Hey, I'm back! And I won the Easter Egg Hunt Traic sent me on. What do I win?
(((((IK)))) Hmmm...abbreviating that sounds like I'm calling you icky.
You know I'm not. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Beginning with the email:
"You told you didn’t understand me anymore and I believe it’s difficult considering that you knew only what you saw,"
This is a belief within your WW. She believes no one knows the real her...great fodder for A's, btw. I know this one. When you believe love is earned, then you cannot be loved for the real you. Your fear of intimacy causes this, along with the belief, so that you are always protected from being known...and excluded from being loved your being.
Her issues, not yours.
She has them with everyone, and part of what fuels the fantasy with OM is this very thing. She may believe he is the only one who knows the real her--yet, this delusion exists in the same context as with anyone else...she gets to present the real her version to him, find acceptance for it, and still not be loved for her being. It is the foundation for the A and its downfall, if you truly get this, IK. You haven't gotten it...I believe...because you share in it.
I know this email seared your very soul...with its untruths. She is in full justification mode here, rewriting her history to make it okay to do what she's doing. That's also the trap of earning love...how can you do that with OP? If you loved your life with your FH (faithful H) then you are the scum. Have to rewrite to entitle herself, like she's doing to her mother in her email, otherwise, you're scum. Pure scum. Even in your own heart. And you get this in you, because the only way to feel right about crushing pain into so many others is to lie to yourself...making the lie your history, not your present. It is twisted, difficult to understand, yet to me, understandable. No approval here. Just a fact. With an A, you have to choose between making your marriage a lie or the fantasy; and one feels great while the other doesn't.
She is lying when she says she was the perfect wife and daughter in law...even in her own heart, she knows she was creating resentments, keeping a marriage tally, sacrificing...all by choice, and did it anyway. She couldn't and can't understand she drained her own love bank, chose a corrosive perspective to view life and injured herself time and time again, believing it others, not her. She struggles with deep shame, from her parents, her mother especially, when she was little and chose to be blame rather than human. She does not see her pleasing/fixing as abusive, difficult to live with, lacking respect and receiving none. She only sees the receiving none part. She traps herself and believes others are the prison guards. A tragedy. One that she created.
Notice she did not claim to her mother she was the perfect daughter, and accepts not being the perfect mother. This is there thing, their battle, which your MIL is no more equipped to deal with than her daughter. Not yours. These issues are part of your marriage, what I've been urging you to change, to change the pattern--not of your making. Still under your influence.
This is an important email, IK. She reveals the lie she tells herself...first, of choosing to please, and then ending the main paragraph in being trapped by her choice...with no choice. All perspective, not reality. Dangerous beliefs. These beliefs kill off her ability to love and make the fantasy more precious. She is looking for a way out of being herself...she hates her very self and her self is tired of this...being recreated, pushed down, stomped on and brutalized. She is at war within and you are a casualty.
Inside, that talk of not being strong enough to divorce and take her on her own happiness is common. This is more twisted thinking, IK, and nothing about you. Not real. She craves a clean slate...the build up on hers gets too deep and her only coping skill is to recreate herself anew, better, more lovable. Her own build up prohibits her from feeling loved well, deeply and enough. Not in others and how well they love. She doesn't know this...the way to break an A is to fight fire with fire and be new. First tenet of Plan A. Giving your wife a clean slate is too much for you--like sacrificing an arm or leg. You are in the same boat as she is, side by side, with so much build up inside, covering your own clean slate. I've attempted to show you this and felt your disbelief, entrenched in the fact you've earned her love...heck, she OWES you fidelity for all your pleasing...yet still, your build up remains, thick with entitlement...created by you, and waiting for you to wipe it clean.
I thought you could do that kind act for yourself, by doing it for her. A brilliant Plan A...sometimes, we have to choose which we love more...resentment or our spouses.
Does knowing your WW's choices come from reactions of a child help at all? Her pain is real, though the A is fantasy. Her longing for her self, to believe she is whole, complete and lovable just as she is, without one word or action, is a chasm inside of her. Draining pain. And she's had this her whole life...she's smart and knows on the most basic level she is choosing her life...and she looks around and wonders why she is the defective one. That's why she feels she will die if her daughters see her as she is...being fileted by life instead of living it. Like her mother. Do you see her child strong in her? See that little girl, 3-years-old, running her adult life? More pain added to old pain, fresh and constant. No wonder she can't handle being around your girls...she triggers to her little girl pain, wants it to stop, now, and bears all her own expectations, failing them, as a mother, because she doesn't know her little girl inside is overwhelming her, choosing her life, handing her emotions from a 3-year-old comprehension level.
