waiting on you to talk about what? he's in a R with someone else
ya think?
i swear lately 'm thinking that mil is subconsciously sabotaging my efforts. she has the strangest reactions - either she is getting all flustered and pissed about what he is doing, but lately she's started making excuses for him. like this morning when she says - oh he was stressed and tired that's why he forgot to call you - have you seen his house? if you did you'd understand why he's so stressed!!!
understand that - uh uh! he took that house on, the same way he took on the affair - and it [censored] and why should i be understanding about that?
problem is she herself is in a r with fil where he does whatever he please whenever, and i think it's too much for her to see me being even slightly rebellious. she's all on my side when i'm loving and forgiving but her hackles rise when i object even slightly/
i've been detaching from her quite a bit - in fact , quite a lot lately. taking bugs advice and staying away from his family. i don't care much for several of the decisions they have made lately and i don't really want to be a part of that scene any longer - not out of anger or anything like that - actually real indifference, as in go ahead with your lives, i'm going ahead with mine.
besides when i realized myself that i didn't want to be there - it occurred to me that it will allow him to be there more and possibly reconnect with them.
he so needs to talk to his parents and learn what really happened when his father left. he is basing all his decisions on what his father did not even beginning to realize that it was his mother who had the affair. he is going to be very confused and upended when he eventually finds out - if she has the guts to tell him, that is
for me, it's all starting to blow away in the wind a little bit more.
as for the brunch, i didn't say outright yes or no. but this morning i casually let slip that i may stay one more night at the camp so i can go visit the caves in the morning before i drive home. i think she was a bit taken aback.
you know brit - i just realized i've been in some sort of "game" for years with them and i am so so tired of playing it. it's a daily thing with the class, dealing with s, on and on! i want out right now
hmm - funny that's the exact words that h has been using since the bomb!!
me 46 H 38 M10yrs T 11 S10 BD ow 8/11 h filed 9/25/12
"if i could define enlightenment briefly, i would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is"
sorry for your sitch shocked - and for what happened when you did ask. thanks for telling me - can't imagine how hard that must have been, especially since she got angry.
i'm sort of afraid of the rejection myself and not willing to really take that risk right now. i'm detaching, but i don't really know for sure where i'm at int he process and how stable i really am
just going to put this on the back burner for now
yes by yourself gets old in many ways more than this too
take care zig
me 46 H 38 M10yrs T 11 S10 BD ow 8/11 h filed 9/25/12
"if i could define enlightenment briefly, i would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is"
you know brit - i just realized i've been in some sort of "game" for years with them and i am so so tired of playing it. it's a daily thing with the class, dealing with s, on and on! i want out right now
the first time I said no, I'm not going to your mothers was amazing!!!
sometimes it's really hard to be in a country away from your family when they have their support network (even if he doesn't want it) but sometimes it's really good. Like shovelgate 2012 or when he told me this crazy story when he was helping GF move it went on and on like a bad John Candy film and I thought there's something wonderful about not being entangled with family.
am still on the fence of whether i should go tomorrow or not.
i don't want to go for 2 reason - i don't feel like being around them and because i have noticed that the last few weeks every time h and i were with the in-laws he absolutely couldn't handle it - he was so tense and freaked out.
so my not being there would be letting him off the hook, in a way. ont the other hand - my not being there - is the old me (especially coming on the tail of ow's visit - i've set boundaries, been a bit impatient - i think they are signs of my disapproval - and not going on father's day is like a clear message saying 'i don't acknowledge you on fathers day)
at the risk of overanalyzing (yes, i know labug, i tend to do that too much)- going - is showing co-operation and acceptance - to all of them. he did come to the mother's day dinner at their house, and i feel as if , even though i don't really want to go, i should sort of return the favor
i'm not freaking out about it at all - just quietly trying to figure out what to do. is this the right area to "withdraw" in - i just don't know
when i talked to s tonight on the phone, i joked about when i was going to see him next - and he stayed really silent. i had reminded him to take his father's day present for h and fil in the morning with him . i think he wanted to ask me if i was going to be there (which would have been the normal thing to do - since i've been going to all the family stuff) but there was a long pause, as if he didn't want to ask. i didn't volunteer the info, because i didn't know what i was going to do.
i still struggle a bit with how he switches off from the parent who he's not with. when he's here with me, he acts as if h doesn't exist and i think he does the same about me when he's with h. poor little fellow - it must be his only way to cope through this.
thanks for your input brit
zig
me 46 H 38 M10yrs T 11 S10 BD ow 8/11 h filed 9/25/12
"if i could define enlightenment briefly, i would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is"
You know your S best but it might also just be his personality. I have two girls and when I divorced their father, my eldest would always call the parent she wasn't with to say goodnight. My youngest never did. It was like, out of sight, out of mind. You had to call her if you wanted to talk to her, she was just off doing her thing. But the fact that she treated both parents the same told me that's just how she was, especially since my oldest treated both of us the same too (only she did the opposite). Just a thought. Maybe he's not as tortured as you think.
