Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers All About Me?! Scared!

I'm sure you are trying, but you're holding on as tight as ever. Look at what you just wrote. You've got this fantasy that you're clinging to. "I'm going to grow, break out of this cycle, it will change our interactions, he'll notice, we always find our way back together anyway so when we do it will all work better if I can fix this mess". And you keep clinging to this to avoid the truth- the M is dead, he isn't changing, and no matter what you do there's a very good chance you can't do a darn thing about it.

The problem with remaining in denial is that it allows you to cling to the idea of this relationship for your sense of self and well being. Anything that you perceive to be a step towards this will be a big deal, any step away will be a heartbreak. THIS IS WHY you are so controlling of your WAH, you have a movie script of how you think this is supposed to go, and HE'S NOT READING HIS LINES AND ACTING OUT HIS PART! Quite simply, this doesn't allow you to grow.

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but what I really want you to understand is that you can be ok on your own. In fact, you have to be. ***If you can't be ok on your own, one screwed up guy CANNOT save you. *** Seriously. Please write that down somewhere. So all those interactions where you start an argument to control him into some type of exchange- you can eliminate this if you let go and tend to yourself.

You said you'd read my original threads that I linked. You said you read the first one and I linked the second. The parts I was hoping you'd read were about exactly these points. I worked through my co-dependency, fear of abandonment, and found the way for me to nurture myself. So let me test you:

Why was I afraid of abandonment? Who abandoned me and why?

If you can answer those questions you'll know what you have to do.

V you are right my focus has been on changing only to save R! I will work on changing mind frame!

When I am detached I feel less stressed happier more supportive healthier! I'm spending time with H and kids and friends enjoying myself!

I will look more into boundaries! I will google both things you suggested and look at core values! Thanks v

Hi 4, I think Zeus has a point with the fantasy you may be holding on to - if I do this, then he will do that and we'll be okay..

Actually, that could happen and you could do just enough to attract him back. However my concern is that you may repeat some of the unhealthy patterns. He comes back to you, and 'cheats' on OW in the process. You are complicit in the 'cheating' too. Then you carry on in a R together until he cheats again. This is what I think may happen unless your own changes are significant.

I think if you develop your own healthy sense of self-worth, you won't get drawn back into that cycle again, because you will realise that it isn't good for you. This is why doing this for yourself (and not to 'win' your guy back) is so important. It is challenging to 'try' something different, because we all get stuck in particular ways of 'being' with our partners. However, DBing is all about experimenting and observing the impact an altered approach has.

None of this is easy - but keep on posting and recognise that you are going to have to dig pretty deep here in order to make progress. Have you found out any more about the groups you may join yet??

xx

After if you like we can discuss your core values and appropriate boundaries. Together with enforcing those.

V

Ok Zeus! You state you abandoned yourself due to high expectations in your family and the feeling that you are unlovable and high standards. You learned to hide your feelings and push them away and run from them. I feel like that is what I am doing. I am pushing the bad feelings away and hoping for the best. I need to feel those feelings deal with them and look at the real picture not the one I have made up! I should be able to live with myself but I am certaintly not confident enough to feel I can take on all of that responsibility and financial responisbilities on my own. i am not sure why that is as I have always had to be the one to pay bills when I lived at home with parents and since I have been on my own. Maybe having a child makes me more leery? I do not want to let her down like my parents let me down.

I can say I felt some feelings today. I cried a little and had a small amount of anxiety and anger. H text me this morning asking me to bring money to him when i got off work even said please. I left the card on the desk so he could have gotten money but he said he did not even pay attention. I felt angry due to the time I asked him to give me card for gas so why should I have to help him. I then felt guilty I felt that way. I then felt angry at myself because I knew I would help him out. I then felt sad and frustrated because he said all of those hurtful things to me last night calling me names and telling me I needed to move out and he cant stand to be around me but today he wants to be nice and wants me to help him?

I know you do not want this to be about him and I am not trying to make it about him I am trying to show I did actually feel other emotions besides straight anger and I let the tears flow for a few minutes on my own and I took some deep breaths and decided I was going to be the bigger person. I was not going to help him out because he asked I was going to help him out because it was the right thing to do and two wrongs do not make a right. It would not bring me closer to my goal to cause yet another fight because I wouldnt bring it to him. It would not bring me closer to my goal of being kind supportive and helpful. I did it because I am CHOOSING to be friend and I am CHOOSING not to add to the conflict and not hold onto the resentment and payback life.

It may have been a very very small step but it was a step. I made a CHOICE on what I ME felt was best for ME!

I am going back to weekly IC and asked to focus on CD and detatchment!

Sotto my fear is repeating this cycle again too. currently we are technically cheating on OW every time we ML. It may be only a few times a month but it is still happening. I think that may be part of my detatchment problem. Just like Zeus said he argues passionatly with me hugs me and we ML pay bills the same blah blah so the only thing different is affection and he is with someone else too.

the groups are once a week but they are an hour away. I will be asking IC for information or suggestions on something a little closer. 2 hours round trip for an hour meeting I am not convinced it worth it especially if I have to pay for the meeting too. I will keep searching though. I am trying to find something online also. I am continuing to read CD no more.

I am fearful of digging deep inside of me because I am sure I am a monster deep inside of there with so many problems I may never even touch the surface of fixing them.

I am coming to a realization the more reading I do the more I understand why H chose the path he is on. I am a horrible partner with a ton of problems!

V I would love help with establishing boundaries and core values. I will be very busy this weekend with party races and work but any free time I have I will be reading! Thanks so much

I have been trying not to comment as you have been getting great advice and support from the best of the best, Lady V, Sotto and Zues, are wise, insightful and have your best interest at heart. However I feel like I have some insight and support to offer too.

