I'm volatile too. And I didn't know until really recently that what to me - as a pursuer - feels like panic and distress and a desparate bid for reassurance and affection and empathy and acknowledgement and comfort looks to my distancer husband like anger and aggression and punishment and threatening behaviour. I think you will find The Solo Partner really useful.
I'm volatile too. And I didn't know until really recently that what to me - as a pursuer - feels like panic and distress and a desparate bid for reassurance and affection and empathy and acknowledgement and comfort looks to my distancer husband like anger and aggression and punishment and threatening behaviour. I think you will find The Solo Partner really useful.
This was so eye opening to me, I think you hit the nail on the head for me here. I never realized how my behavior was being viewed. I think you and I are learning lots about ourselves (have been lurking on your thread for a few days). I used to be very secure and so did my husband, my attachment became anxious and so his became avoidance, those two things don't work together so now I am trying to focus on my attachment being solely secure.
ILYBINILWY - 11/19/18 Got Better - 12/20/18 Counseling - Jan and Feb MIL issues - Jan BD - 2/13/2019 IHS - 2/14/2019
Emotional reactivity is one of my issues too. I started doing some cognitive behavior therapy on it, the one thing I really took away was how to breathe through situations. Learning how to spot that emotional reactivity, learning its ok to walk away. Next time you get upset try to see what physical symptoms happen first, is it shortened breath, a knot in your stomach, a hot flash etc, once you recognize what it is (be the observant not the participant), then you know that as soon as one of those symptoms starts, you can do a breathing exercise.
For me, I breathe in through my nose counting mentally to 6, hold my breath for 8 seconds and breath out through my mouth making a whooshing noise for 10 seconds. It really helps, repeat until things feel easier or until you can walk away and get some space. Don't be ashamed to walk away, just don't do what I always did and do it in dramatic fashion, that didn't get me anywhere.
I learnt I was so used to going fight or flight that I was living in fight mode rather than letting things trigger me there so the smallest thing would get me upset.
ILYBINILWY - 11/19/18 Got Better - 12/20/18 Counseling - Jan and Feb MIL issues - Jan BD - 2/13/2019 IHS - 2/14/2019
Yes, that describes exactly how I saw my husband's behaviour, either that or I thought he was unhappy about his work or his life and was taking out that stuff on me. If only I had known this stuff 15 years ago!
I think this is really useful to get the perspective of the other side. How did you see your husband's distancing behaviour? It is actually not too difficult to see how my husband's pursuing behaviour was actually not intended to be so aggressive or hurtful, I can finally understand that. But the blind spot is in seeing how my distancing behaviour affected him. And how to change it so I distance less.
Hi hope, sorry I must have posted at the exact same time you did yesterday! You're right, this is so helpful to see your behaviour and the marriage from an external position. My IC seems to just want to tell me that it's ok to have feelings. Well, yes it is, but being flooded is no good to anyone.
Thanks for the breathing tips, I don't think there's enough education on how we can help calm ourselves down. This ought to be taught in primary school. I have a really good link somewhere, I'll see if I can find it. I think my dh has always suffered from anxiety and panic, whereas until a few years ago I haven't really got flooded, just angry and not knowing what was going on. I can see better now what a terrible place he must have been going to.
This morning I am tired, feeling pessimistic (not like me, I am so optimistic most of the time) and actually not really looking forward to seeing dh later. Hopefully we will have a nice time, I would actually just like to go for a walk and watch some TV or something calm like that. A bit of normality would be nice because I feel like this week has been a rollercoaster. This GAL stuff is tiring...
Hi hope, sorry I must have posted at the exact same time you did yesterday! You're right, this is so helpful to see your behaviour and the marriage from an external position. My IC seems to just want to tell me that it's ok to have feelings. Well, yes it is, but being flooded is no good to anyone.
Feelings are fine. We should feel them. We shouldn't wallow in them though. Find ways to calm your mind. Breathing is good.
In the early days I couldn't sleep longer than a few hours. The endless thought tunnels, dissecting every word, every gesture, always thinking the worst and before I knew it it was 3 in the morning. It was hell. I was never asleep and I was never awake.
I saw an IC for a couple of weeks. It helped me understand me more - the unhealthy ways I handled confrontation. But after a few sessions I felt like the sessions spent with her was just an opportunity for me to wallow in my grief, to vent, and to see myself as the victim. So I stopped going because wanted I wanted and needed was to learn to forgive myself and to forgive him for the hurt we caused one another. The IC helped with getting my emotions out. Yoga and meditation are helping me to forgive.
