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Aside from the resentments issues which I am dealing with in a separate post, I have gotten a series of text messages and emails from my partner over the last 24 hours which I find very emotionally disturbing and don't know how to respond to.

In text yesterday at 4:26pm


At 6:11am this facebook message


At 6:16am this email


Then at 9:52am this text which I did respond to:


I don't know how to validate it when he says stuff like "this coma I am in", I finally like he's trying to make me responsible for his bad feeling. I think he sounds depressed and should take medication or see a therapist but he doesn't like anti-depressants and he think his problem is his environment and he'll be better when he leaves it. He claims that he knows for most people that's a geographic but for him its different, that his PTSD is not going to get better until he leaves.

I know I could validate the underlying feeling of unhappiness, frustration, sadness, etc, but what about my feelings? Its challenging for me to validate him without invalidating myself. That is something I need help with, there's a definite dialectic here, two opposing viewpoints.

Being the emotional leader is about ourselves- taking steps to grow emotionally. This may lead the relationship to a more emotionally healthy place. It does not mean we act on the other person. It is possible that they may grow emotionally as well- but their choice/ growth is not something we can do.

As to validating someone's feelings- we can do that if we choose. We can validate someone's feelings without invalidating ours. Two people can feel differently at the same time. Your SO expressed his feelings. How you react or feel is your side of the street. Being an emotional leader means taking the focus off what he says and on to you. The fact that you are feeling upset is something to consider. Also the choice to validate someone's feelings or not is yours.

Thank you Not Wendy, I had looked at the poll as to the reasons people gave for being undecided and I decided this was mine. When he tells me twice in less then 24 hours that he feels stuck in a coma, I don't know how to respond to that. My life is really hard too, but I'm doing everything I can to have a good life despite my hardships. When he tells me the kinds of things he does its hard for me to have sympathy or empathy for him. Nevertheless I was able to tell him that I'm sorry he's having such a rough time. I don't understand why he says those kinds of things to me, they are emotionally disturbing to me. He also made some kind of absurd comments on his calendar, "eat chocolate rabbits" and "Sit on liquid Sugar and Hatch Peeps" and when I mentioned that he said he was trying to be funny but to me when he's absurd after he's expressed despair it makes me nervous. Also considering what he said in my other post about Easter I'm doubly convinced that he's kind of off the beam. (I had suggested he go see his parents for Easter now that his schizophrenic brother is on a medication that allows him to talk more freely and he implied that he wasn't going to because I wasn't enthusiastic about our relationship. I covered that in my other thread on resentment).

I often asked him if he got all the way better would he be able to do the kind of work he does.

So is that the right way of being the emotional leader? Is there a way I can tell him that I find his recent messages and emails emotionally disturbing?

There is a part of me that wonders if he is trying to get my sympathy .

His feelings are not yours to analyze or fix. Yours are yours. You've been in 12 steps groups so you know the saying that if you feel something is wrong- it means something about you. Somehow you are bothered by what he says. Making him the cause of your feelings isn't going to help as much as taking responsibility for them.

Thank you not wendy. So his words make me uncomfortable. He's told me in the past that he's said disgusting things on purpose to annoy people who are annoying him so I know he's capable of being intentionally disturbing. I understand what you are saying but I don't know what to do about it. Can you help me out here?

I think if you have been in 12 step groups, that you have the tools to help with "his side of the fence" and "your side of the fence". It helps to keep these separated for you. He can say/do what he wants. His motivation is his business.

You have your feelings, but you also have the choice of how to respond to them. One is to just feel them, let them go, and go on with the things you have in your life. Self care is an option. This could mean taking some time to yourself- running an errand, taking a walk. One of the items on the ACOA laundry list is about being reactors instead of actors. We can choose to react or not.

A sponsor ( yes you can ask someone else to be one) and a T can help you process these feelings, and then possibly come to a decision about them. But the perspective that he is doing this to you isn't one that gives you any choice or options as this perspective has him holding the control of them, and that isn't a perspective that leads to responsibility or change.  Taking the perspective that your feelings are your responsibility could lead you to choices.

Being an emotional leader means taking responsibility for one's own emotions. I think that you have the tools ( 12 step, therapy at some point). A sponsor or T is probably in the best position to help you with this kind of emotional work.

Hi Not Wendy,

I will tell you something else that came up today, as well as yesterday. The other part I didn't illustrate yesterday is that he put something funny on his calendar, eating chocolate rabbits, sitting on liquid sugar and hatching peeps. Well, in line with his other comments about being in a coma, not being able to wake up from it, being in a nightmare, I didn't find his Easter comments very funny. I also didn't find them funny because of what he told me about not wanting to go to his parents because of how I responded to him telling me about his mother's phone call.

I talked to him about this last night and about how despair coupled with absurdity usually preceded a dysregulation and he said I was right but he was on medication now. He was right too, he didn't dysregulate. He went on to say that in the past after he had been around people for a long time and started getting funny his wife started getting nervous because she knew a dysregulation was coming. She even had a nickname for that type of behavior.

I noticed again today he was being funny about something and it turned out it had to do with going over to his wife's house to pick something up. I of course did not find his humor amusing either as I'm wrestling with his lack of transparency about his wife/marriage/divorce. I pointed out to him he was being opaque and he denied it and said he was being funny.

his humor makes me uncomfortable. He even told me that he's gotten in trouble for laughing at inappropriate things in movies. Its almost as if he prides himself on making people uncomfortable, which gets back to what I was saying about him being deliberately disgusting in the past to make other people uncomfortable to teach them some kind of lesson.

I think my natural responses are healthy as his behavior is obnoxious. I think if I were to find his humor or darkness appropriate there would be something wrong with me.

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I have tried to talk to my sponsor about my relationship but she is not readily available and will try again to find a therapist that I have no share of cost on. I noticed my former psychiatrist accepts my medical insurance and although I didn't exactly gel with her it might be worth to try again.

I probably should find another sponsor that is more readily available however finding ACA sponsors that are farther along in the steps then me (I'm on step 10) and available for sponsorship are hard to find. Nevertheless I know someone i could reach out to, not for sponsorship, but to talk to her about something. She and my ex sponsor actually have the same sponsor so it would be the same wisdom. One more thing about my ex sponsor, a former secretary of the meeting didn't think my ex sponsor was ready to be sponsoring people so its possible that situation wasn't my fault.

Thank you for your input. I appreciate your time.