Hey, all ~ baseball season has started and so "the boys" are rarely here, as my son plays (this is the first year my H has not coached the team, and he can't stop himself from hanging around in the dug out/dugout? is it one word or two?) and they both umpire, so most nights of the week, my D and I are on our own. I discover at this time of year that as a single mother with one child, I'm not really into the whole dinner thing - we tend to just graze on whatever's around.
I realized a while ago that what I'm talking to my H about our S's baseball schedule, I'm not talking to my S's father, but to the little boy who never got to play any sports and is still bitter about it. I asked him if we could talk, because I wanted to explore this a bit; he hasn't made any space available, though, because he's probably expecting a big scene. I'd like to get into bed naked with him, snuggle up to his back, and just share my insight with him. I should try this sometime when we're both awake in the middle of the night.
I'm doing better on the surface - smiling, positive comments on his behaviour/appearance, helpful, reaching out physically in small ways - but worse on the inside. The other day, I was fine until he came home from work. We said hi, he went to get changed and I just started crying, overwhelmed with how much I miss the man that looked at me with love in his eyes and wanted to be near me. I see the effort he's making, and it kills me that it's such an effort to be with me. He's responding to the efforts I'm making, there are positives, but I am in rough shape. Probably hard to tell from this post, but I have tears running down my face and I can't actually see.
I have so much anxiety about things - what he's doing, what he's going to do. In a couple of weeks he's going to Calgary for a weekend. I'm pretty sure it's businees, but I am apparently really easy to fool, given how long he was actually f**cking around and I didn't know. I knew something was wrong, all we did was fight, but I had no idea how bad things really were and the same could be true today.
My nights are full of anxiety dreams about our R, the future, even my job, which is fairly secure, I think. As a side effect of my ADs, plus where I am in my life and these dreams, I wake up most nights covered in sweat - it is so gross (sorry, but this is my reality at the moment and this is the place where I lay out the ugly stuff). Last night my H tried to put his hand on my and I had to kind of intercept, because I wouldn't want to touch me. I picked up something to take for this, but I never remember to take it, so it's not doing me much good.
Reading that over, I almost deleted it, but decided to leave it in, as a reminder that I should make more of an effort here. It's yucky and embarrassing, and I don't have to let it go on.
Another reminder for myself: I really like the nonviolent communication approach pioneered by Marshall Rosenberg. I'm going to go into some detail about it here so I can refer back to it when I need to figure out how to express something.
There is a lot more to this approach, but there are four basic steps:
Observation - merely observe what is happening in the situation without adding judgement or evaluation. We simply state what we are experiencing.
Feeling - share with the other person how this situation makes you feel. Label feelings but also discern if this siutation is triggering an emotional reaction because it is reminiscent of our past.
When unresolved childhood wounds are triggered, we unconsciously project our feelings of frustration and helplessness from the past onto the present. Feelings can be strong and misleading - not wrong or right, but just your feelings, not concrete proof that the other person has done anything wrong or intentional. Ask yourself if the intensity of the feeling is justified given the current circumstance. "It is our personal responsibility to ensure that we do not project our wounding from the past on to our current relationships".
Needs - what needs are connected to the feelings we have identified - closeness, safety, consistency, communication, honesty, respect
Request - what do we want from the other person that would enrich our lives or make life more wonderful for us.
Okay, so now I'm going to try to use this framework to talk about how I'm feeling. I'll probably never say this to my H, since the last time I tried to share with him what I needed, it didn't work out very well.
Another thing I heard some time ago is that it's not a feeling if it requires action from another person - for example, you can't feel 'abandoned' because that requires someone to abandon you. This makes you down the extra level - the feeling is your 'fear' of abandonment.
Anyway, here's my attempt:
There is much less tension between us these days and I really appreciate that. I also notice that interaction between us is quite superficial and stays very much on the surface of things.
I can see that you are struggling in many ways and it is not my intention to make any demands on you. I'd like to share, though, that I am really sad, lonely and anxious.
The sadness comes from how much I miss you, how much I miss talking to you and being able to share my feelings.
I think you can guess where teh anxiety comes from. The loneliness comes from being unable to share my anxiety with you and from how little you are sharing with me about your feelings and your life.
When you let me in on the details of your day, not just what happened, but your reaction to it or other thoughts you may have had, this helps fill my need for closeness and supports my efforts to rebuild my trust in you. As much as you feel comfortable, I would really appreciate if you would also share with me some of your deeper thoughts and feelings.
It's too long, isn't it? If I ever decide to share it with my H, I intend to handwrite it out and it shouldn't be a novel. Any editing suggestions welcome.
What I really want is for him to tell me that he loves me and the he is committed to working on our M. I have so many questions about the information he just dumped on me last fall. I don'gt expect to be able to talk about it any time soon, but my H seems to thing that we will never discuss it again - or at least, he hoping that's the case, since in his head he did the big confession and it's over now.
I have work to do and this is just making me stress and cry. Good to get it out here instead of all over my H, I know.
To anyone that managed to read this far - wow, that's impressive. Thank you for your attention. I hope to get catch up with other people's lives this week, but this morning I needed to get some of this stuff out.
