So I attended my first EMDR therapy appointment yesterday. We are in the information collecting phase so all the therapist did was get some preliminary background. That will continue for another couple of sessions before we actually start the reprocessing stage. Nonetheless, it was cathartic. I probably spent 3/4 of the session bawling. The therapist told me that H is emotionally out of control. There is clearly some issue he is trying to escape facing. Despite my knowing this, therapists telling me this, you all here telling me, I still struggle with self blame. The work continues.
A positive to come out of my session yesterday is that I felt like my load lessened a little bit. I felt more free. H was late coming home so S and I ate without him. While H was eating, S and I were playing in another room. I had a genuinely good time. I haven't felt this way in a long time. It was nice. I miss that feeling. I hope to get it back on a more consistent basis.
After S went to bed, H told me he was leaving to go to a gathering of work friends. Everyone was getting together because of his deceased colleague. He told me this as I was cleaning up and he was getting ready to walk out the door. Lol! Of course, right? I told him that in the future I would appreciate it if he would tell me about these things in advance and to please not spring them on me at the last minute. He immediately got defensive. First he said, well, I just found out about it this afternoon. I told him then he could have texted me to let me know. Then when he realized that was a losing argument he tried to turn it around on me. He said, well sometimes, you decide to go to your mom's house and you don't tell me in advance. What is frustrating for me about that statement is he knows that at least every other weekend I will take S to see my parents. He knows this. Often, because my mother is in fragile health, decisions about whether it is Sat or Sun or at all, aren't made until the last minute. I tell him when I know. He knows all of this. Rather than go into all this, I just told him that I would like to be treated like how he would like to be treated. I brought up the golden rule.
Ugh. I have to get better at this. I have to learn to anticipate that this is how these types of conversations are going to go from here on out. I should have known. I keep thinking that I will be able to have a rational conversation with an adult. Instead, I'm talking to a teenager. I have to pull my head of my *you know what* and keep remembering what I am dealing with.
Perhaps the better approach would have been to just ignore this behavior? Should I just let these things go and chalk it up to MLC. Maybe I just have to wrap my head around the fact that he is not going to behave like an responsible adult. I feel like he is taking advantage of me and I don't like it. He hasn't even thanked me for the fact that I have picked up a lot of his slack since he colleague died. I do it happily because I imagine it is difficult for him, but a little gratitude would go along way. My expectations are way too high, aren't they? I am certain if I shared my feelings with him he would just turn it around on me and say how incredibly selfish I am being during a time like this. Am I being selfish for wanting some gratitude or recognition? It would probably just be easier to ignore his behavior and then vent here and to my therapist?
What do you all think? Should I just let these kinds of things slide?
