NEON RED is GO for Launch!

[Zoo]

Holding,

Yes, I did make myself feel lousy for a while. After I posted on the BB about it I did feel a little bit better though. I need the 2x4 taken to me...you might want to double it up though, I have a very HARD HEAD and it takes a few whacks for anything to get through

I'm not doing good right now though H's news tonight on the phone has my head spinning and I ended up handling the whole thing pretty badly

I can only control myself, I cannot control the sitch nor the person.

H will be gone for 18 months. Part of that 18 mos will be spent stateside in CO. The remainder will be spent overseas "elsewhere", probably some olace with a great deal of sand and miserable heat. This is what H hit me with in the first minutes of our conversation.

I sat there in silence for a few minutes, frantically wracking my brain, searching for a safe place to steer this conversation to in order not to give way to the tears I felt building up inside. H did not need to hear an emotional outburst, he had enoough on his mind already. I chose the path of practicality and asked H what he thought about the sitch and the plans that would have to be made.

"what is there to think about? There is nothing I can do about it."

I can only control myself, I cannot control the sitch nor the person.

My reply to H was that there were lots of things to think about. I said that we would have to work out the financial sitch in order to make sure there was money available to him. He said there was nothing to think about...he would just need to have enough money for cigs and sundries and he'd be ok. I told him that I wasn't to worried about the amt. he would need overseas but what he would need stateside...CO is an expensive place plus we would have to set money aside so that he could come home on the occasional weekend if allowed.

The practical path was the WRONG choice It all went downhill from there

H said that wouldn't be an issue, that he wouldn't be coming home while he was in CO. I sat there in stunned silence. He then said it would be too expensive to do that so it wasn't even worth thinking about. I was hurt by this statement; to my ears it sounded like he was saying "so what I will be gone for 18 mos, I'm not going to waste my time coming home to be with you when there are more important things for me to think about." The hurt won out, H's tone of voice won out...I told him what it sounded like to me

H gets totally exasperated and was po'd now. He asked if we couldn't talk about this when he came home, that it wasn't something to talk about on the phone. He said he had been looking forward to a relaxing phone call...that he'd been on the go all day because of this crap and instead all I wanted to do was b^%ch. I flatly said I wasn't b*%^hing. "Ok" he says, "your whining and complaining then."

The diatribe continued in this manner with extremely prolonged silences in between. I finally ended up telling H that I felt from his tone of voice that i had inconvenienced him with my call...that I had chosen to talk about the practical, mundane aspects of the sitch because I didn't want to go into the emotional crap yet...that I felt this was the "safest" thing to do right now. He informed me that I had just "given him a case of the A$$". He wanted to get off the phone, go eat,and go to sleep. No, he wouldn't call me later. I told him I didn't want to end the phone call this way. He said he had to go...told me not to worry about it, everything would be ok, he'd call me in the morning and let me know if he got his flight plans changed, ILY hon..."OK?" I said ok and ILY and goodbye.

I can only control myself, I cannot control the sitch nor the person.

I screwed up

H didn't want to talk about the practical, I think I would have been better off going down a more emotional path this time. Letting him know that I would miss him and think about him all of the time. Commiserate a little about how miserable he would be. Do my best to soothe and comfort.

I went on the defensive, fell down the tunnel of justification I'm still not sure HOW I ended up coming across as whining and complaining. Even in re-examination of the conversation I did not say "why is this happening, woe is me" at anytime. In the beginnng I was neutral in my voice and choice of words so H couldn't see how upset I truly was. I chose a subject that had nothing to do with "us", I tried to keep the focus on his thoughts and feelings. Apparently H didn't hear it that way or else he chose to hear it the way he did because he EXPECTED me to b&^ch, so his thoughts were skewed no matter what I would have said.

I ended up being accusatory at some point too. Things got turned around to "you said, you thought, you feel, you sound" It only served to make things worse.

I hope H doesn't cling to this one I don't want his x-mas to be ruined. I don't want the days he has left to be bad ones

I will do my best not to speak about how this will affect us and the R. I will "believe" that we will be fine and we are strong enough to weather this.

