Thanks, LA, for the 180 analogy to the calling/not calling for my mom and my H. I understand that H trusts that I will be okay. I hear you that your cell phone gives you a level of security and confidence. I understand that some people would find their mom questioning their safety when they're driving late to be controlling instead of love. There is power that I have, too, in choosing to drive late, or not.

I am fighting my own feelings of rejection by H several places. I am trying to replace those feelings with feeling loved, instead. It is a challenge; on easy days I feel it, but I don't on some of the more difficult days. It makes my effort more difficult when H sees my specific thoughtful requests for care as control, and then deliberately chooses not do them. When the kids are home, he sometimes does put effort into being connected to them - a hug, a kind word, a pat on the back, the same things I ask for but are told that I'm too needy about.

I do look for my payoff. The withdrawal I feel drives me away, towards spending time alone and with folks that I don't experience as rejecting. When I am successful at feeling connected, that's even better.

I understand you about proof of love not being real. Being very temporary, relying on coincidence.

I am very angry that H is "nice" to me mostly only when I totally expect nothing from him. Any expectation I have is punished by his withdrawal. It feels like game-playing and manipulation. I try to tell myself that this is just how he works. I read to try to get the empathy I need to understand that some folks are just built like this. That it's not an intentional punishment.

I would like to be able to rely on him to be a certain way. I would like him to choose for his own reasons to be a rock, a lighthouse, like when we were first together, and he was always happy to see me. I feel very cheated in that we don't have that, and I don't know if or when we will.

Other people have the leeway to make honest mistakes and not "pay" for them. To have someone think, oh, you're having a bad day, let me accomodate just a bit this day. Be nice, anyway. Like I do with him. When I slip up, like we all do, I pay for it for days. It makes me more weary.

I'm sorry to complain, LA. I feel really good, most of the time. But I am actively working to suppress my anger, to negotiate with it and look at it, every day.

And I have been continuing to work on listen and repeat. To slow down and examine what exactly I'm saying that is the part he doesn't like.

"But I am actively working to suppress my anger, to negotiate with it and look at it, every day."

This is my choice. I don't blame it on anyone else. I believe that there is a reson that things worked out this way, even though I don't know what that is yet. I accept this most of the time, but then it hits me again and I just accept it again and keep going.

EO,

That back and forth you experience on feeling loved...could it be in part from not truly choosing to believe love is a choice? When we are intent on seeing, that proof of love, instead of knowing...the back and forth, or up and down, continues...

What if your focus was on how you are acting your love? Knowing your choice to love, seeing your own acts clearly, for all the people you choose to love? If that were your focus, wouldn't your signals be very different?

The focus on lack gives us the experience of lack...deprivation...adds to what may or may not be.

Focus on abundance gives us the experience of abundance.

Focus is not reality...what I'm asking isn't for you to distract or go into fantasy...your actions are real.

That way, we don't fight our feelings...we change their source. Through awareness and intent...set our goal.

This was incredibly difficult for me to do...I was a love tracker from way back...as I've shared with you before...looking for where I was being rejected, not cherished, appreciated, admired, cared for...which gave me that exact experience, again and again. I was so busy focusing on the love that wasn't coming in, I couldn't get any emotions from my love, going out.

Which means I spent a lot of my waking moments fighting my feelings, instead of owning my actions. Stating feelings, tracing and acting anyway...that was the road to all the difference in my life right now...with everyone. Abundance breeds abundance...ripples to others, because my focus is being trained on me...my stuff...what is in my control.

I now cherish when my DH says, "I'm hearing control, wanting me to change." No more slapped feeling...that's his...when I make my requests and let the response go. Funny thing about not walking on eggshells...feels like learning to walk all over again to me.

"I get that." "Good to know." "You hear control."

I appreciate his O&H because that's my #1 EN...I get a love hit from it...not a backslap. That's me, EO. My part. Doesn't make it fact...makes it his experience. And I'm there, present, for his experience.

