Piecing things together

[RubyBlue]

And now I am obsessing over the George Floyd police brutality business. Like cannot stop following stories and responding to people about it. Must stop.

Tbf it’s almost impossible to avoid the stories. I get why, but from a mental health aspect- I feel you.

 

[HealingMama]

Tbf it’s almost impossible to avoid the stories. I get why, but from a mental health aspect- I feel you.

I feel like it's my job as a white person to obsess over it and educate myself and educate everyone but I'm only one person and no matter what I do it will never be enough.

 

[RubyBlue]

I feel like it's my job as a white person to obsess over it and educate myself and educate everyone but I'm only one person and no matter what I do it will never be enough.

I get this. And it’s hard, it’s hard to keep up with what’s right and what’s wrong and I want to. I absolutely do, but it feels like trying to jump on a hamster wheel going 90 mph while carrying an overloaded backpack of our own stuff and we are set up for failure. And I have no idea how to overcome it.

 

[HealingMama]

I get this. And it’s hard, it’s hard to keep up with what’s right and what’s wrong and I want to. I absolutely do, but it feels like trying to jump on a hamster wheel going 90 mph while carrying an overloaded backpack of our own stuff and we are set up for failure. And I have no idea how to overcome it.

Yes even things that I think are right turn out to be wrong and I'm feeling shamed constantly, because of that backpack you mention. Then I opt out of social media and feel like a traitor or something. Thanks for replying. Helps to know I'm not the only one struggling with this.

 

[HealingMama]

Therapy today. I continue to ask my spouse for a separation. He continues to say he is holding out hope that things can be better, while simultaneously dumping bitterness and hostility.

He seems to think I do things on purpose. Last night he said I wanted things to be bad. No, I really don't. I don't see how this relationship can get healthy when he has so many negative assumptions.

I really think everyone will be happier and more emotionally safe if we live separately. He will probably function worse alone, but that can't be my problem to solve. Part of the reason I'm so terrible is the stress of picking up his slack when he doesn't notice or appreciate it most of the time, and intermittently blames me as if I'm doing something wrong or trying to control him vs trying to be sure life functions to a basic level.

I think that I am going to ruin any relationship I have. I should be single for life. Relationships hurt. There's too many factors I can't do anything about.

In my intake with the new therapist he asked three different times "why therapy now" as if he didn't understand my answer or didn't believe it is a worthy focus for therapy... Idk why he kept asking but it made me think I was doing something wrong. I've never gotten that from an intake before.

Yesterday in discussing separating and how I need to be able to move on and find someone that doesn't see me the way my partner sees me, he said "you mean so you can ruin another person?"

Later in the evening we were discussing an incident and I mentioned having attachment issues and he says emphatically "yes, yes you do."

He is not a safe person and I do not think I can continue my recovery while I am married to him.

 

[Jade-]

After catching up on posts I would think that living apart would be the best choice. Even if it's just temporary.

I believe that would give you both time to decide whether it should be a permanent thing or not. I think holding off on making a decision would be ideal.

Right now it's something you keep flip flopping back and forth on. You seem to want the relationship when things are ok but then want out if/when things don't go how you would like them to.

I think you would really benefit from living apart and working on yourself. It sounds impossible for you to make progress when you're constantly triggered by him.

Maybe he can work on himself too,then you can work together in deciding about the marriage at a later date.

They say don't make any major decisions for 6 months in Alanon groups. That a person needs to work on their self first. Maybe that philosophy applies here too?

 

[HealingMama]

After catching up on posts I would think that living apart would be the best choice. Even if it's just temporary.

I believe that would give you both time to decide whether it should be a permanent thing or not. I think holding off on making a decision would be ideal.

Right now it's something you keep flip flopping back and forth on. You seem to want the relationship when things are ok but then want out if/when things don't go how you would like them to.

I think you would really benefit from living apart and working on yourself. It sounds impossible for you to make progress when you're constantly triggered by him.

Maybe he can work on himself too,then you can work together in deciding about the marriage at a later date.

They say don't make any major decisions for 6 months in Alanon groups. That a person needs to work on their self first. Maybe that philosophy applies here too?

I agree. I told him I am not necessarily asking for a divorce. I've been pretty consistently asking to separate for the last couple of months. Even when things start to feel better, I realize it's only a matter of time before it goes to shit again and I'm tired.

Also, it's great to hear from you and :waves:

 

[HealingMama]

Well, I think I have discovered something that will keep me from waffling about my relationship.

Spouse has a secret virtual phone number he's been paying for, that is linked to an app that pretends to be a basic utility while hiding messages, contacts and phone calls. I saw the charges on a bank statement a few months ago and asked about it. He made it sound like a mistake left over from long ago that he delayed to address because of the ADHD. Followed up when it was on the next bank statement. He said he forgot to address it. Asked again and he said he took care of it.

The subscription was started in January of this year. That's hardly some ancient thing that transferred over that one forgot about. According to the list of charges he has gone in there to manually pay for additional features at least once since I first noticed and asked about the payment.

So he's got a secret phone number, secret messaging and lied right to my face about it.

I don't really care what he's hiding. That's enough to be done. That level of secretiveness and deceit has no place in a marriage and if I say anything about it he will just get better at hiding what he's doing rather than actually change anything. So that's that.

