I agree, Wonder, but I also think you adapt based on how/what you are used to. Whatever adaptive behaviors you learned in childhood are put to use first, and you are not very aware of those things. So there is a big layer of your childhood that acts as an overlay onto your marriage and sometimes what is really a good adaptive thing in childhood, doesn't work well in marriage.
The broken contract is the present day pain...and I think it is the hardest thing I've ever been through (and my mom died when I was 9!). Maybe because grief is easier in the face of death, but grief for something that feels intentionally hurtful is much harder to process.
So there is a big layer of your childhood that acts as an overlay onto your marriage and sometimes what is really a good adaptive thing in childhood, doesn't work well in marriage.
I've found that to be the case with me. My older brother was quite cruel to me growing up, and I learned to cope by walling myself off. I got so good at it, that whenever I felt attacked, I would put the walls up and remove myself emotionally from the situation. Unfortunately, I did the same thing when my W would criticize me for something. She was left feeling "Where did he go?" It was so automatic and so internalized, it never even occurred to me that I was doing it purposefully, and that it was damaging my M. Through a lot of IC, I finally was able to see it for what it was and disengage the automatic mechanism. Too late to save my M though.
Thanks Future. I think that IC is really good--it can be painfully slow, but it helps to get the lightbulbs going off!! I've had a rough couple of weeks. Two weeks ago, I felt sad all week, and just wanted to cry every day--which is so unusual for me, then I felt MAD for the past week. The triggers were watching a movie where our "song" played and just being so sad that things didn't work out like I thought they would, and then getting e-mails from H asking for my forgiveness, because he can now see that what he did was terribly wrong and hurtful--but of course, he doesn't want to change any of his behaviors, he just wants me to tell him that its OK. I felt so weighed down--like he wants me to carry THAT for him too--to tell him that he's a good person, and he JUST COULDN'T HELP IT that he fell in love with someone else (which is bullshi*--his mother had an affair and the "myth" was that she couldn't help it, and that was the end of that--no anger, no accountability, no nothing. Nobody ever called her on it, and if they did, I'm sure she would never speak to them again). Anyway, the MAD came when he sent me an e-mail, as a "joke" about how I got a crown on my tooth just under the wire--a couple of days before I went off his insurance. I didn't reply because I realized it wasn't a joke. That for years he has said things "as a joke" that have been mean and demeaning and have been meant to imply that somehow he is being put upon or doing me a favor. I have constantly received mixed messages from him. At the first Retrouvaille weekend he said, in front of everyone, that I am the kindest person he has ever met. At the follow up session, he wrote "bitch" in my notebook. I was just sitting there, listening to the speakers. This has been a pattern throughout our married life--little "digs" so he could get control somehow over me, but with nice things at the same time--it has been very confusing. So, I've realized I can't let him give me double messages anymore. It just feels bad to me, and I don't want to let him make me feel bad anymore. We are getting divorced, and its not my job to make him feel better. He wants me to be there for him, and to forgive him, but he wants no responsibilities or to have to change his behavior in any way. It is really unfair. As one of my good friends said over the weekend, he sure didn't start off to be a prick but there is absolutely no doubt that he is one now! [this is after I told her how he tried to sneak out of the house on Easter morning, after we had a "family breakfast", without the kids--who he is supposed to have until 5:00! I had to stop him and tell him that I had plans all afternoon and he needed to bring the boys back at 5:00--but he put me in the strange position of making me feel like I was throwing out my kids!
Anyway, today I set his cell phone number to "no ring". I feel so much better that I can listen when I want and reply when I want. It gives me time to listen to my feelings and know how I want to reply, and it allows me to enforce my boundaries. So, hooray! A lightbulb has gone off!
He keeps trying to ROPE ME BACK in, and he uses me to boost his ego. I finally see it, and it feels good to be taking some control over it...
I think it might be helpful to hear from other LBS's to see what we've learned about ourselves, or changed.
I've learned that I was angry, resentful, and abusive because I felt inadequate, unlovable, and powerless. I numbed the pain that I felt by lashing out at those that I cared about the most. I also failed at compassion.
My spouse left, and my family was torn apart.
I am no longer angry, resentful, or abusive. I no longer feel powerless, inadequate, or unlovable. And I am more compassionate now than I've ever been in my life. And I'm still working on it. I've lost 95 pounds, and I'm in the best shape I've been in for the last 20 years. I think differently about things, I feel differently about things, and I'm a better person now than I've ever been.
"Always go straight forward, and if you meet the devil, cut him in two and go between the pieces." - William Sturgis, clipper ship captain, 1830's.
Wow, Antlers, you've done it! I think that's really good. For me, its more complicated. I worked too much, and became too serious--but my H said/says I was a great wife and that he has no complaints about our marriage. I think that's when its harder to see through the situation...when you feel like the rug was pulled from under you. But, I've felt powerless, inadequate and unlovable, and its good to know that those feelings can change. I am learning that I am way too concilliatory and that can LOOK good, but that you end up erasing yourself. That its better to have a knock down, drag out fight, even, than to just "let it go" all the time. But I'm also learning that a huge fight isn't necessary...you can express feelings constructively and that builds intimacy in the end. My H and I both had a hard time expressing feelings...we would just let it go, and instead of growing closer, we grew more distant.
You know, I was reading through your thread again, and I also had a parent die when I was young. My mother passed when I was 4, and subsequently my father remarried a cruel vicious woman.
I have always been a little to easy to trust, to easy to fall in love. I think that may be one of the reasons why I have been very reluctant to attempt to find another relationship, instead finding fault with anyone I have dated.
I have this horrid feeling in the pit of my stomach at even the mere THOUGHT of moving on. Although I have begun to converse with a few guys on the dating websites, actually taking the next step seems almost foreign to me.
I hate the thought of spending my life alone, and yet the thought of getting back out there again doesn't appeal to me either.
Who knows...
Im still standin better than I ever did looking like a true survivor feeling like a little kid Im still standin after all this time and Im picking up the pieces of my life without you on my mind..
