General Out Of Desperation....

[jenkins123]

You seem to be a very strong partner and supportive, I applaud you for how you are coping with this hard journey, and the respect you are giving your wife, as hard as it is. Look after yourself as much as possible too.
My point is that the more I read, the more confusing and a minefiled I find it can be for the supporter to "interpret" what their sufferer says. As I said before, a sufferer has to do their own therapy to be able to communicate appropriately with their supportive partner (yours seems to be a good example of this clear communication), but when presented with, as MissAntisunshine puts it "self destructive" phrases to push you away, how can a supporter draw the line between respecting what they are being told/asked to do, and knowing that this is not really what the sufferer wants and act accordingly? We know we should respect our sufferers wishes, but at times it seems these are not really their wishes. A dilemma indeed.

 

[Angus McGee]

"minefield". Great description.

I've also used "walking a tight-wire" between being making her feel smothered, and abandoned.

 

[Kintsugi]

You seem to be a very strong partner and supportive, I applaud you for how you are coping with this hard journey, and the respect you are giving your wife, as hard as it is

Angus is the bomb. :tup:

when presented with, as MissAntisunshine puts it "self destructive" phrases to push you away, how can a supporter draw the line between respecting what they are being told/asked to do, and knowing that this is not really what the sufferer wants and act accordingly?

She has given me the green light to find someone new

"find someone else...move on..."

Okay. I thought it appropriate to cluster all of this together in a row so we could see it clearly. What I am about to say is only from personal experience, but I am the queen of self-destructive phrases in relationships. I am so not proud of this crown.

From my experience, the phrases said to push the supporter away are almost always in the command form or in a form of permission.

"Leave me."

"Just go."

"Find someone new."

"You don't have to be in this relationship."

"It's okay if you want to start seeing other people."

They are nearly never (not always never, but I would say almost in my case)

"I'm leaving."

"I want to see other people."

"I don't want to be with you."

I project my fears onto my partners--all of my fears of abandonment, inadequacy. It all goes to them. So my mind is saying, "He's going to leave you. He doesn't love you. He wants someone else. You're not enough," not, "I want to leave. I don't like this. I want to see someone else." So, when I do this pushing away, I generally phrase things in a way where I am not saying that I want to leave. I am telling them to leave or giving them permission to seek romance elsewhere, because my expectations and fears are that this is what they're going to do, not because I don't want to be in the relationship. If I didn't want to be in the relationship, I would walk out of it. Not tell the other person to go. It's kind of like firing someone before they can quit: a buffer, the last word. If they do as I say, I will think, "I was right all along."

I would say that the sincere coldness that often accompanies these situations is present not because I don't care about my partner deeply but because I am already grieving them leaving me, before it happens. I am ashamed to say I have cried myself to sleep purely because I felt like my partner was going to walk out on me any second.

And, ultimately, there were two factors why, and I've told him (after totally breaking down following many, many self-destructive phrases to make him leave).
A) I'm afraid you're going to leave me.
B) Because I would if I could.

 

[Angus McGee]

Very interesting post, MissAntiSunshine.

Thanks.

And thanks for the compliment.

:cool: