Breakaway, it sounds like you handled a very difficult scary situation extremely well.
I too have noticed that my H blames everything/everyone except the reasonable solution.
& because I am comfortable using medication & going to doctors or emergency rooms, when necessary, at times I was called a hypochondriac.
Hugs to you. It sounds rough.
M 19 years, MC for 8 months, DB'd for 8 months 4 kids; 18, 15, 14, & 10 I was never meant to be a doormat. It took me years of therapy to become assertive enough to stop his abuse.
Had al anon today...thank goodness, as H is home sick...radiation effects again. He is rather difficult atm.
ALSO went to my regular doc...and he's given me Strattera for ADHD. I have ADHD without the H...so I'll just stick with ADD. Long story there, but glad to finally have some help with that. My doc is a champ. He really gets what moms go through and how stressful our lives are even under ordinary circumstances.
Hi breakaway, I've been looking for you to catch up on your sitch. Glad you got some meds for your ADHD. Can't imgaine going thru your sitch with no help for that.
Gonna beat you up a bit here. Remember those you blame hold power over you! I get the sarcasm but in between the lines I see you saying "If you had been better parents, I wouldn't be married to this ogre of a son you raised." Let this go to be a healthier breakaway!
I took your point. I am working on it. A lot of the problem is that they have ACTUAL power over us. Over things like insurance, and money and so on. I have a lot of anger. And you're right, I do blame them for the way he is. It would be easier to let if go if they didn't get to keep doing it every day. Since they all work together. But I have to learn how to deal with it constructively. Just being able to pour it all out in counseling is helping me let go of it. And I think my new medicine is making a huge difference in only a few days!
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H wants you to lead him out of his misery--he just can't admit it yet,
I have to disagree with that. I wish it were true. And I have to avoid thinking things like that because it is kind of a co-dependent thought. If you are co-dependent that is.
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Nothing happens quickly enough for us here, but look at how much better you are doing since you first arrived!
That's the truth!! Thank you for saying I am doing better! It's always hard to see any of your own growth. What I can see is that THE biggest change is in detaching from the OM feelings, which was extremely difficult. I had some outside help with that as well...but it's a relief to not be burdened with that terrible sadness every day.
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I like the analogy of using a beginners mind that is referred to in the DR book. It doesn't mean going back to the beginning, but allowing yourself to be open-minded enough to consider every possibility.
That's a daily struggle, that takes me back to Al Anon principles though, of one day at a time, and not feeling engulfed by the worry of "the future."
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Cancer is associated with weakness and he has to be tough, strong, better than ever guy to beat the expectations of being a failure that he feels are placed on him. How do you avoid failure? Control.
Good points.
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BA, did H want to keep the cancer news on the down low after the initial diagnosis? If so that might've fed his need to negate all the expectations that he feels are projected onto him by those who would show sympathy to cancer-stricken H. Well wishers come with expectations, much like birthday gifts and greeting cards. I can only think H dreaded all of that sort of stuff. Or, did he 180 and become a different person altogether? If he cannot meet the expectations, he does a drastic personality change to throw off everyone's perceptions of him? He escapes himself by becoming an emotionally different person, detached from the person he was before. Either one of these something H did?
He actually did BOTH of those things. It's all wearing off now, though he still won't tell when things are getting difficult with him physically. But his parents who swear they are supporting him are also putting pressure on him, and if he says there is pressure, they say he is putting it on himself. They deny your personal reality...
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Did you read it and try to use this as an avenue? Turn it around and ask him about what his language might be? Or did you just cut to the recipes? It seems like he was open to it and at least tried to read it, but either he did get it and it scared him (vulnerability) so he had to dismiss it with a critical comment and remove any expectations you might have of the new "educated" H, or truly H just doesn't get it!
Honestly it was kind of a stupid article. It was in like a table form and I think he didn't get THAT. It was about how when a man is quiet he thinks it means one thing and she thinks it means another. But I would prefer he BE quiet than constant bitching. LOL. So it didn't really apply.
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He is trying. If this had been my W and I, I would've loved her to engage me in a convo about how to love me. Granted ours would've drifted into some sexual needs talk, but I just wanted to know I was good enough in my W's eyes.
So many things are always going on...and I'm taking in so much info...I just have to process it all sometimes.
Well...H has generally been acting weird and I think it's got a lot to do with the drugs he's on and so on. He's smoothing that out. I am going with him to a doc appt today. They seem to think it troublesome that he's still in this much pain, and truthfully I think that dependence on the painkillers is a possibility. He's finally back on "the right ones" and now he's fine. So. That's kind of a worry.
Anyway. I've been reading Jekyll and Hyde and Controlling People and they both gave me a lot of insight. It has helped me detach enormously. I no longer take his crap personally. I still don't like it, but it is losing its effect on my self-worth. Yay me! I think it's quite possible he has borderline traits. There are some seriously mentally ill people in the extended family...and I think he has traits of it...IC thinks this is also possible.
