Retreat

[Karma12]

It will take time for him to trust your changes. He will be watching for the old you to resurface and may even try and trigger you to see your response.

For now focus on you and become the you you want to be in your marriage. Keep up the 180's and GaL. If you keep busy it helps deal with the limbo.

[Marylov]

I was familiar with 1 Corinthians, but not the Romans passage. Thank you for sharing!

Can you tell me what you mean by "the interactions will be most telling"?

[Marylov]

Karma, you are completely right. It will take time for him to trust that these changes are real. And I think he is testing me. It is hard not to get upset when he is rude to me. But I have to remember that he has been hurt and is trying to protect himself. Sometimes I feel pathetic though.

[LITB]

Can you tell me what you mean by "the interactions will be most telling"?

Of course. This sentence that you typed early in this thread, really struck a chord: "We have always had a volatile relationship, as we are both strong willed/aggressive people."

It tells me that there was a lot of resentment and anger in your M/R. Also, that both of you have the need to be "right". Please correct me if I am wrong.

When you change, and your interactions consistently come from a place of love, and not from a place of anger/resentment, inevitably the dynamics of your M/R will change. You have already mentioned that your H is noticing.

You are planting seeds. You have to be patient for your changes to take root with him.

[Marylov]

Ahh. Thank you LITB. I like that analogy. Planting seeds!

And you are very right. We both like to be right. Here's praying he stays in our home long enough for our dynamics to be changed!

[LITB]

As an extension to my last post. Those changes will also take root with you. They will come to you naturally, because they are sincere.

Another thing you said, is that you both have to be right. Sometimes there is not a right or wrong. Simply different perspectives.

For example, let's say you were looking at the sky while wearing green glasses, and he was wearing red glasses. You can argue that the sky looks green, and he can argue that it looks red. You are both right, based on your perspective. Life can be like that. Our opinions can differ based on beliefs, experiences, upbringing, being a male, or female, so on and so forth.

It is a matter of respecting the other person's perspective, and even trying to understand why they see things a certain way.

[Underdog]

Hi Mary,

Sorry I've been AWOL... I'm in the middle of some heavy personal commitments that have not only prevented me from posting, but working as well. I'm really playing catch up with everything today.

It is a matter of respecting the other person's perspective, and even trying to understand why they see things a certain way.

LITB got this one dead on. I'll add to that. Respect is genuine when we don't judge them for feeling differently than we do. If you're like pretty much everyone else I know who hasn't done this work for a long time, there are non verbal communications that counteract the words: eye rolls, sighing, shoulder shrugs, etc. Be very careful of those as well.

Now back to the retreat follow up exercises. I'm feeling pressure from you and I don't live with you. You seem to want to fast track this and move your M into a "successfully reconciled" category before you really even played the game. Even if he were to commit to staying home and working with you, you realize that your work has truly just begun? This is a very heavy question, and I think it deserves an honest reflection.

A true sacramental marriage requires compromise and a whole lot of work. You trust the outcome to God and work on the issues that you bring to any marital discord.

Your relationship volatility is going to take a really long time to work through. At the very minimum, you're going to have to do some heavy lifting. Some of it will fall squarely--and often unfairly--on your shoulders. Why? Because you're the one who is attached to the outcome right now. You're going to have to undo a long time of reactive behaviors.

While you say patience is not your strong suit, I would say you owe it to your little one to learn it. I mean really learn it. What have you got to lose? I'm not slamming you on this, Mary. I'm a typical Aries girl. Pretty sure the first adjective to somewhat accurately describe our nature is Impatient.. then Headstrong. And I am neither of those any more. If I can do this work (like many others here), so can you. Do you journal? If so, can you add what you are feeling when you do things? That way, you can learn your triggers and build in preventative buttons to keep you from engaging in those reactive behaviors that push people away.

People in weight watchers do this... the journals include space to add in what the general mood was when food was eaten. It's designed to catch people in patterns such as overeating due to boredom or fear. Once we are really in tune with ourselves, we can unlearn those behaviors.

For me personally? I invoked a 24 hour rule. If my XH said or did anything that typically brought out a reactive behavior in me, I journaled it and then made a promise to sit on it for 24 hours. At the end of 24 hours, I could make a decision to confront or walk way. 90% of the time, that 24 hours brought clarity and I had the time to realize that he hit a button for me and I was just doing what I did best: react. The other 10%? Well, it also gave me clarity. I prayed (and still pray) before I have to address tough topics with my friends and family. The emotion is typically dialed down considerably, and I can speak calmly and rationally. I have really good success with this method.

