Am I Creating a SSM?

[heatherg]

I forgot last night that I saw your emphasis on your H's "myself" comment:

"Torture *myself*?"

My interpretation of what he meant was that he is not torturing himself...*I* am torturing him by coming home late, etc. My actions are the problem, not his thoughts.

he is not aware he is, in fact, torturing himself by channeling resentment. he has no idea thats what it is--self torture over dwelling in the past.


I was thinking about this today. It seems to me, that a person can only buy into the idea that one's own thoughts are the problem if they believe in the paradigm shift thing or 'reframing'. I mean in the simplest terms, I caused these problems by having an A. Had there been no A, H would not be so paranoid. His paranoia is not to blame, the A is. I am. Forgiveness would create a paradigm shift though I guess. At that point, the blaming should end. I think it's a pretty definite guess that he has not forgiven me.
H tends to blame me for lots of things. Ironically, before the A if I asked him if he had any issues with me he would always say no. Now, nothing I do is right.

It is coloring any behavior you may have one might consider to be "selfish." As are the epitome of selfishness.

I think this is very accurate. Based on the differences in H's perspective pre-A and post-A, the A is definitely seems to be coloring his perception of everything I do.

Its not a step, its more like a pushing jump. and its something to definitely resist, and IF he does reject, will you be able to not personalize?

Once he has rejected and resisted, I dont see him as being willing to talk about it, either. Not from what I see of his past behavior.

No, if H rejected a kiss from me, I don't think I would be able to not personalize. And you're right BF, he wouldn't want to talk about it.
The way GEL states things is the way I wish things could happen. For me to just be able to assert my needs too, afterall I'm 50% of this R. But unfortunately I think that BF's perspective is pretty much dead on to H. He would interpret it as pushing and even if he didn't *really* interpret it as pushing, he would use it against me as such.

Heather the kissing will come.

I certainly hope so. Because I think I'm gonna have to wait. The kiss last night was a start, but it's something that's gonna have to go really, really slow and I think it's something that's gonna have to stay separate from sex for an even longer time. I'm thinking maybe I can sneak in little kisses now and then as a hello/goodbye gesture and at least get him accustomed to having our faces be that close together Once it begins to feel more normal, the fear of rejection on my part and the desire to keep up the wall on H's part will probably be much less.

Today went well. Things seem to be back on a good track. We have another MC session scheduled for Wednesday. I really need to get my thoughts clarified about the things that need to be hashed out in the sessions. As the R starts to feel 'better' the desire to not discuss the bad things becomes very strong. For some reason it starts to feel like I'm asking for trouble if I try to bring things up, kwim? I know I have to and I know it will be uncomfortable and I know it's supposed to be. I just need to choose my battles and I'm not sure what they are. We can't change the past, he'll probably never see things from my perspective, so should we even waste time discussing it? I'm thinking probably not. I'm thinking we should focus on the future and on how we want things to be and refer to the past only as it pertains to the future. For instance, a goal for the future is better communication. At that point I could refer to the past as a way of describing why I have been uncomfortable being open before. It seems more productive than *only* discussing the past because without the references to the future, it sounds more like a blaming session.

I still haven't really come to any decision on the sex issue either. BF, I'm curious about your perspective on this. You say that the kissing will come. Do you think that establishing an intimate connection would help, hinder or be independent of the kissing thing?