Feeling very nervous, H is on his way home!! Had an interesting convo with H this afternoon......
H rang me to day about some very serious stuff. I don't know if you remember, but there was a girl, my h's high school gf, who contacted h earlier this year.....I believe that they had an emotional affair if not more. She lives in Brissy, where H moved to. She's an alcoholic and has many problems. Long story short, her mum rang h, shes also an alcoholic, and told him that if he didn't pay them money, then they would ring me and tell me all sorts of sh!t and generally make his life he!!. H had a falling out with this girl about 2 months ago, after she tried to steel stuff from his appartment and appartment building, he said that he hasn't spoken to her since then and he had only wanted to help her but she took advantage of him. I know that this girl is really messed up.......she really didn't help things here, and about the time they fell out i started getting hangup phone calls, which i'm pretty sure where her.
I told H not to pay them anything, because if he does, they will never leave him alone. If they being to hassle us, we'll have to take out AVO's and things like that.
I don't know how i feel about this, H could have done 'something' with her........but he has never been unfaithful and really do i believe him or a psyco alcoholic?
Anyway, i think i'm going to take one thing at a time and see if h does the things he says he will.
Must admit, i'm excited but also terrified! I worry that he may just stomp on me again....but then, there are always risks! Life is difficult!
Well, here's a quick update. H has now been 'home' for 4 days. It has been different, to say the least.
We have talked alot and H keeps saying how much he needs me and that things just don't feel right without me.
I get the impression that H doesn't realise the seriousness of his actions. The fact that he walked out on me, and has had very little contact with me in the last three months doesn't seem to have any meaning to him. It's almost like he has decided that all will be well, and so he wants to forget about this whole episode and pretend that it never happened.
during on talk, I told H that i wanted us to be individuals first and then a couple. That he needed to get his own life, interests and hobbies and do things apart from me. I told him that i would still be carrying on with my life as is, for the moment, but that i would invite him to do things with me and make time for us to do things together.
To me this sounds fair enough.
Last night we had quite a serious talk. I think because i haven't been upset or attacking or anything like that, he thinks that i'm not angry etc. I told him that infact i was very angry, but i refused to let my emotions rule me. I explained to him that, although i was happy that he has decided that he wants to work on things, i can not be expected to simply jump right back into things. That i feel very insecure in our relationship and that the trust between us had been seriously undermined. I also said that i was extremely angry about the fact that he spent $20k in the past 3 months, that was our saving money for the last 6 yrs and we where supposed to have a 3 month holiday this year, now thats off!! I also explained that i would not support him financally, other than the consessions i'm made towards his obligations to the mortgage.
He talked about the fact that he just wants things to be ok again, and knows that he needs to slow it down.
He got upset, because i didn't invite him to come to my parents place for sunday dinner. Now i know that if he had come my dad would have flattened him! They are very, very angry at him and it will take a very long time for my family to accept H again. They loved him dearly, but you don't hurt 'one' of us! I don't know if they will ever really accept him again. They think that I'm crazy for even considering having him back, sometimes i agree with them!
H still has no where else to live, this is really getting on my wick now. He agreed to live somewhere else, it was a condition of his return, but he is really dragging his feet in organising it, i think he justs wants me to say that he can stay at home......
Not sure how i'm going to enforce this, or even if i should, just showa me that he doesn't do the things that he says!
Lee ~ Thanks for letting me know where to find you--I have wondering how things were going with you since you have been so supportive of me!!
I can't say I'm an expert at piecing (although I would like the chance to be..... ), but I have a few observations....
Quote: It's almost like he has decided that all will be well, and so he wants to forget about this whole episode and pretend that it never happened.
Maybe you should think back to the very beginning of your Dbing experience and do some goal setting. I would start with short term goals.
Quote: He talked about the fact that he just wants things to be ok again, and knows that he needs to slow it down.
Maybe you should talk about what this would look like for you and what it would look like for him......I know you don't want to go back to the old patterns. Maybe you should talk about the R in the context of a new R not the old R!
As far as your family...I think that will take some time and you may not want to get them invovled yet. I know my parents are angry with H, yet wish they could help him and sort of feel sorry for him too.
I think you have to go back to looking for babysteps! Keep us posted and keep showing H what a wonderful person you are!!!!!!!!!!!
(((((LEE)))))
Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.... (thoreau)
Well it's been a while. I have been very busy with work and home!
I have decided to move over into piecing, but I'll stick to this thread for a while.
H has been home for almost 2 weeks now. Things have been strained at times, but i'm appling 'I'd rather be happy than right' approach and this seems to be having a positive impact on the stich. On saturday night, H and i had our first date night. He asked to go the the movies and dinner. Dinner was nice, for the most part. During the meal H took 2 phone calls. The first didn't bother me, he said that he was sorry for taking it and he keep it short, but the fact that he took a second really bothered me and i found myself making snippy comments about his time in brissy, to which he got defensive and made his own snippy comments back. This put a abit of a downer on the evening, but we went to the movie and had a good laugh.
