Letting go, finally

[Azzork]

I dont want to get into this battle, but I would like to ask you a basic question, JGuy:

"Would you rather be right or be married?"

Your posts scream for a need to be validated. You say you continue to to push your opinion until you are "understood". We "understand" you....we just dont all agree with you.

All we are are doing is urging you to do what works.

[JGuy]

Hi Jguy. I think it's too far a gap for me personally to bridge. I find your term independent thinker condecending in the extreme , what does that mean to you ?

It's not my term, it's a common term used to describe a personality trait. Google "independent thinker" and you'll find lots on it. To me, it means that I form my own ideas with input from others, rather than take ideas wholesale from others and follow them verbatim.

Do you think others are not ? If I was to ask for your advice or support but stopped you and said , your not support or advising me in s way that I like , would you continue to support or advise me ?

If someone tells me that the way I'm communicating while trying to support or advise them is hurtful, then I would respect that without blaming them for not receiving my style of advice-giving. If I had a goal of being a more effective supporter and advice giver, then I would try to listen and consider whether there might be something useful for me to learn. But if I didn't have that goal then I would just focus on supporting others who my style works well with.

If your criticised and you feel it's not right , do you accept that after several people ( independent of each other ) reach the same conclusion that maybe there could be some validity in it or do you ignore it because you KNOW its wrong ?

Rd, I want to clarify that it's not your advice that I have trouble with, it's how you are delivering it. I have accepted that there could be some validity in what people are saying here from the beginning. I take in the advice, reflect on it, see if it aligns, run it past other people (like IC), and if I end up not agreeing then I leave it behind. But that doesn't mean I'm ignoring it. Sometimes other people project their own issues on me, so it's important to be aware of that possibility. It wouldn't be helpful if I blindly trusted that I must have some problem that I don't actually have. Since I got burned by doing that in the past, I am probably more cautious about this than the average person. I keep repeating all of this because I'm hoping you will understand the validity of my need to be skeptical, instead of taking it personally or concluding that it's all pride.

If you don't believe me that I am listening... The advice on this forum in recent weeks prompted me to ask questions at my IC sessions and with the shamanic healer about what I might be missing about what I have contributed to the M problems. Like everyone, I need help to identify my blind spots. Nothing personal, but I trust the advice of professionals who I speak with face to face more than I trust the advice of you guys, who I'm interacting with through bits and bytes. That doesn't mean that I'm completely closed to what you are saying, it just means that I'm careful to filter it for what may or may not apply to me. So far, I have identified a number of things to work on in myself. The DR book and this forum have been helpful and I'm thankful for that!

This morning, I asked my W directly if she ever feels like in our interactions that I come across like I have a need to be right, or like I'm defensive and unwilling to listen. She said no, definitely not. She laughed and said if anything, I usually am right and while it's not always easy for her to hear the truth, she doesn't feel like I'm ever arrogant, blaming or condescending. Unconvinced, I asked her about those times in our R where we have conflicts and I am seeking to be understood while she distances. She did say that sometimes when I'm seeking to be understood that it seems like I'm trying to get her to agree with me. I brought up a recent example of such a conflict and asked for clarification. It was one of those conflicts where there wasn't an obvious compromise and so we were stuck. In these situations, the best you can really do (AFAIK) is work to understand each other so as to accept it and not carry resentment. I think I may get myself into trouble when I won't let go of my need to be understood. So if there's something for me to learn I think it might have to do with learning to be OK with feeling alone and disconnected, validating myself instead of trying to get others to validate me. This is definitely hard for me... it does make sense, so I am adding this to my list of things to work on.

Ironically, I can see how that exact same dynamic is playing itself out here with some of you. When I feel disconnected and misunderstood, I just keep trying harder to get through and explain myself better. That seems to backfire and make people misunderstand me even more. Right now as I am typing this I'm still hoping people will understand, but is it pointless? Am I just digging a deeper hole for myself? It seems so counter-intuitive, but perhaps I should just stop trying to get you folks to understand me, and focus on validating myself.

