JJ,
"I think maybe I might not feel safe enough to get angry outwardly thus causing resentful feelings inside."
You're learning an importance difference right now...valid feelings, not acting out on them to make them valid. Stating to communicate your stuff, not demonstrating your anger. Could it be that you fear LBing to demonstrate, and that's where you step over the stating? Getting angry and feeling anger are two different things. One way you own it...share it...the other, you put it on another human being...what is yours, over there.
"Turned inward toward him and toward me. I don't know why I thought this couldn't happen to us... talk about fantasy."
Great to know that your fantasy habit is yours...has more depth and is automatic, even from yourself. Self-deceptive practices go deep because they've been with you, your way, from childhood...not because you're a lying scoundrel to yourself. Great to know, isn't it, you're discovering more of your urge to fantasy than to not know?
"You would think I would have known there was always that potential there... and I did I guess... because it isn't like I never worried that he would fall for someone "better" than me. Ironically, that seems to be his biggest fear now... that I might find someone else. So there are still trust issues on both ends here."
No, I wouldn't think you would have known...there's the wishful, potent child in us who believes that we change our world through our beliefs...which we, in actuality do, only the wishful child believes we change OTHERS and things through it...and we don't. So it's half right. Dangerously half correct, eh? Super great to know...not crazy...very real and comprehensible, eh? Which is why I encourage two hands on reality while driving your life. As children, we're taught reality is horrific to endure...and it isn't, as adults. It is, as children, because we have no control...no one shows us how much we really control...which makes sense why, when we reach adult age, we feel suddenly stricken with responsibility...even terrified of it...and don't see it for the responsibility we've had all along. Real responsibility.
If you believe we are all equal, and share your belief that a great marriage is predicated on being a great partner (yourself), not who you marry...then you live that belief. He can take that to mean that his fear you will replace him (as you replaced your first H) isn't unreasonable. It isn't. You are not who you were then. Speak of that...often...to know it yourself and to share it with him. By acknowledging and validating his fear as his, he'll get that clean slate, too...eventually. Or won't. His choice, not yours. Not yours to soothe, correct or fix. To know and hand back. Be present while he wrestles his own understanding of how unchangeable the past is...do not refute or reassure. Listen and hand back. You've got your own. Share how you're working on yours...awareness, self-loyalty and discovery. Side by side partnership.
"Because although I don't really think he is continuing his A nothing to support it... nothing except my fear that it happened therefore it could happen again. In all honesty and it makes me feel bad when I say this..."
Do you feel like you're betraying him with your distrust? Ouch...how does that betray you? You fear. It's yours. It's not unreasonable. He can only rebuild his side of trust...the other half is you granting it. Takes a long time to do with conscious, aware choice. No rush. Being okay with not trusting in your marriage is really important, too. We're taught our marriages won't stand without trust. They do.
"the more he showers me with compliments (and he does a lot... remember he is a words of affirmation LOL'er) almost to a pedestal status which I also feel is a dangerous place for me to reside because there is no where for me to go but down."
So you acknowledge and accept his opinions (which compliments are...not only affirmation but an act of intimacy, of sharing) as his...and state your fears, as yours.
"But back to the compliments... a part of me is afraid of them like what if he is just snowing me... and I am stupid enough to fall for this again."
The ouch in that belief is to you, from you. Sounds like you're telling self you're stupid. He's not. You are. Might want to rethink that.
"I have to remind myself to stop that train of thinking. His actions support what he is saying for the most part except for UA and RC which he isn't gone... he's here just gaming a lot on his computer. And really when he is doing that I spend my time on here. Both of our computers are in our home office so we are in the same room but that I know doesn't qualify as UA."
No, it doesn't. However, it's the false soothing...present and separate...not all good nor all bad. You can roll your chair over to participate through observation in his game. Your choice. My DH and I did a subtle reconnection with pinball on the computer...first as opponents and then each with one flipper button. It wasn't UA in the direct connect...like coming from the side...and sitting side by side...so that we could, eventually reconnect direct. I love that symbol, physically and emotionally...and cherish all the laughter, silliness, of us as children, playing, together. RC is like UA, side by side...and watching tv or movies in the same manner isn't completely destructive nor healthy...has elements, through awareness, to nurture, soothe, solidify, doesn't it? Anything to an extreme.
