zig!! wow i am so happy to read about your weekend. and i can't but echo in a screaming voice, KDs words! Supporting you...cheering you on, is one of the easiest things to do
I am in awe of your ability to deal on the spot in a compassionate and growing, loving way. giving your H the space he needs to be a great father and a better man. and all because of the GREAT woman and mother and friend that you are.
i love you zig. I really do. am going to bring some chilled vodka to the blanket and some popcorn for an after dinner treat.
((((((((((((( )))))))))))))
TPS Me: 44 H: 42 M14 T17 S10 D7 10/10 H moves out after death of his father-same month 21/04/12 H is 'DONE' 04/05/12 OW/PA confirmed (rumors from 2010) July '14 H ends affair May '15 H moves back home
Hmmm, I will have to see how I can apply some of that. It will take a lot of self control on my part. For example, I wrote about the handy man I hired in one of my posts. One day I pulled the chain on D16's overhead light and ripped it right out of the light. H told me to get the parts and he would fix it. I got the parts, no fix. He said he didn't want to mess with parts, so I bought a new light. The light sat in a box in my living room for at least 3 years. So, for that time, my D16 had not lighting to do homework, or anything else, other than a desk lamp and a dresser lamp. I finally had a pretty large list of inoperable items and hired a handy man.
My experience is that my H just won't do things if he doesn't want to or feel like dong them. Another example, when I have been unable to take D16 to piano lessons, he refuses to do so, sayuing he's too busy. The truth is, he was too busy to give up hanging out with the guys having a beer. I ended up getting a babysitter to do it. Why? Because I end up being the one inconvenienced and stressed because I then have to go another night, or she doesn't go at all. His mom was a piano teacher and this was something that he supported.
So, if I turn that off, then I have to get over the fact that D16 is possibly going to be the one to lose out and the associated mommy guilt. And she is not going to have any blame issues. She thinks her dad hangs the moon. And he knows how busy I am and how much I do. He jokes about my getting a 4th or 5th job. I also know that he takes for granted what I make time to do.
This would be a huge issue for me to overcome. I totally get the over/undercompensating. However, what you have been able to do is impressive. Oh how I hate balancing successful carrer oriented wife with traditional wife.
You've given me much to ponder. Thans for your insight!
M44 H57 D17 (special needs) M 18 yrs Bomb 7/2/12 Still living together
thank you for your lovely post to me this morning - I did read it early - and carried your words all day.
It is not everyday that someone tells me that I am blessed and am a blessing - you made me feel so good about myself - thank you
While anyone is capable of doing what you are doing, not everyone is able to. And that's OK. That's one thing I've had to learn and I hope you understand that, yourself. That too will help you become an even greater leader and encourage that in others.
I am always in awe of what you manage to slip in to your posts to me - always encouraging, but always mindful of what I need to temper my enthusiasm with - and always in the nicest way.
so that was very good for me to read - and a lot of food for thought over the next few days...
What I want to point out is that your H is like a toddler in this. Because these people, our WAS... or MLCers... would we be behaving the way we are if they were our children? Would we give up on them? Blame them? Chastise them? Daemonize them?
yes - oddly enough i am feeling him being a child more and more these last 3 weeks. he almost looks child like to me- a little bit lost, very uncomfortable - as if all of it is right in front of him and he has no idea what to do with all this info that he is becoming suddenly very aware of .
he's not closed off any longer, i would say. in fact i think he's looking around as if in amazement at where he landed. he's still holding on to everything - but the grip - one could say it may have loosened very slightly - as if he's not quite sure what he is holding on to, but he's not letting it go yet.
When we have our expectations... as in how you originally thought it would look for your H to step up to his role as a father... as your mother expected your dad to step up in his role... it doesn't look like we expected... so we internally see it as wrong and jump in to fix... and rationalize it as them being unable or unwilling to step into their greatness... for them to grow... to do things in a way that is different than how we'd do it... because our belief systems own us and suggest that if it's not our way... it won't work... it isn't good enough...
yes - you have put it beautifully. and i still struggle with that. i am going to write more about it in my next post - in terms of double bind.
thanks again KD - nice to know that every one feels i'm an easy one to help - there were too many years where zig was known to be ... difficult, one might say.. ( i think they were being nice - i think i was quite painful to be around...)
how are you doing? are you managing to get all your stuff that you planned to do? like getting ready for winter and work? I hope so. I miss reading you all over the board - but am also pleased that you are "living your life". now your visits to us are extra special
{{{{{KD}}}}}}
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"
h's "commitment" always seems half assed to me. for e.g.. he has committed to giving s ear drops this week and the dosage is 3 times a day, but he skips the afternoon one because it would be inconvenient (s was at a play date). but he did the same on the weekend when he was around.
I really struggle with that - because now i can see that he does not believe s needs the afternoon dose, has chosen in his own mind not to do it, does not tell me.
I ask s every night if they have remembered - always no and always after they are in bed - and so they have to get up and do them. it makes me feel stupid to check - i don't want to, but all i'm thinking is if s's ear infection flares up again while we travel it will be miserable for him.
tonight i struggle a bit with those sorts of expectations.
h puts us in a double bind - and i really don't know how to get out of this one where medication is concerned.
during the summer, i dropped the issue of the inhaler (because between h insisting s didn't need it and s fussing like crazy twice a day, i gave up)
2 weeks ago when s started a cold, i said i think we better start the inhaler again. i was shocked to find out that s felt really let down by h and me because we hadn't insisted he take it. he was looking to us for that. i felt terrible and so have been thinking about how those sorts of double binds can be handled.
it' one thing to completely step out of a bind that is directly to do with h, and only between us - but i'm starting to see that there are other ones we create that involve s - and i don't quite know how to work around them.
Interestingly - i haven't told h about this - and so i realize - there's an area i have to figure some things out about - why haven't i discussed this with h, what am i really avoiding, what am i expecting his response to be?
it's funny how certain issues seems to come up as themes on several threads around the same time. this one of course, started by labug a few days ago - WAS's and doctors and medications.
My theory with my h is that he doesn't want to truly face that s needs medicine and is not okay - he seems to really struggle with that. in his mind s is fine if there's no evidence of medication, and then he can relax - but when there is and especially if he has to be in charge of making sure s takes it, it's as if the challenge of facing it is too much for him - not the physical task involved - but the acknowledgement that his s is not okay and perfectly healthy?
that it scares him? that it makes him feel out of control because he cannot do anything to make it go away?
suddenly as i wrote that , i feel for the first time that i may have got some insight into this with h. it has frustrated me for so long - and now for the first time i feel as if i could understand his actions and behavior around this issue . so many of our dysfunctional or difficult behaviors and traits stem from deep feelings of fear and lack of control..
when i look back from when s was a baby, there was so much medicine to give - and sometimes he would be terribly sick. for me it was matter of fact - give him the meds, watch him carefully and stay vigilant with the breathing treatments. for h - it was constantly telling me that i was too stressed, that i freaked out too much. now suddenly i see after all this time, that i think he was projecting what he was feeling on to me. i had no idea he was possibly that terrified.
he cannot handle people being ill - it freaks him out bad. so if i could change my perspective and understand where he may be - that he is not reneging on his medicine duties because he wants to be difficult, but rather because the whole thing and anything to do with it just shuts him down, maybe i can find the right way to approach it so that he feels reassured and wants to do it, rather than avoid it altogether...
will mull on it a while longer...
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"
I wanted to have you stop in there in order to see if you can figure out why you might think your H responded and stepped up... and then I realized you found it, as bolded above, which I've also taken over to Inga's thread.
he cannot handle people being ill - it freaks him out bad. so if i could change my perspective and understand where he may be - that he is not reneging on his medicine duties because he wants to be difficult, but rather because the whole thing and anything to do with it just shuts him down, maybe i can find the right way to approach it so that he feels reassured and wants to do it, rather than avoid it altogether...
will mull on it a while longer...
Yes... mull this over a bit longer... and then post what you think might be a way through this...
how are you doing? are you managing to get all your stuff that you planned to do? like getting ready for winter and work? I hope so. I miss reading you all over the board - but am also pleased that you are "living your life". now your visits to us are extra special
Yeah, well... we got 10 feet of snow this past weekend and I've started building my igloo...
naawwww, just kidding... Things are good, worked through a couple blips the last couple of days. Keeping the ship on course and always adjusting for the wind...
