Little, I think it's popped up as a pretty common dynamic here! That same theme is also in a lot of the codependency literature - feeling like you have to have control and take everything over, helping people when they don't ask and getting upset when they don't acknowledge it, etc. But, you know.. even when that's the case, H had opportunities to tell me how he was feeling. He didn't. He made choices. And I did give him opportunities to take care of things on his own.. but then he did not do them (see all of my posts in the past few months about changing the electric bill which as of today he finally took care of... almost 6 months later). What I've been trying to do is think about WHY I felt the need to be over-responsible in hopes of trying to reduce that. I think it stems from a few things: -needing to control the situation ("If I know exactly what's happening and what's in the calendar and where I put this and what I bought for dinner, bad things can't happen to me") -fear of rejection and abandonment ("If I do all these things to take care of him/our household, there's no way he'd ever want to leave, what more could he want in life??") Obviously, neither of those things were resolved by being over-responsible. I had a history of feeling rejected/abandoned by H so I don't think that came out of nowhere/was a crazy fear... so maybe the only way to truly resolve that is with someone else (unless things drastically change).
Interestingly my H told me he wanted someone to be like his mother (take care of things for him and not expect him to do things) but that he would also feel a spark with and be sexual with. Not sure how that all works together.. I doubt he knows, either. His mom basically took care of everything for him and then he treated her like cr*p (SIL's words, not mine) and she just put up with it because she was devoted to her kids. The most recent example was last winter before BD, we bought a big snow blower and he asked his mom to come pick it up in her minivan and take it to our house. She lives an hour away from us. Then he complained about how she loaded it into the van and she just said "I'm sorry" and fixed it. I don't know what exactly he's looking for but based on what I do know, that's sure not me.
If you met someone today that acted that way and they wanted to date you, would you go out with him?
me: 47, W:49 M 16.5 years T 17 years Three kids - D17,D14, S13 Heart 2 heart about M 11/8/13 Bomb drop 11/29/13 W moved out 12/5/13 I Retained L 2/20/14 D filed 3/17/14
