Thanks for opening my eyes to things I wasn’t perceiving as “control” – guess she just really isn’t ready yet and I have to accept that and not push. I will make a conscious effort to hold back and see what happens.
The issues she has with me is that I essentially shut down emotionally (after trying to please her/get along for many years and feeling like, no matter what I did, we were in the same place), and know she felt very alone as a result (of course, I was feeling the same way)…
I think I then pored myself into the kids/work (as those seemed more “controllable” than figuring out what we were doing), and we were very disconnected. I started anew late last year when I bought the DB book (as a lot of our struggles were really the “control” ones – we’re both stubborn and would tend to dig our heels in when the other tried to “control” the relationship). Reading DB made me realize that much of the stuff we were fighting/bickering around were really not that important (and weren’t really about those things anyways), so I started letting go and not engage and, as a result, we started getting along better (of course, I thought we were starting to “reconnect”, but instead she started the A a month or so later). She recently told me that, during our “disconnected” time (which was many years), she felt I didn’t care about what she did/was about (and now it’s probably swung the other way, where I’m asking her about her work, etc., and not just the typical “family”/scheduling stuff, which I know is a “180” for me).
I haven’t brought up MC this week (but she knows I’ve scheduled it for next Thursday), and I’d say is still “private” but it seems to really around the work and don’t think the A (though of course I could be wrong).
I have no evidence to suggest anything is going on, as there was an “incident” that happened last weekend when I thought the A might be back on that ended up being a huge coincidence (found out OM was in town for a soccer game and she was going to stay with a friend that night, coincidentally). As a result, some of this stuff got back out into the open and that’s when she agreed to the MC, I think now understands the things she can do to make me feel “safe’, etc.
I would say that privacy was a bit of an issue before the A – she’s definitely not one that would sign onto full transparency in terms of cell phone/email – she is a very “private” person that really doesn’t bring her inner world to the surface to anyone, which I’ve been trying to break through (but now need to really go the other direction).
Appreciate all of this, TG...need to read your stitch this weekend!