 

[HealingMama]

I am taking bupropion now. I'm not exactly sure how I managed to be in denial about having depression, but after taking it a bit it's started to kick in, and I clearly had some depression before. I am feeling bad for my spouse as I suspect a lot of my own negative behavior was from this.

I am really dysregulated about this upcoming surgery and then having to rely on my partner for the recovery time.

They asked at pre-op for emergency contact info and I'm like here's both his numbers because I cannot get him consistently on either one of them.

His ADHD will make him function well enough once I'm in the situation because it's kind of a crisis and he steps up better in a crisis... but the idea of having to depend on him is really difficult.

The idea of getting general anesthesia is also really difficult. It makes me weepy, very emotional, I feel like all of my toxic shame all at once for a few hours after I get it, and the only other time I had it, my boyfriend at the time triggered the shit out of me and I didn't have the tools to deal with it. And now my relationship is so rocky and I have to depend on him. It is probably fine. And if it won't be fine, I can't really do anything about that. I need to get this thing out of my body.

 

[HealingMama]

And my husband just yelled my name from across the house in a very stern tone... so my sympathetic nervous system is doing somersaults now... despite Xanax in me... I'm so tired of having a broken brain.

He's calling me to dinner, brain. He's not assaulting me.

 

[HealingMama]

I was doing so good, y'all. I was letting things go, not sweating the small stuff. I am worried about having to rely on my spouse after surgery so I have been working super hard to be sure we don't argue and if we do, that it doesn't get out of hand like it has.

And then 2 days before my surgery it all falls apart. I asked what time he was planning to take his ADHD meds for the day and he said if you keep asking about it I won't take them at all. I took this statement really hard. I just think it's terrible to basically threaten to use his symptoms as a weapon against me. As usual I needed a super fancy perfect apology, not an apology that sounds like "sorry you're such a dumbass" instead of "sorry I hurt you." Didn't get one until 12 hours later when my goodwill and ability to be attached have all been shredded which I told him would happen. So, I really needed him to then do something to fix the broken bond and broken trust, but all he did was give some effort about the original issue.

I do not know how to remain hopeful and attached to someone that will knowingly leave me to suffer emotionally for 12 hours because I have a hard time compartmentalizing as well as they do. To me, that means this person doesn't have my best interest in mind and is not to be trusted. A trustworthy, caring person would do their best to resolve something before they will be gone for a long time especially if they know this is an important emotional need.

Just got off the phone with a divorce attorney. He really gave it to me last time I brought up divorce. He was finally in agreement. I grieved. I was sad, of course there's things about my relationship I do not want to give up. I was numb for a long time and then he apologized about something without doing this awful dance we usually do and I opened my heart again. And I made it like a week before we are right back where we always go.

He thinks I am sabotaging because I am afraid I cannot rely on him to help me after my surgery. I guess in theory that's possible. I'm coming here to reflect on that idea. I really feel like I just have this compulsive need for someone who is supposed to care act like they care if I tell them their actions have caused me pain. If I say ouch I want to hear I'm sorry that I hurt you not "it's all your fault." If I am hurting I want my significant other to want to understand why, instead of being a jerk.

I was trying to talk this through with him today and I told him I don't know why I keep trying to get empathy from you, you clearly don't care if you hurt me. He says that isn't true, he does care if he hurts me. Then yells in my face "the problem is everything hurts you!"

He's not wrong. I have tried to pick my battles but I'm not very good at it. My underlying beliefs are to expect bad to be done to me, to expect that people who say the love me want to use and abuse me.

But I really and truly have done everything I can here, and my relationship is worse not better. I have changed so much and the more I change, the more he lives in the past. The more effort I make, the more disrespectful he becomes.

I really don't want my son to hardly ever see his dad, which is what would happen if we split. But this is not a life. I can't get through to him. He just thinks I want to fight when what I want is for him to understand that I am a WOMAN and to talk to me the way a woman wants to be talked to.

Seriously if he just admitted right after he said that crap about his meds that he shouldn't have said it, none of this would have happened. He thinks I enjoy it. I hate it, but I don't know how to just give up the need for understanding and care. If you hurt someone, you fix it. I asked him to fix it a particular way and rather than do what I asked he stonewalled me then brought home a bunch of food. I didn't ask you to feed me. I asked you to develop some emotional intelligence.

Looks like we can blow up this dying planet for about $2k. Lawyer recommended that I get him to go ahead and move out first. I have to crunch some numbers.

 

[HealingMama]

If I am so afraid that he will let me down during surgery that I am preemptively creating it, then I must be really good at hiding that from myself because I do not feel on any level that this is accurate.

What I do feel, is that his ADHD has hurt me and our family in many different ways over the years, and it's been really hard. So for him to basically refuse to manage it as some kind of punishment for me asking him to, I don't know how I wouldn't feel upset by that. He says it was "just rhetoric" but you can't throw out stuff about a really sensitive, painful situation willy nilly like that.

I wonder if I'm just unlovable, or if I am badly matched. I feel like I could have a successful relationship with someone psychologically minded who values open communication.

He is burned out and I am too. He's been yelling at me a lot lately. There's no kids in the house and so he's not even trying to control himself. I am really dreading this recovery time. I have asked a different family member to get me at the hospital. After he said what he said and was such a jerk about the apology, I do not want to rely on him for anything. I told him he proved that he isn't safe. If he didn't really mean it he shouldn't have said it.

I put in SO MUCH WORK to avoid this exact scenario. I am feeling very defeated and hopeless.