Piecing things together

[HealingMama]

???
Doing my self care, taking a walk during a conference call, working to keep my anxiety low. Bam! Some machine behind me kicks on and my brain dumps a bunch of adrenaline.

If only my brain were not primed to scan for danger.

I get so mad when fight or flight happens when I am doing my best to take care of myself and to neutralize hyperarousal symptoms. It's like ... It isn't fair. I'm working so hard and the universe is laughing in my face.

 

[HealingMama]

In other news, I am reading this study on attachment and complex trauma and it is really triggering but the triggering is somehow a relief because my insiders have been so quiet lately. They are glad that I am trying to give some attention and space to my trauma stuff. One of the most important things for a person with complex trauma is to have a relationship with someone that is nurturing and consistent. I know that a romantic partner cannot serve as a therapist, but it sure would have been helpful if I had fallen in love with someone who is not naturally inconsistent because it really exacerbates my trust issues.

I really wish I could bond with people more easily. I am so envious of those that it comes easily to. I can build rapport just fine, but it is manufactured. I find myself holding back in the process of trying to form new friendships. I seek closeness then don't act when opportunities present themselves. It is so hard seeing these patterns and sometimes feeling like I cannot change them :/

 

[HealingMama]

Feeling really depressed today. It feels like my marriage is only salvageable if I don't have any needs of my own that I am trying to get met. I guess that's why I am depressed. I found myself crying a lot last night. I don't know why. I had the night off and nothing stressful was going on. My heart is very heavy.

My husband wanted sex. I explained in a message that I would give him what he wants but can't really enjoy it on my end for abc reasons. He came to bed at 1am and started talking about how he cannot help with my attachment issues because the relationship has given him attachment issues. Dude, I had to get up super early for work and also this is a really triggering thing to say to me in the middle of the night.

Today I tried to get him to have the conversation again but he decided because I had a hard time with him throwing that at me in the middle of the night, that there's no room to ever discuss his own issues. Um, no, just use reasonable timing. 1am on a work night ain't reasonable.

I'm sure I did mess up his attachment. I have done everything I can to fix it but it isn't enough. I have ruined him(, as he tells it, while ignoring how he contributed to that dynamic). At the same time it is ok to want your partner to help create security and he is not very good at doing that. If I don't create security, nobody does. It is hard to accept that my significant other will never deliver on something fundamental to my ability to be my best self in a relationship.

Ugh I hate hate hate depression. I saw my T this week and discussed my anger at spouse for not wanting to mentally share the stress of our finances. He wants to avoid thinking about it. He then gets upset when he feels mothered, but doesn't want to stand next to me as a partner. I told my T the anger is covering up despair. Because he will probably never be that person and that makes me depressed. We will probably divorce before too long and he will abandon me for real, leaving himself to be an every other weekend dad. Either that or we will decide to make the most of what we have together. But the current limbo state is not sustainable.

Funny enough husband and I were getting along better while he was not taking any of his ADHD meds.

Depression is so disempowering.

 

[HealingMama]

How do you process sexual abuse that may or may not have happened and you have no conscious memory of?

 

[HealingMama]

I've had a headache most of the day today. Feel like a fraud. I gave a talk yesterday on self-care during the pandemic and I've not been taking the best care of myself. Mostly around sleep. My husband working again has strained things. He continues to break his promise to clean the kitchen before he goes to work. I get it, ADHD etc, but I still feel disrespected and hurt that he's not finding ways to hold himself accountable.

We have been fighting a bit more. I don't even remember what about. Some of it is the stupid chores. Some of it is about him wanting sex and me being like well, I kind of feel like your mom and that isn't sexy. I kind of feel like I have to put your needs first, and can't ask for my needs to be met. We are disconnected so I'll do you to scratch your own itch because I know you're nicer to me afterward but I have no real *desire* towards you right now.

Last night he gets home from work, stepdaughter is in the shower, he says he misses me. I say you mean sex? He says "well yeah sex but also just intimacy. I'm doing the best I can to give you everything I can."

I am hiding behind a wall. At this point I don't know how much is my attachment shit and how much is realizing that my husband doesn't know how to deep dive, to be authentic and vulnerable in the moment, to express himself in an emotionally intelligent way so that we can co-regulate each other instead of trigger each other. I'm tired, and have this nagging feeling that he will never really be there for me.

I can't remember the last time we had sex and were properly connected emotionally. He tries but then I end up behind a wall or hiding in some hole somewhere and push out a child part who's like ah what am I doing here and floods me with shame.

Still feeling depressed. Today we were playing a pirate video game and he made a sex joke about my big chest. I flashed back to learning that he seeks out porn of flat chested women and said well too bad you like the small chests. I left so I wouldn't cry. I think I'm depressed because I know that my relationship will never really meet my needs. I guess no relationship can meet all of your needs but I also fall into despair when we circle back to his position that is basically "I have nothing left here" so he abandons me when things get hard and doesn't care to try not doing that. But wants to stay married.