So you two in the same room, you see one element...if that is the only UA time, then that's the extreme to watch. See more RC when you both are with your DD, the elements in that, the meeting the ENs in that, as Harley suggests...and plan for some outside RC as UA...working your way back towards each other for the direct connect of deep intimacy.
Which is why I nag (heehee) about communication exercises twice a week...that one hour of UA a week...leaves a lot of time to play, too...nothing to the extreme.
"I think a part of me is still owning stuff about his A that isn't mine to own. I have to remind myself that he chose that... I was in the M too and I wasn't getting my needs met either but I chose to remain faithful... not that I am saying we both didn't have things we needed to work on in the M we did. I think where I find myself blaming myself is that he did say to me at least a couple of times in the year or 2 before his A, that we weren't okay, that he missed "us" and he wanted "us" back."
You're finding your part and the signal is guilt...and guilt wants you to take it all, so you can control it all and not feel guilty had you done it correctly. Know you heard and did not react then as you would today...let go what you didn't do so that you stay aware of it today. Natural enough to believe you could change his happiness through your actions...you really couldn't...the signal of relief is false when you go that line of reasoning, because the relief is from believing you could have made it better then...and in reality, you could only do half. He could still perceive the same, though you were different, true?
"I chose not to honor that... what he was saying to hear him but not to make the effort. Did I really believe it would get better on its own? No... I knew it wasn't getting better. I felt lonely in our M too."
Remember your inner child, full of shame and burdened by being responsible for what she can't control...and seeking to control to relieve the burden...that downward spiral exists even today, because you've had the spin cycle on for all your life. You wanting him to get "us" back and him wanting you to...not seeing your limits that you can only do your halves, not the whole...and you see where acknowledging, validating his perception, his feelings at the time was your half, wasn't it? And not stating your stuff, was your half, your responsibility, within your control. Now you do. Now your goal is to do your half, not dependent on his half, anyway.
Changes everything.
"I didn't want to work at it... I was complacent about it then... overmedicated. Choosing to arrest my own emotional development by medicating my feelings."
Get further down here...why didn't you want to work at it (because you missed "us" too and he should have known that?)? You heard emotional burden and blame...was it really there? Was that reality in his statements? Or your perception...the only way you knew to perceive back then? Were you escaping real blame or imagined in your overmedication? I don't believe in emotional development...we have continuous emotions...no control...they are signals...we have awareness development, self-intimacy developed...working on our 100% of our union with ourselves, and half a marriage. Half a relationship. Striving first to understand, then be understood...even to ourselves.
Reach for that power...as you own your choices then. They weren't just then...they were repetitive behaviors from a lifetime.
"Then I clobber myself with why... why didn't you listen to him then... maybe if you would have he wouldn't have felt the need to go outside of our M... to have the A."
Ahhh...see the spin cycle...the locked-in loop? Going back to believing you could control through your actions another human being's choices. Stop the madness of this loop. Crazymaking. Get to your essence...to control is false relief...not real...more fantasy...and we do this because it is very difficult as humans to believe and accept the past is unchangeable, forever. It stays. No do-overs. Stop yourself and own...find the authentic relief in ownership...this is what I did. I did that. I choose not to today. I choose to honor through listening and repeating...I choose respect...and to embrace my human limits and power. That's you today, JJ. If you reach for a pill, be O&H..."I am choosing to escape right now. I am choosing to define myself as incapable." Not judging bad or good...not thinking he's making you...reality's making you...you're choosing. Sit in it. Awareness and truth...no shoulds or oughts...to get to authentic wants.
"And of course there is the karma aspect that I have been reminded of... because I chose an A in my own first M that somehow it is only fitting that I would feel the depth of the pain that I myself have caused to someone else. Deeper still lies the fear that in part my M was built on a fantasy and neither of us did any of the kind of work we would have had to do to protect ourselves from ever behaving like this again."
