Turtles, Lists and Toilet Brushes

[zig]

hi everyone - sorry i haven't replied - and it's almost redundant now why i was sad last night.

I just spent the day completely undoing close to 13 mos. of DB'ing!

I pretty much threw h out of my house, and told him he didn't deserve my respect, consideration or my sympathy. This, of course was after the argument when he shouted at me that I hadn't changed one damn bit and I was still the same as I always was!

then he called - as usual about 8 mins later - and left a voice mail kind of apologizing and saying we needed to talk. i didn't call him back. then i cried like hell from frustration for quite a while. then i read about double-binds for an hour! and boy had he had me in one big time - the same damn one as always - and i finally figured out the dynamics.

when i called to say goodnight to s - he picked up the phone and asked - do you want to talk now or after s goes to sleep. I answered, Sorry I don't want to talk with you.

he said ok in this off hand voice and gave the phone to s.

after that i read some more, then i talked to mom - found out that i had grown up with non-stop double binds that my dad put her in - and that still continue! from my reading - a common thing apparently that you grow up with that!

So here I am and what I've found out it is that double binds come in layers and often creates another double bind. and there was already one big very complicated one that played out and after that I found that the new one was how to respond - if I call him, I'm guaranteed that the original bind will play out, if i don't talk to him then I'm doing the withdrawal - more of the same.


my mom and i talked for a long while - and then eventually i started working out the solution just by thinking out loud to her. i'm not completely articulate with it yet. there are only 2 basic solutions - to take it away from him or to completely walk away. completely walking away means that we have nothing to do with each other any longer in terms of parenting with s - and of course there's the other double bind...

in the middle of me thinking it out - on top of all of that - i discover how i have neglected his LL - and that's what triggered this off I believe.

So i need help from you all about that - I think I see where I went wrong but I can't point to exactly how I could have affirmed it - or can I? I'll describe what happened and now i KNOW that this happened REPEATEDLY almost everyday!!

A few days ago I asked h that if he wasn't using the stereo till his house was ready, could I use it for a couple of months since i didn't have one. He said sure. Today when he picked up s from school the teacher said - I've asked you guys to get indoor shoes for s for 3 weeks now, please get them asap. h leaves me a message this afternoon - do we have any slippers for s at your house. I leave a message saying no, you'll have to go get some and thanks i really appreciate it if you take care of it. he calls around 5, says I didn't listen to your message what did you say, I repeat he says ok (note: i do not offer to go get them, i refuse to do an act of service which is possibly his LL). then he says I've pulled the stereo out , can we bring it over right now? I say you don't have to go out of your way to come here this late, i can get it on the weekend. he insists. i say ok.

he brings the stereo over. i thank him and greet them sort of friendly - while he's carrying it in i follow s into the kitchen. when we come back to the front i say that's great - but he's checking out the row of shoes and slippers that are here. pulls out a pair of flip-flops from 3 years ago - yes, why are they still here - i haven't bothered to give them away!! INSISTS that s put them on and has to squeeze s's foot into it and s and i are telling him they are too small. he keeps insisting they are fine, and we are both still saying that they don't fit him anymore.

he gets mad, because i won't let him see for himself - I get irritated because he won't take my word for it, s is caught in the middle trying to be heard that he can't wear them- beginning of the double bind. we go back and forth for several minutes
this time i walk away when i see it's not getting us anywhere, saying - i'm stepping out of this - you guys figure it out.

he calls me back and starts sorting through all the shoes - there were about 6 pairs there - mostly winter shoes and s's feet grew over the summer and they are suddenly too small. he packs them in a bag to give to his friends. he starts insisting again that those slippers fit s - and i just say to s - wear those for the next couple of days, dad obviously doesn't want to go get a pair, so when you come back on friday we'll go get you another

okay - so that was probably not the right thing to say - but i was really fed up. then i asked h to come outside and talk to me.

BAD f'ing idea - i WAS calm and i just said quietly- h when you don't just accept that i said the shoes don't fit, it makes me feel as if you don't trust that i can make a judgement call about that. he lost it! he went on about how he didn't want to hear anything from me and he wanted to see for himself.

so i validated him - said i was sorry i didn't realize that that was what he needed - to see for himself, - but he really got into it and got up to walk off - afterwards i realized - it's ok for HIM to call me outside on the deck to talk to me, but it's NOT okay for me to ask for that.

he stayed a bit longer though - but just went on a roll about how what i was saying didn't matter, and if i felt like that it wasn't relevant and the only relevant thing was that i stopped him from seeing for himself.

i was stupid - i argued with him - pointing out that he hadn't been here for a year so he didn't see that s didn't fit in those. [censored] that set him off and next thing he's shouting you haven't changed at all - you're still the damn same you've always been. why has all of this suddenly become an issue in these last weeks (my boundaries???? - that i won't pick up the slack on his lack of parenting if we are d). i replied - because i don't want to parent with you in this way and i want the way we interact to be better, so once again - the only reason this comes up is because you zig haven't changed and your'e still the damn same, and it's still the same [censored].

and i started to cry a bit and said get out of my house - you don't deserve a shred of consideration etc - he walked back in, and i followed him to the front and said - lets put the stereo back in your car, you can take it with you. he says - what's the stereo got to do with this. i just said - i don't want anything from you right now. so i loaded it back myself - he made some smart a$$ comments and i said something off hand and then they left

SIGH!!

so i see now after much thought - he did something nice for me - brought the stereo. i said thank you in my LL. a minute later when i questioned him making s try the slippers on - what HE heard was zig is not appreciating this act of love that i just did for her (bringing the stereo over)
so he set up the bind - and i got caught in it. when i asked him to come outside and "confronted" him by trying to say what i felt (because that's how he hears it) he reacted in the typical way that the coercer in the double bind reacts - denied that i could possibly have those feelings, insist that the whole situation happened because 'I hadn't changed" and used anger and threat to control it - the unspoken threat was - you haven't changed so why should i come back?

SIGH!!

If i had kept quiet - and let HIM FIND OUT FOR HIMSELF that the slippers did not fit - none of this would have happened would it?

So now - after this long tirade - gosh i thought i was so past this - i have a decision to make - walk away completely - and not have any discussions and basically REFUSE to discuss this with him, or validate his position completely and say h, i should have let you see for yourself that the slippers didn't fit.

otoh - i am leaning towards the first - only because in his "quasi apology" on the phone he made a point to say that things went bad because I misunderstood what he was saying. (once again, part of the double bind where he puts the blame for the situation entirely on me)

frankly it's very hard to misunderstand when you hear a person repeatedly saying "this is all because of you, i don't care that you say you have these feelings, you make every thing psychological, you haven't changed , you haven't changed , you haven't changed...." SH!T those words are still ringing in my ears hours later - he couldn't have pushed my buttons any worse than that could he?

all because i said very calmly - h, those slippers don't fit s anymore...

and the WORST double bind of all:

damned if i am nice, damned if i am a b!tch - he's still going to get crazy on me either way....

I think i'm being coerced into becoming the WAW here pretty damn soon.