The CP book really reveals the "family system" and makes it more concrete to me how they operate. It was all stuff I knew intuitively but found it hard to make sense of. It makes sense to me now, in the sense that I get how they view the world. Again...it's not personal. All people get viewed a certain way. They have a pretend reality and any individuality is met with resistance and even hostility because you are threatening the pretend world. Nazis were like that, btw.
Anyway. I feel like Neo in the Matrix, when he senses that he is in a false reality...but no one else can seem to feel it. So the question is, do I take the blue pill or the red pill?? LOL.
Okay, so forget them, back to me. The ADHD thing is going GREAT!! Doc says emotional reactivity is a form of impulsiveness. The med I'm on is definitely removing some of that. They can say their sh!t, and I'm like, well that's bullsh!t...without having an emotional reaction to it. It's niiiiice. The thing is they don't think it's nice. I think part of H's tension lately is that he senses the shift. WARNING Will Robinson!!
BUT he is trying. It's so hard when all this physical stuff he's going thru is added to the equation. It clouds some of the issues. He promised to take the kids to the cabin this weekend so I could have my weekend alone, and he's doing it (tho I told him if he wasn't up to it he didn't have to). But he wants to mark motorcycle trail (I'm sure his dad came up with that) so he's going. As he said, Mr Happy (dad) is going to be there. I immediately wanted to control the sitch and not have him go and be around him but I stopped myself.
I think my new "schedule" is going to be good. Church on Sunday, Al Anon on Tue, counseling on Thursday. I think I can make it thru a week now. ;P
H almost had a breakdown after I went to the doc and got the ADHD meds. The first thing out of his mouth was "I don't think you have ADHD." Thank you Dr H.
We proceeded to have an awkward conversation about it, during which I finally said I was not going to defend myself. That kind of threw him, and he said he didn't want me to. But then he said, But I'm your husband and I think I have a right to know what's going on. As if I was "doing something."
I said, calmly, do you mean I needed your permission? Well he couldn't say that. Anyway, he just kind of freaked...and he sat there and refused to talk. And I said why are you mad? Of course he WASN'T mad...he was FINE. Although he had this look in his eyes...I can't describe it. Like his life was in danger.
Anyway, I thought, he needs his teddy. So I just held his hand and we were watching Seinfeld discs and finally, I mean, come on, it was Seinfeld...he started to relax and then he was really kind of holding my hand back. And then he was fine after a while.
In the past I would have been so angry I would have avoided him the rest of the night, or we would have had a huge fight first. But I didn't get mad, I just thought, he's melting down because I am acting like an individual and this terrifies him.
Then he makes himself feel better by having me do all sorts of little tasks that make him feel like I'm "back." Fine. It's all in his head.
H wants you to lead him out of his misery--he just can't admit it yet
I didn't mean this in a co-dependent way, just an awareness thing. H sees you taking steps to get better and maybe he wants some of what you are having. You need to get used to H being weird, because in his mind that is what he is getting from you. He sees something different in ba and he doesn't know how to react to you. I think he knows that it isn't business as usual.
Originally Posted By: ba
Well, a convo about how to love ME would be nice.
How do you make this happen? Could you have the conversation about how to love him, would that lead back to you? Five love languages is a good start, although you may want to give it a little more time.
Originally Posted By: ba
In the past I would have been so angry I would have avoided him the rest of the night, or we would have had a huge fight first. But I didn't get mad, I just thought, he's melting down because I am acting like an individual and this terrifies him.
Growth!
M42 S12/D9 T17/M12 Bomb 1 3/22/06 Bomb 2 7/11/08 Bomb 3 7/31/08 W Filed 8/1/08 D granted 12/17/08 D Finalized 1/29/09
A man who compromises his principles never had them in the first place.
H almost had a breakdown after I went to the doc and got the ADHD meds. The first thing out of his mouth was "I don't think you have ADHD." Thank you Dr H.
Break, my 2 cents...he may have been trying to give you a compliment and could not communicate it properly. Read this as him saying, "I think you are OK around me so why would you need these meds." It may also scare him to think that something may be wrong with you.
I may have completely missed it, but it seems like he has a hard time communicating his real meaning.
H almost had a breakdown after I went to the doc and got the ADHD meds. The first thing out of his mouth was "I don't think you have ADHD." Thank you Dr H.
Break, my 2 cents...he may have been trying to give you a compliment and could not communicate it properly. Read this as him saying, "I think you are OK around me so why would you need these meds." It may also scare him to think that something may be wrong with you.
I may have completely missed it, but it seems like he has a hard time communicating his real meaning.
Trying to understand one another goes both ways. It would also be thoughtful and compassionate if her H could try to learn to think about break's feelings and what she would like to do. Rather than giving his opinion, he could try, "What can I do to help?" or "I'd like to learn more about ADHD. Where's a good place to start?"....or something along those lines to show he cares.
By saying he doesn't think she has ADHD, he's completely disregarding what she is going through and feeling. That's not very supportive of a spouse.
JMO.
(((breakaway)))
Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward. ~ Joseph Campbell
I agree he could be more compassionate, but he may not even know how to do that. I agree that he tends to frame things from his own perspective and is not able to communicate well.
