Fierce compassion, equanimity, integrity #2

[may22]

Hi Cardinal,

I started a response to you the other day, but it got lost, and then PLC said to you the exact same thing I wanted to-- this is NOT your fault. This is all on him. And to be going through this trauma on top of the pandemic and a new job and everything else--- that is just an enormous amount of background anxiety that any human being would have difficulty coping with. My brain has been swiss cheese since the start of all of this. I really only feel in the last couple of weeks that I've started to get my brain back in the game at work, and am realizing that is only because I'm spending less mental energy thinking about my H.

I think you handled this situation well, so well. Don't beat yourself up over not walking away when it happened. It was great that you had a plan for how to deal with it but it didn't work out that way, and that is okay. Also, maybe go back and read some of your posts from the spring and see just how far you've come in reacting to something like this. I know you aren't feeling 100% today-- who would-- but I think this same conversation six months ago would have knocked you on your back for days. That no longer is the case. You're strong, you're perceptive, you see so clearly what is going on, and you're taking the steps you need to take to protect yourself.

For me, at least, some amount of listening to what was going on in my H's head at certain points was helpful. Some things I'd do when I was in the "validate at all costs" stage-- where I no longer am, and I don't think you're there either-- included physically relaxing my face, focusing on my breathing, and thinking things to myself with an interested look on my face-- helped. When you were in the sitch, did you notice anything you did that helped? If you can, I might think through and see what strategies you might be able to employ if it happens again and you aren't able to easily extract yourself from the conversation. Or, have some strategies in mind to help yourself exit from the conversation-- maybe I'm really sorry, I can't talk with you right now, I need to use the restroom, and go in there to give him a bit of time to cool down.

At the same time, I feel like I was just his punching bag for an hour. He didn't know what to do with his feelings, so he unleashed anger on me. Then tried to process some of what's gone on for him in the last two+ years with me, all while saying I didn't communicate and didn't try to save our M in the last year and never talk to him anymore. I'm thinking of your H here, May, and how you don't have to be the one to do his work for him; you can't be that person. I wanted to say that I don't owe H conversation or small talk. I wanted to say that he fired me as his W, and he can't be hurt when I don't go out of my way to talk to him or accuse me of not communicating with him anymore. But this person doesn't understand things the way rational people do. Everything is just more justification for why I am at fault and he is not.

I think you're doing so well, Cardinal. You're right in that there is simply no point in trying to say any of that to him. He can't hear it. (He had to leave his IC because she kept bringing up problems that he didn't have????? OMG.)

You didn't break him, therefore you can't fix him. In my case, my H and I are in a mutual truce of sorts where we don't talk about R stuff and I think it is good for both of us. In your case and where you are with your sitch right now, I don't see your H being able to respect any boundaries you have-- holding onto anger for you not asking him for help with mowing the lawn??? that is just SO WEIRD!!!-- and I worry a little bit about what comes next in your sitch with you two in the same house, and the pandemic making escape difficult.

Have you talked to your L about the process? His L is clearly a nut too and feeding his fantasy annulment scheme. I'm wondering what it will take for your H to see reason and drop the annulment BS so that you can have a real conversation or negotiation about an equitable D. I just worry that the scenario from last night has the potential to play out many more times, every time he gets an answer from his L that he doesn't like, and he has no-where to process it alone and neither do you.

Can you put a door on your room? With a lock?

Hoping you can focus on work today and feel a bit better. I echo job in really really really hoping you are able to brush his gaslighting off your shoulders like invisible dust and hold your head high. Did you read that passage on DnJ's thread about detachment and breaking off the coupling mechanism from the trailer? That imagery really stuck with me, and I'm feeling like right now what all of us cultivating detachment should be doing is caring for that broken loop-- not to repair it, but to sand it down and burnish it and repaint it so that it is whole again, and the hook slides right off with no-where to grab onto.

You are whole. You are worthy. You are loving and compassionate and this is not your fault. (((C)))