Just popping in to say thanks for stopping by, guys.
SD, Yes, I can see the terror rearing its ugly head. His terror also stems from having to get the house ready in a short amount of time for not only us, but my flatmates as well, who will be moving into his building downstairs from us (a concession for having to break our lease early because of the baby) until they move to Hawaii in January. So he's preparing a nest for the whole extended family!
This morning my paper H and I made a date to go and see about a D on Wednesday of next week. Just putting that out there for commitment's sake.
Last night I met H2H for a Sprite and a good chat and then went home to make dinner for S. and me. He came home in a good mood and we tucked into bed with a SpongeBob DVD, which made him very happy ( whatever!). This morning I was served a lovely fruit bowl in bed. This afternoon we have T, and this w-e we go up to Vermont.
I'm a little reluctant to bring up SM in T today as we've had a good, healthy 24 hours, but it needs to be done. What do you all think?
In other news, his friend outside London's W just had their first baby this morning - a little girl. Suddenly people around us are having babies, which can only be a good thing for the terror factor.
Quote: I'm a little reluctant to bring up SM in T today as we've had a good, healthy 24 hours, but it needs to be done. What do you all think?
I have to admit, when I saw you had therapy today, my first thought was "oh, no, and things seem to be going so well!"
My gut instinct is, stay away from SM today. If someone else brings it up, you might simply state that you would feel better if he wrote her about the baby and let you see the letter (you might throw in something about how he's really not being fair to HER by keeping it a secret). But if you can avoid it and stay on a more positive track, (maybe talk about how much it meant to you the other day when you cried and he held you and told you he wanted a future with you), that would be better.
I know your therapist has been better than my MC was, but my experience of MC was that it dwelled so much in the negative and the past that it actually hurt our R, rather than helped it. So I think, if you can keep it on a positive, proactive, cognitive behavioral vibe today, that would be good.
ahh... "Cognitive Behavior Therapy" (which, in my mind is not far off the therapy Michele talks about in DB)… is near and dear to my heart. When my sitch blew up the first of the year, the therapist I went to was totally into CBT... brought my W in to see him, and she hated the guy. I think she felt that looking at the past to find out why you are at the here and now was something that needed to be done (since she has been working on herself for a couple of years now). I think she felt the CBT was just masking the real problem and that if not addressed could "leak around the sides of the patch" if you weren't careful. I have to say, part of me agrees that CBT isn't always the best approach (especially if the S is against it to begin with).
I have since left my T with him and am seeing a psychologist; partially for the meds, and more importantly, he really helped me discover who I am, and what my actions have been doing over the years. If I just used CBT techniques to solve a problem I would have run the risk of seeing immediate results (I can hear “how can that be bad!?”) and slacking off since the problem “seemed” to go away. Where with traditional therapy, I have seen what it was (why it was) and can change the deep-rooted problems more easily (which then would eventually translate to lasting results).
However, I do see the point of solving the immediate conflict with CBT (with the promise of doing the harder work later) so the partner doesn’t move on immediately (the hard stuff can take years or a lifetime to solve).
Well, off my soapbox... just wanted to add my 2 cents
Forgiveness is the release of all hope for a better past. – Alexa Young
Hi Jennifer - I hope the healthy 24 hours are continuing into 48 and beyond. I know something about terror, seeing how I'm given to bouts of them myself. In my case, it goes away quickest if NG does not entertain me - anytime he acknowledges the terror, it just seems to grow. Tough love, but seems to work over here.
Hi there, Ellie, Slowly, Koshka, Stubborn, and welcome, KGBKK!
KGB and Ellie, our T is an Imago (Harville Hendrix) -trained T, and so some of what we talk about is childhood beliefs carried into adulthood - I wouldn't have chosen her based on her training, but she has turned out to be a really great mix of solution-based, behavioral T and delving into core beliefs without dwelling too much on the past. She brings us into the present pretty quickly after we start talking about childhood wounds. I've been really happy with her, and so has S. S. found her, and so this is a good reminder that I should dole out some gold stars for that. (WOA of the day... check!)
Yes, Stubborn, I'm pretty swamped with work and overwhelmed with stuff from T and otherwise that I've been processing. Not sure I'm ready to go into the whole T session, but suffice it to say for now that SM's name was never mentioned because S. and I got into a nice little fight on the way to T and we spent the whole T session working out why what each of us says makes the other so defensive (in this case, a misunderstood and poorly stated question from me set him off in an angry tirade, which in turn set me off). It was a very good session, actually, and a lot of things came out. One positive note was that at one point S. reiterated that he wanted to be with me and work it out.
We spent a lot of time on S. again, and I'm really wishing more and more that the T would suggest some individual T for him (with HER), because we usually spend a lot of time murking through his issues. I don't really mind, because it makes me feel NOT crazy, and somewhat validated for the things I'm bringing up as problems and issues with him, but sometimes it gets really frustrating that, for example, I have to wait another week to bring up SM (though that issue temporarily has faded slightly in prominence since there's been no further contact).
