lost and desperate

[25yearsmlc]

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.

Agreed. Glad you see this^^.


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.

Drop it - and don't pick it up again. You will be tempted to. Don't.

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.

Conflict resolution is more important than the number of conflicts. Life throws more curve balls at some couples than others. But you need those resolution skills.

your parents have learned them and God Bless them! We attended Retrovaille and found it very useful. An individual personal growth workshop we attended years ago, which is in alignment with Retrovaille and DBing and is profoundly life changing, is called "Essential Experience" (aka "EE") and is based in Philadelphia. If you want accelerated therapy, (like 2 years of GOOD therapy in one long weekend), you ought to look into it.

It's "efficient' b/c in weekly T sessions, with a GOOD therapist (never mind the kind who just listen and hope you figure out your issues AND glean tools from the universe), even then you may make a break thru but then have to pick up the kids or go back to work.

It can be fragmented. That's why weekend retreats or workshops work better for ME and MY h. Not everyone is that way, but we are. Please consider EE b/c a lot of your issues are not directly related to the marriage, per se.

Plus if you go by yourself, you won't be as inhibited as you would be with your h, and if he sees the changes in you that I would expect, he may well attend himself. I know my h did, based on what he SAW in me, not on what I said. Although I did tell him "that was an amazing experience" and he could see that I was visibly happier and calmer than I had EVER been in my life.

(I had issues with my MIL, which I did not know til I was at EE. That's another reason It was good he did not go with me).

Make sense?



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.

We had 2 MC's tell my h he was being "Selfish" and not acting like a "family man". While that SEEMS vindicating for me, it also left me powerless b/c if I'm perfect already and he's the jerk, what do I do with THAT?

Much better to realize I too have my issues and I too have some work I CAN DO so I'm not powerless. That's why the best news you can get from a good MC, is that YOU have some work to do.

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.

Me too. My h is an MD. So, what are you going to do about that? I can't compete with a heart surgery patient, so I won't. I accept that my h does work which really does take him away. That's that. I'm NOT divorcing him for it. So that means I won't complain about it either.

For years I "welcomed" him home with my arms crossed literally and figuratively b/c he was "neglecting" me/family. Sometimes he took work/cases on he did NOT need to. So maybe he was selfish some times.

But was my approach helping me? NO. Why didn't I give him a real welcome home so he'd MISS being here? That would have been smarter. But I wanted to be "right" more than I wanted to be happy and I did not want to "reward" him for his transgressions....brilliant, eh? Yeah not so much...

Lesson learned and hopefully, PASSED ON, yes?



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.

Ever think that 1) it really was a gift to you, however small?

2) that if you gave him a home/daughter/wife who REALLY ENJOYED his presence, he might want to be there more?

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.

You GAL< and that helps. Do it again. Seriously.

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.

Not so incomprehensible, is it? I know you needed more but so did he. And anyhow this is where you are NOW so "from this day forward" is how you must approach this, yes?

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 get this^^. No need to rehash so much and I know you are simply answering my questions. I get that.

I'm just telling you NOW that we don't have to keep doing that - so you can get unstuck, and not keep going in circles of anger/resentment, okay?


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.

Like I said, "applaud loudly for the 1%" of positives. It's HARD to do, but it helps. I know it.

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.

or earlier but like I said, no need to keep rehashing b/c it usually (not always but mostly) keeps us in circles and cycles of anger. It does NOT help to vent unless you notice quickly that you feel better, not worse.

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.

Your anger was your priority and now it's not. So, moving on....OH but I hope you do get your d some help. You don't need your h for that, it helps but he's not mandatory to you getting HER some sleep help.


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.

Yep I get it. Many of us put showing our anger ahead of helping our m.

.

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.


It's wacky thinking but very common. Good insights here.


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...

Talk to your parents!! What a resource you have! And do check out EE, seriously. I've been to many workshops (Landmark, EST, among otehrws including some here in LA where I also live.)

By far EE is the most profound and intellectual and deep and life changing. I have heard that Lifespring is also good but I have no direct experience with them.

I think YOU would get a lot out of EE and it's the best way to make sure you follow thru in the changes you want to make.

But I'll stop now so you don't think I'm selling you something (I'm not!, I promise) besides a lot of DBers have gone to EE and they can tell you how it helped them.

Good luck and keep at this.