Piecing things together

[HealingMama]

So things devolved into a fight and I hate that. On the up side I don't have the same overwhelming anxiety about the disconnection that I had before. The energy work targeted my father's death and my feelings of abandonment.

So I'm still upset with him for withdrawing and letting the disconnection drag out but I don't have this overwhelming intensity to it like I did before. It feels like just grown up me reacting not a hurting inner child.

Still annoyed that it happened. Communication is bad. It is impossible to be around each other without the kid without things devolving. He heard me call a divorce lawyer Friday and I suspect that's why the productive conversation happened then. If there's no dire consequences in his face to motivate him, he finds it easier to just bail.

 

[HealingMama]

Yes.. Its about what he has done. Not about what he doing now. I have to do it too ( remember the blessings). He has fed the ?.

Haha yes he did a lot for me and for the family. I can count the blessings and it does help but unfortunately doesn't totally remove the need to discuss things and unfortunately he's just not good at doing that.

 

[HealingMama]

Going to a concert tonight. Hopefully I won't get shot. I'm being a bit silly but the US has so many shootings it dies cross my mind when I plan to attend an event.

Hubby and I are on good terms so at least if I die we ended on a good note.

Because my trauma is interpersonal, public events don't give me anxiety the way uh.... Unstructured socializing or unpredictable close people does. Like, strangers are safe. It's the friends and loved ones that ufk you.

 

[siniang]

Going to a concert tonight. Hopefully I won't get shot. I'm being a bit silly but the US has so many shootings it dies cross my mind when I plan to attend an event.

You are actually NOT silly. I tense up every time I go to the movies.

:hug: :hug:

Have fun!

 

[HealingMama]

Didn't get shot. The weather was perfect and the concert was outside. It was great getting out as just an adult rather than as a parent.

Couldn't sleep not knowing exactly when my husband was going to be home. Nighttime hypervigilence is so annoying. I took double my usual sleep aid and an herbal remedy hoping to counteract the hypervigilence and nothing. I just can't let go mentally until everyone that's supposed to be in my house is home. What am I gonna do when my kid becomes a teenager? ?

 

[HealingMama]

I feel that the internal changes from my retreat have stuck, but my husband is doing the same old dance so there is still a lot of toxic shit happening. I'm tired. I'm tired of how hard it is to get prosocial behavior out of him. If all humans were this allergic to sincere apology we would have all killed each other a long time ago.

He said he doesn't want to divorce but isn't even trying to protect the relationship during a disagreement. He admitted that he feels contempt. I just want to have a normal relationship where there is emotional safety. I want a relationship that has the resilience to handle discussing a difficult issue all the way through.

Now we are on day 2 of a small problem that became a big one. He will keep stonewalling for a while and then maybe extend a sideways olive branch in the form of "let's pretend nothing happened" and if I say "there are hurts that need to be healed" he will get angry and say I just want to fight.

 

[HealingMama]

I am very focused on fairness. Some of that is leisure gap stuff, division of labor stuff, mental load stuff. Some of that is because I didn't experience much generosity growing up. My emotional abuser never gave anything without strings. Including time, attention, money. Gifts were either to impress others at how great she was as a mother, or to be like a passive aggressive slap.

I used to be a very generous person. I racked up student loan debt taking out the max then using it to donate to charities I liked. I was a helpful person but probably a bit of that was codependency.

In my schooling we were taught self care is very important, you can't give from an empty cup etc. So I slowly started refocusing my energy.

I also had an experience where someone stole money from me (more than I actually had in the bank) when I was in the process of doing them a favor.

So I stopped giving so much. And in my relationship it is hard to give. Part of that is i didn't grow up seeing it but part of that is I already give so much even when i don't want to. It's hard to give to someone that takes even if they are taking unintentionally. It's hard not to think about fairness when the balance is always tipped to favoring the other person. I would like to be more kind hearted about it but I think I still hold a lot of resentment. I also have done more generous kinds of things and I'm getting a bunch of toxic crap back so it's not exactly motivating. He doesn't cherish me unless I'm feeding his ego and suffocating my own voice.

