Holy Moly, 25! You have given me so many nuggets and so many 2x4s that I've had to write them down so I can refer back to them FOREVER!
I should state that this specific post was written at a particularly negative point. I am sure there will be many more but I was definitely fighting against the stream thinking my situation was unique and couldn't be solved the usual way. I was fighting DB'n out of fear that it wouldn't work before I'd even given it a chance, before I'd done the work. Something rather indicative of how i approached my marriage, I think. Fight the discomfort because it's uncomfortable. Didn't work in the marriage, won't work in repairing the marriage, if that's possible so I'm dropping that technique.
A lot happened since my last post in this thread, mostly that I'm doing the LRT and GAL, looking DEEP within myself for the start of what will be a very long reparative journey of ME for ME. I must say, 25, you have really asked some hard and important questions.
Was I happy in the marriage? No, not for a lot of it. We always had good times but I hated that nothing was ever resolved despite our constant arguing or talking about things. I would state a need and he'd tell me how I shouldn't want or need that. He'd state a need and I would tell him how impossible he is for wanting that. Same issues all the time which turned into both of us becoming completely disconnected and emotionally unattached. My frustration turned to resentment which turned to anger which turned to disrespect and obstinance which caused me to bash him to others thinking I was "venting". If I'm being honest with myself, I think I wanted someone to say to me, "he's such an a$$, you deserve so much better" and in some cases, I heard that but in the end, I'm the A$$ because I sat around waiting for changes and kept score every single day.
He was (and always will be) MIA a lot because of his career. Sometimes I felt like I played second fiddle to his career and other times I actually did play second fiddle. He works in the film industry and even when he wasn't working on a film at the moment he was working 7 days a week, 15-18 hour days. When he IS on a film he works 7 days a week and 20 hour days (not exaggerating at all here) for the duration of his allotted time before the deadline (6 weeks, 3 months, 9 months, a few were a year even). I remember sobbing out of happiness because he said he'd take HALF a Saturday off to hang out with me. HALF. I felt lonely and abandoned and neglected but I had a life. I hung out with friends, had a solid yoga practice, worked long hours myself, even bought opera tickets with a girlfriend one year. Once we had our daughter things changed. He felt a lot of pressure to provide and he's never been a slacker (one of the many things I love about him). Our daughter was a handful since birth and still does not sleep through the night. He started to "escape" to work. He'd still be at work at 2 am while I was STILL trying to get our baby to sleep. I suffered from postpartum depression and he was MIA. I felt lost and alone. In a typical year he'll take 2-3 movies. A busy year is 4 movies. The year my daughter was born he took 7 movies. SEVEN. I am sure I was no fun to be around and our daughter was always crying and upset so I'm not sure I completely blame him for disappearing but I needed support desperately. That's when I started to emotionally withdraw. I saw it as self preservation but I was jealous of him having a life outside of our woefully unhappy daughter. I felt like he was saying, "you handle depressed you and our cranky daughter, I'll make money, see ya". I remember asking him to be more present, more available so we could be a family. He started to come home at our daughter's bedtime to read her a story then would hand her back to me, get back in the car and go back to work. That's it, he honestly thought that was a stellar contribution to the family, afterall, he was making the money. I was depressed (though medicated), exhausted, unequipped to handle motherhood alone and frustrated by his absence. It was around this time that I stopped caring about his feelings, I think. I didn't care if he was tired, I hadn't had more than 4 hours consecutive sleep in 5+ years. I didn't care that he was anxious about his career, I was dragging our daughter to behavior specialists, signing up for occupational therapy, social group, testing, etc. I didn't care if he didn't like how I told him to do something. I felt like I deserved more so I was going to teach him that by treating him like crap because I felt like he was treating me like crap. Super mature, right? And so the score keeping began with a vengeance. I used my resentment (because in my eyes my score was always higher, of course) to let him know he was just escaping and not helping me which turned into belittling, condescension, emasculation and sh!t talking.
Why did I sabotage the marriage? I think because I thought it would eventually motivate change in HIM. yeah, I realize how sick that is now. I need to do more soul searching in this area because i know there is more to it, something deeper to it but I need to think about it some more. Such a great question.
I can't find it now but at some point I think you asked about my childhood and my parents marriage. Good God, both subjects are ripe with reasons why I am where I am. I am the middle child of three, only girl. My parents are brilliant chemists both with advanced degrees but my mother was horribly abusive and my father let it happen. At 16 I was removed from the home and placed in foster care. My mother charged with abuse and my father charged with neglect, they packed up and left the state leaving me behind. I worked hard, got a full athletic scholarship to a Div 1 school and that was that. I met H while in school. I was so full of anger at the world when we met. We were just kids really. He was 18 I was 19.
My parents marriage was always rocky and I mean ROCKY. Always arguing, my father worked in different states but we were always moving which my mom resented. They didn't seem to like each other much and rarely got along. They are still married (44 years). They are now Retrovialle coaches believe it or not. They were close to divorce countless times but somehow have made it work.
I'm going to submit this and come back to other questions...