Not fantasy...authentic appreciation all in one moment of sharing...of listening to him reveal...which he didn't for several years. Whatever my request, the sharing reigns as most important to me...I gotta see and know what is...and over time, I notice my request comes up again, by him, as he ponders it. Works through it. Himself. Not me making him. Not something to be done right now, in the way I want it.

I have very few requests anymore, btw. Abundance does that.

I see you comparing...how he fathers to how he partners. What he does with others and not you...that's focus on lack. Comparing is a sneaky way of saying, "I didn't think him capable, but he is, just not with me." There's like three self-slaps in that comparison...and the comparison isn't real, is it? It's based on a long-held DJ. Rid yourself of the DJ.

I know you both connect...even through conflict. You knowing what is connection and what is disconnection...knowing why you crave a kind word, an atta-girl...as signals to you being unkind or degrading to yourself? Share those in words...hug yourself, EO, pat your own back, breathe in that marvelous relief of knowing you are loved...like a fact...your choice to believe...and focus on where you are giving him authentic atta-boys, a compassionate word, an acknowledgment of presence, and acknowledging your awareness and gratitude for him meeting your FC EN right then.

I think you're stealing from yourself...and I think you have for a long time. I think you're sick of it...and you want to know your own bounty and live an overflowing life.

This is where your growth spurt really is...to see what tools you've reached for that you believe you benefit you...see if they are old. Comparison, to me, is a false tool...a really old one for me. Going for how God gives us no ability we cannot profit from in some way (to neither extreme)...comparison can lead us to charity, compassion, gratitude...like AmI is experiencing around her...losses...we do not compare ourselves to others...we think in realities...this could all be gone in a minute...and treasure more what we have.

That's a comparison...without specifics of who and who did what when and to whom. There's a difference. Revoke your permission to compare.

I did it by limiting my sentences in my head. (I almost hear ya chuckling...miracles happen!) "He said that in that tone and then he turned away." My old perception, ready to bite that rejection...like a rhythm I couldn't live without. Reality? "He said <blank>." The truth culled from my stuff. "He did that." "He didn't do that this time."

Wait, that's not just shortening, it's tacking on the "this time" and the "right nows" which may seem self-evident and I overlooked so often. Dang. I like the short part.

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

That H sees you as needy at times and not at others...is his stuff. Not the truth. Nothing to be culled from it except "He perceives."

To him, neediness is a symbol...doesn't mean you are (needy to an extreme or not at all)...in the middle, the truth is you're human and humans need. They also want and desire, and only they can discern one from the other.

To need too much is to negate self. To not need at all, negates others. In the middle...doesn't mean you'll get what you need...the two extremes highlight what you won't do for yourself and depend on others or pretend you don't need at all.

You feel anger when you choose to believe your H's niceness happens when you are expecting nothing from him. That's a lot in your control...break it down. Ask H if he feels relieved, free, equal when he doesn't feel like he's failing, not filling you up, not carrying you around inside him. His niceness may be his owned expressions of love...his real self showing, being bared because he put you down as a burden...not you riding his shoulders.

Can you believe I'm having a hard time remembering this feeling, for I had that anger...coming from my DJs you described...because I don't really expecte a lot from DH or him from me...those expectations mutated, I think. I expect myself to hear him, understand...get what he shares. I don't expect him to do that for me...he often does. I don't expect him not to, either. How is that possible, I wonder, now?

What if your expectations are not being punished by his withdrawal...what if he fears as deeply as you do...fears you like you fear him? What if the burden which smashed him as a child within his FOO rides his shoulders every day and withdrawal, like it is for you, is safety, recharging, realigning time? Are you punishing him, EO, when you withdraw? Then his withdrawal will feel very punishing to you.

That was my experience.

It will feel like game-playing and manipulation as long as you are manipulating...and hearing "game-playing" as discounting. When you really stop, authentically, you won't feel it. You will have a new persepctive on what he does...about him...his stuff...not you. You will feel very present, just right now, and observe...not reach out and stab yourself with what is not yours. Even if he is attempting to punish you in some way, you won't feel punished. You'll know that what he takes away from the union, takes away from him...not really you. And it's temporary, an aberrant expression...his journey...as you focus on yours.

