external conflict you will not have the internal conflict. Best to have the fighting outside of your house I think because it makes a mess of the furniture.
Hi Karl,
Well written challenge.
Gives me a fright reading it, like falling further into this stuck, fear, contraction.
How well am I doing following this route of self-betrayal?
Not so great; the rage gradually subsides but I think it might be lodging its way deeper in my mind to become a bitter root of ill-will.
Peace on the outside is maintained though relationship is not as great and energetic as it might be without built up internal tension. A degree of ‘acting’.
Who am I really angry with?
Her… My self, my own stupid fear, with my father, with God. With the frustrating limitation of fear and paranoia.
There is always inner conflict. When I have mentioned things before (nervously) and get shot down the inner conflict is still there.
I have trouble discerning if an emotion is justified or not. My intellect needs to be logically content with the reason for an emotion to be there.
And another part is so sick and tired of always having to be reasonable.
I don’t even know the basic skill set for boundaries and for expressing anger towards others whom I am intimate and close with.
Expressing anger!
Well, that’s the thing isn’t it. It does not need to be anger, you only need to be firm and assertive and then there is no need for the anger. Your anger is by choice and self directed.
Be expressive about what you feel, let people know how you are feeling. Stay away from accusing others because that only means you are presuming to know why they are behaving in a certain way. That leads to an unsatisfactory argument…you already knew that, didn’t you ?
Start small, practise in the mirror. Train yourself by continually pushing your own boundaries. Don’t just complain, or whine, instead be positive about what you want.
I think it would be good for you to have a read of the Byron Katie website. Buy the books if you can afford them. I’m instantly thinking about the book titled ‘I need your Love-Is that True?’
She is texting me now, asking if we are okay. Confused, she says. And now another saying that things are probably not ok as I have not replied and maybe we should take a break. Don’t know how to reply.
Best to talk these things through face to face. I cannot tell you how to reply but this is a chance to begin being truthful to her and to yourself.
Tell her how you are feeling, all the bottled up stuff and present it in a way that does not accuse her. Tell her you feel betrayed, sad, unhappy at whatever the situation is. Remember that she is not doing anything wrong, only being the way she believes you want her to be (sometimes called having a positive intention).
I left work to go speak to her in person.
I didn’t bring up this specific situation from months ago, but we expressed where we are generally within ourselves and the relationship, and have decided to try a break for a while. She has a lot on, as do I though not to so great an extent. We are taking time out to look after ourselves.
I plan to use this time firstly to rest, get back into my meditation and exercise, and get into the group men’s work and therapy also.
Will post later perhaps.
Thanks Karl for your guidance through this. Another helpful voice to keep me somewhere near integrity.
A positive outcome.
Your welcome, we all need a hand at times.
I managed to express my anger and hurt about this incident to her, she listened and appreciated my honesty, and will be repaying me also.
I want to clap 
. How do you feel after doing this ? Lighter, fizzy, euphoric with a touch of nervous energy. Excellent work, I know that could not have been easy for you, the first step is the hardest and you must have really wanted to change.
It’s not on only one level you change, you are changing many things on many levels allowing your inner self to shine through.
Well, I don’t think I would have bought this up but she was in a very receptive and open minded-state to what I had to say.
Seems we are more together now, this will be a learning however to put myself first from now on. I have asked her if she would like to meditate with me and she seemed positive to the idea. Also touched on tantric sex.
I suppose I need to keep focus on my needs for now instead of abandoning them.
Thanks again Karl.
Jack, I can’t contribute with any good ideas on what to do. I just wanted to say a huge thanks for starting this topic, and for being so open and frank about how your thoughts are working. It’s totally actual and relevant for me too, right now.
I totally recognize the difficulties in FINDING the feeling of anger for real, inside and yet worse to express it actively. Instead it’s so easy to become passively aggressive and blurt out small doses of poison here and there.
Just wanted to say you’re doing a great job - for all of us! Thanks!
Thanks, emc, though really I don’t feel as if I deserve any praise.
I am really conflicted as of late. Part of me seems to want out of this relationship. It’s a gut feeling of fear and aversion. It’s like I just don’t give a ****.
I became very enmeshed in this relationship, over a year has gone by and I don’t know who I am… I have little sense of individuality, or progress in life.
I put so much into this relationship and I feel stressed.
I feel attraction to other, younger women… I try to accept the feeling without adding anything on to it and to serve my woman, but the sexual aspect feels weaker now.
I’m terrified of this. Why can’t I just be happy with what I have?
Even if she is not on a spiritual path as such, I know she may be checking out a Buddhist group run by her friend in the near future.
Feeling guilty.
I also feel anger, directed at her and I don’t even know why.
Been meditating a couple of weeks now. I just want to be alone and deal with my feelings in a safe atmosphere.
So now she is saying that since taking up the meditation and bodywork that I seem to be regressing.
That I had seemed to be progressing but now I am not.
She says that it is better I sleep in my own bed tonight as she wants to sleep either with the me she knows or by herself, not with me quiet and distracted.
She says that I was present before, but now I am elsewhere.
And that it is putting strain on the relationship.
So I start to touch on some inner silence and feel some degree of peace. Impersonal awareness. A more generalised sense of compassion. The personality becomes quietened and I want more space.
I feel some resentment.
Bhakti is frustrated.
Where does personal love fall into all this? I get glimpses, usually through music or film, that cause a kind of love feeling that is inclusive of others.
But now I feel more withdrawn.
Jack
Hi Jack,
you are beginning to open up and that’s great. Sometimes you have to open and clean a wound before it can completely heal.
Good that you can talk openly about how you feel.
You are making changes Jack, so sometimes it’s going to be a bit raw. Anger is such a strong negative energy that once you start to release it there is a tendency to feel really tired, run down and grumpy.
Remember that no experience is ever wasted, even when it can all seem pointless, always you are progressing. Which is how you ended up here.
It’s a bit like waiting for a egg to hatch. Weeks go by and the Egg sits there with nothing obvious happening and then one day a chick is poking it’s beak through the broken shell.
Hi Jack
Don’t know if anything I am going to say is going to be helpful or not, and I don’t have any idea what I am going to say, but, I’m going to say it anyways. 
Inner Silence and Presence are not mutually exclusive. You can be silent inside and still be present with your GF. The frustration, the resentment comes from constriction. As your GF says these things, you are constricting. Staying open and staying present are the best things you can do for both you and her right now. You can not change how she feels. But you can choose your reactions to her. Try to be mindful of what is going on inside your mind/body when she says things like: “she wants to sleep either with the me she knows or by herself, not with me quiet and distracted.” Does your mind and heart close up when she says this? Watch for that. If you notice the “closing” happening, just try to stay open and stay present with her. Don’t get angry or defensive.
That said, this relationship may or may not work out. No one can know for sure what will happen. Struggle creates opening, but not everyone wants to go through struggle. She may want to take “the easy way out.” You may too. Either way, my advice to you is to stay mindful of what is going on inside you when you are with/around her. Watch yourself. And when you feel yourself closing or constricting, consciously stay open and present. Don’t escape into your mind, don’t leave your body. Just remain open, compassionate and “there.”
That’s all I got. I love you. Know that this will all work out for the best.
Love!