I will not bring up the practicalities again. I will wait for H to do this himself. If he chooses to say or do nothing then I will handle it on my own and not feel bad if my choices make him unhappy.

I will be upbeat, supporting, loving and caring. I will not allow ANY negativity to drag us/me down. I will not dwell on the "what ifs". I will live for the "NOW" and be happy.

I can only control myself, I cannot control the sitch nor the person.


I will now go quietly nuts
Zoo

[Jeannine]

((((Zoo))),

Sorry to hear about your present situation.

Tough stuff do deal with, no doubt.

As for the telephone exchange, I'll just mention what I picked up from your recount.

It sounds to me that your H is bummed and, well...maybe a little shaken?
He may not want to convey this to you and his reference to your bi*%@ing and whining are really more about what he is suppressing, or a distant cousin to what he is feeling deep inside himself.

Perhaps he is unable to verbalize whatever strong feelings he is experiencing right now, so what about leaning into those handy validation techniques as much as possible for the time being.
Hopefully, that will help diminish fodder for future explosions.

I know that this is a painful time Zoo, but would it help to keep in mind that this latest exchange may not have been 'personal'?
Could it have been a case of misdirected energy?

[Zoo]

Hi Jeanine,

The thought eventually crossed my mind that perhaps H reacted the way he did due to the stress of the situation, the fact that he was hungry and very tired. I managed to finally console myself with the very thoughts that you expressed in your post. H isn't any more happy about the sitch then I am and that unhappiness played itself out last night. H is not one of those people who expresses his emotions well and he tends to internalize things far too much...he is even worse then I am about it Yes, we have both been working on this aspect of ourselves but neither one of us was "all the way home" yet.

I am very afraid that H will start distancing himself now. It is a protective measure that he utilized quite well in these situations. He did it when he went to Kosovo (he was part of the first wave in). He is not "warm and fuzzy" about going into a combat sitch and leaving family behind. He is not "warm and fuzzy" about the combat sitch at all

I'll get through this the best that I can...my worry is not about myself so much as it is about H. I know we aren't suppose to look at it that way but right now that is the way it is for me.

Hugz,
Zoo

[psluke]

{{{{{{{{{{{Zoo}}}}}}}}}}}}

I hope you and H had some quality time together when he got home.

Sending you lots of calming, positive vibes right now.

[Zoo]

THose calm positive vibes worked AWESOMELY Pam !!

Once H got home and wound down a bit from his flight and the weekend we started chit-chatting a bit. One of the first things he did was apologize to me for being short with me Sat. night This totally floored me as it wasn't something I was expecting...my H doesn't apologize very often...although it does seem to be something he has been getting better at I apologized for my part in it all as well and validated H's reasons for getting peeved.

Here's the really good news though...LOL! H calls his new unit to find out where they mobilize at and when he would possibly be reporting. The commanding officer was somewhat surprised to here from him...it seems that she didn't need ANOTHER person with the same job mos. that my H has She told him that she would get back to him after she found out what was going on. H calls his old unit and they decide to try and figure out from there end what is going on. H finally got the call this evening...somebody screwed up !! They are cutting new orders sending H back to his old unit and he will not be deploying this time after all!! WOOHOO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Of course, we still have the possibility of it happening all over again and are going to go ahead and prepare for it "just in case". It is just sooooo nice not having this looming over our heads over x-mas.

Now everyone can go ahead and pull out the biggest boards you have and whack me good for going off the deep-end for nothing

Damn militarty anyway

Hugz to all,
Zoo

[shinybear]

The covetted row of grins!!

Happy Holidays Zoo!

Shiny

[Zoo]

Thanx Shiny...I needed those !!



Zoo

[psluke]

Can you tell I am SOOOOOO HAPPY for you?????????

[holdingon]

Gee,
I was going to apologize for my earlier post... seemed rather B***chy but I guess now I'll have to stick by it! Good for you, Zoo. Good for you and your H!

[Phoenix_In_Bloom]

Zoo,

I'm so happy for you!!



Hugs!