[quote=zig i don't want to go for 2 reason - i don't feel like being around them and because i have noticed that the last few weeks every time h and i were with the in-laws he absolutely couldn't handle it - he was so tense and freaked out.
so my not being there would be letting him off the hook, in a way. ont the other hand - my not being there - is the old me (especially coming on the tail of ow's visit - i've set boundaries, been a bit impatient - i think they are signs of my disapproval - and not going on father's day is like a clear message saying 'i don't acknowledge you on fathers day)
at the risk of overanalyzing (yes, i know labug, i tend to do that too much)- going - is showing co-operation and acceptance - to all of them. he did come to the mother's day dinner at their house, and i feel as if , even though i don't really want to go, i should sort of return the favor
i'm not freaking out about it at all - just quietly trying to figure out what to do. is this the right area to "withdraw" in - i just don't know[/quote]
Zig - you're overanalyzing again
Your reasons for not going, as stated above, are: 1) You don't want to be around "them" - H's family? and 2) H can't handle it emotionally.
I get your first reason but the second one is you letting H's emotions control what you do. So what if he can't handle it? What if you went because it was more time with S?
Obviously H knows you don't agree with what he's doing. I don't think that, by going to this dinner, he would take that as you waiving a flag that you are now totally cool with his actions. You could "withdraw" by not actively interacting with H, let him come to you if he wants otherwise just leave him be and enjoy yourself otherwise.
I mean, hey, at least you were invited to the family event. I was excluded from H's family's event (even though H talked to me about how annoying they were about inviting him and following up to see if he was coming).
thanks vera for pointing out how considering h's feelings about me being around is letting h control what i do.
actually - i have been going to everything without hesitation - all the invitation at their home, all the school events, even the 40th b'day of our friend who's husband is h's closest friend right now. and all i see, is h looking more and more tortured in those situations.
what really makes me hesitate today is not h and what he might be feeling - i know it sounded that way - but what s is going through when h acts like that. i've never seen s look so miserable as he has the last couple of times the three of us were together in a social situation. and since then i have backed off.
but you're right - i'm just reading the co-dependent no more workbook this morning, and finding that my "obsessing" about every little thing is a sign of my co-dependency in this sitch.
i still don't know what i am going to do. one sentence really stuck out - that it's okay to take care of myself sometimes and make that first priority.
i am going through some kind of crazy emotional release this morning - i don't know what it is , but there is so much pain and i have been crying so hard, that there's no way i am even going to look half decent by 11.30 when it's time to go there. so that may decide it for me about not going. also woken up coughing and with a sinus infection above the tooth that was removed, which the dentist said would most probably happen so am feeling a bit miserable on top of that too.
this trip away over the weekend - there was a lot of growth and much more awareness - and i'm not really sure where i'm at right now - just sort of blindly feeling my way from one moment to the next.
all of this is about my own resistance to accepting what is happening. my going would be letting it go, my staying away is saying 'i don't like what you are doing - all of you" ( i realize i have issues with in-laws and even aunt and uncle who are going to be there - all to do with my judgement of how they conduct their own marriages)
^ is the crux of what i am really fighting with here- can i just surrender to this - because in the surrendering, and letting go of those judgmental feelings, then i am free to detach a little more, and be there, just enjoy them for who they are, get to spend time with s and leave with a peaceful heart.
that is my challenge for today, and one that i don't know if i'm up for.
we have a son and a very close knit family. they are all making it clear that they would prefer to go on as if for the most part like nothing has changed. for me to not co-operate is trying to teach them a lesson - see, this is how it will change - do you feel the pain yet? (deep down i know that in-laws and everyone else are in a lot of pain about this and hate what is going on)
to co-operate is to say - i respect how you want to do this and i am okay where i am, moving forward and staying detached
beattie writes in that book about when things feel really uncomfortable (as i clearly feel right now) that's where the lesson you need to learn lies, that's where the challenge for you to over come is. if you don't feel the discomfort, then you are doing more of the same that doesn't work (for yourself, in terms of codependency), and while i write all of this, i see my mind working through what i just read and realizing that the horrible discomfort i feel is the unease of letting go and surrendering into this - which in other words is dropping the rope just a little bit more.
