Karen, I know how much you wanted that comfort from your H... rats
The thing that I find helpful about BK is not that you try to talk yourself out of wanting stuff or try to convince yourself that what you're experiencing isn't true. The key is "how do you act WHEN YOU BELIEVE that thought even if it IS true?"
It's not about whether outside events are true or not or whether your partner is/isn't what s/he should be or not. It's about what kind of an internal world do you create for yourself when you get your truth from your thoughts.
Here's an example: "I should lose weight."
Is this true? yes-- I'm significantly over my proper, healthy weight
Can you absolutely know this is true (that you should lose weight) well, I'm overweight... not at a life-threatening level, but I know I would feel better if I did. As for being absolutely positive that I should lose weight... I'm not absolutely positively swear-on-my-whoever's-grave sure
Here's the important one: How do you act when you believe the thought "I should lose weight"? I obsess about food. I police myself constantly. I play games with myself about food and "cheat" on myself. I get mad at my bf when he bakes something wonderful-- is he just taunting me? I get mad at people who can eat anything they want and not gain, like I could do when I was younger. And on and on...
What if it was impossible for you to think the thought: "I should lose weight"? Hmmm... that's hard to imagine... but I guess I'd just eat when I felt like it. I might overeat some, but when the food isn't forbidden, I'd have permission from myself to stop when I was full. Now, I feel I have to sneak snacks. I guess if I couldn't have the thought that I should lose weight, I'd just be okay with food and go on about my business. It would free up a lot of mental energy that I use obsessing about food right now.
You could apply this process to the thought "my H would have sex with me more if I had bigger boobs."
Can you absolutely know that's true? For one thing, no-- but even if you're positive it's true, how do you treat him, how do you treat YOU, when you believe that thought?
This method is not about talking yourself out of stuff. It's about being kind to yourself, and not creating a nest of internal barbed wire because of stuff going on with others that you can't control.
Now I'm really probably going to go too far... but take the thought, "My husband should have comforted me physically after my accident."
Is that true? yes... that would have been a perfectly normal, nice thing to do-- lots of men would have done that, and I certainly would have done it if the shoe were on the other foot
Can you absolutely know that's true? God, I want so badly for it to be true... given what I know of him, I'm not surprised he didn't. Damn. He still SHOULD have!
How do you act when you believe that thought (that he should have comforted me)? I'm cranky. I'm irritated. I feel lonely, abandoned. It was really pretty traumatic-- I need comfort, dammit. Why can't he be like other guys and reach out to me physically! Oh God... these thoughts go round and round in my head.
What if, by some magical means, it was simply impossible for you to form the thought "he should have comforted me"? Hmmm... well, I guess if I needed comfort, I'd have gone to him and crawled up in his lap, and told him how scary it was. But what if he rejected me?
Even if he rejected you, let's carry the fantasy that you cannot have the thought, "he should comfort me"-- So he's being stand-off-ish, but I still need comfort. I guess I would just be persistent until he came around. He does love me, and he doesn't want me to hurt. I guess the accident scared the sh!t out of him, too-- what if something had happened to me AND the baby. That would have absolutely devastated him!
Now turn it around: "He should comfort me." I should comfort him. Wow. If I want comfort, I shouldn't wait for it-- I should give it.
There's another turnaround... I should comfort me.
Do you see that by focusing on how he is not doing what he should be doing, you are actually cutting off the comfort you could be giving yourself? He's not reaching out to you... and you're busy thinking about how he's not reaching out to you... so who's over here taking care of YOU?
End of fantasy dialogue...
Anyway... I apologize if I went overboard there. When I first encountered BK a couple of years ago, I thought she was trying to make us stop wanting things... but what's she's trying to do is keep us from beating ourselves up and denying ourselves because of other people.
Karen, you've been stuck in a place (like a lot of us) for a long time where you focus on your H and how he's not what you want him to be. And yet you are committed to this marriage and haven't considered a D (which I applaud). It seems to me that you must find a way to be not only okay with the way things are, but joyful... Really digging in to the BK stuff, I believe, is a route to that place. But you have to carry it all the way to the end. You can't shortcut it in your head.
There is a dialogue on the audio book Loving What Is with a child abuse survivor that enables the woman to reconnect with the child SHE abandoned when she suffered abuse at the hands of her stepfather (this was repeated abuse over a period of years, involving penetration-- hard to listen to). The course of the dialogue absolutely blew me away. Certainly what he did was wrong, immoral, criminal. But SHE abandoned herself because of it. Even if it was HIS fault (which clearly it was), through this dialogue and rigorous examination of the truth, you can hear her voice as she reclaims the little eight-year old girl.
If we can let go of thoughts of who's right and who's wrong, it can open doors. This is powerful stuff.
rats
