Thank you Cadet...I must have read these a thousand times and I still feel like I pick up something new. I feel it might be helpful to add that my H is ex military and has a huge issue with opening up and being emotional. I say this because he is certainly trying to be more open about his feelings, which I believe is a positive step. I think he is possibly so “trained” to switch off emotion that he never allowed himself to feel the hurt of my A, just blocked it out. Again I realise I can’t fix this but I think it might be why he still blocks feelings, including loving ones, without even meaning to.
I have been working on abandonment issues, poor self esteem and jealousy. Jealousy was definely guilt driven from what I had done to H. Fear of being abandoned and not good enough for H contributed to him further distancing before he left. Poor self esteem was after I had my 4th baby and just didn’t feel pretty anymore. I wasnt then and am not now overweight but the less H was affectionate the more I thought it must be true. Then tadaaa, the stupidity of A fog gets you, you ignorantly justify it to yourself rather than be honest and BOOM!! My biggest lesson from that was I needed to feel beautiful about myself and it cannot be solely provided by a partner. I do feel I’ve done a lot, and will continue to improve on myself ...I can always do better. That’s for me.
