Carefully moving forward from H's mlc - ctflor

[25yearsmlc]

Ctflor

if anything can change us for real, and seem fast, it's a spiritual change.

You don't know what else has been going on in him OR for how long, so the change you are seeing may not be as sudden as you perceive it to be. Plus,

miracles happen every day. Be open to them.

I think you're right that doubting him will create self doubt IN him...and it robs you of some joy that is well deserved.

I see little risk to trusting him or his changes. Why?

B/c now you know you can make it, no matter what. You have been through the fire.

So if you trust him and it feels great and you are happy,

and THEN he yanks out the rug from under you

what have you really lost??

Besides, you increase the chances of this being real and lasting, by believing in it.

And believing in him - gives him something to live UP to, rather than constantly thinking of what he's Not supposed to do.


Just some thoughts...oh, one last one.

The more introspective your h is at this time, IMO, the better. Sure, it'll be even better when he learns to be here now.

Living in the present is a gift you can both give yourselves. it's a lot easier to do when you believe you both have figured this out, to the extent it's possible.

There are things neither of you may ever understand and that's the mystery of life. Try not to dwell on that.


But if he's really going to learn from this and figure out what the heck happened, and why, and how to learn from it, that has to come from within HIM

and it sounds like it is. Maybe you can embrace it.

Frankly, I wish my h had not so quickly moved forward as if we were "all done with that wacky time"....

there are times I wonder if he really recalls the things he said at Retrovaille, which were a big reason for me staying in the m. I knew he "got it."

I want him to remember that, NOT to shame him with remorse, but to keep us both from being complacent.

Complacency is not a marriage's friend. Maybe your h is avoiding that? Good for him.

((( )))

[angel61]

Ctflor,

God is giving you a miracle and you are questioning it.... instead of lifting up your H you are dragging him down.

You have little faith..... be thankful, and pray, and trust that God will take care of you.

[Ctflor]

25, Angel..

I have come back often to read your posts and just couldn't respond. I've been thinking about what you have said each day though.

Maybe it is a miracle... maybe I'm afraid to accept it, as I wait for the other shoe to drop.

I realized days ago, that I was starting to ruin it... when I noticed H pulling away a bit. The look in his eyes read to me that he was feeling down..

We had a talk about it and he insists that he understands what he went through.. and that he doesn't want it to happen again. And he asked me..."Why won't you believe me? I'm here, and I'm staying".

So it made me think about your posts and what I was doing, which is, ruining it.

I've changed my attitude since our talk and I notice that H's happiness returned again.

I really think he is being honest with me about staying together.

I just think that fear has kept me from completely opening up.

I go through these anxious feelings inside..... sometimes each day the past week. Most of these feelings are worries such as..

Will he do this to me again
What will I do if it happens again
Is he going to change his mind about staying?

I have to really overcome this, if we are going to piece the m. Cause he's sensing all of my fears. He did tell me he knows I'm afraid.. and that he doesn't want me to be afraid anymore.

I definitely stormed heaven with prayers last summer and fall... and I believe God has had his hand in this the entire time.

[Ctflor]

Today was highly emotional. I actually just stopped crying and pulled myself together while ago.

I got an email this morning from my sister, letting me know our Uncle (who is across country from me)has about 48 hours left to live. He has been fighting lung cancer, and is 70 yo.

Later, h and I went for a brief ride together while our D went to the neighbors to play. We stopped off at a church in town, and sat down together in the silence for awhile. He put his arm around me and we just sat there like this, until he asked to go see a Marian altar on the opposite end of the church. When we left, he said he'd love to come back with me again, and go to church when we moved back home. I felt really good about this...

But... anxiety inside of me started to build at some point in the late afternoon. The anxiety was filled with thoughts of... what if he changes his mind, what if he leaves me in CA, what if this goes all wrong.... and it sort of.... took over.

I decided not to let it drag the day down. We ended up having a great dinner together that evening, we both cooked together. After that we opened a few gifts, then we took D into town to see Christmas lights and get some treats.

Later on, after getting D tucked in and i came upstairs to see H filling stockings, and all of the sudden I felt my heart in my chest jump, the anxiety came rushing in and tears started coming... I didn't want to ruin the moment.

I kept thinking to myself... this year, he could have been gone. What would have happened to us. What would Christmas had been like for D. All of these thoughts reeled through my mind and I broke down crying. H heard me in the other room and came and held me.... and we talked for awhile. he said he understood... and that he was very happy he was here and that he felt awful that he was the reason why I felt so anxious.

Although the discussion was good.... and it all ended on a happy note as we started talking about other things, and our D... I just felt so awful for losing it like that.

Like you said 25, I'm struggling to live in the present. I feel like I'm going through something like PTSD. I don't know.. I just want to feel better..

[~ kd ~]

And it will get better, CT...

This season has a way of generating strong emotions within us.

Stay strong, you ARE strong. Enjoy the day for what it can offer, outside of any of the negative in your life. And let your love shine on this day in whatever form it may come out.

Be well and have a Merry Christmas!