Try taking this further..."therefore, I deserve my incredible pain, to be betrayed" and see if that's where the rest of your thought goes...then go further. "I have always deserved to be abandoned." Then go further. "I believe I can protect myself from my own behavior."
You can aid yourself and your marriage with healthy boundaries...to have an A, you must know your choice is solidly, incontrovertably your own. Can you see where you're safe from ever choosing to have another affair this way? True protection is in truth, not odds. Not universal collision of elements...your choice. When you truly, deeply, totally get that...you'll respect your FWH is in the same boat, too. And you have absolutely no control over his choices, do you?
"The arrogance of my belief in happily ever after."
Within arrogance there is as much insecurity as in inferiority (which isn't humility). The cure for both is truth and your choice to live from it every moment.
Your wishful child wants happily ever after. Your adult wants growth, not for protection, but for a thriving life. Very different. Huge acceptance in the adult and total rejection of anything less than smooth in the wishful child. "I don't want this to have happened" is the child...what does your adult say?
"Like buying a beautiful car and then never doing any of the schedule maintenance it required for its upkeep and then being surprised when it broke down."
I was just listening to a wishful child speak in his 19-year-old boy body...hearing clearing his points of self-deception clearly...as he told me about ruining his car by not putting oil in it.
Would you consider our mutual life poles of rejection as our constant signal of something...a lesson? Rejecting reality may feel like rejecting ourselves...and we may experience it through seeing others reject us. Harnessing this life pole, for me, was to catch the signal and look inside first...then look outside. We want ourselves to run smoothly forever, don't do the maintenance, which means we don't do the maintenance in our marriages, as parents, as daughters, workers...the list goes on. Begins inside.
"I am so working on seeing it this way. No polarity just a signal... and what does that signal tell me? I already know that not expressing... sharing... withholding information isn't an effective way to get my needs met."
Let me strengthen your ownership...withholding your stuff is active lying and self-betrayal...the outcome is not having your needs met...and your part is you doing that to you through your choice to withhold and not own where your feelings, your stuff, is originating.
"Pitching a ****** isn't either. Honest communication with him is really the only way. It isn't fair for me to expect him to just to somehow inherently know what I am feeling."
How about losing "fair"...you know it's unreasonable to expect to mindread or assume. It's destructive. You have an active, responsible half...to state and own. When you don't, you leave him no choice but to assume...which is like corrupting someone...false control. Later, it won't be that way...he, like you, can choose comfortably to not know until shared with...be okay with not knowing, not assuming. Asking. Right now, your part is self-betraying and betraying your marriage because you do not state your stuff.
"I have to choose to trust him with my angry feelings too."
Can you clarify what you mean here? Because there's nothing about trust in it. You have to choose to share to not self-betray and state you feel anger, resentment...to own your stuff. Your wishful child is saying she's powerful enough, her anger is powerful enough, to drive, control FWH. It isn't and she isn't. His choice remains. How you share your anger is totally within your control. Stating and owning has no threat. It's demonstrated intimacy. Can feel like trust...it isn't trusting him, it's trusting you...from a lifetime of being untrustworthy in how you treat yourself and your stuff.
"To choose to believe that if I express anger about his A that he won't leave me. He is hotheaded (and I don't mean this as a DJ to him either... it is just a part of the way he communicates) when he feels judged then he reacts... his fear comes out as anger."
Are you taking his fear as your fear? Are you reacting to your own fear of being the cause (through sharing) of his stuff? That tells self, reinforces that he is the cause of your stuff. Spin cycle. Prepare to be dizzy.
"His AO's make me want to keep things in."
And there you have it.
"I have shared that with him. He has made considerable progress in terms of the level and the frequency of his AO's. They used to border on abusive. He is quick to get angry but also equally quick to step back and apologize too."
