I have to admit, I was kind of relieved my thread got locked after I posted last night. That was probably more than anyone wanted to know about Heather, lol. And who knows how relevant any of it even is. Sigh.
More later.
"Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."
Oh for crying out loud Heather - of course it's relevant! You were one messed up kid and H came along like a knight in shining armour - no wonder you bonded to him so strongly, and no wonder you put up with his crap, you've never known any better. Even your friends mistreated you and the fact that you accepted that treatment shows how low your self-esteem was, they probably had miserable self-esteem too which is why they kept dragging you down.
You NEED a massive amount of therapy to get over all this Heather and from where I'm standing it looks like you should concentrate on making yourself emotionally healthy above all else. You are a helluva woman and so strong to have survived all that and as everyone keeps saying you are learning so fast. I really would put the R "on hold", live like civilised roommates for the time-being and go to work on you. Because I can't see how you'll get anywhere with healing the R until you're making good progress on healing you.
You are strong and you are amazing Heather!
Fran
if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs Erica Jong
Ok. Maybe it is a good time to get back to the basics. Jabez posted this on my last thread:
Are you still seeing a positive change in H's behavior and attitude towards your sitch? What is it that you have done to facilitate this?
Well, after I asked 'the question' you know things got very cold between us. H seems to be trying to direct statements toward me here and there, he came down from the bedroom last night where he and S5 were playing video games to sit with me on the couch for a minute. He's making slight gestures that indicate he wants to 'reconnect'. The gestures are not going unnoticed by me, and I am friendly in response. He is not reverting back to using S5 against me, he is maintaining the positive changes he's made in this area. We still do things as a family, go out to eat, go to the movies, today we're going to the zoo, etc.
Have you seen any negative changes in H?
What have you done to facilitate this?
I've seen plenty and I'm sick of taking the blame for facilitating them. He can KMA. But to answer your question...I haven't really been greeting him when I come home. I say hi to the kids and start talking to them, but I do not say anything to H. We no longer call one another during the day like we were. I go to bed without saying goodnight unless he is in the room and then I'll say 'good night'. I feel....I don't know. I feel a scary detachment, sort of like I remember feeling pre-A. I don't want to come home in the evenings, I dread seeing him. On the other hand, I admit I'd be lonely if he wasn't here. At least the hope he'll want to be with me someday means that I can spend each day with my kids. Without that hope, I'm forced to look at leaving. I don't want to leave yet. But I don't want to try anymore either. I'm just sick of it. It's been 4 months with no sex now. I guess that will just become another gridlock. One year will pass, then two.....sound familiar? Ok, so I set a boundary. I will not have sex with someone who refuses to kiss me or sleep in the same bed as me. Guess what that gets me? No sex. Ok, check that off the list. What other boundaries can I see with this jerk? What else can I deprive myself of today? Sorry. Ok, I'm done now. Where was I? Ah yes, how things are going. Ah hem. Now well. What have I done to facilitate this? I asked a question that H didn't want to answer and I told him he owed me an answer and an apology for the way he talked to me. During the four days in which he ignored me after that, I tried to initiate a conversation to no avail. HP pointed out that my communication style with H needs work. Since then I've been distant, both to being ignored and to small gestures to connect. I'm not going to reconnect with such a small gesture because it says 'Ok, let's go back to the status quo, I'm ready now'. I'm NOT ready to go back to the status quo and he can take his 6 word sentence gestures to reconnect and shove them. Oops, I thought I was done. Guess not. He has not asked ONE SINGLE TIME how my eyes are doing or how well or not well I can see since my LASIK surgery. What kind of creep does that?!
Ok, that did not turn out like I planned. I started out to lay out a clear outline of the 'basics'. That sort of all came out of nowhere. But apparently it's how I feel, so I'll leave it.
"Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."
Because I can't see how you'll get anywhere with healing the R until you're making good progress on healing you.
The thing is, I feel like I've already accepted most of this stuff. My parents weren't the best parents, but they certainly weren't the worst. If I have any feelings left over, I have to say a do have a rather intense desire to protect that little girl. Even that 16 year old little girl. Even the little girl I was when H and I met. I wish I could go back in time and steer her in the right direction and whisper the words that would have made her believe in herself somehow. Thing is, when push came to shove, she always pulled through, so I guess she really didn't need me afterall. I think sometimes I still act in hyper defense mode because I'm trying to stand up and protect myself, which is something I never did before...only at the very last minute before I was pushed into the fire. Now I try not to let anyone get me close to the fire. I try to stand up for myself before things get that far.