You were told on page one your W was lying but you knew that you had a higher love and we were wrong. No pleasure in it but who was right ?

I didn't think you were wrong by choosing to aim for higher love. I thought both were right. If you are into Jesus, then think about how he taught us to love our enemies. They ended up killing him... so does that mean he was wrong?

I did point out you are controlling and every post you've made confirms it even yesterday's M/C where you told her as you left that SHE could change this but won't. !!!!! Controlling ?

I definitely don't see that I'm "controlling", but I do agree that it would benefit me to stop pointing out the work that she needs to do on herself. Right as I was saying that to her, I knew I probably shouldn't be saying it. It's really hard because it feels so disconnected to say nothing. I get it, though. Letting go, self validation, accepting the aloneness.

Your posts read very immature , if some posts something you like , they are great and thanks but if they post something you don't then you react as if it was a personal attack and they are against you No one on here is against you , you don't get much support and do you not ask yourself why ? If your insecurities are such that you struggle with comments that aren't favourable , work on that with an I/C. Read Ghosts thread , he ignores everyone's advice as well but the man is trying to get it and has numerous posts daily. Is he an independent thinker because he doesn't accept our advice ? Or is he struggling with a situation that he has no experience with and listens to the advice regardless of how it's worded. He may not take the advice but he's grateful for it.

You don't strike me as stupid but I do wonder if you can't get past your own opinion of yourself enough to see how you come accross Vanillia pointed it out gently as that's who she is Zues spoke to you in a more direct and adult manner and maybe I was harsh because I deal with lots of people everyday and don't suffer people when they won't listen to very. basic advice

Rd, I don't know you well, and take this with a grain of salt, but it really looks like your posts on my thread are full of projections. You seem very invested in labelling me with all these negatives - ignoring others, controlling, stupid, immature, insecure, condescending, ungrateful, hand picking only those things that support my ideas, unwilling to look at myself, etc. Some of these things I observe you doing in your posts right here. If you are as aggressive and harsh toward yourself as you are toward me, then it would make sense why you can't accept those things about yourself and need to project them on someone else. Again, I have no idea if this is true, but the signs are there to suggest that you might be doing this.

We should cut ourselves some slack, IMO. Facing the s$%t that is hiding in one's blind spot is hard on the ego. Whether you are seeing the s$%t in yourself or in someone else, we should be gentle on ourselves and each other. Harshness and negativity just makes the defenses go up and the ego more frightened of letting go. This leads to denial which leads to projections. I definitely have my own ego and pride to contend with, and in my experience, being gentle and staying in touch with my own vulnerability helps to keep me in a state where I'm more humble and ready to accept whatever the next thing is that I'm ready to face.

So... this conversation has gone pretty far into the weeds. I think it's valuable, but I'm also thinking I should probably stop trying to seek external validation here as well as with my W. No more over extending myself in trying to get others to understand me. If validation from others happens, that's great, but no more seeking it. I'm going to contemplate this one...

[rd500]

Hi Jguy. I had a long answer but you can lead a horse to water , etc Two things I would say , to get validation for your view you asked W !!!!! Who when pushed said yes , she felt you did try to get to her to agree. This is exactly what I said You push until the person appears to agree because it's easier for the person

Secondly you used the line " to stay humble ". Sorry JGuy , that is one term that does not apply to you. I never thought I was harsh just honest with you however I do accept that's how you see me and I have no control over that

I wish you and your son all the best This is a hard time and its a time where the first thing anyone has to be is honest with themselves

Take care. Rd

[JGuy]

Two things I would say , to get validation for your view you asked W !!!!! Who when pushed said yes , she felt you did try to get to her to agree. This is exactly what I said You push until the person appears to agree because it's easier for the person

Secondly you used the line " to stay humble ". Sorry JGuy , that is one term that does not apply to you.

