Nitty in a Nutshell #2

[Nitty]

Thanks, everybody, for your good wishes. But that last post seems so full of myself. And I feel I messed up when I tried to encourage Shakspr after OM was discovered. Who am I to be giving advice? Also, my roller coaster ride continues.

Atsbaby, we are still separated but you are right, as you will see below. I wonder how we could do this if we couldn't go back to our respective corners and be by ourselves for a while. With Clark still living with you, that's hard.

JOURNALING HERE:

Last Saturday was our real date, the one that had been scheduled in advance, and I backslid big time. I felt needy, clingy, kept bringing up R questions, then telling myself to back off. I found it difficult to validate or affirm, I interrupted him when he told me what he was feeling, got defensive, and mostly I started building up a pile of resentment.

Sunday I tried working out what exactly was wrong. I decided I feel he expects too much from me. He doesn't understand why I'm not diving in head first because, hey, he's here now, isn't he? And even though it's been eight months of him threatening to D me and being hostile -- with little blips of decent sprinkled here and there -- he thinks his sudden change in attitude is enough to fuel a reconciliation, to rebuild my trust in his intentions.

A side note. I find that I stopped journaling our interactions this week, so it is a blur and I'm not remembering very well what went on. I am really stressed at work because this is our busiest time, until mid November, and I've been working overtime, not spending much time on anything but work.

One thing I do remember: he has been calling me again, which is so nice. For over a year he did nothing but texting. Now I know that not talking in person was him pulling away and staying away, and his calls now are a way to connect in a more personal way.

Tuesday I had a DB coaching session and worked on strategies. Mostly I complained that I was losing it, that I was filled with resentment. She asked me what Mr. Gritty could do to repair things. I was stumped, I'm not sure what he CAN do to repair things. I need to think on that more. I did come up with "hear me". I want Mr. Gritty to hear me.

Wednesday I met with my IC, who I can tell isn't too happy with me reconciling with Mr. Gritty. He wants to make sure I'm not going back to a dysfunctional role in my marriage, keeps reminding me that Mr. Gritty is a needy, high-maintenance kind of guy. He asked me to make a list of my dealbreakers and stick with them.

So I did. First on the list: Mr. Gritty has NC with OW. There are more but I won't go into them all and one will show up later in this post.

My IC also gave me some more books to read, both by Jay Earley. I am to make friends with the scared little girl who will put up with any kind of crap in order to save a relationship that probably doesn't need saving.

Thursday Mr. Gritty and I had our fourth session with the mediator and Mr. Gritty officially ended D mediation. I was so glad he followed through. We then spent an hour in counseling and an hour doing financial issues caused by the separation. Mr. Gritty didn't blow up once during the session, which was a first, and he willingly gave me my expenses. This is a huge breakthrough because he puts his money where his heart is.

SUMMARY OF OUR MC (we're in MC now!) SESSION:

I am always being reminded to be more direct, and to stand up to Mr. Gritty. He is reminded to tone it down. We are to use this strategy:

The moment one of us feels like something is "off" or that we've heard something hurtful or wrong or whatever, the other is to ask for more clarity.

H: You are trying to control me again.

M: I need to understand what it is I'm doing that causes that feeling.

Easy to do in a MC office, not so easy without a coach to referee during a heated session.

Mr. Gritty complained during the session that he dislikes having to pursue me. (Because I'm not asking him out.) Rather than responding with a list of the times I did ask him out, I just asked him to go with me on Saturday to do a watersports activity and then lunch after. That particular watersports activity he's never done before and never wanted to try it. But I put him on the spot and he had to say yes.

WE HAVE A FIGHT

On Friday he called to ask me to dinner. We went to a nice place, had a lovely time but on the drive home we had a gawdawful fight. It was terrible, one of the worst we've had.

It started when he told me (again) that he couldn't accept something I did after he left me. His inability to forgive me for that action is one item on the list of dealbreakers that I created with my IC.

So instead of validating that he felt hurt, I told him that if he couldn't forgive me for what I did when I could forgive him for his EA/PA, then that probably was a dealbreaker. (This is from my list of dealbreakers I made with IC.) And Mr. Gritty blew up. He shouted and yelled. I focused on being direct, matching his tone of voice, etc., instead of withdrawing into silence. All that did was escalate the fight.

It got pretty bad. He started driving too fast and braking hard at stop signs, then accelerating too hard from the stops. All the while telling me off and me standing up to him, which made him even madder.

