All of this has been really hard for me, going against every thing I have ever done in relating to my H in over 20 years. Doesn't help that I never even dated anyone else, or learned how to play mind games...but here it goes:
1) Be patient. Time is an asset even when it seems to be killing you.
Getting better. Made it over 2 weeks in Shut Up mode :0) And I've been hanging on for about 8 months since the bomb...
2) Listen carefully to what your spouse is really saying to you.
I am very defensive. Just re-read Gottman's 4 Horsemen of the Apocolypse thing again, and see how destructive that has been. I validate, then immediately negate that with my own perspective -- what probably got us here in the first place, when he tried to tell me that he was hurting and I "turned it all around" and never really heard him. Again, I have to get back to the Shut Up.
3) Learn quickly that anger is your enemy.
I am not angry (at least I don't feel it most of the time), until I think of what this is doing to the kids...but I rarely if ever express this to H. He does not hold that back as much, recently.
4) Learn quickly to back off, shut up, and walk away when you want to speak out.
Like I said, did good for 2 weeks. Blew it last night. Back to it starting first thing in the morning.
5) Take care of yourself. exercise, sleep, laugh, and focus on all the other parts of your life that are not in turmoil.
I am exercising, sleep (last two nights way TOO much), still have laughs with the kids...I have been very focused on them in recent weeks, and need to add back my friends. Very hard for me to concentrate on other things right now--I am off from work for the summer, grad classes are way behind, gave up all of my other volunteer positions that were not really priorities anyway... the last week, it seems that nothing else is important to me other than H and my kids. I know that it's not the place to stay, but I let it go there for the last 2 weeks (since anniv weekend). Re-working my GAL starting tomorrow.
6) Be cool, strong, confident and speak softly.
OK, got the softly down. The rest....work in progress.
7) Know that if you can do a 180, your smallest consistent action will be noticed much more than any words you can say or write.
He notices it all, comments on it. Then says it is all too late. Still keeping it up though, for me at this point.
8) Read as much as you can on this subject. This I have done obsessively.
Mandatory DON'Ts
1) Do not be openly desperate or needy even when you are hurting.
Didn't get that down.
2) Do not focus on yourself when communicating with your spouse.
Trying, but probably not very good at this, either. I try to talk about the family instead, and what H might face. I have to eliminate my defensiveness.
3) Do not believe any of what you hear and less than 50% of what you see. your spouse will speak in absolute negatives because s/he is hurting and scared.
I have seen that.
4) Do not give up not matter how dark it is or how bad you feel.
How do you show your WAS that you won't be an obstacle to their happiness if you don't give up? I have let go of him, but not of my love for him. Is that what this means?
5) Do not backslide from your hard-earned changes.
My changes have not had a backslide, but many of my DBing efforts have.
My cheeseless tunnels are the hardest things to break.
Just tell him your boundaries aren't anymore about disliking him than his boundaries (including the D) aren't about disliking you. Please DO NOT feel responsible for his discomfort. He tells you he wants a D and he is whining that you don't want him in your bedroom in the middle of the night? How skewed is that. His enmeshment issues are MUCH heavier than yours. He just wants you to pat his head and tell him he is still a good boy. Not your job. Don't do it. Don't participate in maintaining his fantasy of a D-life where he still gets to have everything he wants, including the use of your bathroom. Crazy. No, it will not work for you to live together and be D. Talk about unhealthy.
He is almost certainly lying about both the jewelry and the lawyer.
Re detachment. No, that is not what detachment is. Detachment is what you need in ANY HEALTHY relationship between loving partners. Read up on enmeshment, take a look at Passionate Marriage -- not for the marriage stuff, but for yourself.
When you reach the place that you understand that detachment is positive -- that it allows for much deeper love and much greater intimacy -- then you'll be ready for an R, with H or someone else.
"2) Do not focus on yourself when communicating with your spouse.
Trying, but probably not very good at this, either. I try to talk about the family instead, and what H might face. I have to eliminate my defensiveness."
You are STILL trying to communicate your POV and convince him of its correctness through those other conversations, yes?
Quit trying to get him to see your POV. There is nothing to work out, nothing to convince him of, nothing to prove you were right about. If you reconcile, you will need to work through some things. Until then, act like he is a right-wing Republican and you are a Democrat and you have no vested interest in changing his mind.
Your descriptions are so intense; I feel like I was a fly on the wall witnessing the entire scene.
You did really well with the situation. And your husband sounds nicer and more human than he has in the earlier posts I read. Good for you for telling him he can't have it both ways. He really does have to take the consequences of his actions. It will hurt him too, and that is necessary.
Your acceptance of the situation is really a step forward. I hope that you will feel that way too.
I know that this hurts terribly. It is too bad that you don't have a history of dating to fall back on. You will get stronger with time.
Hey there. Big Hugs. Just wanted to say I am caught up and following you in this forum too.
For me detaching means realizing, accepting and embracing that your emotions state (eg, happiness or whatever) is your own. You determine the condition of your emotional health. Nobody else has that control over you or that responsibility. It is yours. Make sense?
M 39 W 39 M'd 10 yrs; T 14 yrs S7 D4 Bomb 5-8-05 W not working on M 1-22-07; EA 2-22 DB 4-10 S 6-11 No more C Link
Just wanted you to know that you are in my thoughts...have caught up and want to send all the good vibes i can your way. I know that you can do this.. and that we are all here to support you in that effort.
For me detaching means realizing, accepting and embracing that your emotions state (eg, happiness or whatever) is your own. You determine the condition of your emotional health. Nobody else has that control over you or that responsibility. It is yours. Make sense?
Absolutely. It EQUALLY means that your partner's happiness is his/her own as well.