It is precisely because I AM listening to you guys that I went directly to my W to ask her whether I come across like I need to be right. I did this because I really want to know if I am missing something here, not because I want her to agree with me and tell me I'm right and you guys are wrong. If I just wanted that then I could have stopped the conversation when she said no, and I could have come back to you and said "see, my W agrees with me". But I didn't. I continued to explore it from different angles because I'm humbled by what you guys are telling me and I really want to understand what's going on here. I may not come to the same conclusion as you about what it is exactly that I need to learn, but that doesn't mean I'm ignoring you or that I lack humility!!

What came out of the discussion with my W was a useful observation: that when I seek validation from my W, it gives her the impression that I'm seeking for her to agree with me. But that's not the case. To feel validated, I wouldn't need her to agree with me, I would just need to know that she cares about trying to understand why I feel and think what I do. So yes, I absolutely need validation, but I don't need her to agree with me. When we came to that point in the discussion, it was as though a light went on for both of us. There was more to this than either of us had seen before.

From that discussion, I realized something big. If I could learn how to validate myself instead of trying to get others to validate me, then I would always feel OK about myself and wouldn't feel the need to try and explain myself endlessly whenever I get the impression that I am being misunderstood by others. I have always felt so wonderful when others do validate me, so naturally I seek that out to experience it again. Clearly though, it isn't realistic to expect that other people will always be able to validate me. It just never occurred to me that I could learn to validate myself!

Woah... weird, I just realized that I am doing this right now. By writing all of this, I am trying to validate my own need for validation. <<< And right there, I was trying to validate my own need to validate my own need for validation.

Hmmm... I'm reading "Inner Bonding" by Margaret Paul right now and I'm tempted to try an experiment and tell this story from the perspective of little JGuy and big JGuy:

Little JGuy is hoping that someone would validate him in response to this by saying "I understand, JGuy. I can relate to your need for validation. I can appreciate that is truly a challenge for you, and I'm cheering for you". But somehow, what happens is that little JGuy keeps getting the painful and exact opposite response from Rd, Zeus and Azzork, which little JGuy interprets as "You are wrong, JGuy. Your feelings and thoughts aren't valid. They are prideful, condescending, immature, and plain wrong. You should abandon yourself and listen to what we are saying, or else your relationships will always fail and it will be your fault because you didn't listen to us". This really upsets little JGuy and big JGuy does his best to explain himself better so that Rd, Zeus, and Azzork will understand and little JGuy will get the validation he needs. Big JGuy is realizing that perhaps he just needs to learn how to validate little JGuy directly instead of looking for others to do it.

Awesome. I can see that this is all totally valid. Nobody except me can really understand what's going on inside of me with little JGuy. I don't know if it's worth sharing this process here, especially if I keep getting more of the same hurtful responses from Rd, Zeus and Azzork. Big JGuy may need to say goodbye to this forum in order to protect little JGuy. I hope not, but for now I'm celebrating that I feel like I'm getting somewhere!

[rd500]

Jguy. Let's try again. I see in your response to my posts that you take what you want from what's posted.

I don't think most people would take I'm calling you stupid when I actually posted , I don't think your stupid. But Jguy did Lets just take that example. I post one thing and you read another Who is at fault there, seriously , who ? I didn't infer anything , I actually posted " I don't think your stupid " but Jguy read between the lines and found I was calling you stupid

Take the above paragraph on its own Why would you take one thing when I posted the exact opposite


My surprise at your asking W is that this person lies to you on a regular basis and you have proved this. Why ask her In her Wayward state anything she says could have an alternative agenda.

Jguy. We could go back and forth with this and unless you accept that you have issues why would we ?

You take things as hurtful and I see them as one adult attempting to explain to another Your 39 and I'm 50 , do we have to pick our words because we are afraid to hurt each other's feelings ? I'm very sensitive but im also an adult and have to accept that the world isn't sugar coated and fair all of the time

This site advises a way to dea with this nightmare we are going through and it works for a lot of people You can cherry pick the parts that make to feel good and are acceptable to you or you can follow the process. One way will possibly work and the other might possibly work but normally a process needs to be followed. No one is asking you to do anything wild or crazy , just follow a process and take advice that may seem counter productive

Humilty is a virtue I admire in a person and it's not a trait that comes naturally to me I think I'm a good , kind , balanced person with empathy for others and maybe a too high opinion of my own intellect BUT in the real day to day world my employees would call me ( and have ) a controlling , micro managing , bully that gets his way or creates merry hell. And I'm probably being kind to myself

I mention humility because you seem to lack any , again you will see this as hurtful , it's not , every post is about Jguy and his problems From birth , to W not accepting that the M to Jguy is not worth saving.

