OOPS. Mea Culpa...I wrote this while cycler was posting...I never would have sent this off after such a heart wrenching, eye opening post from Cycler.
Betsey...although I read it quickly, I think that Cycler is right...and it is as if she were speaking about me. It IS all about perception and I believe that you and I don't WANT control...it is just that we married men who were internally weaker than us. I KNOW that I didnt' know this in the beginning of our R....but when I did know it, I took control in an effort to 'help'. I've been told that I enabled him to continue to play the 'weak' one and that I didnt force him to be the strong man I needed.
And we all know that if you live with a P/A long enough, you become P/A some of the time yourself.
But it is all so very difficult when we have been mortally wounded to try to see how we appear from the other side...and Betsey, you have done that big time, more than any of us. So I think what your good friend Cycler was trying to say is that,once again, your trying to HELP, to HEAL the R has caused you to take control and that a part of you still believes that your H is P/A and weak deliberately. (God knows that many things my H did WERE deliberate.) I think Cycler is trying to say that maybe in his telling you about the move he was REALLY trying to do the right thing and you interpreted that one wrong.
I don't know if Cycler also has a P/A relationship...but it is very tricky. Because some P/A guys cannot stand it when you are vulnerable...mine closes down when I am vulnerable becasue he HAS no empathy. But if your man does have empathy, then I think Cycler may be right...that his protective instincts will activate if he feels you NEED his strenght. Mine wouldn't...but I wonder about yours. I think he may need to feel that he is just as strong a man as his wife is a strong woman...So maybe Cycler is way right on this one. But as i see it, no damage done. If she is right, maybe now is the time for Betsey to let her man know WHY she was upset at hearing about the move. THat she and D9 both saw the move initially as H wanting out of the M. It is a fine line to be vulnerable but NOT needy (as Iunderstand it, they fear us needing them because they are afraid they will fail????) But if anyone can figure this out, it is you Betsey. But gee, it is awfully hard isn't it?
