Help...Confused Newbie Pt5

[Accuray]

Thanks for the kind words guys (blush). I can only share that I got excellent help and support when I was in your shoes so I know how meaningful it can be.

Ballast I don't feel like your situation is hopeless, I used "exW" and "exFIL" in talking about my sitch, not yours. Nothing is hopeless until you decide to give up, or completely reject DB and keep pursuing.

I think the big thing to me was that I showed W respect for her no matter what as the wife of my D on her day, but W could not return the same respect to me

^== Covert contract. If you shift your perspective to be that people don't owe you anything, then when they do things for you its a nice surprise or a gift. That's actually a great place to be. If you live that way, you'll naturally be empathetic and find yourself giving people the benefit of the doubt.

and she knew for sure what day it was.

Let's assume you have hard evidence to support that and we'll say that is a fact.

It hurt and I guess sadly for whatever reason there's a fair chance that was her intent.

^== That is not a fact, that is a story you're telling yourself. Your self-narrative is that W wants to hurt you, so you're telling yourself a story to reinforce what you already want to believe.

What hurt and made you sad was not anything that W did or didn't do, it was your covert contract and resulting unspoken expectations. Those things hurt you because they didn't get fulfilled. I promise you that if she sent you a card, called you, and gave you a bunch of balloons there would have been something about how it all went down that you would have interpreted to be vindictive or passive aggressive on her part -- be very careful of your internal narrative and really work to separate "what happened" from "what you told yourself that means". The first is a fact, the second is a fabrication.

To intentionally hurt or get angry at me while she's on her way towards getting what she seems to want, I just don't get that.

^== That's a story you're telling yourself. She didn't actually *do* anything. You're assigning malicious intent to something that happened, but you're the one doing the assignment. If she said "I didn't send you a Father's Day card because I want to punish you and hurt you", then you're entitled to feel this way, but she didn't.

As others have wisely pointed out, the WAS usually sees the LBS as a leaky pent up dam.

Imagine a poorly constructed dam holding back a giant wall of water, straining across the entire structure with water seeping over the top.

If you saw that, you wouldn't want to stand anywhere near it, and you certainly wouldn't poke at it.

The WAS is afraid that showing you kindness, compassion, or intimacy will cause that dam to burst, have you unload a torrent of tears and emotion on them, cling to their leg and refuse to let go.

When they believe that YOUR mental state is tied to THEIR words and actions it reinforces this perception that you're just completely emotionally unstable as far as they are concerned.

Therefore, her lack of a Father's Day acknowledgement was an act of self-preservation. She's trying to keep the dam standing, she doesn't want to be swept away.

It was not intended to hurt you, it was intended to keep you at bay so that you wouldn't see an opportunity for pursuit, because if you start pursuing her, she's going to have to hurt you worse later. Skipping Father's Day was the lesser evil in her mind, compared to winding your hopes up and then dashing them later.

If you look at it from that perspective, she was being compassionate. If she wanted to hurt you, she would have made a big deal about Father's Day, given you a hug and a kiss, gotten you to "lean in" and then pull back and tell you she doesn't want anything to do with you. That's how she could have hurt you, and she didn't do that, she didn't lead you on.

Remember as well when thinking about W that there are really only two base emotions -- joy and fear. Other emotions are expressions of those two basics. Anger is rooted in fear, it's an expression of fear. W isn't angry with you, she's afraid.

Look at her with that perspective and you'll find compassion rather than resentment.

If you are CONFIDENT and SELF-ASSURED the dam is gone. If you have "the attitude" there is no dam, because your emotions are not based on what she does or doesn't do.

When that happens, it is SAFE for her to be nice to you, to be compassionate, and not have to worry about being swept away.

But it has to be 100% believable, which means that you're acting that way even when no one is looking, and then sufficient time has to pass for it to be convincing, that you're not just putting on an act.

You will get there, and once you do, it won't matter what she does or doesn't do, because your self-worth is disconnected from her validation.

And you know what? That's where you *must* be in order to reconcile, because reconciling is not "taking her back" its making her convince you that she's worth starting with again, because YOU are the prize to be won. In that context, she needs to be willing to do the work, and she needs to know that if she doesn't you are GONE.

Until you have "the attitude", she won't believe that, and you can't reconcile.

I often tell people in one of my first posts that "the shortest path back together is a straight line in the opposite direction" and that's what it means. Until she believes that you are (1) good on your own, (2) don't need *anything* from her, and are (3) confident and emotionally healthy, you are NOT safe to return to.

Sometimes you have to make things worse before they can get better.

Acc