I also have these thoughts Jguy , my W is facing harsh realities without me and I honestly don't understand why BUT I accept it and don't try to change her

You never post on anyone' else's threads , why , lack of empathy as you posted a while back ? But then we are back to the Shaman getting you completely wrong but you didn't think they did

Jguy. Step back from any hurt or feelings that I'm not on your side , just for a minute Your 'M has failed because your W cheated on you and does not find you attractive ( she may say she never did but obviously that's rubbish ) How much of the M breakdown is Jguys fault , seriously , how much ???

Do you come accros as controlling in the M ? W said you do push for agreement to a point , COULD this be seen as controlling ? To you it isn't BUT could W see it this way. I see it this way but you don't

You use words like Hero and when you removed the key logger , you said you did it to keep your integrity , you put it on without integrity but somehow when you removed it you had integrity. Please don't misunderstand , I think you needed to put it on to comfirm your suspicions and I saw no lack of integrity at all but you seems to think by removing it you showed integrity , I'm not sure why

I'm going to stress this again , I'm in your side and I think your W is way out of order with her choices BUT unless you accept your faults and issues ( that we all have in our Ms ) then how can you hope to have a healthy R ???

I hope you accept what I'm trying to convey with this post We are adults and we need to accept that advice is given , if the recipient of that advice feels it is hurtful , they can leap to their own defence and take none of the advice or they can take the advice like an adult and take any good they see in the advice and filter the tone / perceived tone out

PLEASE Jguy , if you actually read what I and others have posted , it's DB 101 , no one is asking you to sell your soul to the devil for magic beans , we are asking you follow the books and we are asking you to stop chasing instant answers because you are racing down cheeseless tunnels and focusing on the completely wrong areas

I think it's best I leave it there Read the books and follow the advice be an adult and accept your reality. It's very tough but you will get through this

Validation is nice but not always possible because sometimes we are wrong

Take care. Rd

[JGuy]

Rd, I appreciate that you are hanging in there with me. In this most recent response I found you were much less harsh. Thank you for trying to get your point across more gently.

I don't think most people would take I'm calling you stupid when I actually posted , I don't think your stupid. But Jguy did Lets just take that example. I post one thing and you read another Who is at fault there, seriously , who ? I didn't infer anything , I actually posted " I don't think your stupid " but Jguy read between the lines and found I was calling you stupid

You're right, in that particular case you didn't directly call me stupid. But the way that sentence read to me, it sounded like you were implying it indirectly. The full sentence was "You don't strike me as stupid but I do wonder if you can't get past your own opinion of yourself enough to see how you come accross". If I read it wrong, then I apologize for the misunderstanding.

My surprise at your asking W is that this person lies to you on a regular basis and you have proved this. Why ask her In her Wayward state anything she says could have an alternative agenda.

That's a fair point. I do take everything she says with a grain of salt, but I don't see the harm in collecting clues from her. I found something that led to a helpful realization, so I'm happy about that.

Jguy. We could go back and forth with this and unless you accept that you have issues why would we ?

I do accept that I have issues, I just don't agree with your definition of what my issues are. The empathy issue is pretty deep and daunting, and I think that learning to self-validate may be one of the first steps I need to take.

You take things as hurtful and I see them as one adult attempting to explain to another Your 39 and I'm 50 , do we have to pick our words because we are afraid to hurt each other's feelings ? I'm very sensitive but im also an adult and have to accept that the world isn't sugar coated and fair all of the time

I appreciate that this blunt style of communication works for you. I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just saying that it hasn't worked well for me. Trust me, I've got little JGuy here nodding his head. But this last post of yours was much better. I still get the sense that our personalities might be very different and so we have an uphill battle to understand each other, but nobody's to blame for that.

