Trying to Detach

[may22]

Oh yes, we are on. We did talk some tonight (you know I'm absymal at not talking) but I did stick to my guns.

Don't be afraid of him calling you controlling. I sense you have a lot of fear around that. If I can smell it, he can, and he will use it.

LOTS around this. I'm controlling, his entire family always has told him I'm controlling, he told his mom recently that I used to be controlling and she agreed, IC thinks I'm controlling, I was trying to tell him something about an incident from many years ago and I had felt like I needed to assert my independence and he interrupted to say "that is like we're sitting at the beach, and I'm buried to my neck in sand, and I'm trying to dig myself out and a few grains get on your leg and you're like, oh no! I'm covered in sand!" (This, I walked away from.)

Later, I got some anger "Why are you doing this? I've been trying to convince myself that this is what I want, and then you go and remind me of all the reasons why I don't want to be in an R with you." And then he went on a litany of all the things I didn't allow him to do over the years and how many ways he tried to convince himself that was OK. Oh, and I also got more of the "you were older than me, and smarter than me, and I modeled myself after you... my entire adult life has been controlled by you."

I mostly just listened to this and disagreed when it was my turn to talk. No validating, no DBing. I can also see how DBing works in the moment, though-- I *easily* could have defused everything with some validation and changing of the subject. Instead, I got him super riled up to the "why are you doing this" point, and then he huffed into bed (next to me).

But, I did stick to my guns. He brought up the "I need to get over AP and I will want you to help me with that-- appropriately (his IC told him it wasn't OK to process his feelings about AP with me, and apparently THAT is what it took for him to stop, not me telling him over and over to please not do it), but I can't get over AP by following the instructions you have laid out for me. That isn't going to work for me. It needs to be something I come up with." I said (again) we tried it your way last time and it didn't work, did it?

He said, I get that you don't trust me. I get that I need to earn that back. I get that you can say you need me to delete all her stuff for you to trust me. But you also have another motive alongside trust, and that is that you win when she's gone. I said, no. That isn't winning. That is NOT WINNING. AP being out of the picture is one small but necessary step in the path towards us working out, if we do. He said, but you're not giving me a choice. You won't even talk about us, or the SSM. The only thing you'll talk about is me cutting off all contact with her. I said, I'm not in a contest. I'm not the consolation prize. And I totally felt his manipulation there.

OK. So, this is the thing. I'm not saying I don't go on this trip... I'm saying the kids don't go either. He could take them for a week of it, I'm fine with that. But it isn't that he's going to take the kids for four weeks and I'm just saying no thanks, have fun, I'll be at home. That is not okay with me. So by me saying I'm not going, it means the trip isn't happening as he has envisioned it, four full weeks. He'd have to cut it down significantly, or go alone for most of it. (I'd be OK with him taking the kids for a week of it.) And since he is saying his primary driver to do this trip is for the children, my refusal to go means the trip doesn't happen, or at least not in its current form or length. Does that change anything? *AM* I being controlling? I thought by giving into the five day trip I was being cool... but I would never even when we were happily M ok with him taking the kids away from me for more than a week.