Lost Opportunity - A Chance to Grow

My Christmas present from my husband was a necklace and earrings.  I took them out of the cardboard box, told him thank you, then put them on the table.  He sat there looking at me.  I didn't know what to say.  I felt I was choking and needed out of this.

We went out to get a pizza, came back, and the presents still sat on the table.  He gestured that maybe I could try them on.  I asked him where did they come from as I didn't recognize the brand.

"Oh, I ordered them online, and I bought one for mom too.  It was so easy that way, and saved myself a lot of time."   I could tell he was still excited and I didn't want to break that.  I looked at the care instructions it came with.

          "Don't let jewelry come near water as it will tarnish."  I put the card down.

"Oh," I said.   And I could tell that he was wondering why I wasn't trying them on.  I was stuck.

The very next day, I was wondering what to do.  Truth was, I hated his presents.  He does not ever buy me anything nice.  Never.  He could find a pretty rock on the side of the road and give me that for a present, that is how he is.  The necklace was a giant glass see-through locket. The earrings were boring as heck.  And they were junk.  Ok, I get it if he doesn't have financial resources, but he does. And this whole set cost a whole $20 bucks I bet.  And, that is all he gave me for Christmas. I was so focused on the cost.  Truth was that, I really was hurt and I wanted at that moment to burst out crying. I mean really big sobbing tears and breaking down and curling up into a ball.  I really did. Right at the moment he gave me the presents, I just wanted to turn into a big pile of tears.  But I didn't.

I take part in a very powerful relationship online community. I can never get confused in relationships again.  I am proud to say I have completely stabilized that part of my life forever.  I knew exactly what to do.    I knew exactly what was going on.  This is the hard part.  Some of the teachings require bravery I had not acquired in life. I knew exactly what to do and I didn't do it, because I was so scared.  He bought me presents I didn't like and that were cheap, and my first response was to feel scared and hurt.  Why not just hurt? Now isn't that strange?  He bought me presents and I felt this whole fight or flight.  But he pays more for shoe laces.

In relationships, some of the things we have to do will be the hardest.  It will take blood and guts. The answer is always, always be authentic.  It was what caused my awakening to narcissistic mother.  It will be my answer for life, I'm committed to it.  But being authentic is not as easy as it sounds.  There are masks we wear and masks on top of masks that are on top of masks, etc. we are not always aware of it.  This is work.  I'm not sure if this is the same kind of masks that the narcissist wears, maybe quite similar.  We wear them to cover pain too, I suppose.

Now how do I do it when a whole day has past without me even saying anything?  I made a mistake waiting.  "Mistakes are never a problem, mistakes are learning."  But this mistake cost me the ability of having the authentic emotion in that moment.  I lost that moment, I can never get it back.  To try a redo will just be bullshit.  As a result I may have created some confusion for him.  I bartered with myself.  This whole thing seems so narcissistic.  Shouldn't I appreciate the gifts anyway?  Isn't it the thought that counts? Am I being selfish?  Omg, I have heard that one before, over and over again while I was growing up.  And I really did feel selfish.  This was at the core of myself.

 As I really knew that what I wanted to do was cry my head off, a memory played in my head:

Mother would buy the most expensive clothes for me and wore rags herself.  She told everyone she had to because I was selfish and spoiled.  If you read some of my earlier posts I had talked about it. The truth was, that I never wanted the expensive stuff, I didn't care.  I couldn't ever get dirty in them anyway.  I wanted to have fun which I was unable to do.  I was to serve as a captive source of narcissistic supply.  A doll child for all the world to see and wear expensive clothes that my family could barely afford because I was such a selfish child.  I would take the food out of everyone's mouth because I was so selfish. Everyone had told her that she was a good mother with a spoiled selfish child.

I've made many mistakes in this particular relationship.  That was before I got on to that community. I'm just ironing out the kinks now.  I know I have to tell him the truth whether he likes it or not.  Stay in the moment, don't try to think ahead and just do it.  Express myself.  This really is the hardest part for me.  After all my work with the program some things just aren't easy.

I thank God everyday for that relationship community.  Because of it I am able to see what my real intentions are, that I don't want to be only out for my own significance and looking for approval again. As in, "Please, don't see me as selfish, just buy me cheap crap, I'll be happy with it, please don't hurt me,"  So yeah, he wasn't being cheap, what I actually have is a husband who reads my cues so well and perfectly.  I have never told him about that part of my upbringing.  It was too painful. But he knows somehow.  And he will never cross boundaries.  We are now emotionally connected. That cheap jewelry and the fact that he told me he didn't make much effort to get it for me says a lot. It is actually the most wonderful gift I could get from him.  He went out of his way to tell me that he didn't go out of his way to buy it.

I still remember when people would look at me with a $300 coat on at 10 years old.  That I was spoiled. But I wasn't spoiled, I was abused.  Tossed under the bus each and every time to be destroyed.  I didn't matter.  All that mattered was that mother looked like a kind mother and whether that would destroy me was irrelevant. As a result my formative mind formed a belief that I deserved the abuse when I was spoiled, so I couldn't win.  I was so brainwashed I actually still feel this way and I didn't even realize it.  That is, until I received my husband's present.

All I wanted to do was cry when I opened the presents.  Now I had to backtrack, which is never easy. Can I tap back into that initial emotion I was trying to hide from him in order that I wouldn't be selfish.  It is not a good thing to do.  It would look like bullshit in his eyes, he is very aware of me too much.  How do I take care of that need not to feel selfish?  That emotion is there and as real as the other one of hurt.  It was because I was believing a lie.  I was not selfish.  This is what I was trained and programmed to believe by a parasitical beastly non-mother.  Feel that down to my emotions, that I was not spoiled, I was abused.

