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End of the Road Farm

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sKePTiKal:
I let her vent and discover her own feelings, and validate her perceptions. Try to explain how the games work. There is gaslighting too. One thing that helps is their mutual friends have also affirmed her perception - and while they all love Matt, they're gently pointing out that they aren't right for each other.

It's exhausting for me, true. But I've been standing up and hugging her through temper tantrums since before she could talk - at 2 yrs old. I'm not sure she's really hearing herself sometimes. So that's where I draw my boundary and keep my distance. But I can't let her flail alone without some feedback and information. She's done alot of her own research, reading, talking & thinking. I think she misses the part of herself she's had to put away, to stay in the relationship. And yet - that place has been unfilled by the relationship. Matt looks out for his own interests and simply expects her "be there"... unfulfilled, miserable and lonely. She gets the 3rd degree going out to be with her friends.

Matt's miserable too. For now, it's best for me to stand back and wait.

lighter:
Yikes, Amber.  My heart hurts for your DD and for Matt.  Don't you wish they could click their heels and find some great good therapist to spell it all out for them.....I do.

::Sending patience and care::..

Lighter

sKePTiKal:
Holly's asked him to go to counselling many times. There's just a no and a total shutdown, followed by sulking... because there's nothing wrong with him (in his mind). It's all Holly and who she is, that is the problelm to Matt.

As of last night, she's moved from being scared and thinking she's a bad person, to being angry and getting over that too.

I'm going to find something else to think about for awhile. Study up on cerulean warblers and their habitat. Log splitters. Skid steers. Finally order some seeds.

Twoapenny:
It's very tough being on the edge of other people's realationship issues, Skep, particularly when they're your own grown up babies!  Very hard to listen, not judge, decide whether or not to voice an opinion, to do it objectively without criticising or berating the other partner, it's tiring just writing it down!  I think that you finding something else to think about for a while is a good idea.  Bit of head space and hopefully they can clear a few thoughts of their own in the meantime.  Tough one for you, I'm sorry it's all going on xx

sKePTiKal:
Yes Tupp; it's difficult. Hol's been close enough to emotional abuse (thanks to her Dad) that she knows what it is; how she reacts; and has to find her own way through that mindfield. I have to really watch myself... and simply suggest ideas from my own experience... and then let her say yes, no, not quite... about her own.

What affected me the most about that short visit was the extreme hostility coming from Matt, directed toward me. I had to hold in my own anger, so was thankful that they left early the next day. Me having one of my infamous, fully honest, total nuclear meltdowns wouldn't have helped a thing. I've vented, I've realized now how angry I am... and most of why. And it's time to move on.

Not my job to sort it out; what will be will be. And Hol is really good at navigating boundaries between the 2 of us. She just flat out tells me to back off or butt out. And I usually do. A lot of times, we laugh and we just move on.  I'm hoping that serves as a useful example to her. I know it's one of the reasons she's been visiting so much. It's a place where she can just BE HER and not have someone "correcting" her, molding her, and trying to tame her... and make her what she is NOT. She IS intense; she DOES process things verbally; and when she goes quiet - be very, very afraid of what's coming next. She also knows herself pretty damn well at 40, and having been through her own form of therapy to sort out "what was wrong with her" feelings.

Without Matt's participation in sorting out what's wrong with their relationship, I think Holly knows it's doomed. But getting "out" feels like failure to her... I'm still trying to get her to see, that when an issue is big enough to consistently create unhappiness, that it's not a matter of failure... just a mismatch of personalities/being.

I simply do not understand people who feel entitled to tell other people how be, at this level. Seems to be mutually exclusive with "intimacy", ya know?

ETA: I've left it with her, that I've got her back like always. But for the sake of my own sanity and not wanting to interfere... I'm backing off. I really DID like Matt. And I've never ever had that feeling from him before. My responses to that are decidedly, clearly NOT productive or helpful... so I simply contained them and postponed pulling them out look at them. That came at a cost to me.

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