First advice...listen to your typos.
I want to type I'm trying, but I'd be lying, I keep putting it off.
When you ask yourself why you put off doing what is good and loving for yourself, what answer do you get?
Second, a question -- did you keep the solicitor's appointment and if so, how'd that go?
If J didn't agree out of court, then likely the courts would make sure I had a mortgage free or small mortgage property over my head. Unfoirtunately there wouldn't be enough for J to get one straight off, but at least he earns enough to get a mortgage.
You did keep the appointment? And what you got most out of it was a realistic picture of the financial consequences, if the split is doable?
Here's what I wrote and debated with myself on posting or not...
It has great rhythm and is stirring and poetic and I don't disagree, I just can't make sense of it.
I'm going to have a little go and it may turn out a little like a counselling session.
Thank you for having a little go at it, anyway. Seems you took what you needed...so you made sense out of it.
yes, there is then a void maybe and I seek out change - a move/job change/something to keep me really occupied and busy which causes conflict as J resists change.
Do you believe that you can fill a void in the abuse pattern with move/job change? Distraction is in part healing, giving time for humans to hear, maybe...still a part of the pattern of managing emotions instead of changing choices, I think. Your focus is stuck all over J...you made my question which was about you, a new void, about him and him resisting change.
Would you consider he's your mirror? You see more of your stuff through him than you do looking into yourself. You think you are too painful to examine, to know. Reasonable you then think J is the source of your anguish.
I see you seeing your pain, anger and frustration inside you as about J...which betrays you, says you are HIS creation, his result, not a whole, complete person with your own emotions, thoughts, beliefs, choices and actions. I read you as believing HIS actions mean more to the marriage than yours do...that he generates your feelings...he's the cause, control and cure for you.
Can you really imagine carrying the weight of another person to that extent? Wouldn't it be crushing? Ask yourself...because you may be carrying all of his stuff...and calling it love...where you guys exchanged yourselves entirely.
And when you take back what is solely yours, and hand back what isn't, then all your acts of love, meeting ENs, will add to your own love bank and you can see his deposits coming in, also.
Not the all or nothing...you doing to make him feel so you can feel...that part eliminated. And your awareness will become keen when you are self-stabbing and putting the knife (figuratively) in J's hands. And when you're not.
Eliminating the LB in you that holds all those "shoulda-woulda-coulda" stuff. You do that. In your own head. And it's tricky, and wearing, and tiring. We sap our own strength when we're caught in that cycle...and it's a great replacement for the extreme abuse we no longer are receiving or handing out.
Still abusive. Dr. Harley is all about creating habits and replacing destructive ones...you guys had a destructive habit...both of you...in your marriage...and it's not there anymore...not right now...and when you judge, rate and compare what J says to what you want him to be saying, you're putting bits of it back in. You assume your spouse, instead of partner him.
And none of what I'm saying will change J...make him better, nicer, more present, less negative...yet if you will do a personal reset in yourself, you will experience J as J truly is...different, new today. This is a J you don't know...none of our spouses are when we finally stop predicting them.
And act our love for them, instead.
He's doing the course to address his past, present and future actions...he's being told of the inevitable and unchangeable consequences to his past actions...
and not seeing those right in front of him, right now.
I'm not sure I understand this.
It is very hard to absorb the enormity of how much our past actions affect our present...a transition time from what we once believed to what we now know...I know you get this because you have experienced it, too. Are experiencing. Doesn't excuse anything...sure does explain a lot.
And you very much want him to see through the eyes of appreciation, for right now, all that he has, see with gratitude and understanding...and I'd like you to do that with him, too. I saw you regroup and look again how you were seeing your marriage as different for awhile...and I heard gratitude. To me, that was loving self-care on your part.
self abuse in that I manipulate J into being abusive towards me?
Is that your belief, that you can make J act abusively? Or would you consider that in order to justify his previous abuse, he had to make you the cause, control and cure for his own choices, his actions? So if you do the same thing...what do you call that?
I hear you both saying you guys want the exact same things...
he wishes he would stop being a constant source of disappointment to you...he wishes a divorce would mean a clean slate, a do-over, an apology, and wishes your unhappiness didn't mean the world to him...
Have you spoken with him?
No, I haven't. Will you ask him this, to really know if anything in my own experience resonates?
Also, will you consider what a common overlap it is, to believe love is making ourselves the cause, control and cure for what isn't ours?
Not the source of our spouse's happiness...the cause. Different. One is a supply, an offering...the other is the control of...so you want to make him NOT feel impatient, abandoned or discounted...rather than you knowing you are a source of acceptance, inclusion and respect. He will feel and you will feel...and separating those is how you get to know your half.
