Help Please: Chapter 2

[labug]

Here's the key, do what you want to do without expectation but with a level of detachment.

If you want to go to lunch with him and you can do it without expectation, do it.

If you want to go to dinner with him, and can do it without expectation do it.

If you want to have sex with him and can do it without expectation, do it.

That's how you avoid cake-eating (which is an action only you can define) by only doing things that work for YOU.

Don't do things for effect, to get an reaction from him. You have no control over his thoughts or feelings, he could have any number of reactions.

Bottom line-do what makes Maybell happy but the kicker is, sometimes we aren't honest with ourselves. Be brutally honest.

I think your recall of the incident with your H does have significance. What do you think the significance is?

[Maybell]

Well I really was trying to avoid analyzing that little break up. But I guess I have to...

It was certainly the start of our pattern of me crowding him and him running away.

Also of me taking charge of the relationship and him going along.

I'm conflicted as to whether it also shows that when I leave him alone he comes back.

What am I missing?

[loualea]

HI Maybell

Have the same issue of pursuing and him running Found some help reading about Pursuers and dstancers..
Summed us both up, The Solo Partner gives some great advice ( I think ) on that dynamic..

Sounds like things are improving. i admire the way you have detached.. I sure struggle daily with that..

[Maybell]

Thank, Loualea, it's been a work in progress, not to mention not a completely consistent state of being.

Also, I was going to add, the incident while we were dating suggests that my desires are not his number one priority?

[claire7]

It's funny how the space and distancing can help us see them and our relationship in a different light, right?

You are doing really well!

[labug]

Thank, Loualea, it's been a work in progress, not to mention not a completely consistent state of being.

Also, I was going to add, the incident while we were dating suggests that my desires are not his number one priority?

I'd focus more on what it meant from your POV for you and things you have control over. If I remember, whatever the event was, you didn't go either but the issue was forced to a point where you were both so unhappy that you broke up.

Was the event more important than your R?

If he didn't want to go could you have attended by yourself?

Do you think he felt heard?

and...should your desires be his number one priority?

[labug]

Just for clarity, I'm not saying you shouldn't have needs but we need to understand clearly what our needs are and be able to communicate them.

It's not easy when we've been programmed to ignore our needs and we certainly aren't taught to communicate them.

Is it any wonder we feel so misunderstood?

[Maybell]

Well it's a good thing I have you, labug, since I clearly have tunnel vision.

No, my needs do not need to be his number one priority. But I would like to make the list.

It wasn't that the event itself was a hill worth dying on. But he wouldn't explain to me why he wouldn't go and I felt hurt. I was new to the area but he had grown up around there so most of what we did was about his connections and interests. The event would have involved a trip to a nearby state and in those pre-internet, pre-cell phone days I wanted to spend time with one of my few connections and show off my wonderful boyfriend and have someone riding shotgun in case I got lost.

I didn't go because I was afraid to go by myself. Note that marriage with him has cured me of those kinds of fears. But I still feel hurt at how unable he is to communicate himself to me. (I know it's a skill he's lacking because his mom is just the same.)

We did have surrounding issues about him needing more downtime than I realized and my acknowledging that was part of what brought us back together. So it wasn't just one thing that led to the break up... But the part that I cared about never got resolved, only his needs which I figured out independently and he then confirmed.

Did he feel heard? No, but mostly about the surrounding frustrations. I really feel like his not wanting to take that particular trip had more to do with his other feelings of being crowded and his general introversion than the trip itself.

I'm not sure how this might have followed through to now.

Our year or so leading up to the start of his A was really hard on him because we were in very close quarters with our three noisy kids and cave time was hard for him to get. Not to mention the anxiety of the financial issues leading up to that. Then once I knew about the A he voluntarily gave up his cave time so I could see he wasn't messing around. The "not messing around" part didn't last long but staying out his physical cave did. But he hid himself in his phone & video games right in front of me and the more he retreated into electronics the angrier I got till he finally snapped and said "this isn't what I want."

I don't have the means to fix it like I did back then and it would be stupid to anyway so now I have to watch and see if he ever does the work to fix it for himself or if I'm just not worth the effort to him.

[Maybell]

On our annual vacation with my parents & brothers. My SIL asked if it was hard to come up to our room without my H.... Nope. The hard part is not having him to sit with me in the evenings and know we're on the same page when the adults sit around chatting in the evenings.

But even that is bearable because my kids and I are enjoying one another more than we've ever done. D11 walks on the beach with me and has even tentatively agreed to run with me. S6 is letting me read him chapter books instead of begging for electronics. (Have I mentioned how I hate electronics?)

This time last year H was sacked out in a chair in the corner, disengaged from everyone including kids, sexting with OW. What a waste. This year that chair has been removed from the house. It made me smile to see it gone.

[claire7]

That's such a great perspective, Maybell! So much of this is so hard... and some of it is really good.