Over the Shock - Detaching and GALing

[Thinker]

Hi Sandi,

Glad you found me on my new thread.

Thanks for the advice.

Just a point of clarification. My W is 37, not 23 - its just that when I commented that I would never want to be 15 again, she said "OK, not 15, but 23."

I agree with you though, she is sick of being responsible, misses her father, is worried sick about her mom, and I think would really like to go back to being a child rather than a parent. I really can't do anything about it. She is getting IC, but I am not sure how much it is helping. I know I am working hard between sessions - peeling back and looking inward. The C that she is going to is a very good listener, but does not really challenge you, give you homework, etc. so it would be possible for her to go, vent, cry, and never really painfully look inward.

As for me, I have realized (through IC, introspection, and reading) that although I am a smart, successful, etc person, I really suffer from inadequacy and fear of abandonment that I believe stem back to my father being killed when I was 1 1/2 (Vietnam) and my mother (in dealing her loss) not really being available for me. It is a wound that I never before though hurt, but now realize that is still extremely painful. This and the neediness that go along with it are my own demons that I have deal with.

This is also probably why I was attracted to someone with a few problems of her own...

I'll post more about my GAL in a future post. It's going pretty well. A friend and I tentatively agreed to run a (short) triathlon together this summer to give us a goal. Now we just need to pick one and commit.