melissag XII - must. detach.

[melissag]

That sometimes you could be a PIA and sometimes he was a wishy-washy pleaser.

-and-

There were sometimes that you were standing on principle and he was being flexible.

Yes. That is true. There is no "always" or "never."

I feel like I have spent so long in denial about my H, myself and my M, that it is going to take me some time to be able to see things clearly. I'm not even sure I know which thoughts are reality, which thoughts I made up in my head, what H said that I internalized, which thoughts I came up with as part of my protective armor, etc.

I know that I look back on some of the things I stood up for, or nagged H about, and I cringe. Because they really didn't matter. But I also know that much of this was part of the dynamics of our R. Because I don't do it with anyone else. It's kind of like this insecure and indecisive part of me - it's not me. I don't feel that way with others.

It all depends on perspective and our character. To be able to hear what others say, look at our behavior and if what they say has some validity, change something -or- to look at our behavior, realize we're OK with it and say/think, Thank's for you your input but I'm good.

As you can probably tell, when it comes to H, I have not been good at this. At the beginning, I was. But then H kept telling me all of the things I did wrong and all of the ways I was horrible. And it got harder to say, "I don't think that's true, I'm good. But thanks." It started to make me feel like crap. He would tell me I was not normal, that other people weren't like this, that I was waaayyy on the wrong end of a spectrum, etc. And he would come up with this stuff after "extrapolating" (his words) from what I said instead of taking what I said at face value. Random example: I would say let's not go snorkeling with the kids today because there was a shark spotted at our beach this morning; the same beach where a woman had her arm bitten off by a shark 5 days ago. And he would say, "you don't ever let them do anything fun or have experiences - you just want to keep them in a bubble." In that case, there was no reasonable argument. It was a bunch of always and nevers (which I asked him a billion times to please stop using, and he refused), and accusations that didn't even match up with what I said or anywhere near what I thought, or anything even resembling reality. So no, I didn't think, "gee, maybe what he is saying is valid, and I should consider that and whether I need to change it." Because when he says always and never and exaggerates things to make me seem like a crazy person, I can't even back out of it that far to figure out a reasonable argument (if there was one) and decide whether it was valid.

So I would do one of two things. Dig in my heels and reject what he said (without looking to see if there was any validity to it), or internalize it and feel like he just didn't like me. I just kind of accepted after a while that my H would never see me for who I was, or appreciate me for who I was. So (you can probably see in my posts), I go between rejecting what he says and thinking he's a jerk who is out to make me feel like crap, and feeling totally rejected myself and wondering if I really am crazy and defective.

I still have trouble with deciphering what is the truth and what is normal and reasonable. That's why I need lots of feedback and encouragement to make decisions (and why maybe it seems like I let people make them for me).

It's kind of like how I have been affected by H's P/A behavior. I don't trust people anymore. I wonder if they are saying what they mean, or if they are really thinking something else and it's my job to get it out of them so they are not mad at me. It's frustrating. And then I wonder, is it reasonable to take what people say at face value?

Are you working with your C about why you judge yourself so harshly?

Not directly, no.

I feel like it's a thing people do. Especially women. We are all so hard on ourselves. We have discussed that I need to treat myself like I would a good friend, so that it something I am working on, but we haven't tried to figure out where this came from, no.

I finally figured out I was looking for something from this man that I was never going to get...and why did it matter? I was also judging him, which was not my place. I had to figure out what was off inside me, that made it matter. He didn't dislike me, I didn't dislike him (well, maybe a little) and the kicker was he LOVED, LOVED, LOVED my children and was a wonderful grandfather to them.

He could have his opinion of me (and to this day I don't really know what that was) but it didn't have to be my opinion of me. (Q-TIP Quit Taking It Personally)

So I took off my gloves. I accepted him for who he was, saw the good in him and let the rest go. He had no power over me.

You R with your FIL may be different but this is how we give our power away by getting all wrapped up in what others think of us.

I see what you are saying here. I just don't know how to do that. Yes, I can say, "oh well, who cares what my FIL thinks of me." But, when my H agrees with HIM and not ME, then it becomes more than just what my FIL thinks. It becomes what my H thinks. And am I not supposed to care what my H thinks of me? And then when it's me and H and FIL together, I feel like I am ganged up on. I feel like there are two people who don't like me and I get defensive.

A big problem in our M was that I just wanted him to like me. I must have said that 1000 times.

I now get it, I wanted someone to take care of me and heal wounds that were visible only to me.

I needed to rescue myself.

That's a really good observation. I have thought of my H as being this way. He basically brought his five, 10, 15 year old self into our M, with all the emotional scars (and really, open wounds) that came from his childhood. And he expected me to heal them.

I guess I probably did the same.

I feel like our M was such a mess, probably from Day 1. And maybe I am stupid, but somehow I don't see that as a sign that it would be impossible to have anything else. I feel like H and I have a lot going for us (there is a reason we were such good friends for several years before dating), and if we just worked at figuring out our own issues, and at how to understand, accept and respect one another, we could have a great M.

It hurts a lot that I think that, yet he thinks this is all my fault, and the easiest way to feel better is to get away from me and find someone else to put a band aid on his wounds.

It svcks.

I think I have ventured far from your point, labug. I just feel like such a mess sometimes.

You R with your FIL may be different but this is how we give our power away by getting all wrapped up in what others think of us.

I need to really think about this. I just don't know how to do this. I feel like I have two states of being: either I don't give a sh!t what anyone else thinks (did you see me raise my fists and get in my fighting stance?), or I get totally enmeshed and I let others' opinions of me color my opinions of myself and chip away at myself esteem.

Thus, my ping ponging between wanting to take care of my H and fix him and help him and give him everything he needs, and being angry about how crappy he is making me feel, and that he hasn't even acknowledged that he ever did anything wrong.

How do you get to that in between place? (I am successful at this with most people in my life, just not my H. Not sure if it's him in particular, or just the fact that he is my H.)

Maybe this just shows that it never would work with my H.