When you "drop the rope" is that like doing nothing or is that like "here's the way out" -
There was this ugly print that exBF insisted on putting on the wall in our dining room that I always disliked. His father also gave us a bunch of blown-up framed photos he took that I also didn't like. I want to hang up some black and white photos of D and D and I and I also frame D's artwork. So I took the print I didn't like off the wall.
Prior to this, I had asked him - why don't you take that to your apt.? "Why," he asked?
It made no sense. He took everything else. And he didn't seem to want to take this.
So yesterday knowing he was coming, I took it off the wall. At dinner, he asked why it was there and seemed sad. I just said I wanted to put up D's artwork and thought he'd want to take it to his place.
It was like I was rejecting him. Odd.
I didn't mean to be passive aggressive - I did mean to let him know I'm moving on. But I don't know. My sister thinks I need to let him know I miss him on some level - that there's a door open to come back. But I get confused about this.
Is this dropping the rope or just being aggressive?
"Yeah, he's just covering himself - no biggie. I mean, the MC called him on it and was like "Is it necessary" and his explaining it was clearly very fear-based and anxious, and she (I think) was trying to show him he is very fear-based with money but I just said it was fine."
Well, maybe.
It would strike me as very odd for a therapist to be critical of a client for handling financial matters between a couple no longer together in a businesslike way. He SHOULD be asking for receipts, and should have been all along. Indeed, the decent thing for you to do would be to provide him a receipt for prior payments.
OT - I completely agree with you on this! I thought it was weird of the therapist also.
Guys get hosed on child support payments all the time, making them and then the ex claims they didn't - ANY father's support group or website would advise him to always get a receipt for child support (or write clearly on the check what it is for and keep copies of the cancelled check). This is just plain common sense.
Yeah. My guess is that the therapist was not trying to "call" BF on wanting a receipt. Rather, the therapist was trying to facilitate open discussion and demonstrate that BF was not being unreasonable for wanting a receipt.
Well, Lila, you were the one acting as if it was unreasonable and using the T to back you up. So, we were "calling you" on that. Try to focus on that and get something out of it rather than backtracking, covering, manipulating. You don't need to try to make yourself look good for us. And trying to make yourself look good for your own sake gets in your way of progress. Quit trying to retrofit the narrative.
It would be a lot more productive to say:
"Yeah, I was hurt he wanted a receipt. I was scared about what it meant. I said "fine" but I didn't like it. It made me feel good when I felt like the therapist was "calling him" on it. I hoped he'd say that he didn't really need a receipt. I hoped the therapist would say that he didn't need a receipt. But that didn't happen. It just makes it more real to me that we aren't a couple, we are now in a business relationship. It makes me panic a little. But that is really what it is. It is better for both of us to handle things in a businesslike manner."
That gets you a lot further than evasions and retrofits.
Now, is there any point in going on further? There may be, but at this point the costs of posting to you aren't worth the benefits to me right now. So, I'll check out for awhile, not to punish you, but because I'm simply not willing to invest more as I don't see anything anyone says to you sinking in or causing any real reflection.
To be clear, this is different than LBS denial in which some stuff seeps in and other stuff is blocked, yet bit by bit more trickles through. I just don't see that happening. I don't see anyone getting traction anywhere. It is not just one poster that's a mismatch, not just one poster you just don't hear. You are getting very consistent messages from everyone. Again, at the very least, you might explore that.
In any case, try to stop the retrofitting and trying to force a narrative that you'd like to see rather than what it is. I'm not willing to play that game any longer, and it isn't getting you anywhere. Also, don't transfer your co-dependent patterns of your behavior from XBF to people here. Again, it doesn't get you anywhere.
OT, you could have told me that rather than having a "convo" with KML that I can "overhear" - that felt odd.
And I thought about what you said -
I think the focus for me, has largely been on me (now I need to make money, now I need to show responsibility, now I need to prove myself, etc.) and also wondering when exBF will every in a blue moon be called on his stuff. Which I know is not DBing, but honestly he has been so abusive to me around money - calling me names, withholding, threatening, that to hear someone say to him "You sounds like you got a lotta fear going on there" whatever it was in relation to made me feel like THANK GOD SOMEONE IS STANDING UP TO HIM - b/c there are never consequences... to him ... and I was too much of a wimp, apparently, b/c I had a D with him, to get up and walk away.
