GoodMan,
im not sure this is a matter of caretaking, or not caretaking.
The caretaking comes from all that I have done to earn her trust back.
She feels we are still at the same place because she is holding herself in that place. She holds us there.
I used to absorb all the insults and threats of leaving with trying to deny and prove nothing is happening. I have taken on the responsibility of being her punching bag. Being the target. Being the awful person.
I am not a awful person.
I have changed habits she felt were all personal attacks. She told me not pushing in my chair is an attack on her. I have to speak quietly, stand away from her so I'm not threatening, I have to walk in the house quietly and slowly. I cant speak to her until se confirms that I'm not interrupting her. (So you understand what that means is I have to know some how she is not busy because saying excuse me is a violent attack.)
Then boom were all good. We love each other.
Then right before going on massively expensive family vacations I get told she and I are going as friends and not to touch her. When we return she is moving out and I still have to go due to the feelings of my step daughter. I grin and bare it.
Then we 180 to we can make this work and its all love!
Then we 180 again. She's moving out because she cant trust me and I'm a scum bag and all my friends are scum bags.
Then we 180 again and were working to a better end together. We will go to therapy together. we will make this work.
Then boom I get to explain to all my friends and family why she interrogated them. That they have to remove people from their social media because the prove an unfounded connection to me. I have to be scared of texting good female friends pics of my family on vacation because I'm trying to create a "connection". There is never an apology when she realizes that she is wrong.
This is a tiny fraction of what I do to care take my relationship. I have to just absorb all of this and try to keep my family together. I up my zoloft and add xanax.
If none of this is care-taking I'd like a better explanation of what is happening.
GoodMan,
what do you want to see happen here? do you want to disengage? do you want to try to rebuild trust?
I want to heal the relationship.
This may be impossible because as I've said she hasn't acknowledged the work I'm doing nor is doing any work on her own. She is still holding us in the place where we were three years ago.
For now this is where I'm at. I want it to work so I work on myself. This site and books and my therapist tell me to protect myself. Don't defend. Not to engage the accusations and abuses and threats. Work on myself.
In three weeks she will come back and tell me I'm a scumbag and she doesn't love me and I don't have her back she's leaving and taking my stepdaughter.
I'm trying to use the tools here and in books to stop the care taking and make this work.
Does anyone here have positive examples of using the tools they have found to better communicate? Do these tools work?