In this way, you quit making everything about you in two ways --
-- You can listen and support your partner without making it all about how he/she is affecting YOUR happiness.
-- You can listen and support your partner without making it all about how YOU can fix or manage your parter.
When you are enmeshed, you cannot love properly because you cannot really be there for the other person, it is always all about you.
We should be detached in all our relationships. Loving detachment is simply being detached from someone we love, thus making it even more important.
If I make a rude stranger's emotions and actions all about me, then it might ruin my day, but it is not going to really hurt an R. If I make someone I love's emotions and actions all about me, then I put the focus on me rather than the one I love.
So, if you hear "you always make everything all about you," LISTEN. Let go of your P and work on yourself until you don't have to make everything all about you to feel good or successful in life.
Why is this so hard for me to get? I read it over and over, I see it, but don't get it (or don't hold onto it). I understand the Listen part, but what about support? I guess I have seen support as help, do something, come up with solutions...
What do I do when he tells me over and over that his unhappiness is because of me? If I don't try to understand that, explain my actions, how can I address it? Better yet, I have acted/changed all of the things he pointed to that I did wrong, and upheld the changes. He is still unhappy; actually more unhappy than the bomb, even though he sees the changes, says this is the wife he always wanted. I asked him about that, and he couldn't answer why. I didn't even talk this one to death (I don't think), I just changed it. Wait...I might have tried to defend past actions, but I finally stopped that and just did something to fix it. That all happened probably within the first few weeks. But then he kept telling me how he resented how quickly I was able to make the changes--why didn't I do it years before? Again, tried to explain and defend. How else do you answer these questions?
I feel badly for him, for all that he has gone through, and regret that I didn' / couldn't do more before. I am also feeling like a victim, which I know is not very healthy, but the life that I dreamt of, imagined, is being ripped away from me and the kids, with no say or way to stop it. It has been very hard to accept. And I'm not sure if he will end up any happier in the long run, so I worry for him, too. I feel like I am worrying for everyone, and he is only concerned with himself (but would deny that). I am afraid that he doesn't see any of the negative consequences to what he is doing...and letting him find out means letting him rip the family apart. When I have brought stuff up about this, he asks if I don't believe that he has thought long and hard about this, taken the issue seriously...I guess he does see the negatives but his chance for a positive for him outweighs the negatives that all of us will have to go through.
Quote:
You are STILL trying to communicate your POV and convince him of its correctness through those other conversations, yes?
Quit trying to get him to see your POV. There is nothing to work out, nothing to convince him of, nothing to prove you were right about. If you reconcile, you will need to work through some things. Until then, act like he is a right-wing Republican and you are a Democrat and you have no vested interest in changing his mind.
Ugh. I do feel right about this. For me, my family, my children...and I have been fighting him on his needs. I finally let go Mon, and told him that I can't imagine the pain he must be experiencing to think that this is the only way to make it stop--it must be so hard for him. I won't stand in the way anymore. I have tried to give you hope that there are other options, asked you to trust me. But I really do want you to be happy, and now I have to trust you, that you are making the best decisions for you. I won't stand in your way anymore.
It's very scary to let go, when the decisions of another will affect my life and my kids lives so profoundly.
After he said the words I want a D, I got myself calm enough to run all of the numbers from the financials that I worked on. I got the Classifieds and estimated what rent/util would cost. With both of our current incomes and running an additional household, we would have about $200/month between BOTH of us for food, clothes, gas, entertainment, etc. He asked me what I was doing, and I told him. What does it look like, he asked? I told him that if we all lived on Raman noodles we could make it. I was angry, and I'm sure it came off snotty. That could be the other reason that he thought about it all day yesterday...
On the flip side of his unhappiness, when I have tried to explain my perspective, it comes off as defensive, rather than an explanation that there is more than one way to look at things... I think that is where we got stuck in our issues--he would complain (never came out with direct criticism until after the bomb), and I would get defensive. Instead of both of us seeing each other's viewpoint and coming to a compromise, he would back off and shut down. I read that as he agreed with my point of view and the issue was solved, while his silent resentment grew from not sticking up for himself.
Shut Up seems to address both of these problems. Can you tell that I don't like cheese, as I keep going down the tunnels that are cheeseless?
Didn't see H this morning for the first time...ever. I left him a note that S had BMX today, and if D got bored he could beep me and I would come get her early. Otherwise, I would see him around 9 to help put the kids to bed. Heard him, though, then rolled over and went back to sleep.
His enmeshment issues are MUCH heavier than yours. He just wants you to pat his head and tell him he is still a good boy. Not your job. Don't do it. Don't participate in maintaining his fantasy of a D-life where he still gets to have everything he wants, including the use of your bathroom. Crazy. No, it will not work for you to live together and be D. Talk about unhealthy.
I have some books on codependency; I have to look at those again. It's just that the behaviors that he is about to do are going to have such a negative impact on me, my kids and my family. At least with my mother's alcoholism, she was only killing herself...
And I do hope that being displaced from the bathroom, telling him that I can't be around him and may not even be able to be friends, makes him think about the consequences of his decisions. You are right; it is not about punishing him, but trying to save my own sanity.
Very supportive: "I finally let go Mon, and told him that I can't imagine the pain he must be experiencing to think that this is the only way to make it stop--it must be so hard for him. I won't stand in the way anymore."
Blaming, guilting, dismissive, telling him he is doing the wrong things and being a bad guy: "I have tried to give you hope that there are other options, asked you to trust me."
Not useful: "But"
Supportive: "I really do want you to be happy, and now I have to trust you, that you are making the best decisions for you. I won't stand in your way anymore."
I am sure your H would say this about you: "For me, my family, my children...and I have been fighting HER on HER needs."