I'm sure growing up with alcoholic parents didn't foster any great feelings for H's drinking problem, but I don't think my childhood is to blame. H had/has a drinking problem and I would feel the same about it no matter what my childhood was.
I'm really not sure about my sexual history. I mean, in the later years, it seems logical to write it off to low self esteem, but what about in the early years? Curiosity? Need for attention? I can't figure that one out. I've even asked myself if it is possible that I was sexually abused, but there is no memory of such a thing ever occurring. It seems weird to even wonder that.
So, I don't *feel* like I need therapy. I've come to terms with my past and I certainly know there's nothing I can do to change it. What I really want so badly is to create a future that's entirely different. Our family network is so entirely different that mine was as a child. My kids are played with, taken places, bought things, made to feel special and smart and fun and imaginative. I feel like leaving would deprive them of that security, that happiness, that feeling of knowing for sure that tomorrow will be happy like today was. Just saying that brings me to tears because I want them to have a good family so badly. If H and I split, I don't even have any family close by. Just me. So, all of a sudden, I wouldn't have a family at all and theirs would be broken. Sounds promising, doesn't it?
"Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."
Quote: I feel like I've already accepted most of this stuff.
You're missing the point, heather. Read hap's post over several times with out "yes-but-ing" her.
This isn't about accepting your past or accepting your parents.
It's about the fact that you are still in enormous pain. Your life isn't what you want it to be. And you are completely focused on your H, not on yourself. When you focus on youself, it seems to be only so you'll know what to do to make him be what he needs to be for you.
Honey, this is classic children-of-alcoholics behavior. It doesn't mean there's anything WRONG with you... you learned certain behaviors when you were growing up. Those behaviors enabled you to survive. But to thrive as an adult you need new skills, new behaviors in your bag-- the ones that got you through when you were 17 (watching your parents carefully to see what kind of mood they were in, for instance, so you could shape your behavior accordingly) are not the things you should be doing as an adult.
I've said this to others (including myself)-- pardon me, if I've already said this to you: but when we spend all of our time focusing on others, we abandon ourselves.
I think you would get a lot out of attending alanon meetings. You don't have to say anything, just listen. They're free. They have them everywhere. Search the web, or look in your phone book. Alanon is about focusing on your own mental and spiritual health regardless of how your partner, parents, etc. are behaving or treating you. I attended when my bf was drinking, and it really helped me see how I was focusing too much on him and not enough on me.
You and I have so much in common it's unbelievable. All the way from the alcoholic parents who didnt show us the proper attention, the teenage promiscuity, and escape into a M with passive, controlling men. Ouch. But, I understand you saying you've made peace with your childhood. I say EXACTLY the same about my parents. They werent the best, but they did the best they could do. I look to it and say it made me the person I am today.. strong, resourceful, open-minded, compassionate. I think the overwhelming feeling in adulthood is that I made it and I'm FREE of all that tension, unhappiness, parental anger, etc. Life seems so much better now and I feel that what I need to do is make our life/future better than what I had.
Having said that and understanding SO much of what you went through (particulary a VERY angry father who was verbally intimidating and had the LOOK that scared the hell out of me).. I'd just like to suggest that you look inside just a little. I too dont feel the need to stay on a therapists couch and rehash the past, but I'm realizing that there are issues I have to deal with. Not wanting to project, but my childhood DID.. way deep inside leave me feeling unloved and unprotected. I approach life from the core belief that I must earn love by being a good person every day and that basically, the people I love probably won't protect me or be there when I need them most. That's made me a strong and capable person, but it's also colored my Rs with control and distrust. It's also the reason I held on to a bad M for so long.. it was much better than what my parents had, my kids life is much more healthy, so I didnt see how toxic my M was because I compared it to the disfunction of my childhood family and my M always looked OK from that viewpoint.
Another uncanny resemblence is your ability to look at something from both points of view, and that you take your part of the blame/guilt willingly.. sometimes when it's not called for even. And at other times, you seem to hold stubbornly to a point of view that's NOT compassionate. H's drinking for instance. I can see where you hate that because of your background, yet, you still don't give him the credit for quitting. Maybe it's because you expect him to be like you and proactively change until a prob is completely fixed.. not just do it halfway? Maybe not.. I could be wrong here.. but I know that I tended to expect my XH to have my stamina for personal change and he just doesnt. He didnt grow up in an environment that needed so much fixing. I did.. I spent every day thinking of ways to make life better, and I still do it today. Anything short of that.. well, is short of that.. ya know?
