Forgiveness?????

[RBinBR]

OK, Emily, I've now gone back and read all of your past threads, all the way back to December, including everything in Newcomers and also the ones you started in Separated and in Piecing. I have spent many hours now reading and studying your sitch. I never do this. In fact, I don't normally have the time to even read new threads anymore. I used to read every post in this forum, but lately I've barely been able to get up with some of the "regulars" here, like GH, NM, PL, MB, and SS.

I don't know what about you struck me, but I really want to help you and you are crying out for help. I have a lot of comments and advice. It will take me several posts to do this, but I will try to do it all today because my life gets very busy again tomorrow.

Some of what I write is going to appear very harsh at first glance. I'm not going to tell you what you want to hear. I'm going to take you at your word that you want "help" (since you have titled all of your threads in Newcomers with that as your plea) and not just sympathy.

I think you have gotten a lot of great advice already from bj and AmyC (and recently from Frank_D), but a lot of it has gone unheeded. I wonder, therefore, how much of this you will listen to, but I'm going to try. You obviously don't have to take any of this advice, and I might be wrong about some things, but I know that I'm right on most of it.

Since a lot of this will be negative, I want to put some real positives up front.

1. GAL

I was absolutely screaming inside when I read things like this earlier in your sitch:

The GAL is slow coming. . . I've given myself projects around the house (I.E. Clean the garage that I let EXPLODE with junk.) and I made myself a list of C.D.s that I've lost or that I'd like to have and have started downloading music. I also made two dates with my girl friends for the week after he leaves.

[goals] GAL step sort of) Buy eyeliner in fun shades and use them!

2. (another sort of GAL) Paint nails before baby comes, have Kerry help

Cleaning your garage does not count as GAL in my book. Buying eyeliner and painting nails ... no. GAL means examining your life and making fundamental changes. It is to your great credit that you are doing this. You have started a program to get a real career for yourself in vet tech, and you are getting your driver's license.

I think that both of those are critical steps that will really pay off for you in the long run, as you are just starting to develop the independence you need.

It may not be entirely by choice, but you are taking some responsibilty for your life and beginning to believe that your life is something that you control, rather than something that happens to you. You have a long ways to go here, in my opinion, but you have made tremendous progress since December.

2. Relationships

Emily, I want you to take a hard look at your relationships in general (not just with your H), and the way that you view them. Let's start with your in-laws:

I do have a question and BJ may be able to answer this one being as her in laws were like my in laws . . how do you not stay bitter at them? I am so livid with his mother . . . I just, can't even imagine having to ever see her again let alone try and be part of her family. I hate that women more than words can express and I'm scared to death of my H's father being as he's almost always drunk and has such a bad temper. I really want to be with my H but I don't know if I'll ever be able to tolerate his family again . . . what do you/I do to get over this feeling?

Yeah his Mom use to love me . . said I was like a daughter to her etc. I loved her right back like a mother even though I disagreed with a lot of the things she did (never out loud or in attitude mind you). Then one day out of the blue . . she hated me she said I was condisending and had a bad attitude. This was after the info about my H's EA and my current pregnancy came out mind you.

(concerning MIL)

I get so angry when he talks about her I just want to scream or hang up on him, I can't even explain it. I don't even want to talk to him if she's around. I know she's been talking me down to him again too . . even though he won't admit it because I think he's starting to waver on his sureness of wanting to come back. Maybe it's just me though . . I'm trying not to read too much into it. He brought her up in our convo tonight and I got mad and he said, "I guess that's just not a good subject to bring up is it?" I said No and he said, "You just need to calm down about her." I told him I wouldn't and right now if he wanted to stay married to me it was something he'd have to deal with (me not wanting to hear about her or see her or having ANYTHING to do with her that is). He just said, "OK"

Needless to say, I don't believe that your MIL just flipped from loving you to hating you for absolutely no reason. She did not pull it out of thin air, and you must know what it is. I don't know why you chose not to tell it, but I do know that you made the decision to NOT REPAIR the relationship, and decided to avoid her and hate her instead.
You state that you disagreed with a lot of stuff that she did, but that you kept it to yourself ... I don't think so. I think you expressed it (perhaps unconsciously) in the condescending attitude that your MIL noticed.

(about roommate)She turned EVERY light in the house on at 5:30 this morning and woke up my daughter . . . and I just really want her to leave. I just don't want her to be mad at me . . . I have real issues with that. Am I being stupid, or should I try and get the courage to ask her to leave?

