It's So Screwed Up

TW got me to thinking on my last posting, I need to do a further examination on what is going on here regarding the SIL, and me.  Especia

lly me.  For this is about me, and blaming everyone around me is ending me up in trouble.

Well, first of all it hurts alot.  And I react badly when I am hurt.  Self-sabotage starts to happen.  And this is a very dangerous position for me to be in.

As much as I try to be all dignified and perfect, I know I can bring anyone down with the words that I use.  It was the way I was raised, I even feel like I raise eyebrows here on my blog.  That is the tendency to self-sabotage.

Now, I don't have grouchy moments for nothing.  I am quite pleasant, and people do like me.  I'm ok and loving and kind.  But when I get hurt, watch out.  Now, I don't know why that is.  I remember even when mother was abusing me, I would say nothing.  I can't figure out that part yet.

DH and I talked the other night about why we were fighting over his SIL.  "I did nothing to her", I told him.  I also told him that I deserved respect, but that part I know is not true, we don't get what we deserve, so we shouldn't expect it.

But he also told me, "No, you didn't do anything to her, but you said lots to me about it."  That is just terrible.  For why can't he even handle my authentic emotions?  I even asked him about that.  He said, "Well, you were doing a lot more than just expressing your emotions."  Now, that must be it, right there, the part where he feels I stepped out of line.

Now, I can't figure this whole thing out.  I was abandoned, when he went away to see them last summer.  I mean, WTF?

I remember the day he left to go on his trip.  He sat here a long time, and I was just being normal, I mean I wasn't doing anything wrong that day.  He sat here for the longest time, till I had to tell him that he had a long drive, why wasn't he leaving?  Could he have been waiting for me to get ready to join him?  The email left me out.  He did ask me to join him a couple of days prior to leaving.  Was he just expecting me to go?  Was he waiting for me?  What was going on?  He did not ask me to join him on the day of leaving, that I am sure of.  And we planned on going together, months before, that is until he got that email.

But just this past Sunday when they showed up at the door, I offered to serve them even.  To that, he called me a hypocrite.  What the heck does he expect me to do?

Bottom line is this.  I believe she sent that email and put it in his head that I was not going to join them on the trip.  A couple of days before the trip, she sent him another email that I was joining them. Then he asked me.  Now if that ain't a narc butt kisser, I don't know what is.

And I am not a narc pleaser, no way in hell I am.  They showed up at the door this weekend and I offered to serve them, and that seemed to cause a big rift.   Why?  Because I didn't join them on the trip when I was offered to at the last moment?  After being pushed aside?  Even asking if DH could join them on their walk?  Leaving me aside, ignoring me again?  And nothing was said to that.  But I am the bad guy?

My mother doesn't act this way.  She will include everyone.  Even my own SIL will include everyone.  The bullies in school did not ever include me.  The bullies would make me feel like I wasn't to join them, but be asked as a way of hiding their butts.  And no one protected me from that. As DH is not protecting me from this.

Here's the plan.  This is what I have got to do.  And it sucks.  I hate it.  I must pull my emotional resources together, and just treat him with unconditional love and respect.  Now when it comes to his SIL I will have to learn to understand that this is not going away.  I have to understand that.  And accept that.  I will no longer be calling her his booty call, or whore or tramp.  From now on, that will be out of my vocabulary.  I don't even like talking like that.  But I felt hurt, so that is how I retaliate, but that has got to change.

Yes, full authentic emotion is fine, when it is expressed in a safe atmosphere, I won't change that.  In fact, our spouses expect us to be open.  But here is the thing, and I hate this part.  I have to leave him with at least some room to take care of me.  That poses such a high risk that I am having a hard time with it.  Suppose he doesn't step up, and I have been left with no help?  I can easily be made the victim again.

High value vulnerability.  Just say it.  It is this priceless item, that I must exercise in order to have what I want.  I must show vulnerability and be totally ok with it.  When I get hurt, it is ok to show full authentic emotion.

Now, I'm going to tell you a secret.  We are to show full authentic emotion WITHOUT ANY BLAMING.  That is blaming of him.  He doesn't seem to mind me blaming his SIL, it is when he feels blamed things go badly.  But he wanted me to blame him for not being taken on the trip not her, so this part is kind of confusing. I know.

