Quote: Coincidently with help from my C, I have come to realize that much of what I am doing is directed at my w and therefore not authentic. I do this because I am afraid of a bad outcome. I am presently trying to overcome that fear.
In one of my more stupid moves, I stopped seeing my C even before things got better. I don't really know why, probably the time/money factor, but I think mainly it was arrogance that I could handle things from here. I was wrong.
I think if I had stayed on with my C through this time, she would have told me the same thing as your C did and I would have avoided this recent speed bump in our progress.
One of the things that my C never really pushed was that a D WAS one of the outcomes that might happen, and that was because I told her I didn't want to hear that in our very first session. She honored that, but the more I posted here and read other people's stories, the more I knew that accepting ALL the potential outcomes was one of the keys to getting better on a personal level.
I don't know how well I ever did this since there was not really any D talk in my sitch but I did try to force myself to be at peace with that potential outcome.
I do agree that doing all this out of fear or simply for her sake is bad. I also admit, as I think all but those most in denial would, that we are all motivated at first to do all this for precisely those reasons.
The hard part, as I recently learned, is to wean ourselves off the fear and codependent motivation and replace it with self-centered and independent motivations. I know we are supposed to do that right away with DB, but I also know for me, and many others, it was very hard to do.
Now, without any outside trauma to keep me going, I did indeed relax and got burned for it.
This stuff is for life folks. We are all relationship-o-holics that can't EVER slip back into thinking that just one moment of careless action in our marriages won't do some harm. I don't mean to say we can't ever make a mistake but I do mean that mistake CANNOT be complacency.
Of course, we are also blessed by the other side of that coin which is the potential for tremendous self growth and fantastic relationships.
