How an apology works

[Rose White]

This resonates with me—very helpful! I hope I say it tonight.

 

[Rose White]

I’m so proud of myself! I said those words! I was strong! I looked good too! She commented on it, my husband commented on it before we left, and I felt it!

Here’s the number one best part! She did a really cool thing...

He loves to talk about how hard his childhood was, all the bad stuff he saw, his bad friends. She asked him about it and she let him go on and on and she was right there with him, full of compassion and curiousity. I listened politely. I felt myself thinking he was pathetic a bit—that’s my Growler part.

Then she suggested that all those difficulties and traumatic things he saw and experienced may have had an effect on him, she believed they did, she even suggested he had PTSD.

I was a bit shocked, but then I saw it—if she could convince him that he had suffered, maybe she could get him to feel empathetic toward me.

But he didn’t take the bait. He insisted that those things—all those terrible things—I call them his badges—that none of them affected him. Betrayal, on the other hand, that traumatized him.

Needless to say, I was impressed with her ability to tap into his desire to garner sympathy as a possibility for us to connect.

Here were some other great parts. He complained that I said I was disassociating when we used to have sex, but he didn’t understand how that was possible if I had been talking to him. She said that sadly it was most likely absolutely true that I was disassociating during sex and that even if I was talking there are other issues surrounding ownership of my body. YES!!!

The absolutely best part was when she got him to admit to his addictions and he said the words, “I’m probably a sex addict,” and she looked immediately at me and I nodded. I felt really safe at that moment.

And she told him that the absolute best thing he could do would be to put in the work on himself with an addiction counselor, and she had the name of one and he was an older man—which is the kind of person I’ve wanted him to see from the beginning! When he went to an individual therapist before he chose a gal his age who was a former IV drug user like him and he was hoping for some therapy love but of course he was faced with himself and felt burned so he quit. There is a very good chance that he will not go to an addiction counselor and that he won’t be able to handle a man, but that’s his problem—only time will tell.

She told him he was very black and white. She told him that when he flies off the handle that’s an emotional flashback. She told him that I’m very clearly saying that I’m trying to make this work so if he leaves that is HIS choice.

WOW! Just. Wow!

@EveHarrington your words came just in the nick of time—and I made them my words—and it was truth!

What a big day for me!

 

[Freida]

yeah!!!!!!!!!!!! So happy it went so well!

 

[Mytime]

I’m happy you had a good session and that you used your voice. :)