BTW: just because I'm posting tonight, does NOT mean I'm out of retirement...
oh - i'm reading it again - and what pops in my mind is my reaction in it - over compensating?
am i on the right track
but that's where my dilemma lies - and my bind - if i don't "remind" then i have to give up my work time and take care of s. if i do remind then i am caught up in the bind and the over compensating
am i looking at it wrong from my own point of view - why do i have issues with taking care of s when he is sick? i actually do love taking care of him when he's sick - but i don't like the idea any more that it's taken for granted that i will because h has the more important job and so can't leave work
aaargh - suddenly i am having all kinds of things pop up in my mind - like - does my fear come up so much when s is ill that i am freaking too - and my fear makes me control the situation by always offering to take care of s, because i see myself more nurturing and caring for s and h seems more off-hand about it ? oh so somehow maybe i am sub-consciously creating this - because i want the more nurturing care-taking for s and THINK that i provide it better than h does.
just like i did with the parenting issues over the weekend and only when i gave h the chance to step up could i see what he could do.
but i AM confused - the whole year when s was at h's i never once asked about the inhaler and if they were doing it - only to check what dosage they were doing and didn't even question when i felt it was not the right one.
then h himself admitted that he was really reneging on that and one night actually called me to ask if i had the inhaler (s had been with him for 5 nights by then) and then confessed that he hadn't bothered to see if s was doing it or not.
ih my god - i think i see what is going on - over the last few weeks after that incident - h has pulled me into and i have got pulled into that double bind without realizing it.
i have been thinking a lot that h gave up that rental and moved into his parents house because he was exhausted with the effort of taking care of s on his own. i don't think it's a conscious thing on his part at all. and now he's creating that old situation where he knows i get all concerned and cannot resist asking and checking up. he knows where he can get me on this, and i responded without even realizing i got pulled in.
but i still feel confused about s getting ill because of that.
i know it sounds ridiculous to the average person - but a slight cold or ear infection usually triggers off serious asthma issues for s. i have spent most of our winters nursing him back to health ,only to have him sick again within 5 days and then another round of a week or two. when s gets sick - he is really really sick - and h is never around
and now as i write this - a horrible deep fear has come up for me, and i am crying because i can feel the burden of all those hundreds of days and nights and the relentless need to just keep it together no matter how strained or tired i was
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"
oh - i'm reading it again - and what pops in my mind is my reaction in it - over compensating?
am i on the right track
Yes.
Also, read the last post I made in Inga's thread. The bit about her role "being busy", being her choice... and her H's role of hanging with his buddies, which is his choice... and neither of those choices are bad choices...
It's expecations... Inga's expectation that her H SHOULD be getting busy fixing the main light in his D's room or taking his D to piano lessons... and her H's expectation that if he doesn't do something about it, she will...
You indicate that giving your S his meds when he was younger was par for the course. Now... you panic if you trust your H or your S to not stay up to date with the meds, because you know they won't...
Imagine if your S had diabetes...
I know a few mom's who probably had many mini strokes as they've had to "let go" of their children to take care of their own diabetes...
And... these kids... they figure it out...
So how do you get yourself out of this possible double bind, Zig?
i posted that last post - just because... i needed to document this process that got triggered off by KD's "twofold.
I had to take a break - because i didn't just cry fro a bit - i wailed and sobbed and the pain was so bad that i was begging for it to go away
i want to write what i am going through here - if it helps anyone else in their process of unearthing some of their fears. or am i the only one who has carried so many things so deep inside me? i don't know - sometimes i think i am.
so as i was writing about how much i carried the burden of the fear of our s when he was ill - all the 11 years of feeling that i carried it alone came up for me huge and i felt every minute of what i had gone through.
