Lost, alone, and in pain

[Clairee]

Forgiveness was probably the hardest thing for me. I'm not a forgiving person. Not to friends & especially wasn't with H. I always believed forgiveness was letting them off the hook & telling them it's ok. It took weeks in IC for me to fully understand what forgiveness was & how it impacted me.

Where we are right now is fragile. Fragile enough that I am very deliberate about everything I say & do. Before I say or do anything regarding M or H, , I ask myself if it gets me closer to my goal. If it's no, I drink a big stfu smoothie. When H came to me & said he wanted to work of us, we sat down & talked about what a good M would look like to each of us. We took the 5 love languages test & shared with each other. That was an eye opener! I had been showing him love the way I wanted to be shown & completely missed the target on how he needed it & vice versa. Once we learned that about each other, it made it a bit easier because I felt I finally had something I could work with that he hadn't been able to really explain on his own. Very, very enlightening.

Now, we go to MC once a week. We spend 30 minutes a day together with no phones, kids or distractions. We talk about our day, our plans, anything & everything. I don't talk about the M or temp check him on how he thinks we're doing. I did at first & H kindly pointed out it made me sound desperate, needy & that the things I was doing to change were temporary instead of permanent. So now when I get that urge to temp check, I chug one helluva big stfu smoothie. If H brings the M up, I listen. I validate where I can. Communication has always been our biggest problem. H would say something & I would run it through my brain for my interpretation. And 9 out of 10 times, I didn't hear him at all. So now, when H says something I say it back. So if H say 'I feel you're not showing me affection', I say 'what I'm hearing you say is you aren't feeling I'm being affectionate towards you?' H responds yes. I then say 'can you give me examples of what I've done/not done to make you feel this way?' And the conversation goes from there. It's working & we're able to really get to the bottom of things. When before, if H said that to me, it would go in my brain & come out, H is being needy & nothing I do ever pleases him or is enough.

Have you talked about seeing an MC? H found ours by searching psychology today's provider list for solution focused & Gottman method. He's been a huge help for us.

BTW...I live in Hawaii, so if you need some tips or info just ask!