You hear him say "We have no chance" and then his justification of today's feelings for way down the road maybe's. What if you heard him say "I'm afraid we'll have no chance" and it's wording? He's sharing HIS fear...and you're hearing only condemnation through negativity. Only you can adjust your hearing to test what your perception...he can't. Takes the goal of really knowing him or wanting him to be someone you want to know...your goal is in your own hands. Pick ones you want most, will be most proud of yourself.
You are worth knowing, ST. You're not bad or wrong, poorly made, inadequate or broken. You will do harm, though. We all do. The deepest harm is in refusing to look at ourselves and see where we are doing it and to whom. Because we damage ourselves when we are harming others, too. Never just goes one way.
And I think you believe that it does...that only J is doing harm to you...evidenced by you feeling pain, rejection, frustration and fear.
you wish he would stop being a constant source of disappointment to you, too...each expectation you set him up for, he fails...he inflicts and he blames you as you're blaming him...and then you stop and look at how far you've both come...and still feel like you hate him...
If your feelings truly are yours, and they are a result of your thoughts, perceptions, perspective...beliefs...then J is a source, not in control of your disappointment...you're half of it...your expectations matter...they give you your feelings...and his half is how his actions do and do not meet those...you gotta check your expectations for validity, if they are abusive to you, him and the marriage or not. We will change our true goals, "I want to be crazy in love with my husband" to temporary ones, "If only he'd just come home on time tonight with a smile...that's all I want" and we crash and burn. We literally sabotage our greater goal and train our brains to not give us those love deposits...
because he did come home. He does love having dinner with his family. He does love his children and his wife. And you didn't make him love. You're not that powerful. He chooses you. And he hurts. And I don't read where you acknowledge and validate that this man hurts a lot. He's saying it and you're hearing about you...instead of about him. Separate and equal...a phrase that really helped me get this...because when I was in so much pain, I COULDN'T see my H's...too much to hold...and so I didn't see how much harm I was doing to him, adding to his pain...wouldn't look. And all my pain I assigned to his actions, his doing, and not doing...and half was from my expectations laced with toxic phrases like...
If he loved me he wouldn't...
If he even cared a whit about me, he would...
He's just using me, I'm convenient, I'm a waste...I'm not a person to him...
Changing those same toxic thoughts into really healthy ones...
Because I choose to love him, I won't do....
Because I choose to act from care and respect, I will...
I will not use my spouse as an object, degrade him into a caricature, for my use to manage my emotions. I will not see him as convenient, a burden, another child for I will respect myself and others. No matter on this planet is lost...no human being can be a waste.
I matter. J matters.
Those are the laws of marriage to me.
What J does matters equally to what I do. Even when it doesn't feel like it.
We cannot wish the past away, and the more time we indulge ourselves in doing just that, the more we are saying, "If every day isn't perfect, it's not enough." Which is saying, "If I am not perfect, then I'm not enough." And also, "If J isn't perfect, then he's not enough for me."
Each time we wish for something to go perfectly, all these can be sitting there, inside that expectation, wish, desire.
When in reality, we just want to experience something together...which is true and real...the main part. When you want perfect, you're in control, not love. Only you can separate those out...and know which you act from.
The ironing board is control, not love. A great symbol, though, to help you sort them out...if you imagine yourself as the board that J irons his human wrinkles out on...and you get burned and used.
...and you're sick of going first...doing that sacrifice again in reverse...
You're worth going first for. You always have been. Your actions are about you...what you want. Control is about trying to make others do and not do what you DON'T want. Helps to sort control from love.
You will love, and feel in love (with J's changes over time)...if that's what you want most. I'm reading you wanting most is to be safe from any more pain coming in from the outside...not one more bit of disappointment, rejection or conflict.
Which is why you will not feel in love, no matter what J does or doesn't do, nor feel loved. Part of your self-abuse is blocking his deposits, allowing your DJs to run riot in your head, and self-rejection in seeing your pain coming in, instead of inside you.
Go first for yourself. You have a huge debt to yourself, to acknowledge your own responsibility...because that's the secret allure of abuse...you get to see your own stuff as if it's not (no blame) when it still is yours...and in the battle between wanting most to be blameless and to have power (which is responsibility), we choose...not them. Not anyone else.