You never post on anyone' else's threads , why , lack of empathy as you posted a while back ? But then we are back to the Shaman getting you completely wrong but you didn't think they did

I do post on others threads, recently trumpet's. Not as often as I'd like, but I've been busy. The thing about my issue with empathy is that apparently, when I can't empathize with myself, I can't empathize with others. So it makes sense that I could try to start with self-validation and see where it takes me.

Jguy. Step back from any hurt or feelings that I'm not on your side , just for a minute Your 'M has failed because your W cheated on you and does not find you attractive ( she may say she never did but obviously that's rubbish ) How much of the M breakdown is Jguys fault , seriously , how much ???

I really don't know, I have some issues but I don't know to what extent her loss of attraction to me had to do with that. So, I've got nothing to lose by working on my issues and seeing what happens. However, independently of that, I also observe the severity of my W's issues and I question whether it's really realistic that she'll ever deal with them. Ultimately I see it as both her fault and mine. Not either or. Both of us should work on our issues regardless of what the other person does.

Do you come accross as controlling in the M ? W said you do push for agreement to a point , COULD this be seen as controlling ? To you it isn't BUT could W see it this way. I see it this way but you don't

Yes, Rd. That's exactly what I realized yesterday when I spoke with my W. I'm not controlling, but it may appear that way to some people when really I'm just seeking validation. So, that's how I got to realizing that if I work on self-validation, it might just do the trick.

You use words like Hero and when you removed the key logger , you said you did it to keep your integrity , you put it on without integrity but somehow when you removed it you had integrity. Please don't misunderstand , I think you needed to put it on to comfirm your suspicions and I saw no lack of integrity at all but you seems to think by removing it you showed integrity , I'm not sure why

It wasn't about showing integrity to anyone else that I removed the keylogger, it was for myself. I felt horrible about snooping, invading someone else's privacy, and I had to lie and keep a secret from her in order to do it. It just made me feel sick and I couldn't do it anymore.

I'm going to stress this again , I'm in your side and I think your W is way out of order with her choices BUT unless you accept your faults and issues ( that we all have in our Ms ) then how can you hope to have a healthy R ???

So if we take the "controlling" issue as an example, I can't accept that I'm controlling because I really don't see that I ever want to control anyone. My intention is to be validated. But I do recognize how seeking validation may be misinterpreted as controlling. So I'm making the leap by accepting that my issue has to do with needing validation from others.

we are asking you follow the books and we are asking you to stop chasing instant answers because you are racing down cheeseless tunnels and focusing on the completely wrong areas

I'm pretty convinced right now that seeking validation from others is the cheeseless tunnel!

Validation is nice but not always possible because sometimes we are wrong

Our definition of validation might be different here. When I say validation, I'm talking about accepting one's internal experience, which can never be wrong. You may not agree with the content of the thoughts or feelings, but validating is not the same thing as agreeing.

[JGuy]

This site advises a way to deal with this nightmare we are going through and it works for a lot of people You can cherry pick the parts that make to feel good and are acceptable to you or you can follow the process. One way will possibly work and the other might possibly work but normally a process needs to be followed. No one is asking you to do anything wild or crazy , just follow a process and take advice that may seem counter productive

You're absolutely right that I am choosing my own path. This is because I have a limit to how determined and patient I'm willing to be in the course of saving my M. I'm willing to take the risk that the approach I'm choosing to take may or may not work out.

This process is for people who are determined to save their M, but honestly, I'm just not as determined as some people here are willing to be, at this point. When I step back and take a look at the R as a whole, and given who I am as a person, I have to make a very personal choice about how far I want to go. A big part of me does very much want to save my M, but I am in an ever-evolving process of deciding what my limits are.