Our homework for this week is to continue the talking we started in T, and to begin with a stated intention: "I love you and I really want to hear what you're saying and understand it from your point of view." Then we are to mirror everything the other says. She says for now to skip the validating and empathizing, because we can't even get the mirroring part down yet! (I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying I'VE got it down just fine, it's just Prince Charming over here who can't hear a word I say. Honestly, I've had a lot of trouble saying anything at all to him these days, and I feel I've been a model of listening and not reacting this week.)
Last night around 5 a.m. I was tossing around and realized S. was awake, too. I asked if he was OK, and he went into a long tirade (quiet and calm, but a tirade nonetheless) about his anger that he is so stressed and he doesn’t know if the renovs are going to get done by August 30... Angry at me because he let himself “be bullied into” August 30 when he “should have insisted on September 30.” I kept quiet for awhile, coaching myself not to react, and then I said I was sorry he was feeling so overwhelmed, and asked him if it would help if we talked about what needed to be done over the w-e (in Vermont) and try to prioritize together what absolutely has to happen and what can wait. He responded first with "Well we should have done... and if we had... then we could have..." and then finally got around to answering my question, which was Yes, it would help.
Afterward, he turned over and went to sleep like a baby, and I was left to my tossing, annoyed at his perception (but realizing it wasn't about ME but about the stress) that I "bullied" him. H2H pointed out that if I had said back then "gosh, that sounds like a lot of work, why not give yourself until Sept 30th?" he would have screamed that he needs to collect rent! And I might remind my dear readers that the original date was July 31, pushed back to August 30.
Anyway, it's all H2O under the Brooklyn Bridge. We leave for Vermont tonight, after I pick him up at work. It doesn't seem like much of a vacation for me - I'd much rather go relax at the beach after this horrendous week - but it will be good to get in the garden and the weather is supposed to be nice and not as humid as here, which has been brutal. Yesterday I had to run around a lot in Manhattan (where the pavement is 200 degrees and the heat rises off it to kill a herd of elephants) and I was so exhausted and hot I finally sat my fanny down to a pedicure and manicure to kill time before I had to meet some friends from out of town and to soothe my aching feet.
In other news, we had a prenatal appointment yesterday morning at which my OB-GYN was so cheerful and happy at my progress that S. was grinning from ear to ear and bombarded me with affection on the street after the appointment. We listened to the baby's heartbeat, which was pretty amazing (and so strong!) The doc said, “Everything looks very healthy, and you look great, and the baby sounds great. Keep up the good work!”
S. finally finshed that #$%@&^* deck roof and now can get started on, like, the HOLES IN THE WALL and the LACK OF A KITCHEN. (Vent vent, don't worry, my duct tape is firmly in place.)
I'm looking forward, if not to being in Vermont having a lot of work to do, to at least seeing the tomato plants - they must have little 'maters on them by now... and my cucumbers, and zucchini, and lettuce, and radishes, and pole beans, and bush beans, and soy beans, and snap peas...........
When my W and I were going to MC (we’ve since stopped, my W just see the point in it, since I think she has decided to move on (LRT is in effect, so hopefully that can change)), that therapist (who we both liked, though I think she was too slow in getting to the “hard stuff”) spent a considerable amount of time on what she calls “family of origin”… which is looking at your past, and how it is impacting the present. She also had recommended Imago sessions and/or Gottman Institute sessions in addition to the regular MC. Never got to that point, though until it’s over, I will hold out hope that we could at some point go to the seminars, as in my reading up on them, they seem to be a very good thing and well worth the cost.
Though as I said… my W is more for the delving therapy as opposed to the Solution-Based Therapy (SBT… that’s what I couldn’t remember that Michele called it in DB) or CBT, which seems similar to me (though, I am not a psychiatrist/psychologist, so what do I know?!). So I’m not sure that the Imago or Gottman seminars would be anything she would ever go to.
I have to say, that your T sounds perfect… some past, some present… just a good mix of the different therapies (that’s why I would never use my original T for MC… he was solely fixated on CBT).
Before our last MC session… when I could see we were at a major critical point, I had asked for homework from the T. She would have given it to us, but my W said “no, I’m not going to do any homework, I don’t see why we should continue this”. Talk about a kick to the gut!
It sounds to me Jennifer, in reading your thread, that things are looking quite good for you! Keep up the excellent (I know it’s hard, but sounds like you are on the right track) work!
Forgiveness is the release of all hope for a better past. – Alexa Young
After such a great and amusing post, I think you deserve a really great weekend! Those garden fresh veggies are making me really hungry right now!
I'm glad to hear that the baby is doing well! The only part of pregnancy that I loved was hearing the heartbeat. It made me feel closer to my girls, and I just knew that they were real people in there.
Take care!
Betsey
"There are only 2 ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
Thanks so much for posting in my thread before you set off to Vermont. Hope your weekend was a good one. Pleased that the Doc gave you a big thumbs up on the baby front.
whatever!). This morning I was served a lovely fruit bowl in bed. This afternoon we have T, and this w-e we go up to Vermont.