I will be quite blunt (and those that are easily offended turn away now) that up there ^^^^^^ is nothing but a big pile of steaming BS!!! It is s**t thinking like that, that ^^^^ is keeping you in this hell hole you are in. And I call it a hell hole because I pitched a camp and set up home there for many years.

If you are a "monster" and "horrible partner". Then so am I. You need to point and wave you stick and beat me up too, if you are going to believe what you wrote up there. Believing that ^^^^ is keeping you stuck! Keeping you in this place that you say you want out of.

I have made every single mistake you have described since you started posting on this forum, and like you I spent years making them.

Let me assure you I am no "monster" and I am not a "horrible partner". I WAS and in some ways still am a person who was damaged by a childhood of trauma and emotional invalidation by an emotionally abusive, addicted father . I WAS a person who begged, pleaded, abused, manipulated and controlled my partner to get my emotional needs met the only way I knew how. I was broken in some pretty important places, and I attracted men who were broken in similar places and we fit together like a hand and glove. Meeting each other's toxic ways of loving.

Sweet 4mykids, the sooner you realise that your ex cannot "fix" you, love you, as he is so broken himself. The sooner you will be on a path to healing and closer to a loving relationship the meets your needs.

You and I are no different, the only difference between us is the time and commitment I have taken to heal myself. I have done as Sotto suggests by "dig deep". Because this person this "monster" you think you are, is in fact so far from who really are. But it requires you to start asking yourself the right questions to get the change you are looking for.

When you start asking the right questions and truly start answering them, not reciting responses or taking actions of what you think you "should do". Your life will move. This man (the one who cheats, the one who also manipulates and control) this man you want will start to become less and less attractive, you will start not to fit. Because you will be the very best version of yourself. And the very best version of you expects that the man who loves her is the very best version of himself.

You are feeling stuck because you havent truly invested 4 mykids, in YOU. You havent quite worked out that actually you don't need or want anything from your partner. Nothing he does or doesn't do right now matters. He isn't the issue, he is merely a symptom. He is the mirror of what you truly believe about yourself.

4mykids, he leaves you feeling disrespected, contact with him has you calling yourself a monster, and horrible partner. Replace the him with "I". " I leave myself feeling disrespected", " I am a monster to myself", "I am a horrible partner to myself".

Lady V said some posts back that she thought some of the cycling behaviours/interactions were related to fear of abandonment. She is so close to the truth. While our fear is the of abandonment of us by our partners. This abandonment is only a mirror of the abandonment that we have already made of ourselves. We have left ourselves alone in the midst of this chaos.

I really want to say something that will make you slow down and focus only on you and your kids. I said in some of my first posts, your partner is a your drug of choice. Please please stop engaging with him. Stop talking to him, Stop asking him for anything. You cannot possibly make good decisions for yourself while you are still using your drug- HIM. You need to go dark.

Being dark is the co-dependents, love addicts best friend. It allows us to start to detox from the high our partners bring to us.

My other piece of advice is do the opposite of what you feel is right and natural when he is around. If you feel like you want to talk about an issue, walk away and leave it alone. If you want his help with the kids, find an alternative. Start acting as if, he has moved out of the house and is the most unreliable person in the world to co-parent with.

I so wish you were having an easier time with all this, but the first steps on this journey back to yourself are the hardest. The change of mindset from him to you is the first challenge.

We are all here 4mykids to walk this journey alongside you, but you have to do the heavy lifting.

Light and love to you and your children.

JellyB XXX

Jelly...thank you for the post.

4, everything's fine. This is where you are supposed to be. It's a tough spot and you're working hard to break out of it. Keep your mind and heart open and change is possible. But, as Jelly says, just because you want to grow, doesn't mean you are a monster until you do.

We are all flawed 4. Being perfect isn't what we do. And while you might grow, you'll always be flawed. And that's scary because it forces you to give up control. By imagining that everything's your fault you can imagine that you have the power to fix everything. You don't. But you don't have to.

Glad you read my post. Yes, I abandoned myself. And in CD fashion I then charged my STBX with the role of looking out for my inner child, then tried to control her behavior until I felt cared for. That didn't work so well.

What helped me post BD was being there for myself. For decades I avoided my feelings. Finally I imagined my 12 year old self whimpering in the closet and I decided to let him out. It wasn't pleasant to hear what he had to say, but I pictured myself holding him tight and saying "I am here for you now. I am not going anywhere. We'll be ok together." Bottom line, I acknowledged my emotions and decided that I'd tend to my own heart.

So the only 'problem' with you is that you haven't accepted full responsibility for your own emotional care taking. And as long as you pin your emotional needs on WAH you will remain 'addicted' as Jelly says.

It's actually not that hard. Whatever you wished your WAH was doing for you, DO IT YOURSELF. When you are in pain, validate yourself. Comfort yourself. Tell yourself you understand. Tell yourself you'll never leave you again. Sit by yourself and feel your emotions, and picture being there for yourself.

If it sounds like you've been given so much advice it's overwhelming and you'll never be able to do all of this, that's because you haven't seen that it's all the same. By taking responsibility for your well being you'll no longer look to WAH for that job. That's when his fascination will lose hold, you'll set boundaries, you'll break the addiction. That sounds terrifying to you now because you think you need him, but this will happen as you discover you don't. ALL OF IT comes from this one thing: breaking the CD, which means taking responsibility and never abandoning yourself again. It won't bring him back. It will bring YOU back. And that's FAR more important right now.

So well said Zues. Much kinder and thoughtful, than my words. You're a great guy!

Jellyb xxx