And BTW, I'm the owner of a company. I use these same techniques with my employees. I believe they respect me for these types of interactions. I avoid the phrase "you make me.." and keep things to "when you said that, I felt X". Even my bull headed, stubborn XH was able to listen. We had 14 years of interactions that were unfair, wrong and giving our power away. It took 2 years of consistent work for me to understand why and completely eliminate those behaviors from my diet. It also worked VERY well in my parenting bag of tricks. The icing on that cake? I got to teach my D20 some really mature strategies as well. She doesn't have to unlearn a lifetime of the craziness.

So... slow this train down, baby. If you want to fix the underlying issues, time is your friend. Use it to build in those strategies and work on them consistently. It won't be long before you can look yourself in the mirror and say, "I'm a patient person." Nobody is born patient, Mary. Patience is a virtue... and virtues are rewards that we earn. God won't give you patience. But He WILL give you situations where you can master it. Consider this one your first real test with a high stakes outcome.

One last thing on detaching. You are definitely not even close. Being fully detached means that you accept the outcome. Period. Yours are conditional. I can promise you that he knows this. He's testing you, for sure. When in doubt, give him the power to make the decisions that you fear the most. SHOW him that you respect him for that. Then you can say that you're getting detached. It's healthy. It doesn't mean you don't care. It just means that you have to let go and trust God. Otherwise, faith is lip service.

Does this make any sense?

Betsey

[Marylov]

Betsey, thank you for taking the time to answer my post, even though you have a lot going on! I really do appreciate the perspective everyone on here is able to share.

I think your comment, "Even if he were to commit to staying home and working with you, you realize that your work has truly just begun?" has been on mind a lot lately. I am trying to prepare myself for this. I can't say I am there yet. I have accepted that 2015 is going to be a hellish year. But it is hard for me to really wrap my mind around it. But I do know that there is NO WAY this is going to be resolved quickly. I guess I am ready to do the work, but I am still struggling with the idea that I may not get the chance to do the work, that it may be too late. But I guess accepting that is part of the detachment process. I have a lot of things to work on!

One of the things we did a lot on the weekend part of the program was accept feeling as neither wrong or right. That was a big game changer for me. It is liberating to just accept feelings, and also put my feelings out there without feeling like I have to justify them. I think journaling would be really good for me, because I think writing things down helps you be more intentional. I have been really reactive in my life, just trying to stay afloat. I had been thinking about it, but your recommendation has pushed me to make it happen!

[Marylov]

Oh and your comment, "Now back to the retreat follow up exercises. I'm feeling pressure from you and I don't live with you." made me laugh out loud! I guess I really need to cool it and just let whatever is going to happen with that, happen. He knows I want to go. No need for me to do anything else.

[Underdog]

Mary,

I'm glad you took my commentary the way it was meant. (I pray that I write words that help, not hurt.)

I guess I am ready to do the work, but I am still struggling with the idea that I may not get the chance to do the work, that it may be too late.

Here's where I get to say you're wrong. In fact, I found I did my best work after the separation occurred. It gave me the time and space I needed to work on me. I figured I had a 50-50 shot at best anyway, so I did the work for myself. I was pretty sure my XH had some basis rooted in truth when he told me he hated me and was moving out. After the dust settled, I could devote my energy to changing how I felt. The only thing I knew is that I hadn't been happy in a really long time, and unlike my then H, I knew it was not his responsibility. It's really tough work, and the only way out is through. There are no shortcuts. So if you see one, understand the truth in advertising there. If there's a shortcut, it's just not going to work long term.

One of the things we did a lot on the weekend part of the program was accept feeling as neither wrong or right. That was a big game changer for me. It is liberating to just accept feelings, and also put my feelings out there without feeling like I have to justify them.

What a terrific exercise. It's really fun when you can catch yourself in the process. I discovered that a lot of my judging was knee jerk, and it was pretty much my mom's voice I heard. WTF? I now laugh at that voice and tell it, "Like you're the expert in that, right?"

I have been really reactive in my life, just trying to stay afloat.

Yep, that's a learned behavior I got from my family of origin as well. It's fine to operate that way when you're knee deep in a pile of poo poo and have to jump anywhere to get out of the miserable swamp. But the simple truth is that those incidents are few and far between. It's far more productive and reasonable to be responsive vs. reactive. I had to devote a lot of time in IC to this one myself. It was like teaching myself to become left handed... kind of painful and went against my core grain. I'm so happy I did it, though. I'm much happier for having done the work.

Surviving is fine - when you are facing life or death. But thriving is a far better goal when it's not one of those situations. So build your thrive plan. Hint: none of it should include other people. And that's how you focus on you and detach from outcomes.

Good luck!