Good morning all, I see my thread locked so it's time to get started again.
Pam and Ellie, thanks for stopping in yesterday on my thread. I've been thinking a lot about a lot of things in the last few days/couple of weeks. This has been such a long and often painful journey, it's been really tough to go the whole way. it's really taken strength that I never knew I had. so, some of my musings from recent days:
I've come to realize that what led H to be so open to an affair was his own lack of/loss of self-esteem, and also my distance from him. to expand on both of those a little: H grew up in a large, very very strict and emotionally unexpressive family. He is the oldest child. He has never felt that his parents truly loved and respected him, that they always favored his other siblings. From my point of view, they do favor the others, greatly; but they do love him, they are just very "old school" people who have the "stiff upper lip" code of honor for their oldest, who had the unfortunate lot to be male as well. What that means for H is that he's always felt sad and lost in that nothing he could ever do would win their love and approval.
he managed to compensate for all this very well for a long long time, with a lot of accomplishments, etc., until he began to approach the mid-life evaluation period. by this time, the two of us honestly had grown apart... busy with kids, and our own parallel lives....so, no wonder he jumped for any kind of relief/distraction from his sadness and loneliness.
GAL has been an issue for me in my db'ing efforts. thousands of times people have brought that to my attention as a need. I've probably never posted much about this before, but one reason it's been such a delicate issue for me to approach is that years ago, probably 10 years ago, which is when I really think some of the mlc stuff started for H, I GOT a life. I sensed H withdrawing and pulling away from me, becoming more absorbed in his weight lifting etc. (odd how perspectives change, that used to infuriate me, now I encourage it to the hilt!)I was resentful and angry and responded by increasing my distance. I distinctly recall telling myself one sunshiny afternoon, "Ok, if he's gonna be like that, I'm gonna live my life the best I can, and I'll do what I want to do"....and I did. I was gone as much as I possibly could be. spent no time with him. left it all to him, thinking "if I go my own way, surely he'll come after me". It didnt work, we just grew further and further apart because, I believe, that his distance was related to needs that he desperatly needed to have met that werent met by my distance.
In a very real sense, I've been concerned that continuing my "me" GAL mode would have been doing "more of the same" that hadnt EVER worked. What seemed to have more of a chance of working, after a lot of careful thought and introspection, was to "do something different" by trying to discern his emotional needs and begin to meet them, a little bit at a time, in very small ways at first because he wouldnt even let me in for a long time. That idea came from "The Special As-If Attitude" post that ChristineE sent me a long long time ago, good heavens, probably a year and 1/2. Christine, if you ever read this, I'm forever in your debt for that, and havent forgotten. I really believe that was a big part of what gave me any chance at success.
Underneath it all, H is a very spiritual person, as I believe I am, and this probably makes sense but I mean that outside of the context of religion....hard to describe, I guess. but there were some different "nuances" of db'ing styles that I picked up on here that I used to kind of "piece together" what seemed like would work from the standpoint that they "spoke" to me inwardly some how. again hard to describe. but the ones that seemed most appropriate for me were based on a positive outlook and focus, of meeting needs and offering unconditional love while striving to maintain one's own sanity....Of looking at one's own part of the equation rather than imposing external sanctions that focus entirely on the errant spouse. Thanks to all of you who have been so helpful in my efforts to see through my own pain and distress to "the other side"....
Pamila posted to me the other day about "where is your self-repect"....and I've been pondering that a great lengths as well...it's an important question. Ellie mentioned there's a fine line sometimes between reaching out with unconditional love and being a doormat, and that is so true. As I've thought about my self-respect, i've really dug deep here. There have been many many, countless times, when I have worried about that, been terribly upset by "what must people think", what kind of a wimp do I look like, and on and on..............What I've come to realize is that my self respect does not lie solely in my marriage or in my role as a wife. It never has. It's based on my personal code of ethics, which so far I've managed not to violate, my personal accomplishments in academics and professionally (not huge by many standards, but I've done a lot and done it all on my own from fortifyingly humble beginnings), not to mention the values and character that I see in my children. So, I've concluded that the fact that my self respect is deeply internalized and verified by many external sources besides my marriage maybe gives me a little more flexibility to "go with the flow" sometimes.
I also have to say I've surprised my self in my response to H's A....I ALWAYS believed I knew exactly how I would handle him cheating on me, which was to boot his sorry a$$ out the door, no ifs, ands, buts, or questions asked. period. end of discussion. That's the way I handled a cheating fiance a lifetime ago (which was the right response then)....obviously I've done the exact opposite. I guess it just proves the accuracy of the old adage "never say never".....
so, my weird musings for the week/month are here. probably makes no sense at all, but writing about them helps me in a free-floating kind of way.