The generous position would be to somehow remember he is acting like that because he feels so bad about himself and to let things go. To remember that at all times. But I feel like I already have to contort myself so much, i resent having to do it here also.

We were supposed to start marriage counseling last night but there was a technical issue and it didn't happen. Then, a dumb fight thats gonna take 3 days to fix because he is so ufkin stubborn.

I was supposed to see my friends today but the fight wiped me out so I had to cancel.

I wonder what an emotionally safe marriage looks like. I'm sure it doesn't look like the dog shaking and hiding behind me because he's yelling so loudly. Why am I even putting up with this? He made it abundantly clear that he doesn't want his marriage or he would try harder to maintain safety. Instead he is just being intimidating. No concern for how much worse he's making things.

I'm trying to get a new job that will put us closer to his extended family in which case divorce would work much better as 50/50 is better for our child and would be a bit easier to do. Fingers crossed I get the job.

 

[somerandomguy]

Good luck on the job ... Sending good thoughts your way.

I racked up student loan debt taking out the max then using it to donate to charities I liked.

someone stole money from me (more than I actually had in the bank) when I was in the process of doing them a favor.

Yeah ... these are codependency/boundary things. There's a middle ground between never spending anything for anyone but yourself and using money that you need for yourself on other people.

 

[HealingMama]

Good luck on the job ... Sending good thoughts your way.


Yeah ... these are codependency/boundary things. There's a middle ground between never spending anything for anyone but yourself and using money that you need for yourself on other people.

Another thing I can thank my narcissistic mother for... No sense of proper boundaries. I was never allowed to have any. Considering that, I'm doing pretty well over here.

The stolen money thing happened because they saw me use my debit card then pickpocketed me when I was helping them relocate and drained the account because they saw the pin used, not sure I buy that is a boundary thing but I have what you're talking about regardless.

 

[HealingMama]

Marriage counseling tonight. This time the therapist remembered. It will hopefully help us.

I also created a side project to work on how negative my mindset gets. It's definitely trauma residue because being happy and things going well is stored unconsciously as "here comes a crisis that's going to break me completely." I feel like things overall have improved in this area but still my husband can't tolerate complaints if his idea to fix it doesn't fix it. He's got major defensiveness issues but I've got issues around this dynamic too. Hopefully as I work on myself I can work on this dynamic. Hopefully I can learn to convert complaints into positive requests and express more appreciation.

I am working on accepting goodness and on helping my partner understand that a problem can be solved and then you can return to goodness vs ignoring problems. I am not good at ignoring problems. I am working on choosing my battles, reducing perfectionism.

 

[HealingMama]

Therapy went really well. We see someone online that does both messaging and live video. She accommodates my anxiety based overcommunicating as well as my husband's ADHD necessitated communication style. She clearly has ADHD in her own family.

I admitted in session my history of creating emotional trauma for my husband. It was not hard to say because it's the truth. My recent self work must have helped significantly because in the past I would feel shame thinking about that and my protector part would come out.

Maybe theres hope for us yet.

 

[HealingMama]

Husband did x last night. I said hey can you please bot do x because y. This afternoon he did x again. I called him and said hey did you do x. I was calm, respectful. He said yes. I said it's kind of frustrating when I ask you not to do x and you do it again almost immediately. He apologized.

But then he was acting weird. Turns out he thinks the above was a sign that i was looking for a problem.

Why can't i just identify a problem, have him hear me about it, and then we move on instead of a small thing becoming a big thing because he can't track my nonverbal communication?

We are going out of town and now I am dreading being in the car with him because his reaction has given me a reaction. I'm very anxious now. I feel all drawn up as he once again has given the message that i have to censor myself to have an emotionally available partner. I can't trust him to respond normally.

Hey dude if you would actually listen to me the first time and not do things that show you aren't listening tuere wouldn't be anything to discuss. How is it that i have the complex ttauma and he is more fragile about this? There is no emotional safety if I can't voice my opinions without it breaking everything. Sigh.

Avoidant coping is bad for you but he's worked so hard to force it on me thats kind of all I can do tonight. Avoid him. Ugh.