A day at a time

[may22]

Hi Alison, Wooba. Thank you.

This is all just hard. I have some days where I still feel, over a year after BD, like screaming into the air about how unfair this all is. That I didn't do anything to deserve being betrayed and lied to and cheated on. When the path ahead is just so rocky and the destination so unclear. That I'll be dealing with the emotional fallout of this abuse for years, maybe my whole life, no matter what happens between the two of us. That his "progress" is so glacially slow it can't even be measured. And that he lied for so long and about so much that who knows when and if I'll ever be able to truly trust him again. UGH.

And then I can, usually, dial myself back out to the 30,000 foot level. That I'm OK being where I am today. That (aside from my lame H) I have an enormous amount of things in my life to be grateful for. That there is nothing I can do about my H's state of mind today or tomorrow or a year from now-- all I can do is focus on me, accept that we are where we are, and continue to build and rely on my own mechanisms for healing and growth. Someone a long time ago said they think of the Frozen 2 song "Do the Next Right Thing" and I do think of this song, sometimes (I saw a documentary about the making of the film, and Kristen Bell talks about her struggles with depression and how much this song meant to her when it was hard to get out of bed in the morning and all she could do was think of the next thing to do-- get out of bed, wake up the children, just focusing on that next right thing to get her through the hard parts) and that helps.

Alison, I've been pondering your question:

In the moments where you are triggered, do you know what you want from your H, May? (This is some boundaries work - figuring out what you need, and how to give it to yourself or ask someone else for it, without demanding). Do you know what would help in those moments? Have you told your H what you would like from him, and are you gracious if from time to time he can't give it?

I do know what I want. I WANT him to fall at my feet and take full responsibility for his terrible actions, and apologize, and tell me he never thinks about AP anymore and wants to prove his love to me over and over and what can he do to make this better? That, obviously, is not going to happen.

So what else do I want? Honestly, even just the tiniest signals that he (a) gets it and is truly sorry and (b) cares about me and how I feel, not just about how bad I make him feel when I remind him of what has happened.

I have said this to him. Maybe not in a way he can hear. I also recognize that I actually get a little bit of this in these moments, often, but it isn't enough for me and I keep pushing or withdrawing until it disintegrates. This happened this weekend, for instance-- we had a surprise staycation overnight at a hotel with the kids, which triggered me for a couple of reasons-- H had surprised me with the same hotel for my birthday 15 years ago, and it was so romantic and fun and nothing he would do anymore with me (but feels reminiscent of all the hotel stays he had with his AP over the past couple of years)-- plus, for our anniversary last year, when I knew things were off but nothing about AP, I'd come up with a few ideas for what we could do (we had built-in child care that night). One of the suggestions I had was going to the restaurant of this same hotel. He said at the time he didn't want to do anything like that and we ended up just grabbing sushi. And now re-looking at that anniversary from the lens of the A... it just all feels so scuzzy and gross, and I'm embarrassed that I spent so much time thinking about what to do on our anniversary when his brain was obviously in a totally different place.

Anyway. We were sitting out at the hotel, kids were playing, he brought me a beer and said, put down your phone. Let's talk. So we did, but my head was just stuck in all this sadness about the past. I shared with him how I felt. He apologized, said he was truly sorry that I felt like this and that he was responsible.

But I couldn't let it go, reviewed the reasons, he didn't remember the anniversary conversation at all (so weird, his memory is totally shot for the last three years) and I kept it up until he brought up the SSM and that I'd been the one to turn away from him first.

Ha. Reading this makes it so clear that I'm just touching the hot stove again. And that maybe if I'd been out of my own head and been able to appreciate what he was able to give in that moment... that he was the one asking to connect in the first place, that he apologized and didn't blame me or anyone else... that might have been a better play on my end than picking away until he finally got defensive.

But, I didn't yell or get upset. I let out a few more truth darts-- he said he didn't feel like I was going to change, that I just wanted to go back to how it was before. I said, I don't want that and I'm not going back. But I'm changing for me and I don't really care if you see it or realize it or not, right now. I don't see any reason to discuss the SSM with you until you've burnt AP out of your heart forever. Then, we can talk. But I'm not trying to prove anything to you.

He said, what if I never get over her completely?

I said, then there isn't really a point to any of this, is there?

He said, every time we have these talks I feel like you just want to get divorced from me. I didn't really respond.

He said he thought his (our) IC has been rooting for us to D all along. IDK if that is true or not-- she is basically a master validator so I think it is more reflective of what he says to her. I said, if that is true, we both should stop seeing her. It is crazy for us to try to stay married and have a therapist who thinks that is a bad idea. We should talk to her about this. He was quite taken aback by this.

He has also been talking about a new car. I told him, I'm not comfortable talking about spending that kind of money right now. I've drafted the post-nup and we need to go over it. Maybe we can just split up all our money now and then you can spend your half on whatever you want. He didn't like that, he wants it to be something we decide together and feels like splitting our money now is just priming us for D. I said then drop the talk about the new car. But we are still signing this post-nup. He said, OK. (now I need to get up the courage to actually sit down one night and review it with him. He isn't going to like it and it is hard to get up the energy to do this in the evenings when the kids finally go down and all I want to do is collapse with a glass of wine and the TV or a book.)

We got home Sunday and actually he's gone out of his way since then to be especially nice. He hugged me and asked me to sit cuddled next to him on the couch. He held my hand. He made me a drink and rubbed my back and did all the dishes. Yesterday morning he stopped at Starbucks on his way home to get me a latte. He texted "love you" at the end of a text to me this morning--- THAT has not happened for... years? IDK. (And I finally planted the baby cucumber plants he got me last week.)

I keep thinking of Wayfarer and how she'd get thrown off when her H leaned in, and I didn't get that. Now I do. I'm wondering if he's feeling guilty about something, what has possibly changed. He had told me a couple months ago when we embarked on this R round that he was going to act lovingly towards me and show me loving behaviors that he hadn't for years... and then that never happened, until now. Anyway, it feels odd. I want to lean in but am not really able to.

Alison, i hear what you're saying as him experiencing me as turning away in these moments. I think you are probably right. That being said, I don't feel I'm in a place quite yet to care... I feel like I need to get myself first to a place of being a bit more stable and with more developed self-soothing mechanisms before I can deal with H being triggered in return by my not kissing his @ss all day long (which is kind of what it feels like right now). I think I will get there... I just want to do it at my pace, not his, and to be very careful not to do his emotional work for him. I feel like sitting in the discomfort of his own making is not a bad thing for him.

Though the more I think about it... if I am no longer "turning away" in these moments, and he no longer has the excuse of then blaming his bad feelings on me, he'll need to face them himself? (Or find something else to blame ;)) So maybe it would be helpful for his own growth and healing as well for me to think about a 180 here... I guess when you're in these situations and kind of stuck, probably any major shift in the well-worn grooves of how you interact with each other can be a good thing.

Wooba, he is a terrible validator. I think his brain is just flooded with his own $hit right now and he has no capacity to push it aside. My instinct is to let him deal with it all himself though thinking (as above) of how my own behaviors are impacting him. I feel like I have enough on my plate right now in terms of my own emotional well-being and am really trying to keep his stuff off of my plate.