A day at a time

[may22]

IW, WF.... the primal screams. My IC recommended this too. I just CAN'T! I have started saying things aloud in the car when I'm alone to kind of practice. Why this is so difficult for me is a question all to itself (and stems from my FOO, I'm sure).

The worst part of DBing is keeping so much in for so long to try to save yourself and your marriage. It's so hard to not want to just dump all of that pain, anger, frustration, and grief on to the WAS/WS. That's something I've been working with my IC on as well. Learning what is and isn't appropriate to say when these big feelings come up in waves and I feel like I'm drowning in it.

This. Is so true. And the LBS holds this and holds it and holds it while the WAS leaves or waffles or whatever, and it is like this dam straining under the pressure and so, so hard not to let it all go once the WAS starts turning in. But my H is nowhere near ready for that. It pushes him backwards every time, away from me and my too-intense feelings. (Wow, this imagery is making a lot of sense to me.) It also helps me to understand why S is so often helpful-- because I could, for instance, be working on draining that lake without my H around, while he's ideally getting to the place where he could actually handle some of the water that remains and not get swept away in the current. But since that is not the path I've chosen for now, draining that lake is my responsibility and I need to divert it away from the spillway.

After talking it over with my IC, the way I'm thinking about the rage and the sadness is like a toxic layered liquid (the rage is on top of the sadness) that I need to drain away, or maybe like pus that needs to be drained from a wound before it can heal. And I can't even get to any of these next steps until I figure out how to drain it away, and mechanisms for keeping it away once it's been dealt with. Only then can I be ME.

Wayfarer, I thought all night about you saying I'm letting ghosts steal my softness and wide-eyed belief that things always turn out for the best. This hit me hard, really hard. I don't want that. I want some mix of being true to who I am, plus the strength of knowing I'm OK no matter what, that I'm choosing this and can choose differently tomorrow, if I want. "Not being a passive participant in my own life"-- that is terrific and exactly it.

My H always gets on me for being black-and-white and I have never thought I am... but in this scenario I'm seeing it within me. The discomfort I have in holding onto two parallel paths. The feeling, somehow, that strength = walking and staying = being true to my inner hopeful self, and that those two things are at odds... when I don't think they are.

For you Frozen fans... maybe it is all about finding my Frozen 2 Anna.

My experience is this: I had to be really really angry for a long time (you will have noticed this on my thread...!) I needed to be bitter and petty and blame him entirely. It was a stage and I needed to pass through it, and whenever I tried to get my H involved in that stage of my own process, or he tried to get me involved his that stage of his process, we kept each other stuck. The separation worked for us - but maybe for you there is another way. But this is the gate you go through.

Then I worked on understanding. It meant moving past the anger and judgement and actually just understanding - right or wrong - that my H had been lonely, in pain, sad, had lost his own wife and marriage, had wounds from his own childhood, and had acted out in very human ways. It hurt me and it wasn't okay, but I understood it. It stopped me feeling both like a poor put upon victim and also like I had the moral high ground. Relinquishing those comfy positions of un-forgiveness is uncomfortable and necessary.

Alison, you have such a clear way of talking about these processes. I don't know that I'm ready to relinquish the moral high ground just yet ... which is just more evidence that I need to find a way to really work through my anger and pain on my own.

Part of the reason I haven't wanted to S, even though I see the value in many ways, is that I feel a whole new and possibly, for me, overwhelming/unrecoverable wave of pain and betrayal and damage will come from S. Like yet another tidal wave of damage will sweep through and deposit a whole new layer of grief and pain and damage to work through on the other end. And the necessary involvement of the children, adding their fear and pain and confusion to the mix, just seems to me to be too much. If I can deal with this on my own without involving them, I will.

I also understand something I didn't before - which is that my negative feelings have such a strong affect on him because he really, really loves me, he hates me being unhappy, and when I am unhappy his first thought is that he's done something wrong, and is to blame, and then he gets defensive and treats me as if I am blaming him. That's all on him, and it doesn't matter how many times I am telling him that me seeking closeness is not a criticism of him - it's just how he's made - and underneath the blame and lashing out is a heart that is very tender for me, and very vulnerable. I see that in a way I didn't before, when I could only see the lashing out and think what a monster he was (I still think that sometimes!!)

My H has said this to me a number of times throughout all of this. Not the "because I really, really love you"... those words haven't fallen from his lips... but that he can't stand seeing me unhappy, he calls it his "Kryptonite" and it is impossible for him to think or behave rationally when he sees me upset. He'll either jump to the fix-it mode or has that exact same train of thought, that he's done something wrong and gets defensive. (As an aside, this feels like a mommy complex thing, and I don't like it.)

In any case, I'm planning on carving out some time for myself this weekend to dedicate to draining my rage pool. Writing, running, screaming. I kind of want to make a ceramic art piece that represents AP and how I feel about her and then smash it into pieces. Not that I have any means of making a ceramic art piece... wondering if raiding my kids' collection of air-dry clay will do. (Don't think it will have that satisfying smash.) Ha!

And... I realized I have buried my own question by posting so much and would really love some feedback on the loving/tactile behaviors. He's really ramped them up and I am like freezing when he touches me-- not because I don't like it but because I'm totally freaked out about it and what it means and all that. (More context a few posts above if you're interested.) I feel I can gently reinforce the acts of service and small thoughtful actions but am at a loss about the touching. And to the extent I *could* reinforce these behaviors or respond in kind, I think it a positive way it could, possibly, be a virtual cycle where we can at least help each other out in a positive way, even when we are unable to deal with each other when we're feeling the harder feelings. (PT is his LL far beyond everything else.) But I'm also freaked out about scaring away the cat. What do I do?