Muddle's Waters V

[MuddleThrough]

It's so clear to me the power of taking responsibility for your anger has. It seems like you realized that you were angry and wanted to change this - and part of this change was that you no longer held someone else accountable for making you angry. For you, your wife apologizing for how she wronged you would have made it easier for you to let go of your anger and resentment. In my case, my W has heard my apologies and they are meaningless to her. But, of course, you are two very different people with different causes for your anger. In my case, it seems she is waiting for me to change to match or exceed her expectations. She wants me to make her feel better about herself and take away all the anger and resentment she has for herself. Clearly not possible. It does get more and more clear here that she does need to hit bottom, she might need to lose everything in order to realize that she's falling, that she's the one that's needs to change in order to feel different about herself and her life.

I think what you said about making your changes contingent on hers is really profound, and it's something that I have tried to be aware of myself. I have made changes in my self and my life - changes that I'm really proud of. But on some level I think I'm waiting on her to come around to really change in regard to the relationship. It doesn't really exist right now, so I can't do much of anything to address it. She, on the other hand, seems to really be holding out and waiting on me to change. She points the blame at me for everything and anything - I mean she really has more misery in her being than I have seen before, and I think she's got a pretty nice life. For example, I have to go to a conference next week that I found out about today. I told her over the phone that we need to arrange transportation for S4 to school while I'm gone. She said "why do you have to say it like that?" blaming me for not telling her using the same words she would have or understood what I was saying (I "should have said" that she needs to ask her mom to borrow the car so she can take him).

She got angry because she needed to interpret what I was saying into something more personal for her to be able to take some kind of action on, and she got angry that she had to put her self out to do this. She feels she should have been spoon-fed the information, and it's my fault that she didn't get it the way she thinks she should have. This kind of interaction is very common, where she tells me how I should have said something, and she's actually angry that I didn't formulate my sentence the way she thinks I should have.

To me, this is just an extension of the issue that started with my communicating on her behalf. Because of her social anxiety disorder she basically wouldn't talk to people if we went shopping or we went out to eat, etc. So I spoke for us both. Fine, but the trouble was that I never said things the way she thought I should have. The way I formulated my sentences got the job accomplished, but it made her feel some way she didn't want to - probably inadequate because she wasn't carrying on the conversation herself topped with a bit of embarrasment because I diverged from her idea of normal. I always told her that she was far better at social things than I am and that I thought she should start having these conversations because she's so good at them. Well, in the end, I'm just an inadequate extension of her because I don't do what she thinks I should and I am associated with her feelings of anxiety and inadequacy as well as deficiently carry out her tasks. So I must be responsible for all these feelings, right? The sad fact is that I'm not. She is, and if she wants to be rid of the feelings she's got far more to do than just be rid of me.

So I have accepted responsibility for her feelings in this way because I agreed with her that I could have done what I did better than I had. I guess I should have told her "If you want it done differently, do it yourself" but I generally responded by agreeing with the fact that I could have executed the interaction better and then shrugging it off. It was what it was.

Now we have this real issue of right/wrong. According to her, I can't ever be wrong. I think this is projection. I am willing to be wrong, in fact I look to it as an opportunity to learn, to improve myself. Through being wrong I have gained wisdom, and learned things that I firmly believe to be right. So if I stand my ground on something because I believe it to be right, then is this wrong? Well, if I don't accept responsibility for the totality of what my W sees as a problem or issue, than I am refusing to be wrong, even if I have good reasons to back up my opinion. We all have our opinions and a good debate is something we can all learn from, unless being wrong about something makes you feel really bad. It's a battle (my internal battle to understand and see hope in this future) that doesn't seem worth fighting - it seems so fruitless. Well, I guess one never knows what is possible in this lifetime. People can heal and grow at amazing rates, and while I'm not expecting anything, my W might come around at some point and recognize her part in all of this. I just don't expect her to. She's got too many people in her circle that validate her opinions and perspective because they think that's what being a friend is - just catering to the immediate feelings of the other rather than to look for truth and healthy understanding. Oh well, you can't change the world, only yourself.