Stop telling yourself this is how he works. This is what he did or didn't...doing right now, not doing right now...end of it. Actions. Stop with this focus all over him...I would run from that, too, EO. Because your self-abandonment hurts inside me, seeing you do this. DJs are acid you're drinking. Please stop.

You are falsely generating a whole bunch of emotions and then wrestling them...fighting them...managing them. What time do you have in there to act from love?

Just built like this? That means you tell yourself, "I'm just built like this" and in my experience of you, this is what you decided WASN'T true about you. Or anyone. They make choices...have routines and habits...not built that way.

Because of your back and forth...getting it and not getting, by degrees, by the minute (which is what I'm hearing through my experience of that same thing)...would you say you cannot rely on yourself? Have you been practicing consistently enough that you can rely on your progressive boundary enforcements to not be abandoning or manipulating? Can you rely on your own response, no matter your feelings, to be O&H and very present?

You may crave to rely on H because you cannot do so inside. Work your half...pull your focus back. I can thoroughly rely on my DH to be who he is...and have no clue what he will do/say/think/feel/believe next. I trust him to be there, though, and share his stuff. Not when I want him to, not my time table and way table...just that he will, when he chooses.

I focus on being present and hearing it...not being distracted, running over his stuff to get my cravings satisfied through him. And to make darn sure I'm practicing my sharing, too. I really slip at that, EO. I do.

Would you consider that when you were first together, you were both clean slates, happy to see each other with a future to write on those slates? Clean your slate with him, EO, please. See him as new, not built like this or that, not doing what he always does...clean off your assumptions...and know that his happiness of seeing you is not in your control...people project. In his own head, he may have your old routine of judging, comparing, deriding HIMSELF...happy to see you, not happy to be seen.

Often, we will experience others as very critical when we believe the voice in our heads are theirs...instead of our own...or our FOO. Projection is real...and I believe, a real tool (ability) God gave us, to use, not abuse.

Re-read your desire for him to be a certain way, reliably. Does that sound 5 or 6 years old to you? Wish our mothers/fathers/siblings would stop surprising us with their reactions...like congratulating us once when we did our chores and then ignoring our work the next time, or criticizing it the time after that? Desire to control...examine that, EO. Still there. I don't want my DH the same or not...I'm open to him changing, not changing, sharing, not sharing...not in my control...so I watch what a desire...

Even my desires are signals to me about me, from my beliefs.

May be your desire to not have to enforce your own boundaries...so much work...if only he/they would or would not...then I wouldn't have to...which is boundaries backasswards. That's a signal you have your boundaries around others instead of around yourself...depriving yourself of self-respect and esteem building perspective and ownership...sneaky slave perspective. See it first, then you can change it.

Boundary enforcements are a dynamic daily part of life...thank God. They are our opportunities for do-overs and do-betters...aids in our awareness and our intent to stay aware. Not burdens or have-to's...pure choices. You know we lived decades without them, in a way, for we were unaware and reactive.

Is H on anti-depressants? My DH has been on Prozac for about six months now...and he believes it has helped him in breaking most of his addictions...comes and goes...means he doesn't have that primal urge to act on them...has more choice, feels less anxiety. He's impressed. His choice is helping him in his own choices (and he hasn't acted out in a long time).

I totally believe you will have that first in-love feelings again...be happy to see him as he is, and you for who you are, as well. I have no doubt because that is my experience.

I heard my DH say, "I love my life" the other night. Wow. And he's revising our history...saying he didn't hate where we lived, not really. Kinda liked and then didn't like...sounded like a real acceptance...instead of letting the past lay there, filed away neatly. He's bravely reconsidering, in a really slow, careful, easy way now...and okay with what it really was and wasn't. Wowsers.

I just realized how much he's stopped judging people, choosing that perspective...going more for he did, she didn't instead of them being built that way. That's what I'm hearing from him...my perception. Comes and goes...I treasure it coming and know it will come again...perceptives slip...and slip back again.