[AntoniaB]

Ctflor the reason you feel like it's some form of PTSD is because it is...I talked about this with my psychiatrist, and it's one of those things where the PTSD symptoms go away if you can come to terms with the possibility that he might still leave. I'm not personally saying he might. I'm saying that your anxiety is coming from the fear of reliving the pain you went through before and your worry that if you are vulnerable to him, he'll hurt you and your family again, and you're worrying over the future but linking it to past hurt.

One of the ways to "combat" that type of PTSD is to "relive" the experience and make it ok the second (or whatever) time. Like, for me, recently, I felt every single thing again as far as my XH's abandonment when our closet pet died, because I had really "substituted" our boy cat for my XH emotionally. But having navigated the "trauma" a second time faster and better by far than the first, with the "tools" I learned, I was able to see that I could make it through "another bad event in my life that causes abandonment feelings."

I have read that sometimes a doctor can guide you through an abandonment experience in a clinical setting if one does not present itself in your life, and as a guide, be there to point out to you that you COULD make it, that you'd probably handle it better than in the past.

This sort of "victory" can help bring an end to the PTSD anxiety symptoms you're having.

So my advice to you would be to, in addition to your piecing techniques, prayer, etc., that you perhaps bring up "PTSD" and anxiety about the future that is sort of attacking you in the present with a doctor or counselor. I think any trained counselor who deals with abandonment can help with this; you wouldnt' need a psychiatrist per se, and maybe you're even seeing someone already.

But you may as well get another tool in your arsenal to deal with anxiety and this might help you be more peaceful day to day, which in turn would help him.

[Ctflor]

Thanks Kaffe & Antonia

I hope you both had a good Christmas.

The past two weeks I have let some of my GAL go. We are hitting the dead of winter here in the mountains and I'm a bit stuck sometimes. It's OK because we are preparing to move in Feb, and I'll be going where I can do much more.

I'm seeing a pattern taking place in me...

I'm fine and H and I are having good days together, and the intimacy is going great.

Then suddenly I feel anger and sadness take over, and I just want him to leave me alone. I find myself withdrawing inside.

Then it goes back to me wanting to be close to him again...

Maybe this is me trying to protect myself.

H and I were talking last night and he told me..that he could see what I was going through and that he felt guilt for it. He wants to take it away and knows he can't. He wants to build trust, and knows it's going to take a long time.

I wonder if I will ever be able to fully trust him again. That scares me.

[Ctflor]

Antonia -

I did go through a similar experience in psychotherapy, in which you release the past by reliving it. I was abused as a child by my mother and I went in patient for two weeks to deal with the nightmares and the abuse issues when I was only 19 yo.

I don't know if I'm ready to go through that right now, as far as what happened last summer with h, but it could help in the future. Not sure. Everything is so fresh and raw, and painful, I'm not sure it will be beneficial yet.

I'm taking some medication to help with the panic and anxiety, which the doctor says he wants to take me off of eventually... I'm moving and so I'll see a new dr soon to handle this when the time comes.

But I have to say that I don't the medication is doing that much for me. I still feel these "episodes" hit me where I'm panicked inside and I shake and cry... or become angry.

For the most part I'm doing OK. But it is falling into a pattern, as I mentioned above.

[AntoniaB]

Oh wow, I'm sorry that you had to go through abuse as a child, but yet glad you got the psychotherapy you needed for dealing with that.

I get what you're saying about not wanting to add more therapy of that sort to the mix right now.

I actually think that your recognition of the pattern you're in now with your push and pull with him is really good, though, I mean, it's really good you SEE the pattern. My doctor often says that the ability to recognize the patterns is really half the battle.

The only thing I can say about patterns (and my example isn't with my XH but with my interactions with my dad who can be difficult) is that when I see myself fall into an old pattern I try to remove myself from my knee-jerk reactions right in the moment and think about my meditation group and meditation practice. We talk so much in our group about learning NOT to react to things that are our "triggers." It's not the same as being a doormat, or not "standing up for yourself", it's more like knowing that certain things in other people's behaviors that are NOT ill-intentioned by them but part of who they are at that time in their life can trigger us to react in a bad way, and we try to practice NOT reacting to those things but more just trying to watch our own reaction.

I don't know if you ever tried meditation or reading about meditation, but I've found Pema Chodron's essays invaluable for talking about just staying "still" and not reacting, or reacting in less extremes. She's written lots of books. You could probably find stuff online too if you google her. Hope that helps in some way. I struggle with this stuff too and it's a constant battle, especially for those of us who do have panic or anxiety in our backgrounds/genes/etc.

[Ctflor]

Thanks Antonia! I'm going to start really watching out for my own reactions to triggers. Some are very small too. It's crazy.

The like the other day.. h came home from work and opened the garage door to bring trash cans in. It's been a long time since he has opened the door after coming in from work, but last summer it was a daily habit because he was hiding his copies of the CD's he had made for OW so he could listen to them in the truck. he would bring them in and hide them in the garage.

When I heard the garage door open after he pulled in, my heart sank and I got very shakey and anxious. Of course, this time he was just bringing trash cans in.

It's those little things that kind of bring me back into that time.

I checked out Pema Chodron's site. thank you for the suggestion!

I'm moving over into piecing, and have made a new post there. I hope to see you and everyone else there too.
Thank you so much.... have a good new year.

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