Some of those limits I have known from the beginning, such as if my W won't end the EA, then I won't stick around to keep fighting for long. We crossed that threshold at the end of December. I came close to deciding to end it then, but my gut feeling was to give it a bit more time. I hadn't tried fully letting go and giving her space, so I started trying to do that. I needed to know that I had tried everything, and I couldn't say that yet. Two weeks into that, I got the feeling like she was just continuing to avoid and run away from everything. At that time I decided to give it until the end of January and then assess. I was really feeling like I had reached the end of my rope this week, and it seemed very final during our MC session on Wednesday when we agreed to separate. I was ready to do it, but she changed her mind on Thursday and came to me to say she still wasn't sure and wanted one more week to think about it. She is reading more R books now and I noticed that she has started journalling. She may also go to the shamanic healer and that other IC. She seems to be making a genuine effort to work on herself. She seems to be at that point where she is facing the loss and it is motivating her.

My gut says that if I can see that she's willing to make a genuine effort and not stalling or avoiding, that I should continue to be patient. I don't think I can wait much longer without her making the NC commitment, though. I am at the end of my rope with regard to that. If she can go back to NC and transparency to rebuild trust, I think I could be much more patient while we work on ourselves for several more months.

The week ahead will probably be an intense one.

[JGuy]

Very concerned about what people here are saying about me, I want to be certain I am not missing anything that I might be failing to see about myself. I spent all day yesterday contemplating this. Last night in the hot tub, by myself, I had another one of those Scrooge-like awakenings. Only unlike Scrooge, it just never seems to stick for some reason. Real life is just so much harder than they make it out to be in books and movies! I don't know what it is about that hot tub but it gets me into my feelings in a way that just doesn't happen normally.

Despite feeling certain that I'm right about people misunderstanding me in some way, I also had a sinking feeling that I must be missing something too. Maybe I'm right about my innocence, but Rd is also right about what some of my issues are, if that's somehow possible? I thought about myself, not just in this R with my W but in past R's as well. I have to admit when I put myself in the other person's shoes, that I must come across as pretty thick headed. Although I don't intentionally ignore other people's needs, it's like I fail to notice them sometimes. Lack of empathy. I'm innocent for this, as far as I can tell, yet it's a problem that I have no choice but to try and figure out.

I don't know what makes me like this. I spent an hour trying my hardest to force myself to look at anything and everything in my past that might give clues. Looking at my past hurtful behavior toward others that seemed like it was justified for one reason or another, things that I just never understood. So many tears came last night. Hating myself, confused, feeling like I must have it all completely wrong. At one point, I was just begging for my ego to be taken away. Like my whole mind is just wrong, off track, like I went off track somewhere in my life and I'm no longer living the life I was meant to be living. I had glimpses of what a new JGuy might look like, more kind, generous, caring, empathetic. But then fears flood in, memories of being treated like a doormat, unseen, misunderstood. It seems I have failed to find the balance between being kind and empathetic with also having proper boundaries.

I was overwhelmed with a feeling of being totally inadequate, incapable, not having whatever it is I would need to have to actually live the life of being a better JGuy. I saw the glimpses beginning to away from me as they always do. I begged for them to stay and not leave me alone in blindness and suffering. This might sound crazy, and maybe it is, but I tried dialoguing with myself, as though an angel was talking to me. Telling myself that everything I need to do this is all inside of me, that it's just a matter of seeing clearly enough and having the willpower to change. I managed to keep the glimpses with me for longer than they usually stay.

It's not the first time I have come to this place. Once and awhile, I see these glimpses of guidance that I am obviously meant to follow, but then they fade and give way to the thick fog that I remain lost in 99% of the time. Is this fog just a false reality that my pride has unconsciously tricked me into believing in, as a protection against some imagined harm that might befall me if I was to let go and admit the truth about myself to myself? I hate this fog. I am so sick of it... I just want it to go away! I don't care if it's painful. I want the truth. I tried to see how this might be, how my innocence might be imaginary. Flooded with self judgement and self hate... then trying to pick myself up and figure out what part of me is and always was innocent and lovable. It was really confusing. I am still confused.