How do I know you will experience this again? Because for every disconnection, there is a re-connection...there's a reason for disconnection...not about you...though examining your withdrawing as protection, find the nugget in that disconnection which heals, as you equally find where it harms...does both. Up to you to believe, reasonable, you both will re-connect (may not be what you want, when you want it, or in the way you want).

Won't change that it's still re-connecting, will it?

To feel cheated is a signal you feel entitled. Happiness isn't a right, it's an ability. Has choice in it.

What if others have the choice to say, "I hear you believe you're having a bad day." and that isn't said to accommodate, comfort or change your experience...only to acknowledge it. And that it's one day...and if your focus is on each and every what-went-wrong instead of what gifts you received, then you will look for others to tell you it's okay to feel disappointed if you look to your own whys...and to know your wishes for something different...and overlook what God is bringing you right now, to share.

You wish for something different right now...you may even wish you were other people who don't punish...or own their mistakes and find the grace in acknowledging them, not beating yourself about them. Not saying "You know better...be perfect right now, will ya?"

Finding the lesson isn't changing the experience...it's a package...choosing to do so, though, changes the resulting feelings greatly. Give yourself this gift, EO...consistently, deeply, so you can rely on you, 'k?

I rely on you for your precious honesty, openness--venting, praising, celebrating, bemoaning...all of it. I prize your truth and appreciate you. Do you do so for you? Really? Or do you hold yourself hostage to..."Well, it's not getting me anywhere at home!" Loving who you are, your own boundaries, and letting go the outcome...takes your focus on you, 'k?

How much do you find yourself living through his eyes, opinions, feelings, beliefs?

Hey...I'm taking this incident last night to say I'm really getting this myself...I said something I wanted to smack myself for...and instead, I said, "I want to smack your head right now." This wasn't DH...it was a computer tech. I could see right then, me going through his eyes to see me...and I laughed. "I like saying silly stuff." Flipped it right over and received a puzzled look. Okay. I get that.

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

LA

P.S. I forgot...let him not like what you say...just make sure you own what you say...no manipulating...no sharing to get a response, 'k? Find out where your beliefs are coming from in you...do more tracing, less judging and more loving...that's my prescription for ya.

Wow, LA, thanks for so much to chew on <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

"The focus on lack gives us the experience of lack...deprivation...adds to what may or may not be.

Focus on abundance gives us the experience of abundance."

LA, I let go of the response... then take it back. Not trusting.

I understand that there are needs you can meet for yourself. Maybe all of them, huh? And I remember letting go of expectations, and it all felt like a gift. And it was great. Having an inner focus instead of an outer one. And you're so right, this is where I've been losing it, going to that external focus.

Lots of payoff there. I got scared that I was wanting to get away because most of my happiness was away from him. Trying to justify to myself that there is something here worth staying for. When I already had plenty of reason to stay, without the need-meeting. A circular road that I'm choosing to get off of.

No, H isn't on ADs. He's considering that option, but then decides not to explore that. To me it look like he may be self-medicating instead. Not mine to own.

I understand the boundaries are for me. I'm still working on my resentment about needing to stay vigilant, even in my own house. Reading all what you said, though, about how it's just natural, that I need to do this for my own thoughts, anyhow, to hopper them, I'm accepting it more.

Looking at where I let myself get knocked off of my path, LA, from abudance to lack, it was the constant meanness again, that knocked me down. Comes in cycles. I hear you, though, that I control how much I let in with my focus.

Not just the constant meanness. I need to own my 50%, too. The constant meanness coupled with my willingness to stab myself. And our thus far lack of success replacing the UA time we used to have in the mornings that we lost when H's sleep cycles got disrupted after a breif repreive.

EO,

Thank you for seeing your own self-stabs...because I think that got stepped over with all you were changing in your mind and beliefs.

What a really tough habit to break, IMO. I asked DH to help me to hear them...and you know what? Three years later, just two nights ago, my DH says, "Ouch, ouch, ouch" to something I said. And I was perplexed...he was hearing me put myself down. I didn't feel a thing, EO. "Thank you" was my reply and a kiss.

