Just got back from lunch with X-SIL and need to journal so that I can process what happened. I’m suiting up in my hockey goalie uniform since I’ll probably be getting 2 x 4s for some of the stuff I said to X-SIL. The thumbnail sketch for today’s outing is that X-SIL was VERY tight-lipped about XH. I got no additional insight from her into what is going on in XH’s world……….and that’s fine. The purpose for the lunch date was to visit with X-SIL. We have grown closer over the last 1½ years as we’ve begun to communicate with each other directly and become GFs.
XH dropped X-SIL off at the house at the appointed time and drove away. He didn’t come to the door and we didn’t see each other. X-SIL said XH had “things to do”. The house smelled great with fresh bread in the oven. Told X-SIL it was my first time making this recipe and gave her some to take back to XH’s with her. She brought my Christmas present with her, saying she had left it with XH to give to me in December, but for some reason XH gave me part of HIS Christmas present by mistake (confused alien mind……..duh!). I in turn gave her the book “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman. Told her that I’d read about 18 books about Rs over the past 2 ½ years and that this was one of the best and a favorite of my D support group (didn’t tell her about DB’ing, just referred to this forum as my D support group). She seemed interested and said that it was probably time for her and her H to go through a book like this again. She said they’d read a John Gray book together when they first got M’ed and it really helped them to communicate about some important issues. She said that she and her had gotten to a point where they were living parallel lives and recently had begun to make more of an effort to reconnect. ………..This led to a conversation about the cycles that Rs go through and how it’s normal to have highs and lows in Rs. X-SIL said she and her H went through a low point at 7 years of M (they are at 14 years now) when she thought about leaving (this is her 4th M) but she stuck it out and feels the rewards are worth it, particularly at this stage of life.
The conversation flowed naturally into a discussion of Rs and M. I told her that I have been working to learn more about what makes a R/M successful, shared some of the things I’d learned about how I contributed to problems in my R/M with her brother, and told her what I’d learned about changes in brain wiring and chemistry that occur when there is trauma in childhood and how that sets people up to have difficulties with intimate Rs (she is interested in this because she has been struggling with those consequences in her Rs and her H’s father was also an alcoholic). Told her that science has shown that dopamine (the neurochemical linked to addiction) is elevated in response to novel stimuli (e.g. new opposite sex Rs) but it’s physiologically impossible to sustain dopamine highs for long periods of time, so if people need that high they often find another R to give them that high again. Told her what Daniel Amen says about how novelty is critical to maintaining a man’s happiness in a long-term R.
We talked about the dynamics in her family of origin and how XH is really close to their mother. I told her that I was surprised that XH is now kissing his mother on the lips because he had never done that before. She said “Yes! He has been kissing mother on the lips, kissing me on the lips, and other friends on the lips and that just makes me feel weird!” (this is not something their family ever did when I was part of the family, so this is a change in XH post-bomb --------it also makes me think that the kiss on the lips reciprocated by XH before Christmas probably wasn’t much of a big deal after all……).
We talked about X-SIL’s R with her H during the course of this convo and so to illustrate some of the points that I was sharing with her from the work of Daniel Amen and Louis Cozolino I talked about my R with XH in a way that I haven’t shared with her before. I did not offer judgment one way or the other about XH’s actions, just told X-SIL about a few things that had transpired between XH and me. The main points I shared with her were:  X-SIL was showing me a pile of photos from her childhood and we were talking about their childhood so I told her that H/XH had became very depressed about 2 months after we took a trip to their childhood home and haunts on a Thanksgiving visit to their state (this was 3 years ago and 6 months pre-bomb). Told her that H/XH wouldn’t talk to me about it, so I left him alone to work it out. She said she didn’t know that.  I told X-SIL that XH had given me no specific warning that he was unhappy with our M before he left. I said all I knew was that he complained that I worked too much. Said that in hindsight I know I should have asked him if that jeopardized our M but always thought H/XH would tell me if that was happening.  I told X-SIL that it took 6 months for H/XH to tell me why he’d left (he felt abandoned by me). I told her that in that same conversation with XH (6 months post-bomb) I told H/XH I thought he had told BMF, but not me, about his unhappiness in the M. H/XH looked kind of sheepish and said to me “You’re probably right about that”. (X-SIL looked surprised at that.)  Told her that when I asked H/XH why he didn’t want to work on the M he said “I don’t know why I don’t want to work on the M and I don’t know if I’ll ever know why”. I told X-SIL that I think XH is afraid of intimacy and his childhood demons and that is why he was afraid to work on the M.
Over the past 2 ½ years I never told X-SIL any of these details because I was trying to be a good DB’er. Now as more time is passing and I see XH still in the tunnel, I find myself growing less patient and because these points flowed naturally from the conversation I let them out today.
X-SIL is VERY tight-lipped. She told me that she doesn’t talk to her brother about his life (I take this to mean she doesn’t tell him what to do) and I know her well enough to know that she is not going to tell him word for word about our conversation, but it is possible that bits and pieces will come up in conversation with him in the future.
X-SIL and I were together about 3 hours and enjoyed chatting very much. At the 3 hour mark both she and I received VMs from XH on our cell phones. Phones were on vibrate mode so we didn’t see the VM until 10 minutes later. XH then texted X-SIL that he had been sitting outside his house in his car for ½ hour waiting for her to return from lunch so that they could go visit their mother together. She called him on his phone and he was NOT a happy camper. We were both confused about why XH would be waiting in his car on a winter day rather than waiting inside his house. I told her that I had observed over the past several months that XH wasn’t as good at communicating with friends and family as he thinks he is. I said I hoped that they would have a chance to really communicate during this visit. When we pulled up to XH’s house, he was sitting in his car waiting. X-SIL got into his car and he pulled away from the curb and raced down the street, squealing his tires as he went. XH was throwing a temper tantrum in his hot little convertible……..Funny thing is, this is the second time this scenario has happened with our little trio in the same situation (lunch date with X-SIL). Both times I didn’t ask what time X-SIL needed to be done with lunch and since no one told me “X-SIL has to be back at such-and-such-a-time” I didn’t think there was a time constraint. X-SIL didn’t tell me there was a time constraint so I don’t think she was aware of a time constraint either. XH had a big temper tantrum. That’s weird because in all the time that we were together, I never saw him lose his temper. I thought he’d been peeking out of the tunnel but apparently he’s still in there……………..I’m frustrated. Thank you all for letting me debrief about this.
