Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Heist on Something....
sKePTiKal:
Well, I guess we're allowed to be set in our ways too Hops.
He can be allowed to give his spreadsheet analysis of your time spent together - AND - Hops can be totally annoyed that he's shifted into intellectualizing it - rather than just savoring the experience. Once you both can see where you are in that "dance"... then you can look for ways to be different, see it differently, maybe signal the other that NOW is not a good time for that?
But that doesn't sound very relaxed & comfortable. For either of you.
I don't have any helpful ideas here. I feel OK being myself around the viking... as we're still online... because he's putting in 12-16 hr days at work on the computer and I'm doing good to hear from him once a week. I just don't think it's going to even "launch". I'm too conflicted about wanting connection and not wanting to risk getting into another relationship where I'm dominated. And have to do all the heavy lifting - and change - to make the relationship work. I'm not seeing anything in his weekly messages that makes me think he's even interested. He's being nice - and just chatting like a normal person would... but I get the sense there's no room in his life for caring about someone else.
And there's not exactly any other fish in the lake I'm fishing in that turn me on and flip my "play" switch.
One of the big brothers suggested that I simply stop all this "online shopping" and meditate on the space to be filled. I'm beginning to think that has just as much chance of success as anything else right now.
lighter:
Hops:
Learning to be ok around challenging people IS big therapy, IME. We don't grow through calm happy times. We grow through discomfort. You have a productive attitude about , IMO. Learning more about yourself.... whatever happens with B. Yes.
I wonder what it would feel like to calmly speak about something before we're annoyed....to say something circumventing.....without the angst.
When you do bring up the difficult topics with B....is there angst?
I'm pretty sharp around setting boundaries lately. Then I feel....
bad.
Shame that I wasn't kind, maybe. I realize I don't always have to be kind, but I grapple with myself over it. What I think happens us I wait too long which builds up resentments and pressure, then POP. I snap or shhhh someone, sans patience.
I look forward to speaking up proactively, and feeling perfectly entitled to....sans angst.
This is an excercise in finding more control over my emotions by excercising less control over them.....less stuffing, more just letting them be without "handling" them maybe.
I'm sorry you and B haven't found your stride, Hops. You are right about learning about yourself through these experiences times, IME.
Lighter
Hopalong:
Thank you, Lighter, for the general nudge to not let things pile up before speaking of them...calmly, without angst.
That's exactly what healthy, ongoing assertiveness looks like and I need to practice it much more consistently.
I think what happens is I can slip into ruminating about these qualities of Bs, on my own time, and rumination is always unproductive. Clarity, speech and appropriate action are productive.
I do struggle with determining when I'm being critical of him for something he can't do anything about. Like his OCDish side, and some of his communication habits. I'm not sure he could change these even if he wanted to. So I have to challenge myself about the irritation or anxiety that comes up....
Working on it. Thanks again.
xo
Hops
Hopalong:
Having a bit of a blue day, but that's common with me in spring. (Bizarre sub-variant of SAD, when instead of being stimulated by the renewed sunshine and warmth, I feel like going to bed for two weeks. The sedentary, hiding response is beginning to threaten my health, so I am feeling quite concerned about it.)
The other thing is a concern that even if I get better at in-the-moment assertiveness, what's really bothering me about B is just personality stuff that's probably VERY hard wired, and nothing B can help.
Today I tried being quite emotionally open with him when he asked about Easter. I explained that it's a tough holiday for me because I have a host of loving memories, including a peak joyous one, about my D connected to Easter. I went into enough detail that it'd be hard not to be affected, imo, if anyone had shared that with me. And his voice didn't vary an iota. It wasn't cold/forceful Executive, but it was still Executive. He said in the exact same chipper tone as when he first said hello and chatted about his morning, "Thanks for sharing that with me! I understand!" And it sounded so disengaged that I didn't hear any empathy at all.
I actually pressed the point a little. I said, you know, when I just explained how I was feeling and you said you understood, I didn't really hear a feeling coming through. He explained very very logically, oh no, I understood the nice memory, what a great story about you giving her that whole new room on Easter. And I said, I mean about the pain. And he said, oh no I understood the good side and the bad side. Sometimes I don't feel good in my relationship with my daughter. (I internally gave up at that point. He sees his D weekly and his grand-Ds always visit.)
Small necessary detour here. The classic conundrum of men wanting to fix things/offer solutions versus women just wanting to be heard, or feel sympathized with. That is true. But with B, it's on steroids. He has a compulsion to fix that actually makes a lot of our exchanges very shallow. Like, if I say I'm struggling with motivation to exercise, he goes, "You know, they say it's a good idea to take a walk after dinner." Or I mention bad sleep. "Have you tried going to bed earlier?" Some incredibly simplistic, obvious piece of "fix it" that any person over 21 has known (the factoid or exceedingly basic advice) for an entire adult life (much less a life as a health researcher/writer). It's just so shallow and reflexive and it means nothing, except that he has scratched his itch to advise and so he's done. No empathy, I think, is what's getting to me. Or if it's there, I'm not perceiving it. He's cheerful when I make him feel happy. Full stop.
So. He ends the call when I --as I do very rarely-- told him something real and deep and detailed about my loss of my D. He ends it with, "Well, one of these days we can do something about contacting your daughter."
I was offended. Can't help it. It was SO clueless and said to me....B has not taken in, understood, or really listened to anything I've told him about the estrangement. And his simplistic fix-it, as though now that HE is offering to manage this...just pissed me off. To me, this is where the executive fix it reflex which is SO powerful in him, becomes a test for me. I don't know if I can stand it long term. And I don't entirely blame him for it, he honestly seems incapable of anything different. So far anyway.
I just said, "No. This is not something you can fix." And left it at that. But it left me doubting the whole thing. I know, it's a theme that I reel with doubt. We'll undoubtedly have a very nice evening and soon I'll be back to enjoying the simple sensation of having someone in my life to wants to be there.
Thanks for reading this--I just needed to dump it somewhere. Love you guys.
xxoo
Hops
sKePTiKal:
Still listening, Hops.
Suggest you start calling him "Spock"... but then, I'm in one of "those" moods again. LOL.
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