Apologies don't work with repetition. They are for single acts. You are LBing through withholding...it's a silent abuse. He does it reactively, smacking you down and then saying sorry. You're catching the element of recognition, awareness and ownership. Still happens. What you haven't focused on is how you add to your own self-betrayal based on your choice of response...it's all on him. That's maddeningly human. Stop it. You've got your half, too. Your choices. Don't overlook those.
"I have a much harder time saying I am sorry to him. I think because I have for a long time not expressed my angry feelings just pushed them down and then felt resentful... then I also feel resentful about apologizing too."
Envision truth...each time you withheld, you smacked him down, hurt your marriage and manipulated him. Ouch.
"But we have been working on this post A... and I am more able then I was to tell him how I feel although I still feel like I am holding back... my fear. Somewhere I learned woman aren't supposed to get angry and if they do or if they are assertive..."
Hey, anger is ugly. We're taught that. We don't understand the true message...acting out our anger is ugly...anger, like us, isn't. It's a feeling. The rest is choice.
"then they are aggressive or ******. Truth is just as woman don't have the market cornered on crying... men don't have the market on anger. It is just what we have been taught are the appropriate responses for us. I am so grateful that my H is able to express his feelings... cry, etc."
Awesome awareness and healthy perspective, JJ. Lean on this...wrap it around yourself. Truth of humans. And also, that you can perceive your FWH's AO's as demonstrated fear (just looks like anger)...know more of that...we can cry our anger, our fear...we can laugh our fear, tremble from extreme happiness and gratitude...and express so much in so many different ways...which is why stating our stuff is essential to respect. And that we can only know our partner's stuff as well as they can. Period. And they can only know our stuff as well as we do. Period.
Work on knowing and sharing your own stuff. Let his stuff go...get those predetermined, progressive boundary enforcements in your mind and heart...and live up to them in yourself...you will state, anyway. You will know and share. You will not see your stuff as a burden, nor his stuff...you will see and hear separate and equal and inherent choice.
"I really am looking deeper within to try to find the stem... what it is really about. I just started reading The Dance of Anger. I also bought The Dance of Fear by the same author. I am hopeful that I will learn from this recommended book."
I loved Dance of Anger...for the patterns, the permissions for our automatic response...I believe that was an incredibly loving choice for you to get that book and each page you read, admire yourself for it. Really helped me to trace my signals.
"Yep... it does goes back to FOO. Believing that I couldn't be hurt by them and being devastated to learn I could... accepting that they are human too... interesting the idea that blind trust kills blind trust... seems a logical conclusion to me and yes a healthy thing. Because blind trust is only a fantasy... created in the false belief that humans aren't fallible... sets us up for disaster really."
Fantasy does set us up for disaster. By us and for us.
"I think you are right though that it won't be a one time grieve it and move on kind of thing because it is so deeply embedded in my eroding belief system... part of it is leaving kicking and screaming. We are a society that is raised on fairy tales... then when our fairy tale doesn't turn out the way it does in books we feel like losers... like something is wrong with us rather than something is flawed in the fairy tale."
I love how succintly you nailed down how we learned to choose our lives this way...why we feel like losers...and look to create blame, resentment, and emotional burdens instead of looking at the source of where we choose that belief...the fairy tale itself.
The element within the fairy tale is choice...all characters within them had choices...made choices...and we don't hear or feel that when we heard them...choice was that obscure for us...and we also heard some where choice was to blame...choice itself...bad choices, good choices...and missed whatever the author intended. Now you can hear those stories in a totally different mindset and light...and pass it on to DD.
"That is a great question LA and man do I ever want to know why. For so long I have tried to be perfect."
Take this further...don't truncate your thoughts..."For so long I have tried to be perfect because..." then you'd be safe? Accepted? Acceptable? To whom? From what? Most times, when I answered this inside myself (and yes, I had to bring myself all the way through my statements, again and again), it was me. Not them. Let me know where you get when you get your whole thought...gets us, I believe, to our whole selves...which is what we're really doing. Discoverying, as if for the first time, we are whole, complete and marvelously made already.