He's still there helping me...long after I asked...and forgotten I was even wanting to hear/watch for my own self-stabs. What a team player. Sometimes, early on, I heard it as controlling, cricitism...parental. Even though I was the one who asked for his help. Now, it's lovely to be heard, and know he feels the ouch when I do this to myself, too.

That request didn't make my stuff his responsibility...participating is not taking responsibility for the occurence...brings up the awareness of it.

Seems to me your desire is to hear, "Yes, that's a really mean thing to say" or "Yes, EO, that would hurt anyone." Which is you discounting inside, isn't it? You possibly muttering in your mind, "shouldn't be this way" which increases rejection of reality, not acceptance.

Adds to the crap.

Don't add to the crap. (My bumpersticker someday.)

Do you feel relieved in anyway to see where it's your focus, not your marriage, which slipped backwards, onto him?

The more you take your focus back, the more your brain will keep your focus where you say you desire it...if you're taking it back and punishing yourself...it's safer on others, isn't it? If you take it back in joy and relief, where do you think it will want to stay?

What if your experience of not being safe...that base feeling, belief and experience...comes from what you do to yourself inside...hence, your experience of being punished, controlled? Sure reinforces others are where it's out...not inside, all outside, doesn't it?

I began to pull my focus back like a puppy on a leash...with that "oof" sound in my head and a small smile in my thoughts. Loving retraction, not retribution. Not wrong, defective or bad.

What do you think? Would the meanness be part of how you lacerate yourself in your head with what HE says...and repeat it in your head? Who then is really hitting you? Could this be that sneaky false payoff we crave as partners of abusers? If they are soooo bad, we must be better, gooder? And each lash verifies this hidden belief...even as we feel worse.

And familiar.

And know this pattern...same as in childhood.

I would love to know what you think about this...and yes, I keep the focus on you...which may, in you, feel like an automatic desire to swing my focus onto him, not you...another signal, I think.

I know you hurt, fear and strive, EO. I know you have moments of hilarity, contentment and suffering. I know, too, how much I tried to change my feelings by changing my DH...and how it stripped him of his humanity, his third-dimension in my own eyes. Had to see him as new, separate, unknown and present. And keep my focus where my power is...on me.

I wish, right now, I could word this differently, present it in a new way, boiled down, like a recipe. I'm not repeating because you aren't DOING...I'm repeating because I'm perceiving this...doesn't make it so. Choose to know your reality. Not even through me, my filter, is it true, 'k? It's yours.

You're married. You have a partner and two children. You have today. You and I share today's limits and power. What we do with them may be very different. We're doing, though, together, aren't we, EO?

Because you share and I share.

My DH came into the kitchen last week and sang "Is that all there is?"...just two bars of it...and I said, "You know, I hate that song." He said, "Me too." Because that was my attitude for my limits...and human limits. There is so much more than I imagined in life in you sharing, me sharing.

Now, "doing" has its limits. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

LA

LA, I hear you. My looking at H, at his actions, isn't helping. I feel it, reading your words, feel my focus returning. I read your old posts, and happy's, to me, to BTE, and I do feel more like myself. And manage my instinct to judge myself for still going around those spiral starcases. You give me a lot of hope, LA, describing how things turned out for you. But meanwhile, I've gotta let go of the response, LOL. Another mystery <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Honestly, I don't feel good about putting a label on H's actions. Don't feel "gooder." Just trying to make sense of it, to understand and clarify it.

My lack of safety fear is being triggered alot lately, not just at home with H. A good friend is struggling with domestic violence. LA, you know how on GQII people have a red-flag meter? I used to have that about DV. Could warn someone. It's not as sharp anymore. Had no idea what was going on with her, with her daughter, even when her daughter was over my house. I don't know what to make of that. I'd let my girls over to her house, not knowing. They came home and spoke of emotional and verbal abuse. At least, they were angry and told me instead of internalized it. But that had a lot to do with how lousy I felt about my parenting last week. That external focus.

