So, I'm not exactly new here, I was on this site three years ago. I successfully dbed and pieced. We even had a third child. About 9 months ago things started to slip and we agreed to go to couples counselling. At that time I had already been in IC for years and felt I had been making good progress on what was Childhood Emotional Neglect. I started to understand my feelings more, and said to my W that what I want is missing, deeper connection and mutual respect. She always says she just wants more physical touch and affection.
Couples counselling has been great, a very switched on provocative and emotionally draining therapist. She got us to understand attachment and the avoidant (me), anxious (W) trap. It was an eye opener, it explained our sitch and my previous relationships. When I further delved into it at the attachment project (which I highly recommend), I was blown away by the accuracy of behaviours and feelings. I looked back at previous events in my life under this lense of avoidant attachment, and it explained so much. It shed light in events where I blamed SO when it was more about my distorted reality and negative emotional reactions.
So my original DB wasn't enough, more work needed by me, and it didn't fix things, but it lead me address depression and be more aware of my emotions.
Which leads me to now. Two weeks away for another intense couples therapy, I start to get disrespect, anger and gas lighting from W. When I enforced boundaries to stop, more anger, and then BD.
Along the lines of I've not had sex for too long, I'm leaving, we need to sell the house. But I reminded her that it will come after our relationship gets a better connection and more respect. W wasn't listening.
Now, I'm better at this now. No anxiety, no panicky reaction, and, of course, validation. She still has to point out that last time we separated, I was unreasonable. What happened was I simply reminded her that her expectation of separation doesn't match reality. In this case her suggestion to sell, or develop our house into a duplex was surprisingly fair. She also went to great lengths to exoress that I'm her best friend, in the friend zone.
In any event, I'm still emotionally messed up on the inside, finding it hard to keep a brave face. I'm pretty convinced she's serious this time as I accidentally saw her calendar (we share on our phones), and saw a detailed plan in her calendar of dates for moving into her parents, how she wants to not develop our house, but sell, how I'm to stay in the house with our son during weekdays, date when to ask for child support and how much, and even the date with her therapist to discuss her anxiety that ill drag things out with her therapist. I feel bad for reading all this, but I couldn't help myself.
However, despite BD, we're fairly back to normal. Still sleep in the same bed, doing family things, she makes a point to wear her wedding band out in public, but off all other times. In fact we went to a wedding yesterday, and in all respects we acted like a happy couple, other then no kissing.
Now as an anxious person, I know the minute she thinks of something, everything gets planned, then when the intensity wears off, they get dropped. But this seems different.
I know I need to focus on me, GAL and IC. And I still do. I've lost 30 pounds, and working in IC on self esteem and secure attachment.
After this ramble, should I DB? How would it work, she's not WAW quite yet. I am in the process of improving connection with not bottling things up, asking for help, calling out behaviour, more boundary setting, more compliments. No issues so far, but now I'm afraid of looking needy.
I wanted to sit down and tell her my feelings that I understand her BD but also disappointed because we are doing IC. I wanted to suggest we take things slow, but given she has anxiety about me "delaying" I'm not so sure. I've been sharing what happens in IC, but should I now that I've been demoted into the friend zone?
There is a part of me that feels she's probably doing me a favour. I've not seem real change on her behaviour, and rejection in what I said is required to be more close. I think about what separation will look like, and although I'll loose out on some time with my toddler daughter, the idea of space and eventually a new partner is compelling. But the other side of me sees more I can do to overcome avoidant attachment and maybe to the point to better manage anxious W.
I guess I have to admit, I'm probably too attached to my sitch and wish I could get the sort of deep connection with W that I desire.
