To answer some of your questions, neither H or me have great family histories. We've even talked about why we say and do the stupid things we do and how it all goes back. I think for him, he didn't have a lot of emotional support from his parents and as a huge introvert, this craving for connection is huge, sometimes so vast it seems needy. Me, I was raised by a narcissist who was big into shaming and over-praising. So as long as I get to be critical and always right, I'm not vulnerable. I think that's why I insist on my truth as THE truth. We've had some counseling to identify these things, but counseling falls short to change needs and behaviors when done infrequently and when its so much easier to point fingers at each other.
I did listen, but as so many of you have related to, I didn't 'hear' and validate. My own stuff was always in the way, because I just had to be right about it all. Some of the stuff he said scared me and I withdrew from it, out of fear, fear that he was always going to have hopeless feelings if I 'enabled' a lot of what I heard as poor-me, everyone is against me kind of stuff. I NEVER gave him the message it was ok to be hurting and to feel his feels. He wrote me a really well articulated letter a week before the bomb about this, that he wanted to get to better places but I had to 'sit' with him where he was and walk beside him, I couldn't just dump solutions and articles about being positive at his feet and expect he was going to say 'oh, ok. You're right.' The best I ever did was to shut up and just go sit by him and hold his hand. But inevitably he'd say something that just sounded so freaking crazy to me and I'd get in the way again, protesting what I thought was not healthy or a right way to look at whatever. No, it shouldn't have been my job to define acceptable. But I thought if I called out his self-defeating thoughts, or the bullying stuff he'd sometimes do, I was helping.
IC revealed that although he's nothing like my alcoholic abusive father, he offers a lot of the same instability for me. There's a certain dynamic we get used to and seek all our lives I guess.
When we first started dating, he put a lot of emphasis on finding stability with a partner, which of course I rejected. You gotta be stable. I feel like he always wanted this counselor type of unconditional love, and I am still working on why that thought repels me so much. Normal, healthy love has some of this truth to it.
The best interests thing - if you can remember Robin Williams' counselor roll from Good Will Hunting and the over-bearing math professor that was trying to help Matt Damon out - the fights they would get into about what was best for Will - well, guess which one was me. That's what he meant and I think I finally got it about a week ago when I saw the movie.
Working on me - identifying ways, even with friends, I can probe deeper and listen harder, ask questions instead of always making statements - develop some genuine curiosity and enjoy learning to connect on these levels. I've actually GAL, a lot of it, so I'm keeping up the things that make me happy. (This was another point, between all my jobs and activities, he didn't feel I wanted to be home with him. I sort of didn't with a year's worth of apathy and resentment that had built up between us.) I'm reading a lot on processing emotions, identifying them and sitting with them mindfully (as opposed to panicked calls to girlfriends and spewing them all over my H).
H has always had his issues, behaviors. I would have dumped him ages ago, but I was always impressed with his level headed and deep desire to self-improve, and he's done the work through the years where he could. But the accident amplified a lot of what was there and he's got a right to be scared about addiction to his drugs, years of future surgeries and increasing pain and possibility of work. I've been criticizing him for not blowing past this and adopting the attitude of determination I think I would have in his position. And he wants that, but he's been telling me for months he needs someone to talk to, someone who cares. I thought he was just a broken record saying this stuff, but I look back through emails and text messages - I shut him down so many times.
I am doing a good job giving him his space. Our C told us that on our dates we should be trying to talk about the hard stuff, and he actually seemed to enjoy those conversations, connecting, and would extend our dates. We watched The Theory of Everything on one of them, ended up crying our eyes out and holding each other for a long time, talking about the similarities in our lives afterward. It's only been in the last month we've started validating each other again. So even though he's asking for this space I'm thinking we have hope, even though he's saying he has none that we can change or he doesn't know how we can work this out - at least he's stuck on that question.
Last night was hard. I was with friends, we were saying goodbye, and laughing hysterically about something and suddenly I found myself sobbing. Never had that happen before. Embarrassing.
Mid 30's Psych-abusive M with violent tantrums from XH D 9/15; NC forever on