so one more tiny step in my own little journey towards self-healing.
i'm so glad you wrote back to me - your words triggered off a reaction in me that helped me to see where my real struggle lies - it's always within ourselves, isn't it? it's actually immaterial how the others may feel about me going - it's only more important for me to inspect what my real reasons are for going or not going
thanks vera and if it's overanalyzing - well that's where i'm at, and in some way it helps me to get to where i need to be
zig
me 46 H 38 M10yrs T 11 S10 BD ow 8/11 h filed 9/25/12
"if i could define enlightenment briefly, i would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is"
Sometimes I think there's uncomfort as in being nervous about going to an exercise class in a place you've never been and there's no one there and there's uncomfort where you're putting yourself in a very emotional setting that you might not be ready for.
Don't make yourself into a martyr by saying that you are going to do something because you feel like you have to face the uncomfortable thing.
A therapist who is not my IC told me to start learning a new language or something left brain related during the time that H was living here but dating and I was having panic attacks. And I said but I thought that's escaping and I should deal with all this and she said you can't deal with anything right now...your body is shutting down.
Take everyone else of the equation. You have been crying all morning and you have a sinus infection. You don't HAVE to go.
You know how like we detach from our S's with NC first so that then we're around them we can be detached more? I think that way about the family. Maybe you're not detached enough from them to be in that setting.
Big Hugs. But yes, make you a priority. Put you first. It's father's day there is absolutely nothing wrong with saying S and H have your day together, this tooth is making me ill I'm going to take a long bath/watch a movie/sleep.
oh gosh - did i sound like a martyr - i wasn't feeling that at all.
but you're right - let h and s have day together - i actually realized when i saw your words, that i was thinking that I hd to acknowledge h being a father on father's day also - didn't realize that it's about s having to acknowledge father's day to h.
hmm - funny how we approach things, all twisted.
mil called a bit ago - to let me know again that i was invited. i told her that i was on the fence about coming , but that i had decided to come. she said i really didn't have to if i didn't feel like it.
now an hour later - i really don't feel like it, so i called and told mil that i wasn't coming. she asked if i wanted to talk to h or s and i said sure - so i said happy father's day to h - and he asked about my trip and whether it was worth going, and i said happily yes.
he wanted to know whether my back was really sore - and i asked why, and he said because you didn't take the bedroll from my house, so it must surely be sore. i said i didn't have a problem and he seemed really surprised.
then he asked if i was coming, and i said that i had planned to but wasn't feeling all that good and decided to skip it. he said he wasn't staying very long, and that mil was taking s shopping this afternoon for the b'day party favors(which i already knew) then went into talking about the b'day party
that's where we went into weird territory - the party is coming up, on the 30th and i have of course been struggling with that. this party isn't just s's b'day party - it's our big social bash of the year where we invite everyone we know .
he said we should send out the invitations - and i threw out - just to all the kids in s's class? and he said, well all the other people we usually invite also (meaning all our good friends) and i just asked gently that was he saying we were going to host a social party like before, together, and that i just wanted to know if that was what he was comfortable with doing. he said - well we shouldn't not have a b'day party just because we are separated and i said well inviting everyone is more than that, but if he's comfortable with it, i could think about it and get back to him.
he said we should talk later - that there were things we needed to talk about - oh oh what's coming next!!!!!! and i said sure - there were, but not right now since he was there.
so - either i put out something he hadn't thought about and now will rethink, about whether it is a good idea or not to invite all our friends like before. or he'll just let it go.
about the invitations - he made it clear that that was something i always took care of and that i should take care of it this time too. i said lightly - well maybe we should change our roles here and do things differently - that he could do the invitations. he insisted that i should and i said well, why don't you and son put the list together.i asked if he simply didn't want to deal with it and he replied firmly no i don't. i think i said lightly that i really don't either - but not sure if i said that
you guys are always right - i just spend too much time over analyzing everything. beginning to understand that it is co-dependent behaviour that i really need to work on
thanks for walking me through this - again
one of these imminent days, i shall allow myself to release from this dysfunctional way of dealing with my stuff
zig
me 46 H 38 M10yrs T 11 S10 BD ow 8/11 h filed 9/25/12
"if i could define enlightenment briefly, i would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is"
