H EW possibly DBing and I’m losing the battle

[DnJ]

Good Morning Kanga

I am glad to hear you are inspired and excited about doing and learning something new. Good for you!

Everyone needs a certain amount of understand of their situation before they can really start to let go. And even more, start to embrace themselves and their life. What I’ve seen in your posts is that growing and understanding and start of accepting.

Learning to DJ sounds pretty fun. And your passion is glowing right off the page. Like you said, you’ve got hundreds of songs you want to listen to and go from there. I bet it’s been sometime since you wanted to play (and maybe sing to) those loved songs.

I really need to hear some thoughts about MC. H and I are going to see my local Pastor on Monday and I have no idea what I want to say or how I should be.

I do agree with you that H is likely preparing for the MC session. He likely will try to move it in a certain direction.

So, what do can you do about that?

You could fight fire with fire. Go head to head with H. Usually not a great option. So much flame just turns everything to cinders and ash.

You could turn the other cheek. Just allowing H to spew. However, that is likely to just poison the session.

We could keep going with different scenarios and potential outcomes to no real avail. The point being control. You cannot control the outcome of the session, you only can control you - your thoughts, actions, and reactions.

Consider the “why” of you having no idea what to say or how to be during MC. You are likely after a certain outcome or result. Perfectly normal. However, let go that need for a certain outcome and focus on you.

Preparing for an interview, or counselling, or a conversation, predisposed one to seeing things that way. I do agree that “some” preparation is helpful, yet most folks run the potential conversation over and over in their mind so many times beforehand they are really closed off. If one has thought through, their side, what they want to say, the likely subsequent back and forth, the debate, and the defending of their position, like a hundred times - the actual one time will have little or no effect upon them. That entrenchment is likely where H is, and will be, at.

How you should be: Be yourself. Know thy self. Know your truth.

Ah, the truth. We all view the world through our own lens. Our knowledge, experiences, beliefs, prejudices, and so on, all crafting one’s truth.

I do believe there is one truth. A reality. Yet we cannot ever fully see it nor understand it. We craft reality with our senses - sight, taste, feel, hear, and so on. So one’s reality is subjective not objective. Even though there is an objective reality.

Consider sound. Play a C major chord. C, E, and G. First, third, and major fifth. We hear the overall chord and we hear the individual notes.

Now consider the color yellow. We cannot distinguish between pure yellow, that sinusoidal waveform with a wavelength of 580nm or the mixture of red and green. We literally cannot see the individual colors like we hear the notes in a chord, we only see yellow. We cannot see this reality. Completely indistinguishable. Of course, we have created devices that can separate and display the individual components of the composite waveforms. Thus peering further into reality.

The point being it’s the pursuit of reality that truly matters. A willingness to learn and grow, and see beyond.

What to say: Your letter spelt things out pretty clearly.

Let H start where he will. And see what the resulting chasm looks like.

To be clear. Do stand up for yourself, you can even re-state your boundaries on disrespectful behaviour, while maintaining a willingness to listen. Do not get steamrolled over. Speak factually and non-judgementally. Realize H’s truth/viewpoint is different. Think less in terms of right and wrong, and more in differing points of view.

To me, MC is not about telling you the answers, it’s about providing an environment to discuss. Its success depends upon the willingness of all the parties. I’m pretty sure about you, H not so much.


H’s message has lots of blame. Lots of accusations towards what H feels Kanga has done, and nothing about what he has done. He even tells you to snap out of it. His statement that he did everything you ask of him, and followed all the rules you set out, is all such a farce. Misdirection, avoiding, projecting, gaslighting, and so on.

Gaslighting is a purposeful emotional abuse to cause the other person to question their reality, their perceptions, their very memories. It is a form of control and assertion of power.

Projection is not gaslighting. Projection is a defence mechanism where one unconsciously copes by avoiding difficult emotions. It’s an unconscious attributing of one’s own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs upon another. A defence mechanism, an unrealized expression of the person’s own inner dialog. A few behaviours of projection: avoiding responsibility, making accusations, defensiveness, and invalidation.

H’s message has some gaslighting elements. Yet, to me, it has much more projection elements. Replace Kanga with H in his message and the projecting becomes clearer.

There’s only one person who can change this and that is you me.

Unfortunately, you are I am the one who is writing on this wall, and each hour and each day that goes by where you I can’t acknowledge this, and continue to hold on to your my resentments and keep buying into the lies you I keep telling yourself myself, just makes the situation even less and less recoverable.

What ever has clicked over in your my mind you I need to snap out of it. Right now!

(And so on. Continue replacing below.)

Have a look and the table and chairs out there in your garden, and remember what it was like to sit there by yourself. Or driving just to have something to do. Or how tired your friends got when you would call them all the time.

If that’s what you want your life to be again, and maybe it is?? Maybe you have decided that you’ve checked marriage off the list and now this is your way of trying to find a way out???

Maybe you have decided that you’ve checked marriage off the list and now this is your way of trying to find a way out???

It’s difficult for me because your words say you want to be in a marriage - but your actions show otherwise.

Right now all of your actions show that you’ve decided to move on in life without me.

Maybe you’re having an affair?

If that’s the case then just be honest and tell me. At least I’d know.

But if it’s just that you’ve let your mind play tricks on you again then you really need to snap out of it before it really is too late.

Seeing a counsellor doesn’t forgo maintaining our relationship.

Projection stems from avoiding difficult emotions. H has avoided difficult emotions for quite a while. You know this. Take what H says with a grain salt. Believe nothing he says, and only half of what he does.

D