the worst was that for some reason or the other - h was never there at the worst of it - always out of town or unreachable at work, and by time he would get back - s was recovering and all was well. i couldn't get over how many times that happened. and i always felt as if he never could really grasp what s had gone through, nor me. he underplayed it and i never felt validated or reassured for the fear i carried about it. i have never felt as desperate as i have when i would do all i could and the f'ing medication would not work and all the phone calls to the nurse and going back and forth to the doctor. i didn't even know that i had so much fear inside me about it all.
as i was crying harder and harder - i began to feel as if i could finally face this fear - just look it head on and say - i'm not afraid any more, i'm not afraid of s dying , i'm not afraid that i can't take care of him
and then something huge came up from my childhood - when i was around 7. my little 4 yr old brother almost died one day - and it was kind of because of me.
i have never ever thought of it like that - but tonight i saw how deep deep down i carried some sort of guilt about it.
there was a "horror" side to that day - he was bleeding out in a taxi in my mom's arms - and she had taken me to help her - and the taxi driver was frantically driving us from one hospital to the next and they wouldn't take my brother in. i know for people here that is an out of this world thought - inconceivable. but in the early 70's in india - your doctor had to be practicing at that hospital for you to be treated. and we had just moved to that city 2 weeks before and we didn't have a doctor yet. we went to 4 hospitals and they turned us away
all i really remember is my mom sobbing, my brother blue and unconscious and the taxi driver desperately rushing through the traffic.
i was completely calm, changing the towels out and mopping the blood - and i don't think i said very much - i do remember feeling shocked and i do remember that there was a lot of blood everywhere. finally my mom told the guy to take us to my great aunts house - the only person she knew, who called her doctor and whisked my mom and brother off to him and i was sent home to my grandmother who fed me scrambled eggs and put me to bed.
needless to say - my brother is alive and hale and hearty and we've never stopped fighting since
and now i have unearthed the source of my fear about my s. i am finding myself thinking that i have carried the belief that no one can truly help - that i had to take care of it on my own, and that it was somehow my fault (not a conscious thought) that s got ill.
you see he was perfectly healthy until we moved to the states and about a week later, my parents came to visit. h had a kiln firing and was on the night shift. s's crying woke me up at 4 in the morning and he had a fever of 106. h had just come in and gone to sleep. i woke him and said we have to get to the hospital.
he was so groggy that he said can you go with your mom i just have to sleep. i said no problem - i completely understood - i had been in that state countless times before and you really can't move.
while the doctor was checking s out, h stumbled in - he could barely walk he was so tired but he had dragged himself out of bed.
but the deed was done - he had already let me down, in the deep sub-conscious areas of my mind and confirmed that earlier belief that no one else will help.
and so no matter how much my conscious mind reasoned about it, it was my sub-conscious that drove my reactions after that.
sadly s's visit that day - cured his fever - but he picked up RSV - which made him deathly sick at 4 months - (18 infants died that week here in Lawrence, so there was much cause for concern). the doctor told me that if i hadn't picked up on what was going on so early he would have been really in a bad state within hours. for the next 3 weeks h and i watched our s laying on the bed panting non stop until he got better. but that was not the end of it - his lungs were compromised enough that he got pretty bad asthma right after and for the whole winter i couldn't leave the house with him. he wasn't allowed to be outside below 40 degrees. h was in grad school and only came home at night, and since i had just moved to the states - i didn't know a soul.
so i have carried some really deep fears about this - but now that i have unearthed what were earlier fears that compounded these beliefs on which i functioned - i think i may have found the answer to my dilemma.
you are right KD - if you have had the patience to read through this - it was twofold - but probably not in the way you expected.
i don't even know if i have got to the bottom of this yet. all my life i told the story of that day about my brother in a really detached way, never associating myself with it's cause - but today i am facing what was a child's deep hidden guilt about what happened.
and you know suddenly i remember - when h was 5 his mother gave birth to a little boy who died within 48 hrs - and he talks about it in a very detached way....
so we both carried and still carry some deep deep past fears that we were both overwhelmed by. when i think of it in this light - i feel as if i can begin to understand where he is at. his brother died and mine didn't but we both carried it within us. i have never thought of it from this point of view before...
so much healing still....
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"
Things are good, worked through a couple blips the last couple of days. Keeping the ship on course and always adjusting for the wind...