Long story short, as Georgiabelle said it is hard to just forget after betrayal. You always carry it with you somewhere. Maybe you are just less naive. Maybe you are cynical. Maybe you can't be vulnerable.
That's what I am struggling with. I feel I am a cynical/logical person by nature and these experiences make it more difficult to be open and trusting. I feel like something is just out of reach and has been my whole life. I want to "know" that people cheat, see things logically, and yet not let it hurt when someone I trust betrays me. Accept that it is part of human nature to wander, and to expect that it could happen. I've got that part down, but how do I make it not hurt when it happens.
Lisa, I'm also a sarcastic and cynical person. I spent a great deal of time in C to really understand how that affects the ones I love in my inner circle. So I work at not using sarcasm to passive/aggressively mask my true feelings, and I vowed 12+ years ago to never, ever use sarcasm again as a means to hurt others. So that pretty much limits me to humorous situations, which is fine.
I didn't have the cheating spouse betrayal. I just had the general "I don't love you anymore and anything is better than being married to you" betrayal. I've also had trust issues galore, but looking back in my crystal ball, I can see where I brought some of it on myself. My abandonment issues came into play when I really needed them to disappear, and my belief system that people will always hurt me definitely had a part as well. It's so damn difficult to work through this stuff.
I'm now 10 years past the divorce, and the reason I came back to this BB after a very long hiatus was because I realized I had some lingering issues with dating post D. My time in C last summer (where Brene Brown became the basis of my issues, quite unexpectely) made me realize that by insulating myself from the cold, cruel world, I had really just slammed the door on myself. I would just advise all of us here to take things really slowly and absorb the knowledge that the kind of love we want from a man in the future will require vulnerability to gain intimacy. Tough thing to do. But I know you can do it.
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On the other hand, is it not self-fulfilling when you expect people to act like a**holes and then they do?
Well, yeah. But then again, we don't have to be all Marilyn Monroe and go around thinking we always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop. Because truth be told, it's probably not true anyway. (You might want to read a little Byron Katie on this dynamic.)
Raliced-I'm sorry for being AWOL. I don't know if you read my post down in Surviving last week, but I had a traumatic and very sudden death in the family, and I wasn't in any shape to dispense advise or witty repartee. I'll just say that my D18 and I played hooky last Monday and had a movie day, which we again repeated all weekend this past weekend. Yesterday, we didn't even get out of our pjs.
Anyway, I was in your camp about the post D celebration. I cried. But I'm pretty sure I took my girls out to dinner and a movie just to keep things kind of normal. It wasn't painful, but it certainly wasn't a joyous day either.
I know I've recommended books on passive aggressiveness to people here, and not sure if you were one of them. Your computer story reminds me that I was married to one too. One of the traits that I value in people in general (even more than I did 10 years ago) is the ability to ask for what they want clearly, and to be able to negotiate the areas where there is disagreement... without name calling, fighting, P/A tactics, bargaining, hidden contracts, etc. In order for me to expect that from others, I know that I must do that myself. I would have had a very similar response to yours, thinking it was just inviting a discussion on why he felt a new pc was needed.
The new me would say, "this PC is only 2 years old. Why do you feel we need a new one? I'm all ears."
Probably conditioning on his part. It goes hand and hand with "deferring child related stuff" to you. He just doesn't know how to disagree with you, so he walks away and does what he wants to do anyway. I know how frustrating this is first hand.
If it makes you feel better, I actually made this journey part of my self improvement project. I figured if I could get my XH to get better along the way, it would be icing on the cake. But I really did it as a means to improving my own communication skills. So I practiced on him. All the time. I went to some excessive lengths to get him to open up to me, and I had to practice swallowing my own ego to do things his way if it wasn't life and death. And yes, I did this all in the throes of our separation. It totally svcked, because I felt I was eating more than my fair share of humble pie anyway. But it did wonders for our parenting relationship long term.
It was actually easy. I use this technique when meeting clients for the first time - very successfully. "Tell me more about why...you feel sending D7 to YMCA camp isn't a good idea" You'd be really surprised at how much that little phrase can open up clogged, unproductive discussions. It literally stole the air out of my XH's lame balloon when he had to reveal whether or not it was just to disagree with me (one of his favorite things to do in the past), he was itching to provoke me, or he generally felt strongly about something.
Well, time to head out and go pick up my D18. I'm late!
Take care, ladies.
Betsey
"There are only 2 ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
