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Monounsaturated

Monounsaturated

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We came to a tentative agreement tonight. I feel like we're on a new journey, scary as hell, because when we get to wherever the hell we wind up, we may still decide reconciliation isn't possible. That said, we have to rebuild who we are first, and then figure out what the hell 'we' as a couple means. I'd love to be able to say that this is going to be easy, but, as they say (whoever the hell 'they' are), nothing worthwhile is ever easy.

M
 
I've been listening to Billy Joel's Honesty. The man is a musical genius. There always seems to be a song that fits a given situation. My favourite has to be She's Always a Woman.

When I look back at the past 10 years and how I have treated her, I feel sick. I held on so tight I strangled the life from everything. I feel like an idiot; before her I had never experienced unconditional love. I was so terrified of losing her love, I put her in a cage.

I have issues from my childhood and they haunt me. I'm fighting the idea that I'm worthless. It's difficult. She was the only person who saw me, broke through my defences, pulled me out of myself, dusted me off and said, 'Hey, you're not so bad.' Right now, I feel so much anger at myself. I've wasted the past 15 years.

I feel like the guy in the song Piano Man, 'makin' love to his tonic and gin.' I've never been one for pubs, these days they're so damned loud you can't hear yourself think, never mind talk to anyone.

Rebuilding 'me' seems to be the task at hand, and I don't know if I even like myself, never mind rebuild. I came out of an extremely destructive childhood and straight into a relationship with a woman who, due to my own stupidity, I nearly destroyed.

As I type this, she's over there on the sofa. I'm frankly amazed. I wouldn't have put up with me, never mind stayed. I seem to excel at destroying the things I love. 20/20 hindsight and all that. The thing is that I now know what the problem is. It makes me sick to my stomach to admit that it's me.

I was dragged up by parents with degrees in psychology, who used their knowledge to great effect. They tore each other to bits, and when my mother couldn't tear into him, she tore into me.

I took all that vitriol and internalised it. It was my fault they didn't like each other. I couldn't accept that another person could love me, and the only view of family life I ever saw was destructive. I cannot remember a single hug from my mother. I remember breaking a wooden spoon in half when she went to attack me with it, but no hugs or intimacy of any kind. In fairness, I was never physically abused. That would have been easier. A few lumps and bumps would have been easier to process.

The feeling that I was 'in the way' or 'the cause of all the problems' has been hard to process. The thing that makes me angry is that my mother has a problem with the fact that I never call, never visit or want anything to do with her. What sickens me most is that I very nearly did it to my own family, and I hope to god they can forgive me.

I know I have a huge amount of love to give-- I just don't know how to express it. I express it in all the wrong ways. I misconstrue the simplest of gestures. Taking down these shields is damned scary.

I wrote a short story once, long ago, for my college magazine, and it was published. Little did I know at the time that it was about me. My wife knows of it-- the fear of being honest with yourself and being open and aware and happy with one's own faults and accepting one's gifts.

When I was a kid, in order to gain some sanity away from the hell I was living in, a father who was as distant and cold as frost, and a mother who used me as a way of venting, I'd go to my room and read. I'd escape into whole other worlds where people were good and sane. I'd listen to music. It was my sanctuary.

When my parents finally had enough of tearing each other to bits, I went to live with my father and watched him go through one destructive relationship after another. That was fun.

I went to college and I felt like a fish in a desert. I had no clue how to relate to anyone. I sure as hell knew that a relationship with anyone was not a good idea. The fact that I didn't know what my sexuality was at the time scared the crap out of me. I seemed to like everyone. I'd get to know someone, regardless of gender, and feel attraction. I thought there was something wrong with me. I know now that there's nothing wrong with me; I just don't see gender.

Then Matilda appeared at college and I just had to know her. We clicked, spoke on the phone for hours, ran up some very scary phone bills. After college we got back in touch, and the connection was there. We had a whirlwind romance and got married. It seems like a million years ago now. Right now, I want to crawl into a safe place and shut out the world. I've hurt her so much.
 
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I am rushing to get ready for work, but I will throw a quick 2 cents out there. Don't turtle up. Keep opening up. You have a lot of the same issues I had to work through in my younger years, some of them caused by similar problems. Seek counselling, even on your own. Rebuild yourself. Dependency (either from the aggressor or the passive) is bad behaviour. When you end up "relying" on someone else to define you, in any way, thats just unhealthy.
 
