A day at a time

[may22]

And, a gentle push here May. Your fighting him when he does share with you is invalidating him with actions. He shares, you are telling him he's wrong. So turning around and trying to validate verbally after I can see why he doesn't believe you on that. But you see the areas where you are reacting when you shouldn't be, and I applaud you for working on them. Keep going on this work.

You're right on this. I was having a hard time seeing it. I just am so emotionally triggered by the idea that he has (present day) feelings of love for another woman. I can *sort of* handle it when it feels like it was in the past, like when we kind of ritually threw away all the mementos together of the A. I think I mentioned she had written him 39 notes about ways she loved him for his 39th birthday. I glanced at each one and then threw it in the garbage and it was so weirdly satisfying. But I think I keep wanting him to tell me all his feelings are relegated to the past tense and she's completely in the rearview mirror in his heart. He can't tell me that, though, (I want to add "yet" but that is me trying to engineer what I want) and every time I bring it up and he can't say it, it totally triggers me and feels impossible to actually validate in any real way, because all my insides are screaming how wrong it is for him to have feelings for someone else.

I guess what I'm learning here is to avoid these conversations. I know it is a boundary for me but I keep picking at the edges hoping I'll have a different answer. I do think I can validate with authenticity-- even just the "I see" or "I understand" or nodding-- the past tense actions and feelings. I simply can't do that right now in the present tense. Anyway, this was helpful, Yail. Thank you.

Sage, I'd read some of Grace's thread a few months ago, when he was first starting to come around. I'll definitely check it out again now.

I know that you are not feeling very positive about MC right now, but what if it gave you and H the space to put things in check until you had that hour to discuss it with MC? Maybe two sessions a week would be necessary, but perhaps it could be a tool for both of you to table things in the moment, knowing you had an opportunity to discuss it later?

I do think this is a good idea. I want to give it a few weeks (maybe more) and see where we are-- I guess I also feel like we each have our own work to do and maybe it is better to give the relationship work a rest until we've each had some time to work on ourselves. (Well, I can work on me. H may or may not work on himself actively. But time and some breathing room from me yelling at him probably is only positive.) We do have kids back in in-person school so this would be a possibility again. I also appreciate your comment about the knee-jerk responses-- you're completely right.

It's funny. I was thinking recently about DBing and how my ability to DB has really ebbed and flowed. I was thinking about times last fall, when he was traveling for work and in AP's city, and lying about seeing her and I knew he was lying and furious about it. But, I was able to not react right away (thanks to this board) and after sleeping on it, recognized there was no value in confronting him about it and spurring an R talk so I just ignored it and him and focused on me. So many times I was almost frantic with anxiety and anger and worry about what he was doing or what was happening and I could just take a deep breath, focus on the kids or get out of the house to GAL on my own or with a friend and avoid doing or saying something I'd regret later. I was pretty good at it. I remember wanting to avoid R talks at all costs because I learned that every single time they happened it pushed him a little further away. I never heard anything I liked.

I don't know if it is COVID and the lack of other outlets or the fact that we're now in a bit of a different place that I feel compelled to dump my feelings on him in real time, say things without that filter, give in to the knee-jerk response when a year ago when it was so much worse and harder I had the self control to stop. I also see that I've done this every time in our R attempts, pushed my own hurt and feelings onto him when I truly think he isn't in a place to be able to handle that, yet. If we were S, I wouldn't be doing that and he'd be able to focus on his own healing and grieving without needing to be smacked in the face at every turn with my anger and grief at his behavior. I get that it would be a lot for anyone, processing your own feelings while also being forced to support the feelings of someone who you so very badly wronged. As Alison says, we aren't S, so I need to figure out how to allow for the same positive opportunities we'd have in S within the construct of us living in the same house. But these behaviors of mine, I think, were a cheeseless tunnel for me in the past, so I'm going to do my best to stop and take responsibility for my own emotions and healing for awhile.

From an outsider's perspective, H seems to be trying to the best of his current capability. And of course, you are too. What would it look like to push the yardstick out a lot further so the positive (or negative) benchmarks weren't in terms of hours and days, but more like weeks or months? Can you see H's efforts since last month? Can you see your own progress since last month? I can. But sometimes we are so mired in the trees, we can't see the forest.

He says he's doing his best and I think I believe him (even though I wish he could do better, but again that isn't mine to control). You said something a few posts ago that I've been thinking about, looking at your toddler's nutrition intake over a week instead of meal-by-meal, and this yardstick analogy also resonates with me. I do think I'm really impatient to be over this current pain of seeing him grieve and knowing he still has feelings for AP. But that is not going to change this week or next-- I think you're right, I should be looking more at months.

Yail helped me with this back in the spring, saying something similar when I started to get antsy and angry that H wasn't where I wanted him to be yet. I said to myself, I'll wait until July and see where we are then. But he relapsed before that and were back to full on limbo in June. I think I have some level of fear around that happening again. I think I need to wait until after the holidays to really check in and see where we are.

I don't know that I can see any progress from either of us, tbh. I feel I've backslid and only this week am starting to pick myself back up. He, too, went from "this is what I'm choosing and I'll prove it to you with my loving behaviors" back to IDK if I'll ever get over AP, some things are out of my control (like it was fate or kismet or a random bolt of lightning that caused him to "fall" in love). IC says just another way for him to avoid responsibility by framing it like this. A lot of stuff is going on under the surface for him, I think.

Thank you for saying that you see progress, though. That really helps. And I do honestly feel so much better and lighter since the weekend when I resolved to get back to DB basics and focus all my energy back onto me.

xx May