New to Piecing -- again

[peaceful_spirit]

Great session with my C. She is so great. I haven’t been to her in a while. And she knows H very well because we used to do MC with her and she was there through the horrible periods of our mess.

Anyway, I’m going to bullet out a few things she said so that I can remember them. Plus, I think these pointers will be helpful to others:

-She asked what it was I was really afraid of, to which the answer was losing the marriage.
- She reminded me that I was okay when H left before, I’d be okay again. And if I can just get to a place again where I know that in my head, my level of anxiety will go down.
- Said that I need to act as though H made the right decision staying in the M. Then my confidence will start to go up
- She said to stop probing H for information (i.e. what he did for lunch) because he’s gonna do what he’s gonna do and my grilling him about it isn’t going to do anything but harm.
-That by my asking him for information all the time and asking for reassurances makes me sound needy (which I already knew), and that’s not an attractive trait for anyone.
-She told me to focus on the marriage and the R with my H
-She said that I was looking for external factors to give me reassurance
-Said that if he wanted to be with OW, he would be – that it wasn’t her that he wanted but more of the escape that she provided. That combined with the fact that she was aggressive and had some sort of intoxicating way about her, H continued to get sucked in but didn’t really want that as an R.
-Any M can end… anyone can leave a M at any time…. And by my asking questions and for reassurance all the time won’t stop that from happening.
-Also, by me stopping these behaviors, which aren’t helping anything, I can take comfort in knowing that I am doing everything I can to repair the R and not damaging it. So if H ever decides to leave again, I will know it was nothing I did.

It sounds like a bunch of 2X4s, but that’s what I go to her for. She’s a behavioral therapist, so she’s focused on looking at the behaviors, why I am doing them, what doing them will cause and how to stop them. I should also say that despite the 2x4s she said that she completely understands why I am doing what I am doing… but simply that it isn’t actually helping anything.

So, I need to continue to remind myself that I need to be my own person, focus on me, focus less on H, remember that I will be okay if H leaves again.