I'm having ambivalence about my weight loss, about my progress with AS. I don't want to be attractive to other men, just my H. But it doesn't work like that. But I can keep my focus internal, and know that I can keep myself safe.

Do you feel "safer" putting a label on H?

What's your false payoff for your focus to go there, to go away from you?

I think you're hitting another level...like I said...another growth spurt...hence, I'm asking for more.

I'm glad you CHOOSE to have hope when you look at my life right now...I think it is a healthy choice, in a healthy amount. Not my doing...your choice. Thank yourself.

You already know you can do this...you're ready for more growth and breakthroughs.

What you're struggling with right now...sounds to me like vigilance...getting others' red flags, seeing what's really going on in friends and loved one's lives...and in the same concern, you write about how your girls came home and shared right away...no vigilance required that time, eh?

God provides. Diligence isn't vigilance. You can rely on others...you really can...to get to where they can and will speak...their journey...not your responsibility. What you were good at then, you're working through freshly again now...your children learned...and spoke...shared...informed.

You didn't have to charge in or take action...because you were focused on your home, your own DV issues, sorting them out. That's my opinion.

I had this routine, EO, and maybe I shared this with you a long time ago...I don't remember...of sipping on drama...making lists of what isn't right in my self, my marriage, my family, my neighborhood, my friends, my city, my...you get the widening picture. Sometimes, I had to reach to other continents, even, to sustain my drama intake...what's going wrong explains why I feel.

That backwards living. I had to have permission, a reason outside myself, to feel. This is linked to my not permitting myself certain emotions...and permitting myself to act out other ones. Still all about me. That just doesn't stop, does it?

LOL

Okay...so my dramamaker got broken. How did that happen? Oh, I began globally...I stopped watching television...or listening to talk/news radio. That narrowed it a bit. I stopped listening to and doing gossip. Narrowed some more...seems like I came at myself with stealth, an offensive plan to overtake myself...and EO? I WAS STANDING RIGHT THERE.

I'm laughing seriously outloud. A little pink and a bit delighted. If I was vigilant with what was wrong, then I could grieve, feel sad, relieved, grateful (falsely producing these, btw)...okay to be depressed...look at this evidence...rampaging sadness, wrongness in my world and the world...and then I stopped listing those wrongs or rights...and looked for the actuals...the what is right now...part of that separating the truth from my truth (and others' truth)...and the separate and equal really got me to let go the harming stuff...taking what wasn't mine.

Feel free to call Dept of Family Services on those people...it's just you with your opinion, calling in...up to them to check it out. Take the action from your boundary. Don't take the responsibility.

Hope I'm close to what you were communicating to me...I didn't stop and clarify or confirm...I excused myself 'cuz I have to go and I really wanted to let you know I saw your response. You are NOT alone...not even close, sister.

How pretty are you to you?

LA

Hi EO,

I wanted to let you know I've been reading along too. I haven't been posting because I have midterms this week and need to be studying. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I really really appreciate you posting and sharing what you're going through, because a lot of it is so familiar to me! It helps so much to see your point of view.

I've been pretty externally focused, too, lately. Although I'm working on pulling that focus back to me. And I've been saying no a lot more, too. To the point that H said it's like all I ever say anymore is "I don't like that" LOL

He said at first it made him really mad whenever I said that (I had gotten that impression already but it sure was nice to hear him SAY it, ya know?) AND then he said now he is interested in hearing what I DO like. How 'bout that?!? Now I gotta figure out what I like so I can tell him. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Slowly slowly SLOWLY I'm starting to really get the difference between his stuff and my stuff. And then I slip. And then I read some more on MB and recommit to figuring this stuff out.

I am forever grateful to you and LA and BTE and Jayne and Tama and everyone for helping me get from here to there...

Hugs!!
Happy

Yes, LA, I do feel much safer with a label on H. A label that says, "WARNING: OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR" so that I remember that the mirror has information about H's truth, but isn't THE truth. It is easier and more automatic to look at events and my reaction to them than to challenge myself consistently to respond with presence. I am grateful that you don't judge me for this, and work with me where I'm at.