THE FIGHT GETS REALLY BAD

We finally got back to his place without one of us going through the windshield. Normally we walk through a gate to get to his unit and he holds it open for me because it's a heavy iron gate on a spring. But he just stomped through it and let it go and it hit me in the shoulder because I was right behind him. He jumped when it slammed and immediately moved to reopen it (when it closes it locks) and told me "Sorry!"

I blew up at him and told him through the gate, "FY!" and stomped off to my car.

I have NEVER ever said "FY" to him in our entire life together. When he gets really angry, he'll drop F bombs, tell me "FY", resort to name-calling, etc., and I never did that. Instead, I would tell him he was hitting below the belt, cry, then withdraw. But Friday night I did use profanity. I felt like saying, "FY!" so I did.

He ran ahead of me and was at my car when I reached it and told me I better not leave because he wouldn't go out with me to the watersports activity if I left. We shouted at each other on the sidewalk. That is another thing: he doesn't mind shouting in front of other people. I am never comfortable fighting in public, but I stood up to him and shouted right back, embarrassed about the scene we were causing but doing it anyway.

And I suddenly remembered why I never hit below the belt in the past even if he did: because he will only grab whatever I've said and focus on that rather than whatever we were arguing about in the first place. And our argument that night suddenly became about my "abusive FY" response to him, rather than the original topic.

He asked me if I would like it if he told me to "FY!" He repeated the phrase several times. "How would you like it, hunh? 'FY!' 'FY!' 'FY!' 'FY!' How does that feel, B***h?" I finally remembered my DB coaching. I held up my hand and said those rehearsed statements. "I won't allow you to call me names. I'm going to leave now. We can retry this when we can talk respectfully."

Mr. Gritty asked if I thought it was respectful to tell him, "FY!"? And said that if I left, that would be IT. The END. He wasn't going with me to do watersports and BTW? We would be DONE.

In my calm moments I know I will be okay if we D even though it is the last thing I want. But I did not walk away because I did not want to go back to the mediator and restart the D. I need to be able to call something quits. But I didn't do it.

WE REACH A TRUCE

We shouted some more on the sidewalk before finally agreeing to take it inside. He said the fight started because I issued an ultimatum in the car. I told him it wasn't an ultimatum, but as I write these words I'm wondering if it WAS an ultimatum. Aren't the terms "ultimatum" and "dealbreaker" kind of similar? But I told him I didn't see it as an ultimatum. An ultimatum is telling me that if I leave, we are getting D again.

I started crying, he ran out of steam, then we both sat down and didn't say anything for a while. After some time passed in silence he apologized and then I apologized. We agreed that we need to learn how to fight in a more positive way. I asked if we could watch a show or something, to get the fight out of our heads so we watched something that I can't even remember now. Then I went home.

Yesterday we had a good day. He asked me to breakfast and apologized again for the night before. I accepted the apology and thanked him for it. Told him I was sorry for my part in it. We went to the watersports activity and he had a good time. We had a nice lunch, then decided to watch a movie. Then I went home. But I'm very confused and worried.

I remember better now that I stopped confronting him about stuff because fighting is too hard, too awful. I felt I was helping our marriage become better by swallowing my grievances and letting them go, rather than fight. But now I know that a no-conflict relationship is unhealthy.

To survive, we need to be able to resolve our differences in a good way. But will we be able to? We both flood with so much emotion that we say and do the worst things. My instinct is to withdraw, roll up into a little ball. His instinct is to win at all costs, justifying whatever he does because somebody else "made" him do it.

This morning he called me. He told me that his biggest fear is that we will work hard to be together, then a couple years from now will end up in old habits and relive the hell that was our marriage before he left me, only this time with the baggage from the A, so we'll end up divorcing anyway and he'll have wasted a couple more years of his life.

My thoughts exactly, except that I didn't think our marriage was hell. I thought I had it all figured out, how to avoid conflict and never fight. I thought we were a happy marriage. Now I know that was unhealthy.

I told him we should do what we can to repair things and if we both decide it isn't going to work, then we can D amicably, as friends, rather than in the hostile fashion in which we were trying to D before. (I said "we" even though he was the hostile one, not me, but probably best not to point that out.)

He agreed, but then he said: "Nitty, I feel like we've got a really high chance of surviving. I really believe it. I'm still afraid we'll fail, but I am optimistic that we'll probably make it."

I hope this is true. But it's not going to survive if we can't figure out how to fight more constructively, that's for damn sure.