I was a mess all night. My W found me crying in a puddle in my bedroom when I got home. She was kind and caring, but it was obvious she had no clue what I was going through. On top of everything I was feeling, I felt worried because I remembered I wasn't supposed to let her see me crying according to the advice here. I just feel so inadequate, incapable of holding myself together. I am just so far away from being that strong. Doomed to fail, doomed to lose everything, feeling so overwhelmed, like it must all be my fault, for not being good enough, strong enough, humble enough, aware enough. Like I have completely failed myself and my family.

Today I feel like the fog is still thick, my usual thought patterns coming back. I don't want life to go on as usual anymore, I want this hell to end. If this is me and it's all something I'm missing then I want to have courage to face it. I want to just throw away all my pride, or at least figure out how to detach it from the feeling of innate innocence about myself, so that I can start doing all the overwhelmingly difficult work of trying to change, but without all the self judgement that destroys the very motivation that it would take. I want to know how I can stay in touch with these insights that came to me last night, so that they aren't just rare glimpses that come once in a blue moon. I have no idea why this is all so hard and seems so unfair, but who am I to judge what life has thrown my way? If this is the path I must walk then I must deserve it for some reason which isn't up to me to be the judge of.

How do I carry that innocent part of me, little JGuy, through this without the criticism and self hate being directed at him? I think when I defend myself from Rd, Zeus, and Azzork's criticism, it is little JGuy that I am trying to protect, which maybe I am right to do, but I'm just really confused because I am missing something about how that's only a part of me. Maybe there is a different part of me that I am totally blind to most of the time, which has come out and is affecting how I come across to other people. If this is true, how humiliating this is. I guess my innocence is that it's not easy for me to see it. But I feel like I saw it last night, that is if I wasn't just imagining everything. Gotta start somewhere, I guess.

[JGuy]

At IC session yesterday, I explained the latest about my confusion regarding my need to be understood causing me to come across as controlling. The IC came to the exact same conclusion as me. That I really am being misunderstood, but my undeveloped ability to self-validate leads me to keep trying to explain myself better, and to some people this comes across as controlling. It was nice to be understood by the IC, it relieved some of the inner panic and confusion. She gave me some tips on self-validation.

MC session was today. I had previously told my W that I wasn't comfortable continuing to hang out in limbo while she was still contacting the OM, past the end of January. Last Thursday my W asked for a few more days to think about it. So today was the day when I was prepared to say "I'm done" if she still wasn't ready to go NC. I had no idea what to expect, but I was prepared for the worst. To my surprise, she came out and said that she had decided that she wants to go NC for herself. Not because of any pressure from me, but because she wants to do the right thing from her own inner compass. She said that the conversation earlier this week helped her realize how the dynamic between us was triggering her childhood memories of feeling controlled by her parents. She said it's different now, that the desire to go NC is coming from herself instead of as a reaction to feeling pressure from the MC or from me. She said she wants the expectation to be clear that there's still no guarantee about the outcome. I agreed completely, that the NC was only a first step, to create a safe place where we can continue to work on our issues independently as well as together to see what we can learn when all distractions are removed.

We also talked about the dynamic with my need for validation being misinterpreted as controlling when that's not my intention. The MC gave my W some tips on how validating me isn't the same as agreeing with me, and will actually make me back off from over-explaining myself. She gave me the advice to notice her response and stop to self validate when I notice her getting triggered.

[Zues126]

I thought when I first read it your post on self-validation was spot on...but to your point I hesitated to say too much because the whole point is you don't need my support on that. For what it's worth, you have it.

And the best part is as you get better at self-validating, you will be more secure, and less injured by misunderstandings of others around you. Then you will be able to hear others voices without feeling threatened, because you will be whole and healthy. Sometimes you will agree with those voices, sometimes you won't, but my guess is that you will feel every bit as sensitive in terms of tuned in, but not as sensitive in terms of uncomfortable. Then you can really be at your best.

What you described the other night is pretty cool. A bit of a trip. Once in a while we are shown glimpses of our higher self, of the universe, of something beyond ourselves. That's a nice reminder, and a nice place to visit, but don't be discouraged that we don't get to live there. The light of God is filtered through broken beings, and while it's in us, don't feel bad it doesn't all shine through. We do the best we can, and it's all good.