I hear you at looking outside at the drama and using that to justify and a safe place to express my feelings. Even though my feelings have real information, and don't need justification, they just are.

I would be willing to call the department of family services, if that situation no longer has a safe resolution. This is my friend that H and I have been helping to move, from a seasonal rental to a rental home. Her H was very angry about her choice, to move to a year lease instead of home, from a furnished place to an unfurnished one. He'd wanted her to come home, because she'd been to counseling, and he thought the problems all started and ended with her. You know, if she'd just stop triggering him.... But she's out and safe.

Last night, the meeting was about self-esteem. We were to write 5-8 things that we admired about a hero or mentor in our life, and then took it further. Like the "Owning All Your Villagers" Exercise, so I don't want to give the rest away if someone reading doesn't know what comes next.

I was sitting there in tears of gratitude. The meeting chair went around the room and shared what she admired about each of us. She talked about a time that I had struck her with my bravery. Me - brave. Wow. And here I am, knocking on H's head, peering inside, looking for the bravery, the leadership. Saying, "You're not giving me enough!" Not realizing that I already have inside all that I need. How humbling!

So I went home, full of admiration, and thanked H for taking such great care of the kids. I think I'm starting to get it. My expectations are me operating from my lack. H can't put my lack on his shoulders, because it's too big, so he withdraws. But when I approach him from fullness, with nothing I'm trying to shove onto his shoulders, H is free to be present. Am I close?

Happy, that's the other message that I've been hearing over and over again, that I need to know what I'm looking for. My sponsor said that's why she thinks that I was having all those unsettled feelings about my old friend. Not that I want to be with him, but that there were things I had in my life that were part of me that I don't experience now. And that I can look at how to add those things to my experience now in a healthy way. For example, we used to love going to concerts, something that I haven't done since that time. I could look at what music events I could go to with H and/or the kids in the here and now.

Hi EO,

I also just wanted to let you know I've been reading! I just don't have anything to add right now to LA's wisdom. It sounds like you are working on some great stuff.


So, I will cheer you on: You go girl!

Telly does a happy dance. I don't know what LA thinks, but I think that's RIGHT ON!!!! :-) Way to go, EO (Hey, that ryhmed!)

Thanks, jayne. I still very intensely want to part ways with H. I'm thinking that's a temporary side effect of how low I let my love bank get with those double-withdrawls. Ans then as I let them back in, I will feel connected again. This is how it seems to have worked for us before. And the other way, too, if we've been getting along really well for some time, that I can make a number of these double withdrawals and still feel good about him before I'm in the red again.

I started reading SAA, and it rang so true about how we hold things in our value systems until they don't fit our actions anymore, and then we adjust our value systems. I see so many examples of this, like how I tell myself that it's normal for me to have been so inconsistent in eating healthy and then poorly for so long even though I try so hard to be healthy and set a good example for the kids in other areas. Like how I used to be okay with H drinking and driving with the kids. It helps me understand denial better, including not just distorting what facts we see, but also the principles we follow.

Thanks, Telly. It really validated it for me when I felt one thing, and then heard you say something so similar in your own thread this morning. I'm glad that I can come here and be honest about how some of these things make me angry, too, and exchange that for some fresh perspective instead <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Wanted to post this again because I think this is so GREAT! Yes, I think you're right on target! <doing the happy dance right along with Telly>

It's liberating to be around people who are coming to you from a place of fullness, in my experience. I'm sure our Hs feel the same about us!

And KUDOS to you for seeing your own bravery!!!

Hugs,
Happy

Thanks, Happy. I needed my bravery LOL. My 17 year old sister is back in the hospital, again for severe abdominal pain. She has an infection in one of her ovaries, but it is repsonding well to the IV antibiotics so far. It looks like it is not a surgical issue this time, like it was earlier this year.

