Thanks, DnJ. This is helpful. I think I get confused sometimes because I have no control over his actions—in this case, I was being disrespected and stepped on—I feel that a lot from him, because I know he has the attitude that this is his house and he never expects me to speak up about anything. He wants to feel in control. So a boundary would be leaving the room if he yells. That’s about protecting me, not controlling him. But I can’t control whether he brings people into the house... I did feel it necessary to speak up and say it made me uncomfortable. I guess I’m thinking about what action I could take for myself in that case—maybe sometimes just refusing to keep my feelings quiet as I am being stepped on, and sharing them calmly, is enough?
I feel I’m getting stuck in my loop of anger today and having to remind myself I’m not crazy. H talked to his mom on the phone and it was a regular old convo: work complaints, TV, chit chat, Happy Mother’s Day! All cheer from him. At the end she must have asked if I was there, because he said I’d been outside but had come in. I know they don’t talk about “real” stuff, but it bothers me that she has no idea what the actual situation is here, or how much anger he’s showing me. To her, he can be the usual happy son who just decided he didn’t want to be married anymore but is letting me live here and treating me with kindness. That’s the way he sounds on the phone with her. It makes me feel like I imagine his anger, his unkind treatment, the reality that he is not treating me as a friend. He is not treating me like a human being sometimes, is what my IC said. And then I get angry at him again, for feeling like he can blame and project whatever anger or shame he needs to on me, so that he can continue to be his happy, sensitive self with his mom, and his happy, fun self with his friends.
I know that I should trust my own experience, but it is so hard when everything he projects negates it. I read more about depression and anger in men, and try to have compassion for what he might be growing (typo—should be “going,” but I sure hope he’ll be growing some point!) through, try to remind myself in this way it’s not about me even though he is trying as hard as he can to make it about me. And then I hear him talk to his mom or his friends and I just doubt it all—that he’s depressed, in crisis, that he’s right and I’m actually the one who caused him to get to this point. Such strong FEELINGS and not beliefs, but I have to fight really hard to not let them become beliefs, and sometimes that is so exhausting. I get worn down by him. I doubt my beliefs.
I thought about texting MIL Happy Mother’s Day, but I just can’t. I really just want to say—what do you think is going in here? Does this arrangement not seem weird to you?
Thanks for letting me vent here. I need to go work in the garden and try to refocus on something else.
