fear. that has been what has held me in check. and i despise it.
I have been conditioned to not argue with wife out of fear she will get angry or leave or whatever. call it an extention of my relationship with my mom growing up. yucky. no more. I do not allow my mother's BS to affect.me at all anymore, I continue to love her and accept her for who she is.
I know now that my desire for children's well being is stronger than anything that she should possibly do to me. I have decided no longer to be controlled like that by that wuss that is my self. thst man is not who i want to be and have been pealing off those layers of years of avoidance. years of avoidance, patterned behaviour, uugh.
think about how much my wife has learned not to trust ME when she knew I was lying to her to avoid a conflict (how many times have you told your wife 'nothing wasnwrong' when she was asking you...she knew you were lying and that destroys trust over time...sigh)...by holding things in to avoid her possibly getting mad...by omitting details because I was afraid to be seen in a poor light for something I did, even simple stupid crap. years of this will definitely ruin a trust and i am paying for it trying to gain that side of trust back from her.
anyways...so for me, just accepting my old behaviors was not in my best interest nor my kids and changing them. not easy to change crap that took 40 years to shape...my protector self is week, this conflict inside has been raging for a while now and really tearing me apart.
i think about how hard it is for me, then i apply that to our my wifes and cut her more slack as far as how hard it will be for her to change....when her learned behaviors to protect herself theough those emotionally destructive times in her childhood.
my response (^^^ that response throughout our marriage) has not been healthy. I have enabled her to treat me like $hit for too long because of it. I have not placed boundaries around myself to prevent more harm through our entire marriage and now I am starting from scratch.
detaching myaelf from her pain and allowing her to change on her own...her own free will, giving her the space snf time to thrive or wallow is where I have been heading lately.
that is not easy. but none of this is.
thanks for the prompt you have been helping me out more than i can express.
I feel like I need a good swift kick in the Keister from time to time.
I reread this and it is not exactly right...but i dont have a chance to express perfectly, so here it is.
we are going away for the holiday so will not have a huge chunk of time to post. I will make a.trip to one of my favorite breweries, inot Michigan so i will raise a pint of stout (or Porter, whatever you chose) for you!
you have been helping me out more than i can express.