I was raised very, very strictly by a very unconfident mother (22 when I was born) and a workaholic father who I don't recall being around a whole lot. My mom has very strong ideas of "should" -- romantic ones, the sort you'd see on TV or in books about the "right" way of doing basically everything. I was a fairly normal kid but there were boundaries we just did not cross: touching anything at the store, for example, going into the living room (as opposed to the family room, which was where we were supposed to be), not going into my parents' room ever, etc. Some of this I think was normal for the seventies and some was not so much. In addition, my family moved every 2-3 years till I was 13, so there was a certain kind of instability built into my early life. So yeah, I've got some control issues, among other things, and confidence was a big problem for me till the last, say, 5-6 years. Now it's just a medium-sized problem.
H, on the other hand, lived in the same small town his entire life, where his great-grandparents (and perhaps even further back) settled, always well-off, family relaxed, maybe a little entitled, and nothing was a big deal.
So my attitude with the kids is a little controlling, a little relaxed, sometimes kind of snappy (I react sometimes like my mother, who I remember as being overwhelmed with four kids and a fairly inconsiderate husband, always feeling put-upon and never quite adequate, terrified of saying no to anybody from fear of rejection). Sometimes I can be really fun and goofy. But I want things to happen when I ask for them. Lately also I've been preoccupied with M worries, of course (trying to correct that, but the thoughts sneak up on me, you know?) and in the past I've been preoccupied with impending moves every couple of years, and the uncertainty of all our moves makes me sometimes a little nutso.
With my H too, I have been sometimes controlling, often snappy, slow to notice when he's being helpful (he doesn't know my love language, for sure, and I'm not sure of his). My kids can laugh at me and it's kind and makes us all happy, but I'm reluctant to show my husband my goofiness because I feel like he thinks I'm stupid because he prefers a drier, more cutting form of humor. Like that's more intellectual. So I already close that part of me off from him, while I'm more willing to show my kids all of me. Was it like that when we were dating? I don't remember. As I say, his family is rather entitled and at the moment I feel like that's my main sense of him. But I no longer really trust my memories.
When I have problems with my daughter (didn't today, thankfully), I think the underlying value that is being insulted by her behavior is that people who love and respect you don't treat you with such utter disregard for your feelings. That's not a reasonable expectation of a child, but it is very reasonable to expect it of my spouse. One of the things we addressed in MC was my loneliness in the M and how I reacted to the feeling I had that if he really cared about me he'd want to spend time with me and enjoy my company. The fact that that was not at all how H experienced our M was a gap that we didn't get to address because I discovered he was contacting OW all through our MC and we ended the MC.
Because we have moved so many times since we've been married, as well as through my childhood, I have always been fairly detached from my friends and able to accept them for who they are, so the need to control them or demand that kind of reciprocity from them is a lot less. People are how you find them, in my experience, and if you don't like what you find you limit your interactions to a level you can live with and find people you like better. I'm pretty accepting of most people, especially in the last year since BD, which has been so humbling. So I kind of live two selves -- the home self who can be really cagy, and the public self, who can give more freely because I have less investment in those relationships.
This is why DETACH is such a mantra around here, I guess.
So what does all this mean?
I guess it means I should take more of my attitudes towards the people who AREN'T in my family and apply them to H, kids, and extended family.
That I should acknowledge and act on the fact that I'm a lot happier when I try to control less.
That if I can't be myself as freely with my H as I am with my kids that something about that relationship must change.
What else?
Thanks for these great insightful questions...
Me42, H40 D12, S8, S7 A revealed: 7/13 Sep 4/14; Agreed to D 1/15