Anyway, just taking this journey and revisiting some of that "baggage" is helping me tremendously to see where I come from and how it affects my Rs. Specifically the way I allow my independence to keep others at arms length because I'm the only one I've ever been able to trust with that little girl inside of me.
Didnt mean to hi-jack.. just wanted to share and say I think you're doing great, and I hope you keep up the progress. I know the R is faltering, but you aren't and that's pretty amazing given all you've been through.
Acknowledging, coming to terms with are not the same as healing. Sure Heather you are doing well but this does not mean you are as well as you could be within yourself. You handle it and you function. Do you really want to go around limping for the rest of your life when you could be striding out? Many people with bad FOO situations shy away from therapy so saying, I'm fine I came to terms with it. But this is just bravado and fear speaking. You don't want to root out those demons because something inside you knows the process will be painful.
I think the early sexual stuff is about a lack of affection from your father. When I see my D4 interacting with her father and grandfathers there is so much flirtatious physical behaviour going on. It is healthy flirtatious behaviour there is nothing unsavoury happening just tickling and kissing and being thrown around to make her giggle. In fact my Dad will often say to me "she's a terrible flirt". But this is what little girls need to do to build a healthy self-esteem and relationships with men where they do not need to use sex to validate themselves. She is strenthening her feminine power by building healthy relationships with her male relatives. Of course they princess her but I can't see her throwing herself away on the first guy that comes along because she will have high standards of love and affection to measure against.
The fact that you so clearly value the crumbs your Dad threw in your direction shows how strong your yearning for validation by a male was. It is not surprising that you threw yourself at the boys at all.
I think the other male relatives such as Grandfathers are almost more important than Dads in giving girls the right kind of validation, Dads are often too busy to interact in the right kind of way. I had neither grandfather and my dad was quite a distant person when I was a child and I can clearly remember him pushing my little sister off his lap and calling her a fat lump, so I too threw myself at the boys. Been there and done my fair share of one night stands too
Your in a terrible bind Heather and I understand that, of course you don't want to rock the boat and ruin your kids lives, but I'm not sure that you will. The stronger you become and the more you heal yourself the better role model you will make for them. You are providing a poor role model by putting up with the cr*p you get from H so you have to weigh that in the balance too. I am not suggesting you ditch the R, I am just suggesting that you take your focus away from it for a while and see what you can do on your own behalf.
Fran
if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs Erica Jong
Fran, your comments about your little girl being "flirtatious" really rang my bells. That sort of behavior and playfulness was completely missing from my childhood. Wow. You've brought it into focus for me with just a couple of paragraphs. I've copied them into my journal.
I'm an only child, air force brat, moved all over-- NO male presence in my life except my father, a very troubled, depressed man, and my very strange depressed mother. I basically raised myself with the help of books. I've often said that books were my parents.
Unlike you and heather, I didn't go the promiscuous route. I went just the opposite way. I became a total intellectually superior snobby nerd. I had ONE date all through high school, and it was with a boy who saw my name in the paper as a National Merit Finalist and wanted to meet me. (I did go to an all-girls' school in high school, but that didn't stop other girls from dating.)
I had NO dates in college, except the last semester of my senior year, a slightly older teacher picked me out of a crowd and that was my first real boyfriend. I did not have sex with him because I was way too afraid of getting pregnant (pre-pill days), and basically he dumped me after three months. However, he completely upset my intellectual apple cart, introduced me to the Human Potential Movement of the 1960's and for that I will be forever grateful to him.
Instead of running TO sex, I ran FROM it. Wow... my brain is working a mile a minute on this stuff. Thank you so much for those comments... I feel a chain reaction happening inside me... I like it!
I'm going to copy your paragraphs over on Mojo's thread, in case she doesn't see this. It's very relevant to the discussion over there.
Great stuff Fran. You're absolutely right! Coming to terms with is not the same as healing. Healing requires a journey back through and that's pretty scary. Have you done this, or had to do this while in a R? Just curious... the thing that is helping me heal is to allow myself to experience the pain I feel and allow myself to explore, even embrace the feelings, fears and tears. I find myself crying at the oddest moments, but I also feel the fear and anxiety within me lifting as I process the thoughts and feelings and understand them. I wasn't able to do this while still living with my XH. So, I'm wondering if distance and time alone are important to the process if you don't live with a supportive S. I'm also learning to comfort and accept myself and not running to the next R to try to feel loved and happy like I have in the past.
Please overlook the hi-jack (again). This discussion is really helping me focus