Looking at the world though a different lens is both terrifying and exhilerating. We have a lot to work through, I have a lot to work through. Playing the blame game really gets us nowhere. I have first hand experience, both in my own life and watching others (mainly my parents). How we wind up at the end of all this I don't know. I do know that I love Matilda to bits. I wish to hell I could change the past, but I can't. What's done is done. It wasn't all bad, but there was far too much bad.

Looking at myself through this new lens is a bit like looking at Dorian's picture. I don't like what's happened to that picture. What I can do is start repairing and rebuilding. I've put some personal projects on hold so I can concentrate on my family, on myself and Matilda.

Part of me still wants to go out and run naked screaming down the road. They'd lock me up as some sort of lunatic and that would absolve me from my responsibilities. Can't do that though. Have to be reasonable and sane and own my own failures and crimes against myself and my family. Man, this hurts.

M
 
Numb, shellshocked, these are words that best describe how I'm feeling today. I read Matildas blog and I see posts that paint me as a demon. I know I'm not. My focus in the past few years has been on all the wrong things and it led me to neglect the one thing in my life that has any meaning -my family and Matilda. This is not a pleasant realisation.

Work yesterday was a rollercoaster of emotion, trying to function, do my job and at the same time thinking about the past number of years.

I have spread myself too thin, pursuing far too many goals and leaving nothing for anyone else. This has led me to pare back on these ambitions, freeing up time to spend where it should be spent. If life has meaning at all, it stems from family, friends, the innumerable links we make every day.
 
I feel lost, in a limbo-like state that's hard to fathom. Feelings that have been pushed down for too long are racing through me, feelings that I haven't allowed myself to feel. I veer from hopeful to despair, and back again.

I find I'm going back to the remedies I used as a kid. I lose myself in loud music. I escape to the car and pull music from the pc in the house and escape for a while. It helps.

Today we went swimming, and it was great, the old banter between us resurfacing. The Matilda I know is in there somewhere, coming out. I feel elation, and then it hits me, the regret, the loss, and I feel a whole lot of anger at myself for letting my ambition, career, etc., get in the way. All the times I wasn't there, all the times I was 'too busy.'

Songs I haven't listened to in years come to mind. Bryan Adams - Everything I Do.

I know in my heart that I'm not what I was even a few short months ago. We've been talking and talking and talking. Slowly, little by little, I'm changing. I fight the demons inside me and I am consciously letting go. It scares the hell out of me.

I want so much to see Matilda be all she can be.

I have been so afraid to love, to just let go, to just trust. I'm terrified that now that I can, it's too late.
 
Based on what I have read it is not too late, but it is going to require a lot of communication and change. This could be the launch pad to a better understanding of yourself and her. You might feel like you are on the edge of a cliff, but take a look down. Instead of endings and death, there could be immense depth in your relationship. Don't fight it, embrace it. What is the alternative?
 
Monounsaturated said:
Feelings that I haven't allowed myself to feel. I veer from hopeful, to despair and back again.
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I am guilty of this. I ignored my emotions, buried them and forgot about them. I knew how to "love", but ignored many others. Re-learning how to embrace them is going to be hard, and in some ways devastating. I found myself having to re-mourn my fathers death since I had never properly mourned before.

I had to re-learn how to trust in people. Giving myself to someone so completely without expectation of either love being returned or that trust being given back.

Its a tough emotionally tumultuous road you are going to take. I am glad my first instinct is to fight instead of flee. When these emotions came flooding back and I had to deal with them, I buried for a bit...but fought them the entire way. A learning experience and one I have no regrets going through.

I find I'm going back to the remedies I used as a kid. I lose myself in loud music, I escape to the car and pull music from the pc in the house and escape for a while. It helps.
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It does help doesn't it. I walk with music, day dream of things in a better time and place or possibly being a super hero. Either way it helps settle me. Just don't let that escapism become your reality. You can only hide for so long

good luck, you have a tough road ahead, but it is worth it :)
 
Low Self-Esteem

I'm going to throw this out there. I've been spending a lot of time thinking and crying-- shock/horror, a grown man, 6"2 and built like a fridge (to borrow Matilda's description of me) crying like a baby at work. I think I know why I've behaved the way I have for the past 10 years or more and it's really banal-- good old-fashioned self-esteem. I studied psychology donkey's years ago and I got to thinking about me and my little brain and how it works.

It all started with my parents. They instilled in me the notion that I'm useless, not worth the time of day, etc., etc. Anyway, I met Matilda and we decided we were getting married. My family (aka my father) tried the whole 'Thou shalt not get married. I forbid it,' routine. This added to that little beacon in my brain. Were it not for Matilda's strength I'd have caved. Anyway, we got married.