Perfect is fantasy.
"It is exhausting trying and obviously I wasn't able to maintain any balance in that. I crave sleep. I am so tired. I have got to start to get more exercise. I did finally start taking vitamins regularly and I have been able to gain some much needed weight. While I never thought I had any type of ED (eating disorder) I do see some that I have used food as a reward and a punishment for myself. Just because I don't fall into any ED type per say... I'm not anorexic or bulimic, doesn't mean I don't have issues with food."
As you increase your awareness in this marvelous realization, get the benefit as food as a symbol, too. Issues aren't bad or wrong...still signals for us to know us much more intimately...so we can share and BE intimate.
"It isn't about the gaining or losing of weight for me... it is about extremes for me... polarity. You deserve this or you don't deserve that."
"Deserve" and "Fair" I find to be linked...huge signals of childlike mindset. Deserving reward has the backside of deserving punishment. Coupled with the all or nothing perception, strongly signals our inner child, not our reasonable adult. Seems like your inner child isn't being held, talked to, heard...what do you think?
Would you consider that your inner child is stating she misses you, she misses "us" and you aren't hearing her? She only needs to be heard, validated...from her statements. When we don't, she acts out...and it's us acting out, demonstrating rather than stating. Can you see all the parallels, the benevolent ways of helping, loving us and others, all one inside the other?
"I didn't admit it was a problem because I was looking to much at the idea of it focusing around weight and thinking someone with an ED is so consumed by a number and since I don't have that going on then I must not have a problem here when in fact it seems that if I using it to medicate somehow then it is in fact a problem. Balance is a problem for me... so many extremes."
Balance as a problem...not a choice. It's a choice. First, set your goal from your true desire...to live in reality, which happens in the middle, around 90 degrees. Make your goal really important, inside and out...which opens the door to balance. Then tend to your child and your adult selves with awareness, not judgment...and you'll see how much more you do not polarize, let go of extremes...to protect yourself as if you were a child, with your strong, sure and knowledgeable adult hands. This balance is acceptance...accepting what is, who you are, how you choose to define yourself, and when you do so. Where you do so. In your marriage. In your mind. Your heart. Your body. All intricately dependent on each other...no burden. This is what connecting to your soul truly is...balance within the middle...with forgiveness, understanding, acceptance...and your constant judgment keeps you from the middle.
I see you making vast strides in getting to this place, already there, within yourself...recognizing your judgment as your impediment...perfection as a false belief and payoff...awareness of, understanding of...not you bashing your self to bits...dismantling your self-image, bit by bit.
"I so do see this. The fixer... once it is fixed well my work is done... hahahaha. Like the new car with no upkeep. Won't stay in mint condition with no effort. Our M isn't fixed just because we got through the initial crisis. We don't get to stop working on it just because were not lying on the floor broken in a million tiny pieces. If we don't do the scheduled maintenance it is bound to break down again and again. I get it... but in fairy tales once the awful problem is solved they live happily ever after. Ummm wow how deep is that fantasy in me?"
Great whole question there, JJ...I would love to be shared with when you know...as you know. And yes...the underlying beliefs determine your life, because it determines your perceptions...know you choose how you perceive, what you believe, how you view reality by what you choose to think (all that power...swimming in it!)...and as a result, the signals you get through your emotions...all to aide you in self-discovery, living with both hands on reality, a two-handed life. Goes to you inside and out...accepting we have external reinforcements for fantasy, constantly...that if you fix it right the first time...it'll stay fixed. That you fixing it is all your responsibility...when we know several other elements outside of our control, factor into everything...even fixing a bike...maintaining a car...hidden, invisible elements as real as the visible, known ones...not all us. Our part only. Doing our part will not overwhelm us...doing all parts, total fix, will.
"Wow you are right... when I look at it like that like him needing a way to connect then it doesn't seem like what he wants is so unreasonable. I know this is where our M even pre A had issue. How much of what is going on with him wanting to be closer and me PUSHING away... me and not him. Goes way back in our R me feeling resentful of him putting SS first... and how I chose to accept being second... once again believing what I deserved. Causing so much hidden resentment... not expressed but coming out as me not wanting to meet his needs... not sure if I even realized that is what I was doing at the time. Then it became a pattern for so long. And using SF as a reward and a punishment."