(about roommate's boyfriend)Well I don't feel like I can say anything about the situation and so I just tell my H about it (he hates the guy anyway) . . but tonight he got mad at me and told me to go take it out on them instead of crying and bitching to him about it. It hurt because I don't feel like I can say anything about it . . I just try to stay out of the room when he's here . . as much as I can when my daughter is asleep. I feel trapped in my own house and it's a major source of stress for me right now. I just wanted someone to be on my side about it (my H has always done all of the standing up for me since we met . . because I don't stand up for myself) and I wanted it to be him. What on Earth do I do . . . IT'S STARTING TO WRECK MY NEWFOUND R WITH MY H!!!!!!!

Why can't you stand up for yourself? You want people to like you, so you try to supress anger, and it ends up coming out in an explosion or in passive aggressiveness. I have some sympathy for you here because I've had the same problem. However, you MUST change to start RESOLVING issues, instead of taking the easy way out and having them come back to bite you later. You can't be afraid to lose someone's approval or having them stop liking you. This is a difficult skill to master (as I am learning right now), but if you head things off early, you won't get very angry and you can express that early anger appropriately.

Additionally, the dumping of your problems on your H is a real issue that has damaged your R with your H throughout your M. Let's look at that some more:

I wonder exactly what I would do if he wasn't in my life right now. These are all things some one else could do but who? No one else is even remotely willing to help me out, I guess I feel stuck with him.

Do you think that he might sense that you sometimes want him only because there is no one else to help you with your problems?

(from list of problems with marriage)
10. We could talk about the important things (money, etc) without a fight. (I need to learn to let go and let him handle the "manly" things.
11. He felt that I wasn't enough my own person and that I stopped thinking for myself and started going with whatever he said (I did this I think to avoid fights but since we split have already stopped doing it.)
12. We let fights get out of hand to often and too fast (We really need to learn to take a time out and walk away . . . basically I need to let him walk away when he needs too instead of making him stay and yell it out with me)

So you already know that this is a problem, but the question is: what are you doing about it? Most women enjoy talking through their problems, but listening to them drives most men batty. You need (long term) to learn to dump those issues on a girlfriend instead of your H. He clearly has enough problems of his own without having to deal with all of yours.

I'm glad you have stopped going along with whatever he said, but would that change if you and he got back together? In several posts, you indicated that you reverted to old patterns when the two of you got together.

Let's consider your R with your parents:

I don't want my D19 months to live with my parents (as we are currently staying in their house while they are in FL) because they spoil her rotten and take over parenting her as if I'm not capable. I want to feel like I have some control.

My mother wears the pants in their relationship . . always has! That's why he did nothing to stop her from kicking me out at 17 and 18. It has me totally frustraighted at this point . . . and there's really nothing I can do . .except keep my daughter away from them as much as possible while still living here.

We cannot help but be like our parents in many ways, and you cannot help being like your mother, as you were "trained" that way, as it were. Do you see, though, how your mother's controlling her M has caused you to try to do the same thing in yours, with disastrous results? You have nagged and constantly tried to "control" your H, with the end result that he decided to escape that control, first by going out more and more with his friends, and then ultimately by cheating and leaving the R.

You also take that same attitude back to your R with your mom. Why would you possibly try to keep your D from your mom? Grandparents are supposed to spoil their grandkids, and kids learn that there are different rules, and this doesn't hurt them. The simple fact is that you were trying to use your D to control the relationship with your mom. This is passive-aggressiveness at its worst. As I have already stated, you MUST learn to express your feelings appropriately and resolve issues with others.

Why is it that no matter how good a parents or siblings intentions may be does it always come across as negative or as a lecture. I hate talking to my family because I feel like I am constantly under attack . . always have. Then they wonder why I hide things from them or tell them half truths . . which eventually they find out about and then are really crabby <--YEARS LATER. Not that that has anything to do with anything right now.

Same issue: stop hiding things and telling half-truths -- PERIOD. Start expressing your feelings.

I really want to discuss the topic with them . . of letting me handle my own problems. But I'm worried that it will only make my mother mad and hurt. She'll probably just say that she's right and I'll learn eventually ... I've never really had the spine to stand up to my parents and the few times I tried it ended in disaster.

STOP worrying about your mother's approval! You are a woman now, not a little girl.

Emily, I'm going to close this post by saying that you cannot expect to have a good marriage relationship right now, because you don't currently have the necessary interpersonal skills. How can you expect to have a good marriage when you can't have a good R with your parents, his parents, your roommate, your roommate's boyfriend, etc., etc., etc.? This is THE fundamental issue that will completely change your life if you can fix it. I know that there are other books that might even be better, but you might start with When Anger Hits Home, which is good for learning how to express your feelings honestly and understanding how your family background influences how you express yourself -- it helped me.

A lot of your problem in this area stems from your basic insecurity and emotional neediness, which I'll discuss in my next post. I'll also try to get to your faith, forgiveness, and eventually, your H and his issues.

You can radically change your life, Emily. I'm going to be praying that you can do just that.