Then the stress of life kicked in-- a series of misfortunes job-wise, and I blamed myself for those disasters, internalised and added to the wee beacon. My self-image plummetted. Then, after another series of disasters, I wound up in the job I'm in. Frankly, I hate it, or rather I used to hate it. I was trained by my good father that you're useless unless you have a high-flying career (funny how that sounds just like him) and every day I went into work that bloody beacon in my brain went off shouting, 'Hey, you're useless, etc., etc.'

My doctor noticed that I was depressed and put me on some wee tablets to balance my seratonin. Thinking about it now, it was a plaster on an open wound.

I'm not saying this excuses my behaviour, but it certainly goes a long way to explain why I behaved the way I did.

We still need to go to councilling. We still have a huge amount of work to do.

She looked at me with the whole, 'Oh yeah?' look. Frankly, I'd look at me with the whole 'Oh yeah?' stance if I told myself that that was why I'd behaved like a right knob over the course of 15 years.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced I'm right. It's also settled a whole lot of questions in my head about my sexuality and stance on relationships. I'm very liberal, I'm very open minded, still bi (shrugs), but I'm definitely mono in my outlook.

I'm still in the position I'm in. I've still hurt the most important woman in my life. I wish to god I could remove the stupid, idiotic things I've done. I have been very confused over the past I don't know how long.

I have to thank everyone on this forum for their help and advice. I'd like to think that I can still post here. especially if Matilda hasn't figured out if she's poly or mono yet. :)

M
 
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It's 3am here, and I can't sleep. My mind is whirring, thinking of the past and the possible future that lies ahead. I feel more grounded than I've felt in a while. I don't know if I'm deluding myself, but I do know that dropkicking the baggage from my past is the appropriate thing to do. Clarity is a rare thing. I've sleepwalked the past 10 years, afraid to face my demons, afraid to drop the baggage.

I have been arrogant in my stupidity. I thought I was fine. I didn't need help! I refused to listen to anyone, accept help from anyone. So many times people reached out to me, offering support, and I pushed them away.

I ran on anger, anger at myself mostly, fear and loathing of myself. I could not see through other people's eyes, people who mattered. I drove my family away, my in-laws away.

I have to move on from here and learn to love myself, not in some narcissistic way, but in a healthy, open, way that does not drive people away from me. I am full of regret for my treatment of the people around me, especially Matilda. I have been a coward, afraid of my own shadow, afraid of me. Afraid to explore my own being.

Right now I feel confident. Tomorrow I may not be quite so up-beat.

When I look around me at the damage I've caused, I'm saddened. Saddened by the lost time with my children, saddened by the damage I've done to Matilda, saddened by the lost friendships and lost time. I have been a spoiled child, wrapped in my own world, throwing a tantrum whenever I didn't get what I wanted right away, sulking for the most insane reasons. When I look back, it's not a pretty sight.

Right, enough of this navel gazing. I'd better go to bed. Tomorrow is another day and I have a lot of work to do.

M
 

It's now 4.30 and I still cannot sleep. Matilda is asleep. I try going to bed, but I just lie there staring at the ceiling. I look over to her and I'm filled with regret. So now I listen to music.
 
I'm sorry that you're going through such a tough time. Self esteem is such a hard thing to work on. It does come from what we were told as children. I think people of our age tend to find that we have to process these things that we've been carrying. I wish I had an answer for you. All that I do know if that if you let go of your hold on someone and trust that they do love you, more often than not, they will surprise you and be there more fully for you than if you tried to keep a hold of them. (This has been a fairly recent discovery for me.) One day at a time, one issue at a time, it's all any of us can do.

-Derby
 
Thank you. I've been bouncing off the walls trying to come up with an explanation for my insane behaviour, and it fits. I just hope my realisation isn't too damned late.

M
 
I don't like fear very much. It makes me do stupid things. It sits on my shoulder whispering insidious things in my ear. I'm going to have to tape it's mouth, that, or buy some decent earphones and drown it out. One way or another, fear has to shut up and take a back seat on this one. I don't need another backseat driver telling me to watch out for the cow in the field on the far side of the road, as if said cow is going to suddenly get it into its head to jump the ditch and charge my car doing 90 down a motorway.

I waited 9 months for her before. I can bloody well do it again!

*stomps off to make coffee*

Man, I need a coffee. Maybe Matilda would like one too. Now, do I make instant or drag out the coffee maker? Decisions, decisions...
 
Counseling gives you the tools you need to cope with the events that have happened in your life, and to manage your life in a healthy way.