Back to a life pole of rejection...another way of seeing if the rejection I felt automatically was coming from others or myself, if it was real or perceived, and how much of each...took me seeing where I rejected others...and you nailed that. Pushing away. Denial can feel like rejection. If I didn't feel first, then I looked to see if I was putting my marriage first...flipping stuff over, not to condemn or fix...to know...to see with clarity. This reduced my signal of rejection mightily...vastly...I don't know the word that fits how much this affected my life, my self.
Rejecting from feeling rejected...tit for tat...flipped over is giving to get...deserving, fair, equitable...without a single ounce of respect in it...filling our needs from the outside...when the only way they can truly be met is from us knowing, accepting and acting from our choice to love...which fills them from the inside...and accepts our partners for all their acts of love (the compliments no longer get perceived as manipulative) and we overflow love...and so does our marriage. Through respect.
"When DD came along well then some parts conscious and some maybe not replacing him as first with her."
Can you see the tit for tat in this? You chose to believe FWH put SS first...you felt second. You saw him doing it to you. You did it back to him through DD. What are we really asking for when we do this? Fairness? No. We are asking to be understood...how does it feel? Will you change now, now that you feel what I felt? Which is what...us talking to ourselves, isn't it? Because what others feel is theirs...we have no control. Unless, through fantasy, we believe we can force them to walk in our shoes through our own choices.
"Wanting him to feel what it felt like. Even when he got it still not offering forgiveness... holding on to the resentment."
Can you see where resentment is fantasy? The signal is real...the belief behind the resentment is fantasy? Destructive? Has to be created, fed, nurtured, depended on and still gives a false payoff every time...because it was created in fantasy. Our own expectations and belief of tit for tat works...and it doesn't. You cannot control, cause or cure anyone of anything at anytime. That's reality. Our own expectations that we can lead us to live in fantasy, react to and perceive from it. Steeped in it, we are wayward, aren't we? To ourselves? Keep this truth close to your heart and mind:
Entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect.
In the words "deserving" and "fair" signals of entitlement. The feeling of resentment, signals of fantasy...and lack of respect is not respecting truth for it's power, not respecting reality...signalling us doing to us. Not others.
"Not healthy the message that was being sent to the kids either... that they were always more important... their needs before the M... not even needs... their wants."
Find the forgiveness for yourself and your FWH in this acknowledgement. We are taught that children come first--they are the innocents...they didn't choose to be born...they come first. Their childhoods must be perfect, protected, debilitating...when reality says, we show our children how to connect, be intimate, handle ups and downs and monotony, routine, health, our very selves...through marriage. That's why it's first...because it has the most impact on human children than anything else.
Forgive yourselves. Do better through that forgiveness, that ownership.
"Parenting out of our own fear of rejection. Could I really have wanted DD to want and need me more than her daddy? What is the payoff there... I got to be number one to someone. But at what costs and to whose expense?"
We make our children spouses when we live from tit for tat. When we react to our feelings of rejection instead of discover...they meet our needs and we cut out our spouses from meeting them. Wayward. False payoffs...most destruction comes from inattention and lack of respect...not from evil. From distorted beliefs...from reacting, not acting.
Funny part here is that you were already number one, even if you didn't put DD first. It's inherent, I believe, within us, as children....Mommy and me are one...and by being first, she stays second to herself...living through others...the crippling part we live with, as adults, every day. Uncripple her, you and free yourselves.
Goes to the sleeping arrangements. Trading in reality for false comfort...ties to medicating feelings, to change reality...living a life full of rejection instead of acceptance...pretty much, parenting.
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"No... to all of the above. In today I feel loved and cherished. Wow I am being extremely selfish."
I think resentment is being extremely afraid of self, not selfish. It's unrealistic, not a power in the human design. Not selfish. Again, see your self-judgment? OUCH!
