Thank you Ancaire, Mutatio, Max. I am having a very hard day. Fighting with H. Not a good thing, DB wise or else wise. He is claiming that 10 years ago during a fight I told him not to call his family of origin his "family" and that was reserved for me and the kids, and that he has stopped using that term for his FOO and it is dysfunctional, and it really "messed him up" and caused him pain and resentment for me all these years. I do not remember this conversation at all. Not even as a vague memory. I told him that it sounds to me like we were probably having a nasty fight, and if I said that it was taken out of context, or I was really upset about something, but that doesn't sound like me and I have no recollection of it. I asked him if in the future I say something that causes him so much pain or confusion to please discuss it with me later when emotions are calm, or make a counseling appointment for us so we can talk with a 3rd party. I said I would never want him to carry around pain from a comment I made and I want a plan to make sure that moving forward pain doesn't fester like that.
I truly do not remember anything even remotely like that, but he says it was 10 years ago, so maybe?
He did say that "there is some love there" and that is why he is still here, so that was good news. But he has so much pain from the past and I never cared about it. I told him that I did care, I do care, but maybe I was young and caught up with other things and with "being right" and being overly emotional and my concern for him was not my priority and I regret that now. I told him I would never be perfect and there has to be at some point a choice to focus on the future and on rebuilding and not on past hurts, most of which the other person doesn't even remember. And I reiterated that I do care about his feelings, and I am truly sorry and I get that I didn't in the past, and I said I suffered a lot over this realization and beat myself up about it, it was a hard realization for me. I added that I am done beating myself up over it. Done. I am not going backwards with him. I do care and I can listen now.
All of this started in the car when we were still over an hour away from home and my friend texted me to say she was going to taker her dog for a walk and did I want to join her. I said "not home yet, if you go again later maybe." H asked who texted, I said it was my friend , she wanted to see if I could walk with her. He said "are you going to?" And I said "No! We are not even in (our state) yet, I don't think I can make it!, maybe if she wants to go again later" And he got angry and said I shot down his small talk. OK, I probably could have phrased it better, but it wasn't in the tone of "you are an idiot" it was in the tone of "she's going now."
So now I am wondering what other crazy statements I have possibly made over the years that messed with H's mind. I am sure I said loads of stupid things in the course of arguments, or he imagined I did, and he is carrying this stuff around for years? Actually now that I am thinking about it, when MC asked us last week what we were doing for Thanksgiving, H said "going to NY" and I said "To see H's family." I am pretty sure I said that???? Maybe I said his parents, I don't know, to me the word family was never an issue and I didn't realize he was avoiding its use. Actually, I am pretty sure he has been using the word all along, but maybe not? Maybe he's been saying parents, brother, etc.
Since then, H has come up to our room 2x to bring up other issues, something about the dog, something about an interaction with D. We handled those issues quickly logically and non emotionally.
So this is what I am wondering. Is our communication improving, and this just [censored] because we are terrible at it, but this is our baseline and can move up from there? Or is this just it, and it [censored]. Also, I took an anxiety pill after the first fight and that helped a huge amount with the successive talks.
I am trying to "reframe" the IL's as "H's elderly parents because they are in their 70's now and if I met them now I would excuse a lot of dysfunction due to "old age" but I have known them since their mid-40's and they were worse then, so its hard for me to forget. But if I can start over as though I am meeting them at this point in my life, keep a healthy distance, let h do his thing and kind of phase myself out of it as I have been doing, but maybe a little more so. If they can drop the talking about me, I think this can work.
And also, I am still fully aware that I am on the hook still and having to explain myself for making a comment I don't remember 10 years ago, while he is still scott free and above taking comments about the actual affair he had this year, and the bashing of me to his parents, and months of raging drunken spew.