When we got home, H laid straigth into me about the fact that he had just watched a movie that he hadn't really wanted to see. I was quite taken aback at the venomance of his attack. When i asked him why he agreed to see it, he said that it was because he knew that i would like it and that now i was getting what i asked him for, which was that he be truthful with me. It would have been better if he had of been truthful with me in the first place and just said that he wanted to see something else! I told him that after the fact is too late and that i appreiated him seeing that movie with me, but that he chose to watch it and so now he must own that decision, i didn't make him see it. It made me very cross and totally spoiled the good night we had. At one stage he said that he didn't know what he was doing and home and i told him that sometimes i wonder that myself.
So had a bit of a backslide, but dusted myself of and got back on the horse! Sunday i encouraged him to go out and meet with some of his friends and we had a plesant evening together.
There are some good things, but some bad things. Bad: I don't know how to apply DBing with him at home. It seems that just having him here is prompting me to do 'more of the same' type of stuff.
He doesn't seem to realise the seriousness of what he has done and accordingly seems to think, and has said, that i have no reason not to trust him, and that it is my problem and therefore it is something that i need to get over and not his problem at all.
He is very invalidating of me and can be quite disrespectful (he said very loudly that i was deaf, dumb and stupid and when i calmly asked him not to call me names he said that he had a right to critise me!). Made me very, very cross!
He said that if his time in brissy had of been successful, then if he had come home at all, he would have lived else where, dated me and others. Yet another thing that makes me question his motives.
Good: Says that he is happier being at home than not.
Ironed my uniform for me, has made me coffee's and such things.
Asked me to go out with him
And right now i can't think of anything else.
I'm sick of all the R talk and it seems to me that he wants me to give and give and give, without him having to give a single thing! He even told me that i would have to pursue him, but yet what is he doing. He left, not me and he wanted to come home, i didn't ask him to!! I just don't know what to do.
My 'vision' of how it would be hasn't quite happened, not that i really expected it too, but i know that he needs to pursue me and make me feel that he wants me, cause right now i just feel that i'm conveniate for him and nothing else. There are plenty more fish in the sea and i think that i deserve someone who will love me as i love them, for who i am and appreciate what they have got.
I know that this has turned into a bit of a venting session, but i swear i'm going to explode at him the next time he makes mention of how good brissy is to live as compared to here in melbourne, WHF!!! I didn't ask him to come he, so he needs to give it up and embrace where he is now and get on with doing the things that he said he would!
Can someone please give me some direction at how to aplly DBing when they come home? I could sure use it.
I want to jsut tell you something. My H has been home since the 23rd Nov, Now although I was glad to have him home a lot of the emotions I had suppressed whilst he was away suddenly re-surfaced. I can say that things have only really started to becaome good in the last few weeks.
I am paranoid about H's phone, bcos he used to get texts from her on it, Now I have to fight with myself not to look at it or snoop, I know that if I did that it would cos me to get angry and resentfull.
You need to stay detached from H's action for a while, My H still hid his phone from me for a while after he came home and he was a little secretive. In the old days this would of caused heaps of argument, But now I just leave it, im not being a door mat, but its how they are when they first come home.
If you stick to the detachment and rising above it all, evenmtually H will settle.
Try and stay detached from what H does, Just be yourself and be happy, otherwise the resentment builds up and you are back to square 1.
Its hard.. but if you change they change.. they really do.
Wow. Sounds like things are really moving along... and all the feelings are coming up.
You do have to detach a bit from their drama. But I think you ARE DBing right now... you're looking at what you're doing and thinking about what works and doesn't work. Obviously, you know from my sitch that my H and I previously tried to rush back into "normalcy" -- and things came apart. I was not on this BB then... wish I had been.
I can tell you what worked and did not work for me if you want some things to try or to avoid: tiptoeing around his behavior (the eggshell effect) did not work, not asking him to own his own choices did not work (I think you handled the movie thing well, telling you afterwards only creates problems), demanding or expecting he meet my vision of an R that I hadn't shared with him yet did not work. Listening to him did work. Keeping my own schedule up did work. And reminding myself every day that his moods are not about me did work.
One thing I think is critical, yet really hard to do, is to keep remembering that not only do they need to own their choices ... they need to own what they are feeling... and this means that where there are at isn't really about us... it's about them. And every time we try to make it about us, it backfires.
I think you're doing fine... I think this piecing thing does take time... on both sides. (there, now I've answered the question in my own thread!)
Quote: One thing I think is critical, yet really hard to do, is to keep remembering that not only do they need to own their choices ... they need to own what they are feeling... and this means that where there are at isn't really about us... it's about them. And every time we try to make it about us, it backfires.
This says it all! My H, for instance came home last night after having a few beers and was in a very negative mood, I pretty much stayed away from him, S4 talked to him more than I did. I did test the waters, but H wouldn't talk to me or remark negatively. In the past I would have made it about me, meaning I would have tried to make him feel better, argue with him, but last night it was about H. I didn't take it on, just stayed away and told myself it's about H not me.
Quote: Try and stay detached from what H does, Just be yourself and be happy, otherwise the resentment builds up and you are back to square 1.
This is so true, staying detached and being me, is something I really need to pay attention to daily and do a lot of self-talk and monitoring of my feelings and moods. So that my mood is happy and up beat no matter what H's mood is.
HOORAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am happy for you!!!!!!!!
Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.... (thoreau)
), but I have a few observations....
