Swimming with the Turtles

[zig]

thanks everyone for your replies.

yes KD - you are right - i am getting good advice from everyone here - and yesterday i got myself balled up into such a knot that i couldn't take it.

it took a lot of hacking through for me to find out that i don't really know what i want. i have this image in my head - that i've had for years about how i would like things to be and it's never come close to that.

now i have to face reality and see that it's just not happening.

you know, for some bizarre reason i think i was thinking that the separation may actually be the thing that helps h and i communicate better. if he gets what he thinks he wants then the pressure of him staying with me is gone, and then it's just a simple thing for us to take care of son together.

but %(*&&%$&^^^%$$ (that's me cursing big time) even this situation doesn't help does it? if anything, it's worse.

i don't know if the issue is not knowing what i want so much as i know what i want, but i don't know how to get it.

as for the anxiety, scaredsilly , you are spot on - and i'm sorry that i stressed all of you out. i have to get a handle on it. it rises so fast and hard, that i'm caught up in the whirlwind of it, and can't even think of getting myself centered again. it did occur to me yesterday that maybe i should be taking something to help me with it.

what is the stuff you were referring to? can you give me the name of it?

there is too much to deal with - and you know, this is what our marriage was like, and i shut down. maybe it's time for me to accept that this relationship is not good for me, and to really understand that h did me a huge favor by recognizing that in some way and leaving.

you're all right about keeping things separate - i see it this morning - that we are not ready to have more flexibility. i knew deep down that the fact that i was arguing back and forth with everyone yesterday was a really good sign that i was going down the wrong path.

i think i just wanted to try something different - to shake up the situation a bit, and that is entirely the wrong way to go about it

the first thing i have to tackle is this issue over the fencing.

i actually woke up this morning with the thought - let him do it. it suddenly became very simple - he can take care of deciding about which fencing class s goes to. that way i extract myself from the whole pattern of "s needs something, h asks me to take care of it, i take care of it, h objects and is pissed at me, i get all anxious and cannot understand what happened"

the only way to step out of that is to say no h, you take care of it and sidestep the whole thing altogether. the same exact pattern happened with the other thing yesterday except both his parents were involved. mil and i were trying really hard to break the pattern, but all of us got pulled into it.

thanks again all of you - i'm still a bit raw this morning, but definitely a lot more grounded. people on this board have been telling me for months (labug) that increased contact with h always makes me spiral down and i just wouldn't listen. i'm ready to listen now

in fact i'm going to insist that we keep things really separate

zig