I do do this. I do add the "right now"
<snipped other quote>
I do do this. I do add the "right now" And he continues to make it into our future and he says " we can't go and visit freinds in Spain In August, because we will have to pretend to be happy and will be living a lie" This is what shuts me off - the projection of the negative into the future. When I know that the crap is only for "now", this is what is so wearing for me: that every disagreement is the end of the world and that we shouldn't be together. IT is truly J that needs to put the "right now" on the end of everything.
Great to know you're doing this in your words. Go further.
In your own head, and even aloud, add them to HIS words, too.
And he won't do/not do because YOU change...the interaction changes for sure. And your experience in the interaction will change. Your resulting emotions will be different.
Why not choose to listen and repeat with your own filter (make it healthy), "You're saying you're afraid if we go to Spain in August, to visit our friends, that you'll have to pretend to be happy and fear living a lie." With filter: "You really want to feel happy and live it as the truth of your life."
You do so NOT to change his perspective...for you to understand it...not assume...and not add or remove toxic material.
He fears...and fear is the negative of love, feels like. It's not. It's the contrast so you can even experience "love"...it's necessary. Fear of losing you, losing his family, losing what he cherishes most (and therefore resents the most)...fear as negative. Your choice to hear it differently or to keep proving to yourself he'll thwart all your dreams, he won't give you what you want most, that he is toxic to your healthy...making him the problem is a snap.
It's simple and easy. Respecting him as a person, not a problem...now that's hard. And you got it...you did it...and then you stopped. So you begin again...and stop doing the old stuff, for the old reasons (you wore them out), in the old way.
You are new every day, ST. Every single day.
I try to - we both try to explain conflict and we can see that not only are we doing it because it is the right thing to do but also because they really appreciate it and show us.
What if your "tries" kill your marriage? Would you stop them then? I believe YOU DO explain conflict instead of connect through it...you don't have to explain to your children...you have to example your convictions and own when you fail to act to them.
I bet you both are great parents...I hear passion and commitment...even when he says he won't contact them...hey, you make him the problem, removing him from all your lives would be the solution, right? If every act he makes has so much power...that's too much power, don't you think? Better to be without him, the problem...kids would be better off, you'd be better off...he's a constant source of failure...instead of happiness. That's what I hear you saying about J. You may not be saying this...yet you believing he says it only to hurt you is a huge DJ you use to wound yourself...and rightfully so...because when you give all YOUR power to your partner, then you gotta hurt yourself enough to stop the betrayal you're doing, right?
Rock bottom is when the pain of not changing outweighs the pain of changing. And we hit it again and again...because we really don't want to keep betraying ourselves with our own chosen perspective and perception.
how does it get unlayered? I'm not sure about this, but I can't deny it. My self loathing has been increasing in recent weeks
You are loathing what J and the kids love. Think about that. You are going to hate yourself for abandoning your own choices and only seeing through J. Picture your kids doing this to one another..."I feel bad because HE did this" or "I feel bad because HE didn't do that for me"...the extreme, now, not the moderate...the "I am only because he is" is the toxic union...the becoming one (enmeshed). We are two separate human beings in one union. What you won't do for J (ironing board) you can do for the marriage.
And to honor the marriage, you gotta love, respect and act loving to yourself, strive to understand, acknowledge and own what is yours...that's your responsibility in your vows. And you guys have gone through, together, much of the vows...the unasked for, the grief that shouldn't be and is...and then isn't. Doesn't mean you go through it well or gracefully...means you do go through, together. Which is what you vowed...to go through it all...didn't vow to be happy with abuse or resentful without being heard...you just said you'd go through, and so did J.
And he's still there, going through. Consider asking if he wants his pain to end or the marriage. They are two different things.
I know you know that. Only ask after you can answer that for yourself.
and you both want it all now to be different, solved...stay solved.
very much so. please
You would pray to have God out of your life, or only in it if God was smooth sailing? You will not solve J, ST. He will not solve you. What we actually do yearn for most...at the very best, you will know J and he will know you...and there's a miracle in that...and it's a daily knowing...and through this, God will work...no smooth sailing...you will succeed at being open to God's opportunity to connect with both of you through your union. You can rely on him for resolution...he depends on your resolve.
He does not want us to endure...he wants us to thrive...and we are in the habit of enduring. Transition time. We get glimpses...we aren't broken, so we don't get fixed forever...you know that. Stop wishing for it. It's like wishing God were different, better, more or less than...
Ouch. Not what you really want...I don't believe that's what you really want to be doing, praying for...your goal of peace and stability, predictability only...rather, you're praying that you will have more joyous days than hard ones...and accept how God works through the hard ones, too...and that each day is one day, each hour and moment, just one...and we all share it and then it's gone...so that "right now" is real...and true...and wishing anything else is abandonment and a travesty to this moment...which passes.
