FB,
First, how to find a counselor...I did an internet search with the keywords "Christian" "pro-marriage" "marital counseling" and came up with our MC.
First session, I asked about Dr. Harley and this website. He was familiar. Had to open my mouth, not assume, not wait for...asked. Each time you do, you acknowledge your own bravery--so you experience being brave. Each time you assert, you're on your way to forming the habit of acting assertively.
That's how humans work.
I can see in your posts where you talk yourself out of what you really want...disguise, hide and ignore your own self. What a great thing to realize! Congrats...you see where you hold your WH to acting, thinking, believing, perceiving as YOU would do. First step in breaking enmeshment is being aware of it.
He's not you. If he were, you wouldn't have married him.
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Okay, maybe it wouldn't have been legal.
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You realize that DJs (Harley's Love Busters...Disrespectful Judgments) kick your own butt. They do so inside yourself, in your marriage, and actually, in every relationship you will have. Great to kick the DJs to the curb.
I believe this because I lived it. I would have said and done exactly what you did with his trip...no doubt in my mind. I created and nurtured resentment like my most prized possession. In MC, learned to stop doing that to myself.
More congrats on identifying your fear of WH's anger.
Do you fear other people's anger? Strangers, parents, siblings, friends? When they are upset with you, are you the cause?
I ask this because my DH feared my anger. I got the flip side of this...and when our MC said to me, "He fears you" I about flipped out right there! I was devastated...until I looked at the whole...DH feared everyone.
Whew.
Didn't mean that my anger (AO's) weren't fearful...they certainly were. Only I had already begun eliminating them, revoking my permission to act out, because that's not what I wanted nor how I wanted to be...didn't want that experience. Same for DJ's and SD's, lying and IBs, too.
I feared disapproval like DH feared anger. Come to find out, he feared disapproval within the anger...he believed that anger was the end of love...the opposite of it. He believed if he felt anger, he didn't love.
Takes time to process...I couldn't own his stuff. His fears were his...not me being the cause, control or cure. Had to learn my own boundaries, what I did that wasn't really me...wasn't who I really was inside...just me being my parents as a parent...this was my half of learning how to partner.
What is to stop you now from asking your WH to come back now, from his trip? Can you ask and let the outcome go?
Also, what are the steps of transparency for you? List them out...get clear on what will rebuild your trust over time and what won't...only you can decide. That's yours. His choice will be to do or not do. Not about you. About him.
And about viewing your H's being set off at the "stupidest" of things...this will come to bite you hard right now. Would you like him viewing your triggers as the "stupidest" of things? When we judge what others are angry about, we distract from the way they choose to express that anger by judging the cause of it.
Adult humans trigger cumulatively...you may discover this as you trigger about his A. If someone leaving a plastic lid out on the living room table blew his top...could mean the time he was belted for doing so when he was small...may say to him what was said to him...how disrespectful, that he was a slob, a lazy bum and a lout. And each time he sees a plastic lid on a coffee table, he re-experiences that huge pain fully, and fear, again and again. Accumulating over decades. Can grow to mean that he's not loved or cared about at all.
I'm not saying that you deserve his pain flung out over you and the kids. I'm saying that judging what sets him off distracts you from intimacy, of knowing who he is...your judgment stops you, can make you feel righteous, smarter, more together than him...to trigger over such a stupid thing.
Reality is that he triggers, it matters, and his acting out remains unacceptable. Except...you accepted it, tried to control it, prevent it, change it...because you took on being the cause, control and cure of it. Learn about boundary enforcements for behaviors...so you don't put the boundary around him NOT feeling pain or fear (anger is a secondary emotion...either pain or fear is present first).
You're at the point of recovery, and I would like you to stay aware there are two recoveries...your personal recovery and marital recovery. Sometimes, these overlap...most of the time, they are separate. Lots of growth, change and newness involved in both.
Only you can control your own personal recovery. And I believe, together you can build a marriage which outdistances the old in reward and intimacy. Like no more eggshells for people's anger. No more living your life based on others' possible responses. Owning your own life fully, side by side a FWH...partnering, not parenting.
It's a great life, FB. You've already proven you're brave (exposure to OWH). Know you are and that you can do this, every step of the way, 'k?
LA