"Was I thinking he was going to fix my pain... and when he was choosing to love me and make me feel special was I choosing to stay stuck in the past? Because this is a pattern I know... I guess the one thing I can see from this is that truthfully I am upset with the right person finally."
Rather than whip, KNOW. State truth to yourself. Yes, I was reasoning he could undo what he did...and thereby, fix my pain. Heal my heart. Wipe out the past. When I cannot see my half, my part, I know my perception is skewed.
There's power in truth...no blame requiring punishment. KNOW what you perceived, believed, thought and felt. To know. Not to judge. Then once you know, hold that up to what you desire...do I desire to believe in fantasy? No. Do I believe he can cure, cause, control me? No. Good to know.
"The FOW is no one. She isn't worth an ounce of my energy or my forgiveness."
I believe I know what you mean...she is not the cause, control or cure for your stuff, either. I caution you here, though, about the inner circle. Beliefs are inviolately two way streets...if you believe another person is not worth your energy or forgiveness, then you believe YOU are not worth your energy or forgiveness. See how we state and feel something from our beliefs, like the feelings, and don't see how essential the truth is to them? You can have the same relieving feelings from recognizing her not powerful enough to be the cause, control or cure for you, rather than negating her through judgment. Judgment takes consideration and thought...giving energy to her. I know you're at the place where you are aware of this...not to rent her space in your mind...kick her out of your intimate inner circle...take the next step and respect her human choice, as hers...not as a judgment on you, who you are, what you did or not did...so you will do the same with your inner circle, your FWH and yourself. Your children.
"But my H is... and pretending that majority the anger and resentment was directed toward her didn't allow me to feel safe in my anger toward him only her. It is pretty risk free on my end to be hateful toward her because she means nothing to me and I have nothing to lose their... no risk no real growth in the what is really so simple."
Inner circle. All humans. Great insight where you permitted your anger to be thought of as caused by her, her existence, her choices...deserving of your anger...which kept your FWH safe from it. Great insight and honest to self. Go further with it. Find that pattern throughout your life.
"I have the right to be angry, hurt, mad, etc. at him for this. What he did was not okay."
"having the right" is entitlement, isn't it? Gets you around stating, "I feel angry, hurt, mad, etc." Which is your truth. You do. They are valid because you feel them. Your thoughts are valid because you think them. No earning there...no judgment. They are. You are. See how much this language communicates to you and to others? Matters greatly. Self-deceptive practices have gotten near perfect in being under our own radar. Get the words as signals...not to bash reactively...to know. Okay. This line of thought takes me where?
"And it does go back to the FOO the idea of wrapping my security in others... more specifically one other. My IC said that I didn't learn to feel secure within myself. I derived it the feeling of being okay and being safe from my mom particularly after their D and my dad remarriage. The seven or eight year old in me not wanting to spend the night at my dad's because I didn't feel safe there. Didn't help that they told me that my fears were ridiculous and shamed me for having them. My sister didn't have the same feelings I did about going to my dad's then. All my eggs in my mom's basket... then all my eggs in my H's basket or whoever was that one person."
What did you think of your sister not having the same reactions? Did that mean to you that she didn't have the same fears? That your fears were unreasonable, wrong, as your parents were telling you? All or nothing...inclusion in the inner circle has very limited space...Mom and Dad can't both be in...it will bust the circle. Your adult self knows, you loved your Mom and Dad...and that you control the circumference of your inner circle. Widen it now...not to change the past...to know your DJs, false payoffs and false control. To know, not to judge.
Have you discussed with your IC how divorce made you feel last place with your parents? That pole of rejection...keep seeing all of it, in everyway...it relates to your marriage, your life, your love of self.
If others put you first, you don't have to, correct?
"Could I have projected this fear of mine onto my daughter? Somehow signaling her that she wasn't safe in her own bed... isn't safe without me?"