She knows running from pain; you didn't cause it, can't control it or cure it. You have influence, IK...your example to your children, her seeing you acknowledge when they are angry, hurt or fussing...will help heal her child. Remember that book I advised? Between Parent and Child? One of those things you thought you'd get to...might save your marriage. God doesn't give us these parallels without reason. And your inner boy is alive and kicking right now; has been since January...to the detriment of your Plan A. Saving our marriage is saving ourselves...
Everything your wife is asking for in her email to her mother, was what her mother didn't provide her (or her father)...loving her not because she was their daughter, but because she was their good daughter. She was the one they turned control over to--she was their shame. All that her parents have learned in their lives was captured in that one moment on the couch...holding the infant daughter in her arms, when she leaned on that baby, smothering it as a child. They were not strong for her; now she sees herself not strong for herself, either. They were not the caregivers, but the takers...they didn't show her how to handle pain, anger, frustration, helplessness...didn't show her that these were her own...only to displace them, run and resent. They are not strong for her now. She says she is sorry they had to witness her A first hand...yet I believe she relishes it now, that she was finally held, the little girl who finally got loved, even when she was bad. She was actively wrong and harmful. Still loved. Hasn't sunk in. IL's are weak, still, in truth, courage and consumed by their own fears. They have struggled all their lives with these same issues...yes, a sit down is important. Talk to them first and ask them to own what they did, describe how it was the same for them growing up, how their parents didn't show emotions or recognize them...a running away from the inside, and how they committed to being different parents, all the while, passing it on and on. Ownership is what your WW most craves...she is diseased with blame and shame, being the cause, control and cure of everyone else. That would be an important step.
If this didn't happen in your chat, have it again. And again. Each night until they are gone. Her issues are part of the marriage. They are important.
See how all of this is about ending the A, the fantasy? You changing, thoroughly, claiming yourself, your stuff, was crucial to Plan A...along with exposure, injecting respect, your own self-care and wiping out your resentments. All were as crucial as Plan B...effective Plan A's don't have their tongue missing...they have it freed by respect, owning themselves and their choices...and your self has fought to get there using this betrayal, to finally be heard. Now you are mute. A betrayal of self.
Hear your little boy? "How fair is this?" Outrage, being right in being so wronged...all of that...you are feeding your muteness, your wishful child is running your days, surviving mired within incredible pain. Half of that is yours, IK. Has been and will be until you claim your self, also. A lot of the same stuff WW has to deal with, you do also. Yet only one of you has sunk into the wet concrete of entitlement...or have you both?
Plan A wasn't a manipulation to save your marriage and stop the A...if that is all it is intended for, then you would have a damaged, crippled marriage saved, wouldn't you? And you would not trust again because you manipulated her in her choices.
Plan A was to reconnect with your honesty, openness...to yourself and others. To see reality and not the smeary fantasy you were living...again, contributes to the state of the marriage, not at all to the choice of an A. Important. Listening and repeating...which takes you being focused, present, not defensive, and injects respect. Introduces separate and equal, awareness of your WW's pain, her issues...and no longer making them your own.
I know where the battery acid on your marriage came in...from your inlaws. They are entrenched in the idea that one spouse takes care of the other...owns the others' thoughts, feelings and beliefs. They have both been crushed under this burden...because you can't really give those things away...only lie to yourself that you did. Shift blame, feel relief...yet continue in pain; because we own what we own, inherently, without choice to shift it. That is a fantasy. So we each carry double burdens with this belief...choosing to see love as something from the outside, owed and earned, when it is an embedded choice. Their lives have not gotten them to a sane belief; they continue the fantasy and that's how they relate to their daughter. They self soothe with this same fantasy, same fears, same control issues. A disrespectful life. A life full of disappointment, resentment, frustration and heartbreak...and no joy. That's why MIL comes across to us as an enemy and a supporter; the duality of what they example, how they choose to live, is corrosive in its presence.
It is how you chose to work your marriage. I am asking you, please, to choose differently. I am asking you for a full fledged Plan A, which heals you, soars your, and reclaims you and your life. So that you will be okay with or without WW...you will know you are complete, whole, not defective, loved for your being because you will commit to loving your being, finally.
Same issues, different reactions and choosing to live reactively. IK...time to get this, know this and live it...for your own sake, and the dear sake of your daughters. No more passing it on. They are young. You have this choice. The knowledge...the way. Time to hold your inner boy and tell him to trust the adult IK...who knows all of this; will care for and love him--good, bad or ugly--forever. The only time we can say it and mean...is with ourselves.
LA
::