There and Back, #5

[SallyM]

mk, like you going dark, I felt pretty good, or at least okay, until he started pursuing again and I felt myself slip into hopefulness. even though I kept saying I knew it wasn't real, I think I took it all way too seriously.

my therapist and I talked about things yesterday. I had taken a couple of weeks off so the last she had heard from me was when H wanted to take the kids to the beachhouse with ow. big change. lol. anyway, I think I know what is/was going on with him...just a co-dependent panic attack, really, with so much being shaken up in his life with the new job, he needed to feel like I was still there, at least a bit.

she has this theory about circles. if you picture a full, complete circle, that would be a person who is fully developed/no real issues. people who have certain parts of them that were never developed properly due to whatever reason, are incomplete circles. it takes real work to complete your own circle, to make up for the things that were lacking. what most people do, however, is fill the circles with other things...with shopping, or jobs, or people, or eating disorders, drug/alcohol addiction. something feels lacking, so they pick whatever feels right to try to complete their circle, but every one of these things will fail over time because they aren't real...they are simply filler.

H and I are both pretty classic incomplete circles, who used each other to fill up our own circles. classic co-dependent relationship. yes, love, definintely love, but very co-dependent. what my therapy is doing for me is to help me close my own circle (god, how psycho-babble does this all sound? lol, I promise, it makes sense, though, or at least it does to me). I've been doing good, I have, just still have a ways to go.

H, on the other hand, has done no work on himself, and still has a big gaping hole in his circle. he's tried to fill it with stuff...with OW, with the new job, with other things, and partly still, with me. but over time those things will not satisfy, because again, nothing can close his own circle but himself.

what therapist and I talked about yesterday was about how his circle felt a little emptier because of the mistake the new job was, added to the fact that I was becoming more and more detached (yes, ow is part of his circle, but I've still been a part of it, too). so he scrambled, we think, to try to keep me in my section of the incomplete part.

are you following me?

makes sense to me. and makes sense why things changed once again. could be, yeah, OW sensed something and panicked herself (a VERY incomplete circle, that one) and fought for her (my) man. or maybe h just felt like he had where he needed me to be again, and was able to relax again, feeling like his circle was once more complete (even if it isn't really).