Showing full authentic emotion without blaming him, is hard.  It is very  hard.  I must focus on the deed that was done, not that I am blaming him for it.

I could say something like, "I was so hurt that day when I saw that email and felt so left out, that I highjacked the email and put it in my blog, so I could at least talk about it.  I didn't want to take it out on you.  I was so hurt."

I did something like that a while back, and it disarmed him.  We got to the point where we were arguing about it so much that he said, "I'm done talking about it."

Then I expressed my feelings.  I told him I felt bad, I felt sick..."  Well, basically just told him how I felt at present.and left everything else out.   It changed the dynamics of the whole evening, that I went and made that report on my relationship site, and everyone was fascinated by it.  It was a powerful moment, when all the bad stuff just "dissipated".  Also too, I felt better, for I got my feelings out in the right way.  I have said that before, stay in your own body, stay with your own feelings.  This works 100% of the time for me.

He is the type of guy where that if he does get angry, it is with good intentions.  I realize that now. I'm the ACON here, I'm the one with busted up emotions, he seems to have it all together.  But he can't deal with me in this way, I need to do what works.

I have never expressed to him fully what I really want.  Do I want him to not see his brother again? No, I don't want that.  I want for us to plan each and every outing we go on together.  I want to be considered.  So I am to just say that.  Just say it.  He doesn't know any better, he can't guess what I want, what my needs are, I have to express them.  When we were going together on that trip, before the email, I felt very forced to go, and he just expected me to go.  Something fell apart at that point.

But I am to say it when all my emotions are intact, and I can do it authentically, not as a way of retaliating, for that is the part that gets screwed up.  But fully and authentically, when I have my power back.  And not as a way of keeping him away from his family, I know that was never my intention, but he feels that way.  Now, if he feels that way from anything I am doing, I am to do something about that.

So I am to express fully how I feel about that email.  I am ashamed to say that I never done that. Should he just guess over my ranting what my feelings are?  And express how I would love for us to plan our vacation together from now on.  And just leave it at that.  You know, maybe nothing will come of it, and things might just keep going as they are going on, and that would be terrible.  But what is that?  That is fear.  I am fearful that if I be that vulnerable I would get stomped on.  Maybe I would be, there are no guarantees.  All I know is that he responds to actual vulnerability each and every time.  That if he is not, that is because there is something closed up, and I am not expressing fully.

A couple of weeks ago, he opened up facebook and my daughter had a picture of a kid crying like crazy.  He looked over at me and said, "That's Joanie."

What an asshole.  A jerk, a..... .  What was his intention?  To make me feel bad?  To tease me?  What was his intention.  This could have been him just being adorable and endearing but I would never see that.

All I can see are bad intentions.  For an ACON this is good, right?  That's not bad, its just the retaliation part that bad.  How I take it out on him, when his intention wasn't that.

Do I feel like he is putting his SIL's feelings before mine?  Darn right I do.  Even if I serve them, I am the hypocrite, and she looks like gold every friggin time.  He even accused me of being manipulative, and I would never be that.  I wouldn't even know the first thing about being manipulative.  I wasn't forcing him, I was just expressing, but he thinks I take it too far.

I don't know what to do.  Sometimes it feels like I'm running on empty, and I have to tell him what I feel and what I want in full authentic emotion and I would much rather take a frying pan to his head.

I'm really angry because of all the risks I have to take on getting hurt.  I am expected to trust.  Yes, he has proven to me that he responds to vulnerability, but I still feel scared.  But I also know that I will have a long trail to follow back before my vulnerability to mean a thing to him at this point.  He doesn't trust me.

Omg, why do I have to be the one to do the work to fix this?  Why me?  It is his own SIL, not mine, I didn't do anything wrong here, nothing.  I was mouthy, is all.

I get the feeling some people might be thinking that I am taking my past out on him.  But what about the email?  

Funny, how life does let us start again, but with the resources we have left intact from previous experiences.  If I want to be innocent in all this, then I must take responsibility for my own feelings. Every feeling must be expressed, all the way back, just to myself.

Yes, I am angry at mother.  She made me what I am.  Bullies in school, made me feel left out all the time.  I am hypersensitive to everyone judging me and leaving me out of things.  DH doesn't know that.  How could he?  No one treats him like that.  No one ever does.

Here's what I must do.  Feel all my feelings, going way back.  I thought I did that.  And I am doing that, but I won't live long enough to fully do that.  I don't feel like I will anyway.  But that is just an illusion.  We do get over things, I know that.  We do get past and we are able to move on.  Or do I just take my past experiences and make them a part of my life now.

Funny, how nothing is ever logical is it?  I can logically say that that crap from my past doesn't matter.  My first ex-husband used to leave me alone at home with small children so he could go out and party.  How does that feel?  I want to harass him on facebook over it.  He won't even remember, for I never told him about it.  So now, more than 20 years later I want him to suffer.

Things are getting so screwed up right now with writing this, that I can't even imagine what this looks like.

Just take the veneer of pain off and look at it logically.  How would I have felt about that email, if I was never hurt.  Shocked still?  I think I would have just thought she was stupid.  But mean and spiteful?  I mustn't ever forget that being an ACON gives me much more knowledge about narcissism than the others.  Plus too, I did feel horrible the last time I was there from her treatment.  That would have been valid.

Suppose as ACON's we know make people responsible for their behaviour.  She is a narc.  She has shown too many red flags not to be.  I see it.  I feel it way down.  I also sense some kind of game is afoot with me, for she has managed to make me out to be the bad guy in all this.

But how much was my responsibility?  How much?  I didn't go on that camping trip last summer, because I was plain out dis invited.  And DH doesn't get to play with me, and invite me at the last minute.  Was I protecting myself?  And not allowing my vulnerability to show?  What would vulnerability have given me in this case?

Never mind.  Who knows?  What played out was the result of me not expressing myself fully at any given time in our relationship.  Does fear rule me that much?  It did, but then I got tangled in the results of my fear, so badly that nothing makes sense anymore.

I have about nine months until next summer.  During that time I am to express to him that I want us to plan vacations together.  And if he says something like, "Well, I would rather we just go there."  I am to say, "Well, that is how I feel is all, and I don't like it any other way."  Just that.  And leave it.  If he is to say something along the lines how I just don't want to go because of SIL, I am to just say that maybe, but more that I would like us to do things together, and plan together.  If he goes on some kind of tirade, I am to understand that I am still having to deal with the past, and just keep on the road that I am on.

I will have my say.  About that email, about everything.  Eventually, it will all come out.  This is a faith thing, sort of, it can't be bought, it can only be earned.  I have to earn that right.  Heck if I do that he might even say that he was in the wrong about the trip without me even having to do much of anything.

That is a goal, that is a dream, a far off fantasy for someone like me.  It has never happened, I have never been treated like that.  And there are no guarantees that if I do everything right that it will work out that way.  To the engulfed daughter, there are no guarantees in life.  To the girl who stayed home all the time, and by mother's side, there are no guarantees in life.  And there is no protection from getting hurt.

But you will be fine.  You will survive regardless.

We enjoy being hurt sometimes.  We enjoy the feeling of someone doing us wrong.  There I said it.

But why?  It puts me in a place of justification.  It justifies me.  Makes me feel safe.  I don't let my vulnerabilities show, and he doesn't completely understand that I'm hurting, only sees that I am enjoying it.  Maybe.  But then I am only enjoying that feeling instead of feeling loved.  Which I authentically want, but I want is so bad, that I take it any way I can.  And the bad way is the easiest.

And come to think of it, it wasn't the email that bothered me so much.  It was him not wanting me to go, which I felt was because of the email.  But he said it was because of the way I acted 3 or 4 years ago when I did go.  But he ignored me, didn't pay any attention to me then.  But it was easy for me to feel that way, I was so scarred up.

So, I'm going to let this go for now.  It gets too screwed up the more I try to talk about it.  I'm just going to do what I said what I am going to do.  Face fear, be vulnerable, be authentic.