See above...and do not punish, harm yourself inside...we do this...we pass on what was done to us...to our children. Why it was done to us in the first place...passed on from what was done to them...eternally, seemingly. Take huge kudos for changing the cycle through your own awareness and commitment to growth. The cycle stops here. Yes, you did. Yes, you maintained the "Mommy and me are one" past where it ends...in our toddler years...when we know we are separate beings, and exercise our choices. Help her now to see, through your own journey, you are separate and equal human beings...total selves, with inherent choice.
Now matters.
"I don't know if I know what my belief is regarding SF. I think I need to really look at what I think about that... like what you asked Rin about what it would look like to her in a healthy M. I don't know if I know."
Can you see where you said, "I think I need to" instead of "I will" or "I won't"? Back to knowing your power through language...and where you cut off your own legs. This is how we lost parts and disowned parts of ourselves growing up...thinking of what we should do rather than seeing what we did and our intent. Be honest with yourself..."Yes, I am considering, pondering, being gentle to know what I believe SF is, to myself and my marriage" or "I'm not considering it right now because I have other priorities." Or "I'm too scared to go there right now."
"This... this is it. This is it. Realign. It isn't one stop shopping. The bike... the car... the fix. Alignment is necessary over and over. I have to keep at it... emotional growth is exhausting sometimes..."
True emotional growth is not exhausting. Remains our choice to believe it is, therefore, experience the maintenance as work, for reward...or punishment. Emotional growth is freeing, feels like thriving, coming home finally, flying. Energizing. Takes recognizing our power...limits...and acting with joy to oil the bike, which is knowing and sharing our own stuff. The hardest part of emotional growth is it's simplicity. Can't be that easy. Gotta be hard so we feel more reward. It is simple...like tilting your head three inches to the left...nowhere easy. I'm delighted you feel that immense clarity..."This is it! This is it!" seeing the tie-in to everything...how all the elements matter, equally...and your part is yours. Acting to maintain yourself takes you first knowing how to love yourself...knowing your internal ENs, where you self-LB, and honoring self...which honors your partner and your marriage. Upward spirals from emotional growth. No exhaustion...perpetual motion is reality, inside humans. Changing our choice to act from fear (exhausting) or love (uplifting, self-powered).
"a signal to slow down but not to stop... not all or none... bit by bit. I think it is the way I am going to be able to do it and not give up and go back to complacency."
Why not, "I pledge to myself to increase my awareness in every moment and reduce my judgment. To recognize my changes bit by bit and know each tiny bit IS change."
?
"Thanks for sharing this with me because it is blocking... even with God LA and I didn't know what it was that was really happening except that I felt it in every aspect of my life. Could resentment make me sooooo tired? The fatigue of harboring it."
Oh, YES!!! Resentment saps...takes much more than it gives to us when we see the reality of it...resistance is friction...we fatigue from our inner friction...and that friction is exhausting from us acting and feeling from our old beliefs and our true desire is to act and feel from our new ones. Resentment imprisons us voluntarily...and all that trying to break out is exhausting. Walk through the door, JJ. You have the key, the power in the choice to do it. Do not create, nurture or put resentment first in your life. Choose not to.
"Bless you for saying that way and for helping me to see how I am creating enmeshment within our family... in fact in a way it helps me forgive my own FOO some because once you said to me about FOO and enmeshment "cloaked in love" it really is. It really isn't about blame only understanding and acceptance and progress."
And you brought that truth home to your heart...you acted with DD from love...what love felt like, not from what it is...you wanted her to feel what you didn't...protected, held close, first place and on a pedastal, sort of...she's equally afraid, terrified of falling off of it...and she's learning that's love...share with her real love. And you're welcome. Don't forget your half, JJ. It's as powerful as mine. You chose to hear, feel hurt, know I'm not hurting you, and see more clearly...to not put on the blame glasses, the self-punishment reaction. You did that. Not me. Know your part. Glory in it...be energized from it. Maybe you're afraid to compliment yourself...which is sharing your true opinion with you, about you, for fear of failing yourself.
You can't fail self.
You certainly can fail self-image.
LA
