I want to go camping.

[labug]

Thanks for the post, Acc.

I really think this is a personal trigger area for me. I won't go into a long explanation here, I'm sure many people have similar stories about being taught to stifle emotions and put on a happy face. What I learned from that is suppressing emotions never works, because they always come out and if not acknowledged and dealt with it can be very unhealthy.

I've changed how I embrace and express my emotions over the last 2 years. I was a hot mess for about 2 years before the BD due to issues that usually happen at mid-life, parents dying, kid issues, job changes, etc. I knew I was skating on thin ice but just couldn't get my skates both going in the same direction in order to get help.

Thanks to BD, I did get help, therapy, yoga, meditation, weeded out my friends list, found new supportive friends. Worked on my R with my sons. Life got a lot better in many ways.

What I've found is I have a wide range of emotions, not just sad, angry and unhappy and if I can recognize them and then express them in healthy ways (if need be), my whole life is better, richer.

So I went back and read the quote that got me on this subject.

rH--I know it's really important to my H that I control my emotions.

T^2--As a guy, I think this is one of the top things you can do...we (some/most guys) just don't handle emotions well...either we feel guilty and give in, then resentful (maybe), or put up the safety walls, and can't grow due to denial blockage. Until something breaks us out of our conditioning, causing us to re-evaluate our resistance to the emotional aspects of life.

As guess what I'm getting is it should be done because it's good for H. Maybe that's my sticking point with this. And again, as I said this is a trigger for me, I can feel that and I'm just trying to figure out what the exact trigger is, where it hits the firing pin.

I don't know, I need to think about this more because what I'm hearing/reading is "We guys just can't handle those sticky emotions, so don't do that." And T^ I know from your explanation, that's not what you mean to convey.

Again, it triggers me a bit and I have to work on that for awhile.