Hi Chosen,
Maybe I can help provide a different perspective.
He talks a lot about divorce because I "will never change", despite him giving up everything for me, I always want more, I let the whole family down, causing everybody pain.
Perhaps you know this to be projection? projection is difficult to deal with. painful even. the rule of thumb advice for projection it to side step it. to not allow someone to put their negative feelings on to you. We always say here you validate the valid and invalidate the invalid. You don't invalidate the valid or validate the invalid. See the wee cute pattern there?
I used to get sucked into projection conversations all the time thinking I could find a validation target and 'help'. looking back with 20/20 hindsight, I wish I had done the curtesy 5 minutes of "hmmm, you've mentioned that a lot lately, let me know what you finally decide, I am going to the grocery store for milk and cookies."
Yup, that's invalidating but you want to carefully, now that you have experienced skills, and gently invalidate the invalid.
What do you think?
We're Christians and I truly believe marriage is for life. I deeply want to fight for the marriage and yet I'm also conflicted, because even though I am ready (and am doing) taking responsibility for my failures and my actions,
I don't belong to your faith tradition. So I always hesitate to make comments on how faith shapes our values and our responses. I do belong to another faith tradition which did play a huge role in my relationship and how I acted through out.
In my faith tradition we have a concept that any 'rule' can be broken if it involves saving a life. The idea would work like this, if I see a car with people burning on the street, and know my neighbor has an ax in his locked garage I can break the door into the garage to steal the ax to break the car windows. Basically
that the higher good deed, (saving a life) outweighs the lesser bad deed (stealing the ax).
I don't mean to compare religions or debate theology, I think maybe that belongs in our spiritual communities. I did mean to point out, that most faith traditions have somewhere embedded in them, the idea of non binary constructs. Meaning, it not a YES/NO, RIGHT/WRONG, EITHER/OR situation but shades of nuance and understanding.
I have messed up everything he had wanted to do (he already "has long given up hope that I would be able to help him as a wife, but why do I need to wreck everything he tries to do", etc.
I would nudge you to not listen to stuff that sounds like this. It's not doing you any good to be exposed to this type of verbiage. I would suggest a small but firm boundary. After the five minute curtesy listen, Husband I don't feel that having this conversation this way is good for us, me, or the new baby, maybe we can talk about it later with the pastor, the therapist... .etc etc. whatever works for you in your situation.
He is not going to willing leave these types of conversations, he is getting something out of them. A place to dump his negative emotions.
Remember, when in a dysregulation they are not talking/arguing to resolve an issue but to keep you engaged in their chaos. Find a way to disengage. Allow him to either self soothe or not.
I am feeling quite depressed lately. That I have let everybody down, particularly my kid, and I often think of the worst scenario- what if kid has to grow up in a broken family? It's all my fault.
It's absolutely not. Chosen, it is not your fault. You are absolutely doing the best you can with a difficult situation. You are not in charge of the results, only the effort you put in. You've put in a huge effort. Give yourself credit. Reading your post, I can see the fair, even handed, compassionate, loyal person you are. Skip says, "none of us pitch a perfect game." True. I pitched a pretty good game. I think you are too.
My mother was so mentally unstable that at a young age my grandparents came and got me and removed me from the home. Something unheard of back then in my community. I thank G-d nearly every day that they did. I grew up mostly sane and mostly normal because some one made a courageous decision in the face of stiff opposition. No matter what I know someone cared enough to try and do the best thing for me. To take care of me.
Sometimes I even think that it's better if I'm dead before my kid has a permanent memory of me, so it won't affect them so much. I'm not actually suicidal, no worries, just have this "wish I'm dead" feeling, like I wish that some divine action would kill me off.
Chosen, thank you for having the guts to write that. It's a very brave thing to do. I've been there too. It's a dark place to be. What I find is that thoughts like that feed themselves like putting gas on a fire.
I would suggest maybe it's time for a lot of heavy duty self care. A lot of relaxing. A lot of putting Chosen and the kid first. Time in the park. It's perfectly normal to buckle under the stress you've been experiencing. And your thinking is telling you that. Our bodies, our psyche, our ego's can only take so much and then it's time to recharge our batteries.
I love my H and I know he loves me, but is it a dead end because I make him so unhappy?
You can't make someone who is unhappy with themselves, happy. It's not possible.
Will you come back and let us know how you are doing today? I would really like to talk more with you.
Whatever direction you go in, hopefully you can reach the decision from your wise mind. Not born out of despair or exhaustion. Keep talking with us. It will help your thoughts to become clearer.
'ducks