As of now I couldn't do anything.  The moment of me wanting to cry has past.  The next day he came and put the necklace around my neck, it was a huge thing he could just put over my head.

Using my fullest authentic emotions, I said "I hate them,"  this wasn't that initial reaction that I could have had after just opening the presents, but oh well.  This might be ok, just not as powerful.

"Are you serious?" He asked.

I said, "Yes, they are horrible."  In my most full emotion.

He answered back, "Well, what you could do is get my picture taken then put my picture inside, it it big enough and because its glass everyone can see it."  lol, Now let's all take a big collective sigh over that one.  Yes, he was serious and this was his attempt to make me feel better.

So I said, "I would feel awful wearing that around my neck."

Now with the necklace still on me he went and sat on the couch and fell asleep.  I knew I would have to wait this out.  I was fully vulnerable with my feelings and that is all I got to do.

He had these wonderful good intentions.  He went online, ordered them.  He got me the same as he got his mother.  He thought I would love to walk around with a big picture of him around my neck. You see, in the beginning he didn't buy presents.  He had a attitude that if we want something, we could just buy it, presents are a hassle.  Let's not get all weird.  We had what you could call a marriage of convenience.  There was no passion, only stipulations that we are not to expect too much.  

He spent my first birthday with him helping his ex's relatives.  Every New Year's Eve was to be spent with the narcissistic society out here in the bush.  I didn't do that after the first year and spent every New Year's Eve away from him.  I would complain lots and this fell on deaf ears.  This New Year's Eve I spent with my children and he was to go to the party.  I found out later he didn't go to the party. He was at home thinking of what I said to him before I left, that I couldn't stand the thought of him having his New Year's Eve kisses with others.  I was hurt and I was sad and I even cried.  When I got home the next day he was worried about what I was doing.  He never cared about that before.  

Before that I lived a couple of years not expecting anything, and training myself to not want anything. But I was miserable.  He would even say cruel things to me at times.  This was actually a dead relationship with no warmth.  I was miserable.  Despite my upbringing, there was still a fire in my heart.  I wanted more.  I happened onto this relationship community by chance.  Just me reading online.  So I asked him to purchase a program for me, as he did say that if we did want something we could just buy it.  These programs are not cheap. As the owner says, "If you want cheap advice, that is all it will be worth."  So I asked him to purchase this expensive program, the first risk out of my comfort zone.

Then my whole world changed.  In the beginning we did not ever go out to get pizza, it was expected of me to always cook.  We live out in the bush here.  We run out of things, he makes sure I have what I need.  He didn't care before.  He doesn't ever say mean things to me anymore.  He does not put his narcissistic buddy ahead of me anymore.  You can read about narcissitic buddy here.  The road plowing for the buddy is no longer.  (I'll be writing more on that soon I hope)

Does buying presents mean a guy loves you?  No.  I have seen men buy for their women, gold and jewels and flowers, houses, the Eiffel Tower.  However, there was no passion driving him to buy the stuff for his wife.  Only duty.  Only, that's the type of guy he is.  Some men just love to buy stuff and that is just the way he is.  But it could be meaningless.  My man was gifting me with something much more valuable and priceless.  A trip of a lifetime, a journey into recovery.

A lot of cheap relationship advice comes down to is, "Find the type of guy who loves to spoil their woman, stay away from the guys who don't."  But this never takes into account anthropology or science.  This never will include the woman pulling her head out of her butt and actually stop being lazy and do some actual hard work. that does not only include keeping a clean house and amazing cooking. I'm behind on the laundry, does this mean he won't love me?  It's 2 pm, I haven't planned dinner yet, does this mean he won't love me?  Nooooo of course not.  Yep, head out of butt here.  lol

Was he being cheap?  He never told me he made no effort in the present in a nasty way.  When I think of it now, I can see he was excited to tell me that he put little and no thought into it.  That was the gift in itself.  But none of his behavior was logical.  Not to him, he was just taking a cue from me.

Now, just to let you know,  we mustn't ever accuse or blame,  You focus only on the problem or situation, never make him feel blamed for anything.  It is not his fault.  He is only doing what he instinctively does, with good intentions.  I appreciate that he bought me something.  I feel I hate the necklace set, that is all.  I would never call him thoughtless or horrible things, like a cheap bastard. Never ever do that.  If he was a cheap bastard he would have taken great offense to me hating the present.  He wouldn't care about my feelings.  He was trying to please me.  If he was abusive, he would not have fallen asleep, there would have been war.  There was no mind games from him either.  Just "Oh," and now nap time.

So now I just let it go. It is up to him to take care of this or not.  I didn't do the right thing right at the beginning.  Right now I'm thinking that he will not take care of the situation.  If I had started from the first moment I opened the gift, and burst out crying.  I wanted to.  I wanted to do that, but I suppressed it.  If I had cried I don't know what the outcome really would have been.  I will never know.  That I am sad about.  But, being told your selfish all your life, my first reaction would be what it was.  I was on hyper vigilance, trying to diffuse bombs again.  Trying to not be selfish.  So I made a mistake.  It was not my fault.  The chance to fix things will come with time.  I will have that time, and that will require growth.  There is always a cost to growth.

I don't have the guy who just buys gifts for the hell of it.  One who tells me, "Oh, your wonderful," each and every day, just for the sake of saying it.  He demands more of me.  He demands all.  He forces me to be brave and step out of my comfort zone.  I'm literally forced out of this hole I'm in.

DISCLAIMER:  ONLY IN DATING AND RELATIONSHIPS ARE YOU TO NOT LIKE A PRESENT.