By the sounds of it, my husband grew up in an unhealthy household similar to yours. His parents didn't have the psychology degrees, they came by it naturally. He was always told he was never good enough, didn't do anything right, not worth anything, everything bad was his fault, no wonder his birth parents gave him up, etc. And when that didn't keep him down, they just resorted to throwing him into walls.

Fortunately, when he was in his late 20s, he saw happy people and decided he wanted him some of that. He took a serious look at his life and figured out what he had to do to change.

He says the thing that helped the most was going to college to become an addictions counselor. At the time, he had a problem with alcohol, and realized that he could effectively kill two birds with one stone.

For him, he had to completely submerge himself in healing. His program had residency, and he pretty much lived and breathed counseling for two and a half years. He really took it seriously, and it pretty much saved his life. Until that point, he was still blaming everyone for what happened to him, because his parents really had done a number on him.

Now, he's the most amazing person I know. He genuinely cares about the people in his life and does everything he can to give them the lives they deserve. He realizes that he had a difficult past and that it helped shape who he is, but he no longer allows it to control him.

He still has his moments, of course, where he slips into some old tendencies and feels very low self-esteem, blames himself for things that happen that no one could have prevented. But he can usually pull himself out of it, now that he has the tools he learned in counseling.
 
A couple of things that I have to remember:

1. For me, the hours from midnight to about 5 AM tend to be darker emotionally. It could be that the diurnal serotonin-and-other-chemistry cycles are naturally at low ebb. But whatever the cause, if I am awake during those hours my thoughts tend toward pessimism and self-doubt. It's a bad time to make life-decisions!

2. Emotional awareness, the ability to feel yourself, seems to me strongly tied to self-esteem. I had numbed myself in order to deal with a meth-addicted son and a dead marriage, and after those situations ended I began to un-numb myself. When I could weep over what had happened then I began to be alive and real again. That was when I began to see myself as a worthwhile person. So don't stop your feelings just because a guy built like a fridge "shouldn't" cry. You need to feel.

*Just my experience. Your mileage may vary.*

On the forum stuff: All we others ever see of you and Matilda is what is written, and words are very, very slippery. (Believe me -- I've sat through a lot of writing and literature classes, and people get WAY different meanings out of what seem like the most straightforward sentences!) So please forgive us if we misunderstand, if we seem unsympathetic to one or the other, or if we go off on irrelevant tangents.

I try not to point fingers and assign blame, but I don't always see things clearly and I don't always know enough to be fair and balanced. For that I apologize.

I'll repeat the advice I wrote on Matilda's thread: If you don't have a therapist then get one ASAP. Today and not tomorrow. The right person will not judge either of you, and will give you both essential practical advice on dealing with the incredible stresses that are driving you to sleeplessness and her to distraction.

--------

Oh, and an afterthought on antidepressant drugs: For me they worked for many years; I no longer need them. When I used them they disconnected some of my creativity, lowered my sexual drive, and dulled my emotional acuity. They probably don't have these effects on all people or even most people, and certainly for biochemical depression they are FAR BETTER than leaving the condition untreated. But make sure any doctor who prescribes them takes your unique response very, very seriously.
 
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We have agreed to separate, with a view to possible reconciliation. As I sit here and type, I am wracked with emotional pain. I think of the way I treated Matilda and I just want to scream. It's like I found a big shiny self-destruct button within myself and I just kept pushing the damned thing. Matilda would re-build us and then I'd push the bloody button again. I realise now that my own insecurities and self-loathing made me do these things and I'm gutted. I keep clinging to the 'possible reconciliation.' We've signed up for therapy and my goal right now is to show Matilda how much I love her and to prove it by my actions, day to day. I hope within my soul that we can rebuild a relationship for both of us to where we are people very much in love sharing life and raising our children together.

M
 
I'm sorry. But I hope this becomes a constructive way forward. Nobody here can stand in your place and truly feel what you're feeling, man, but many of us have had our own traumas. So while we do not know, we can sympathize.

Good on you for getting a counselor, or perhaps it will be one for each of you. They're not miracle-workers; to me they're more like a wise friend with a very wide understanding of human experience. A big help.

I hope you and Matilda can give each other plenty of breathing room while still co-parenting and all. The best of luck to both of you!
 
Don't be sorry

Having been through a lot of this myself, I think that separating is a really healthy thing to do. When you have been through something as traumatic as you guys have, you have to find love for yourselves again, before you have a hope of finding love for each other, otherwise all the past hurts and fears are just woven back into the fabric of your future.

Smiles,
Sage
 
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