taking back my life

[sage]

On the way home from work tonite (I seem to do my best reflecting during the commute home for some reason) , I had sorta a revelation I think into what may drive our S to move forward as like nothing ever happened.

Basically, it is a defense mechanism that our S's use to avoid the guilt that they must feel for knowing they have caused us such hurt. Understandably, the feelings associated with that guilt must s*ck just like our feeling about being betrayed. They don't want to keep feeling that way, so it probably works for them to pretend it never happen. It continues to work for them as long as we "play" along by not making any references to the betrayal ... and there lies our catch-22 ... because we continue measure their actions now in reference to their betrayal as our defense mechanism (DM) to prevent the possibility of being hurt again. Unfortuantely, our DM appears to be not very affective and doesn't work, because in order for it to work it would mean a breakdown in their DM, which will make them feel like crap.

I hope that made some sense?! Do others agree?

This makes complete sense to me! I'd had this sense of "conflicting DMs" all along in our M -- my need to talk about EVERYTHING vs. his need to avoid all conflict, etc. I KNEW that I was struggling with needing verbal reassurance from him (details, apology, etc) regarding his A. and that he seemed just not interested but I hadn't really been able to see it as an extreme case of battling DMs until you put it into words.

If so, there seems to be a conflict of interest in each others DM being used to help deal with the hurt. If this is the case, it seems we need to discover another means to nuture the healing. Any ideas on what these means could be?
The obvious one would be in MC where both can feel safe enough to let their DM's down to work together on the healing process, but what can be done when S doesn't want to participate in C for whatever reason?

Well, I'm not sure I have the solution but I'd say that if each person is willing to step outside their comfort zone slightly, then, some progress can be made. For instance, while my knee-jerk reaction is to discuss everything ad nauseaum, I have actually done a lot of the work (getting through my grief, working on the sense of betrayal, etc) silently and on my own. Maybe this seems unfair but it became really clear, really fast that H. wasn't going to be willing to deal with the aftermath in the way that I needed. In fact, marriagebuilders.com and "after the affair" really depressed the hell out of me in the beginning because H. just wasn't fitting the mold of the "total repentent spouse". But, I figured out that I could be really pissed about that and get nowhere OR I could try to work things out a bit on my own, strengthen the marriage in the meantime and see where that takes me.

I DO think that my H. has a responsibility to edge away from his security too -- that means having the conversation when he doesn't want to, etc. But, as I said above -- whereas I may have initiated 10 conversations in the past, now I'd only initiate 1 or 2.

Has it worked? Time will tell, I think, but, our M. feels stronger than it's been in a long time, I've learned a new way to deal with issues (and I feel so much calmer than I thought I would NOT talking about every little thing) and I think (but don't know for a fact) that H. appreciates the way I've handled things. AND, he's definitely showing signs of be willing to involve himself -- just this past weekend, he apologized for creating a scenario where "even email is suspect" after we had a brief argument re. my feelings of insecurity when he checks his email late at night.

Small steps, right?


--Sage