You're in that moment with J...his very presence matters. Don't thwart yourself, ST. You matter. Before you speak a word or take an action...you matter. Equally.
Understandable and not reasonable.
That was tough for me to write...will you think on it? How empowered and responsible do you really feel when you are wishing? Reasonable to react to resentment, entitlement, or understandable? What you really want or not what you really want...you can feel wishful and not react to it. Take it as a signal, a gift from you, to you, for you...receive it. Be okay with it...caught yourself wishing, feeding your resentment instead of building your marriage. Indulgent...doesn't feel toxic or self-harming. It is...poison you take inside yourself...and wait for J to change from it.
And you said it, promised yourself:
I will try to be mindful of this - this is kind of resentful/entitlement speak.
See, not what you want for yourself. You love better than that. And you'll keep your promise...and when you don't, what will you do?
Do you think? You think I set myself up?
Yes. I do. Because I did this. I see you doing it. My own perspective, 'k?
I think I'm depressed - this doesn't seem like something good at the mo
I think you're most likely correct. Taking the concept that depression is anger turned inward, will you ask yourself what you're angry with yourself about?
And if you do like having fun, just not with J right now, will you ask yourself why you're unwilling to have fun with your spouse?
I am desperate for a hug, desperate, but I am shutting out ALL of those people likely to give me one. Avoiding everyone.
What have you done that was so horrible to deserve such punishment from yourself? Would you consider what you crave most, you are least giving?
You want to change the present...
and you have been...for weeks...and you fall back...
Very true. Emphasize you changed your experience...not J. You changed your experience of J. You succeeded. You can choose to succeed again.
why should it be me? still the thought that jumps inot my head
Why not? You don't want it up and unused. Clarify your goal and see if you're acting to it or not. Not HIS goal...yours. Your own. Which is why "should" is the alert here...a signal, not a condition. Stop making it a condition of your existence by using it in your head, your words, your life. You want it to be him. Not in your control. You're using it as a statement instead of saying the words. You're doing that. You want to control consequences to his actions and inaction. Is that respectful? Real? Possible?
Odd, I can't ever remember laughing with him. We find different things funny - I can often remember laughing at something on telly and him giving me strange looks because he didn't find it funny and vice versa (many many occasions). NCIS really amuses me - i really enjoy the humour in that, J likes the simpsons etc which I can not stand.
When you were in love with J, you laughed. Maybe not at the same things, in the same way. You laughed, ST. You laughed in his presence, and he in yours. You liked to see him tickled the way you like to be tickled.
Do new. So you can experience new. Don't cubbyhole him and then dun him for the very limitations you placed on him. He can't change or wow you if you do that. That's how you do it to yourself.
For every downward spiral we experience, there is also an upward spiral...and we rarely experience them. You began to get that...for a few weeks and more. Choose that again.
I can't imagine it. I can't picture me looking him in the eye.
Can you hear how harmful this is? You choose not to imagine it, picturing yourself acting from respect. You choose to do damage. Own that you do. Place you begin to doing differently.
Putting down the weapons might be a bit scary.
You're already afraid most of the time. Expectations address fear (self-deceptive that way). Are you saying that laying down the ways you hurt another human being is scarier, makes you MORE anxious? Or just another way of affirming you are anxious right now?
When your children are scared, feel pain, do you want them picking up weapons and lashing out with them, to get the other person to stop hurting them? When the other kid hurt them to get THEM to stop hurting them? I don't think so. I think you tell them to use their words, their power, have ownership and to act, not react. That's my guess.
I asked if YOU had made up...
An Affection plan? An SF goal?
and you answered:
What about an RC goal and a conversation goal?
For a moment, think of what is in your control and what isn't...RC takes both (and I gave you some suggestions) and so does Conversation. How about Affection? Solely your choice to act...and yes, SF takes both (mostly)...so my point flounders there.
What if you bit off part of something to make your own, instead of bigger stuff? Acts you'll hold yourself to do because you choose to love...not because you feel in love?
And you won't do (like the divorce appointment) because HE did...it's close to a boundary enforcement...may even feel like one. Except--you cannot be made to do anything...you choose. You can't teach/change/stop J from doing/not doing through your actions. You can make and enforce your boundaries around yourself and your actions. You are powerful...as powerful as he is, ST.
It's true. I promise. Even when it feels like a lie. And when it does...when he seems to be far more powerful than you...check to see how much of your power you are putting onto him, 'k?
LA