Yesterday I researched the divorce laws where we live. It would be much easier to read my ambivalence as purely trauma based attachment issues if we don't have actual marital issues.

 

[HealingMama]

It is strange having emotions and not knowing where they are coming from. I'm depressed or grieving and I suspect it is related to my current process in therapy but can't really be sure. We stirred up a bunch of really old sexual issues but then again I've been basically trapped in my house for over a month which would make almost anyone depressed.

I'm trusting that feeling this pocket of emotion will help me embody myself more fully whatever it is about.

 

[Deanna]

but then again I've been basically trapped in my house for over a month which would make almost anyone depressed.

I'm here with you. Things get bigger when we are forced to isolate for a month.

 

[HealingMama]

I am sitting in the living room watching my husband talk to my stepdaughter for like an hour about his hobby. Not doing the hobby. Just talking about it. At times my stepdaughter seemed to just be tolerating it and I wondered if my husband is autistic because he has such a small range of interests. He crawls into this hobby world and wears it like a blanket. It's where he feels safe. Because it doesn't involve any of the stuff he has screwed up in life.

I can feel contempt on my face. I don't respect him. I find this an unhealthy obsession. He could use some of that brain power to help make money for the family. He could use some of that energy to find some ambition so I could relax and not strive so much.

I see him talking on and on and he looks so happy and it's all so fake and pointless. It's all mental. No heart. He's fully in his ego and happy there. I am not happy there.

I'm writing this out here so I don't express it in my behavior. At least, so I express it less in my behavior.

I mean, he says that he doesn't feel like he can be himself around me. I can see why. I am judging the hell out of my husband in his natural habitat. His interests are so immature and I feel like he kind of took advantage of his daughter being a captive audience to wax on about his interests without noticing if she really found value in the conversation. He does that to me also. He wants to talk at me. He doesn't connect. He broadcasts. Ugh. I have to get out of this marriage. I don't even know how I would come back from the place in in with this because he's not going to change. He's not going to magically start valuing adult behavior over immature stuff.

It is clear that he would also be much happier away from me. He needs someone that doesn't judge his obsessions and doesn't care if he values contributing. I can't give him this sort of captive audience stuff. I can tolerate a little bit of that but he wants to go on and on and it's boring. Very much lacking theory of mind.

He has done so much parenting help. It is terrifying to think of being on my own. But my husband deserves to find someone that won't judge him like this.

 

[Deanna]

It won't be easy but you both deserve happiness.

 

[HealingMama]

We both finally came to bed after midnight and he's like wanna have sex. Um, not when you ignore me all day then say that. I need you to plan ahead and put some effort into it. I told him if you wanted that to happen you should have said something earlier. I get that the ADHD makes advanced planning difficult but the effort is so low. He says he wants to get some quality time in while I am having my period because my desire level is generally higher then. I said the issue isn't try to have sex when I'm having my period. The issue is try to fix the broken relationship so I'm more likely to want it other times.

Like dude, you aren't saving for retirement at all and you're almost 40. This isn't sexy. I'm paying for overpriced groceries while your kids visit and you spend most of the time playing games on your phone or playing board games or talking about games. It's hard to feel desire when I have to take care of everyone.

He's not a bad person, but it's hard when all the stressful grown up stuff is outsourced to me while he plays. He does try to give me money that he gets but isn't really trying very hard to get it.

There are lots of things that he does to support me but this issue continues to bother me and doesn't change. I feel a bit ungrateful as he has been emotionally supportive through a lot of bad behavior on my part. But at the same time a lot of that bad behavior was stress at carrying so much for us by myself.

Am I a hypocrite for being a feminist but not wanting to be the breadwinner? Wanting my partner to have some ambition? I recognize ambitious people tend to be type A and a type A person with another type A person is probably not fun. I realize I am lucky that my partner does so much emotional labor. He cleaned the kitchen really well yesterday without being asked.

But I think I'd rather have two steady, decent incomes with two people saving for retirement and just hire a helper.

 

[HealingMama]

My new goal is to try to behave in a classy way, a respectable and compassionate way, to move through any possible transitions mindfully. Many of the things that make my marriage problematic are not my partner's fault.

We have a marriage therapy appointment this weekend. I'm planning on being frank that I'm not sure it is in our mutual best interest to stay together but I want to "end well" if that is an accurate assessment.

 

[HealingMama]

He's here, with a different stepdaughter. Doing all the right things trying to get sex out of me. "I cleaned the house for you," he says. "I'd like to see you," he says. I am avoiding him. All this pressure to perform. I have all these conflicting feelings that come out when I try to be intimate.

But I said I'd try to be classy so I guess I'll take one for the team and try not to cry in the middle of it. I'll play the part of the good wife. It's the least I can do I guess.