Originally Posted by dillydaf
This morning I am tired, feeling pessimistic (not like me, I am so optimistic most of the time) and actually not really looking forward to seeing dh later. Hopefully we will have a nice time, I would actually just like to go for a walk and watch some TV or something calm like that. A bit of normality would be nice because I feel like this week has been a rollercoaster. This GAL stuff is tiring...
GAL'g at first is a distraction - a means to get yourself out and doing stuff. I sat through many dinners feeling like an outsider. Watching, listening, talking but not really there. It gets easier and it does balance out. At first every time he had the kids I had to go out, even if it was just to the movies on my own. Now, I often sit in and potter or watch TV. The thoughts still come, but I have learned to accept them, and then let them go.
Hmm FS, I can see that venting and wallowing are risks with an IC. But for me, the one thing I said to my IC was that I want him to CHALLENGE me. And he has and he does. So a lot of my time has been spent working out how not to feel like a victim and how to take control. So that has been helpful. But I had a previous IC a few years back when dh did a mini BD and she didn't challenge me at all, then dh got a bit better and it just felt like chatting so I stopped going. So I do think that it depends on the IC and your relationship with them, I feel comfortable enough with this chap that I will be completely honest with him and also have him ask me uncomfortable questions.
This morning dh turned up with ds1, I greeted him at the door with a hug and we had a chat. Then he went upstairs to move something heavy that I told him I couldn't do. He stubbed his toes on a piece of furniture which isn't usually there (I've had some decoration done so a few things are misplaced). He SHOUTED really, really loudly and started blaming me for him stubbing his toe. I completely freaked out, got my stuff together and started walking out the door. He came after me and shouted at me to come back. I did and then I went and cried in the bathroom and he came after me and started making excuses for his shouting. I mean, I get that hurting yourself is grounds for shouting. But not for blaming me in such an aggressive way. So he kept making excuses and I kept crying and then he gave me a one-armed hug (I hate these). I asked for a 2-armed hug and he gave me that and I calmed down and said he scared me. He said I over-reacted. So we kind of repaired and went upstairs to see the new furniture and talk about it. Then a few minutes later he said sorry for shouting, which is definitely new but then so is me crying when he shouts.
And then we took the kids out and went for a walk and he vented about work stuff and we talked about just general stuff, it was pleasant enough. I practiced validating about work stuff as much as I could, but I think I've always been ok about this actually. Maybe I was more careful not to criticise or offer advice than I might have been in the past, I can act a bit know it all.
Later on when we came home he wanted to go out to get breakfast so I went with him. On the way home we started talking about pets. It's been a long standing bone of contention that I don't want to get a dog but have said he can when he retires. I'm actually coming round to the idea but I don't think that dh being home for an hour or two a night is very sensible if the dog is for him. And right now he's not home except for a few hours on Saturday so that would be ridiculous. But maybe if we got a dog he'd want to be home more? Who knows, sigh. I told him it would be ok with me for him to get a dog whenever he wanted, but preferably not a big scary one (I'm a bit scared of dogs, which he knows).
Later on I had to go out to the supermarket so I told dh and the kids and was pottering round having some tea first. He shouted down the stairs to me in a sort of panicky way and asked where I was going and I told him but that I wasn't going yet. Then ds1 turned up with his GF and that delayed me a bit. Dh was downstairs so I went to say goodbye and gave him a hug and a kiss and went off, and he's gone off to the gym.
I feel exhausted and confused. On the one hand, the shouting was horrible. But the way we handled it was better. I stopped myself from running away. He asked me not to run away. He said sorry eventually. Maybe we need to discuss it again later. I don't know why I got so upset, I was genuinely scared but I don't know what I was scared of. The dog thing has totally confused me. Any kind of future talk is a bit scary and messy right now, I think I might be the one trying to avoid it now but I think that's fine by him. The other confusing thing is how he seemed panicky when I tried walking away the first time and when I was going out to the supermarket later. It's like he's scared of me leaving when we're at home? Why is that? I think he's always had separation anxiety (whenever I've gone away in the past he's been horrible to me for weeks beforehand), and he suffers it still but then he lives somewhere else most of the time now so he has no idea what I'm up to? Any pursuers identify with this or is it his abandonment issues? What am I supposed to do about it?
Yes, that describes exactly how I saw my husband's behaviour, either that or I thought he was unhappy about his work or his life and was taking out that stuff on me. If only I had known this stuff 15 years ago!
I think this is really useful to get the perspective of the other side. How did you see your husband's distancing behaviour? It is actually not too difficult to see how my husband's pursuing behaviour was actually not intended to be so aggressive or hurtful, I can finally understand that. But the blind spot is in seeing how my distancing behaviour affected him. And how to change it so I distance less.
I will try to fill you in, Dillydaf, but this is just me.