I did want to add, H is free to be present, or not. It is getting easier again with practice to let go of the response. He has been grea with the kids, keeping plans I'd made for them them last night so I could spot my mom and sleep at the hospital. They could've stayed home, or changed plans instead, so I'm really impressed with the enthusiasm H had for sticking with the plans we'd made already. Maybe we're just getting better at making plans that we all like <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I'm sorry to hear about your sister. I'm glad the antibiotics seem to be working and that surgery might be avoided.

It's really cool that your H is keeping the plans with the kids while you help with your sister. That's teamwork! Sounds like you guys are pulling together instead of apart. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Thanks jayne. I was trying not to get discouraged that we weren't finding RC that we all looked forward to. I am really encouraged that we are finding activities that we all like.

EO,

I agree with Telly...you're right on. That's ownership...says this is mine...and that was you acting to your OWN code of appreciation, consideration and honesty, wasn't it?

Can you find the courage in "discouragement" and "encouragement"? Can you find where your own flagging belief that there would be RC activities you all could like was behind it? Act courageously, anyway.

Will you also hold in your hands this reality...that you can experience being the reason or not the reason your H feels free to be and do...he's already free to be and do. He controls the width of your influence on him...

Then you understand how wide you had that door of influence of his stuff on yours? He's free to be and do even if you do it badly or wrong...and so are you (flip it over). Yet each of you are in a marriage, to connect, grow side by side, and how very understandable it is for us to resent the wind blowing through the door (H's words/actions) and forget we can close it more or less...our own door.

Not to keep out the wind...disconnect...to experience the wind differently. When you went home and shared your stuff as your own...fully...you told your brain "this is mine" part of retraining it...how we re-center ourselves in reality...after immersing ourselves in the fantasy of our partner's stuff.

Way to go...this is why I call this freeing ourselves...because our focus is back on our freedom to choose, rather than lost on making others choose differently. When we dwell where we have no control, we flounder. Floundering is a signal...like a consequence. Isn't permanent.

Seems like your attention to experiencing together RC with your H and your children is another way to stay in the present...to share experiences...a way not to take his as about you and your own as about him.

LA

"and that was you acting to your OWN code of appreciation, consideration and honesty, wasn't it?"

Yes, LA, I am feeling my freedom more, that this is the choice I am making. And I don't need to revisit that choice daily. I am wondering if that is my old struggle with judgment coming back, more focused on whether I am making the "wrong" choice than living in the moment.

Thanks for pointing that out, which I didn't see, about the courage in "discouragement" and "encouragement". Okay, I see what you mean, that the flagingness of my belief could be behind it. Instead of having and acting from trust that it will happen in its own time.


And the other way. Thanks for pointing this out to me, again. That keeping aware of my boundaries is not a punishment, it's freeing in that I can more fully experience the present. I haven't see it like that before.

Sitting in the hospital room with my mom, brother and stepfather, my sister catching some well-needed sleep, they were talking about a barbeque place they'd been to last week. I asked them if they remembered a place they used to go years ago and bring home a pizza box full of barbeque for $25, and we were remembering how much fun that was. My stepdad said, "So you remember me after all." Wow, it hit me that I haven't shared a memory of mine that included my stepfather from back then since I moved out years ago. I didn't realize I just talk about good stuff that happened when he wasn't home. That was his drive-by H&O, didn't expect a response, and no one in the room responded to his comment, they moved on to another memory. In the past, he's called me disrespectful, accurately pointing out that I don't acknowledge the good stuff he did.

I see how I take that into today, how I feel not allowed to connect when things are unresolved for me, until I sort them out. Like this summer, when I described connecting with H at the kids' expense. I didn't owe it to them or myself to disconnect. I saw this again in javajoy's discussion with pieta. That acting from love and feeling unresolved are not mutually exclusive; that we can feel both at the same time. Happy to see someone and guarding our boundaries at the same time, for example.

RC for me is primarily having good feelings about ourselves and each other. But I found another DJ in there, that there's something worng with me or the activities I suggest, if H finds them silly. They're still good activities, good to have fun with, just not something to schedule for our together time. Like how we used to like to go out to eat together, and now we like eating healthy at home more often. I even would take his rejection of activities as about me. I'm glad that I can make new choices <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />