Well, kids, it seems it’s time for a new thread. I didn’t post my chain o’ threads last time, so here are my last two. The chain can be picked up from my next-to-last thread:
Me: 37 and 6+ months pregnant (an unplanned surprise, and for S., unwanted); due to deliver baby girl 20 October S.: 41; never married; is my neighbor three doors down Split up “for good” Memorial Day 2004; I went totally dark (LRT); S. came screaming back July 2004; together since; OW/EA/PA I call Swiss Miss (SM) in Switzerland, who is still hovering about in the darkest shadows; in therapy together almost 3 months (Imago); moving into S.’s house end of August after renovations are complete; getting a D from my paper H (GMF) before baby is born.
and my last update on said last thread:
Hi folks. Thanks for stopping by, KGBKK for the dialog on Gottman, the ever-resourceful Stubborn weighing in on pig manure, and the very kind words, Azure!
T was very good. We spent about half the time talking about the process of communicating and how it works (and how it worked for us this w-e) and how it doesn’t work, which was very helpful. Then in the context of talking about how our R ebbs and flows in a way that makes me feel insecure (T likened it to firm ground versus quicksand), I broached SM and we got started, and went away with a pledge to start with it next week, without fail. After I nervously brought it up, and then talked about what a strain it is on our R, and how every time he wants to check out he checks out with her, and the destructive pattern that makes, and how it breaks down trust and fosters fear and insecurity in me, and after he mirrored and validated(!) what I said, the T asked me to ask for what I wanted, and I obliged (contact SM, tell her you’re in a R with me, that you have been in a R with me, that we’re having a baby together, and DON’T SHARE OR HINT ANYTHING negative about me or our R with her). We’ll see what comes of it next week.
T broke in to call it “splitting”; she said it’s what a child does when he tries to pit one parent against the other (good-cop-bad-cop style), going from one to the other in hopes of getting what he needs, and how unhealthy it is (woo hoo, score 1 for the T!) and how it fosters unhealthy Rs with parents and child and how it fosters insecurity in the child. In adults, she said, it’s a pattern that won’t be broken until it’s identified and managed, and said how destructive it is in Rs, and how if the pattern goes unchecked, the person doing the splitting ends up never settling down with anyone (WHICH IS WHAT I’VE BEEN SAYING ALL ALONG, that S. talks a big game about how he wants to be married with a family but acts like a single man).
S. really perked up and was interested in what she was saying, and asked her to elaborate about splitting (he loves things that can be safely labeled and filed away). I was VERY encouraged that he began to see some problematic behavior in his going back and forth. Later when we talked about the session, S. said he thought it was good, and that he "learned something about myself, about the splitting." Hallelujah.
Preliminary clicking around has revealed, from an article on children of D:
Quote:
Many of these children become aligned with only one parent so they become less anxious and insecure. This is a factor in alienated children, those children who feel that they can't have a relationship with both parents because they can't handle the stress. Divorced children frequently feel that they have failed or blame themselves when their parents stay in conflict, and they feel even more insecure when they can't prevent the arguments.
At its worst, children experiencing intense conflict have to take sides because they can't manage the internal tension and anxiety they feel. For these children, there is a risk of serious psychological regression where they will see one parent as mostly bad and the other parent as mostly good. This psychological "splitting," as it is called, is damaging to children because it reinforces a style in which they view the world in a "black and white" or "all or nothing" way rather than a more balanced view of good and bad in most people.
The full article can be found at this Web page. (I'm thinking this would be of particular interest to you, Michele, Merrick, and Koshka.) I'm looking for more in-depth stuff. S. loves his Higher Authorities. Now, don't get any idea that I'm about to go slapping some dime-store psych analysis on S. I'm just reading up.
Later, after we picked out kitchen cabinets for one of the rental apartments in his building, we talked about paying the baby bills, and got into a tense discussion about how we are going to pay them. He wants us to split them, me paying some and him paying others, so he can have a "paper trail" that he is paying for the baby. I want the bills to be paid out of my accounts (the bills are in my name, I am the patient, and I want the records to be in one place). So I suggested opening a joint account, at which he went into a long thing about trust and money and how he doesn't trust my money management and how [blah blah on and on]. I listened, and launched right into mirroring. He was surprised, because usually I cry when we talk about money.
I worked really hard to make him feel heard and understood, mirrored for a good 30 minutes, and he wasn't really responding positively, just kept the tense and serious face/voice on. T told us to check in with our feelings occasionally from 0 to 10 (0 being not emotionally connected at all, 10 being completely emotionally connected), and I was feeling a big 0 after that conversation. I told him I was disappointed that he wasn't feeling more heard and understood after all that hard work and energy, and he said he felt like I'd heard him, but I still didn't "get it." I asked him if I should try more mirroring or if I could maybe respond to some of the things he said. He said “go ahead and respond,” after which he mirrored me. We were getting really tired (understandably, huh?!), so we agreed to stop (because it was 1a.m.) and I went to sleep feeling rather heavy and dejected. I guess I have to accept that sometimes, even after you bleed mirroring and validating out of your very last vein, it still doesn't quite do the trick sometimes. OK, I can live with that. Now, where are my leeches?
So today I'm off to a considerably cooler Manhattan, to run errands, buy a present for a friend's baby shower on Saturday, and perhaps have lunch with H2H.
