Gordie, you don't know how much you are helping me. I wish I would have had the strength to post more earlier on. I think if I had I'd be further along in my journey than I am now. I don't know that she would be, but I would be. Having you tell me some of the same stuff over in different ways is helping me to pound it in to my head. There is a difference in knowing what to do and KNOWING what to do...if you know what I mean
Its funny, I'll be telling myself stuff to try and talk down my own inner dialog. Then I'll have a light bulb moment where I GET it and feel relieved that I have a mental plan. When I repeat the light bulb idea back to myself, its the same thing verbally that I've been telling myself (and others telling me) all along. The difference is finally GETTING it.
And I see now that I've been looking at the dropping the rope thing and going dark as a thing that I am doing to her rather than a thing I am doing for myself. I keep trying to do all the right things for all the wrong reasons.
I'm going to really sink my teeth in to this confidence rebuilding thing. I think that is key. It will help me get back to me, change my thinking, and might even rebuild some interest in me from her perspective...although that last one isn't really why I want to do it. I hope that happens, but I really want ME back right now.
Once I have a better answer for the confidence thing I'll get back to you.
And to clarify from earlier, I actually said that I AM walking on eggshells, but don't want to. I am better at not doing it as much now than I was, but I still do it. Its almost impossible not to a little because my natural inclination when around her is to speak my mind. I can't really do that right now because some of the things I want to say that would originally be ok to say might set her back due to her messed up MLC thinking. To me, monitoring my speech and actions to accommodate her delicate emotional state is walking on eggshells. I'm trying to do it less because walking on eggshells is a low confidence move, although there is a fine line between that and just monitoring your speech because no one should say everything they think out of sheer respect for their fellow human being. I'm trying to find that line between general respect and enabling cake eating.