So - I fully get that a lot of my 'bids for attention' towards my distancing husband came across to him as needy, invasive and controlling. He needs more alone time than I do, has less desire for sex, physical affection, what I'd understand as intimate or deep conversations and emotional support. Him being how he is isn't wrong - just a temperamental difference that I think I always took more personally than was healthy for me or the M.
When he's distancing, he'll tend to be quite dishonest. He'll claim he forgot that we'd agreed to spend time together rather than telling me he doesn't want to do it. Or he will pick a fight or blame me for something, then withdraw entirely - sleeping on the couch, not going to bed at the same time as me, taking an hour to go to the shop and get milk, that kind of thing. In conversation, he can be spectacularly unresponsive. I can be emotional, and he can look at me like I am a specimen in a petri dish - only of mild interest and most of the time not even that. I can ask him a direct question about what he wants or what he feels, and he will evade it, or change the subject, or start talking about how I've asked him at a bad time, or in the wrong tone of voice. I believe I make him very anxious and he experiences my bid for closeness as demands which he is terrified of - but on the other hand, he will say very loudly and persistently that his needs aren't met in the relationship. I ask him what his needs are, and he can't or won't say in a way that I can understand. I actually suspect what he needs is to be out of the relationship, and was just unable to say so, and was blaming me for existing in the house and having the cheek to remind him of my existence.
Now and again I would very quietly and calmly raise something in the relationship that I was unhappy with. If I was too emotional, he'd just want to talk about how I was over-reacting. If I asked him when he was doing something, I was interrupting. If I asked him when he wasn't doing anything, I was ruining his leisure time. If I asked him when the kids were around, it wasn't appropriate to talk about it. If I asked him when the kids weren't around, I was ruining the rare time we had child free and not letting him enjoy his life. If - once in a blue moon - I actually managed to pick the right time, the right tone of voice, and the right phrasing - then he would generally dismiss anything I wanted to raise and claim I wasn't upset because he'd called me a name, or cancelled our time together, or hadn't come to sleep in bed with me for a week, or anything else - I was actually upset because I was busy at work, or had a terrible childhood, or tired, or hormonal, etc etc. I never found it possible for him to listen and take me seriously. That left me feeling like I didn't matter, like I was to be ignored. It made me feel worthless and furious. And yes - quite often as a reaction to that I was volatile and emotional. I don't think I was aggressive - but he considers me crying or being persistent or following him as he leaves the room when I am in the middle of a sentence to be abusive and controlling behaviours, all about manipulation.
After years of this, I feel very very angry at him. I don't feel worthless any more. I do wonder why I stayed so long in a relationship with a man who clearly had no interest in my feelings, no interest in his own feelings, and no interest in communicating his needs but was happy to blame me for not meeting them. I wonder why I chased him so long and so hard. I am not doing that any more.
I guess the best practical example I can give you of what I'd call distancing but not abusive behaviour is something that happened toward the end of our marriage therapy. He'd said his needs weren't met. I said I really wanted to be someone that offered him love and support, but I didn't know how to do that. He suggested I could start by bringing him coffee in bed some mornings. The therapist suggested I should go ahead and do that a few times over the next week, no matter what else was happening in our relationship. I agreed to do that, and left the session feeling a lot of hope for change and perhaps thinking that if I could help him feel loved, we could make some progress on the other issues. I did it once, it seemed to go well, then for the rest of the week he started getting up at 5am, before I woke up (his usual wake up time was about 7am) and I'd get downstairs and he'd already had coffee, eaten, washed and dressed. Then at our next session he wanted to start by talking about how I wasn't interested in his needs and hadn't done what he agreed. I pointed out him waking up early and making it pretty much impossible for me to do what he wanted. I said I felt he was being a bit dishonest. I asked him if me caring for him made him feel vulnerable or like he was beholden to me, and if so, could we talk about that in therapy? He said he just woke up early, there was nothing more to it, and as usual I was over-reacting and making it all about me and my feelings, and his needs still weren't being met. I think we only had one or two more sessions after that because it was making me feel crazy and I did not see how it was possible to care for and meet the needs of a man who seemed to need me to disappear.
I'm not surprised you're exhausted. Take a deep breathe and step back and relax. You're letting yourself be a tightly coiled spring and that is probably why the whole stubbed toe got out of hand.
What are you supposed to do about it? Nothing. If he needs fixing, he has to do it for himself. You can't work it out for him and fix it.
In a nutshell, you want to stay married, he isn't sure. He has to be sure, absolutely sure otherwise he's not going to be fully committed. So whilst he sorts his head out, you remain in the background, gaining personal strength and insight and let him come to you if and when he is ready. Let him see what he is missing. If you want to stand for your marriage then be the lighthouse.
