Sharing some notes from my therapy

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

Hi All

As some of you may know from reading my past posts, I have found a new therapist and am at last getting some well needed guidance like a drink of water in the desert.  So wanted to share some notes from tonight's session.

I started session commenting on my recent observation that ex seemed to never have received much from marriage.  I came to that as I have endlessly pondered how she could have left a marriage where so much was revealed, grown and (I thought) cherished.  The understanding that I have come to is that she did not receive what I did and so the ending of the marriage did not hold the same significance for her.  Here are the highlights.

T said ex is “shallow”: meaning, lacks depth of ability to be vulnerable, therefore, intimacy is not at the same level for her as for me.  Fear of vulnerability relates to feeling unsafe and need to protect self; probably stemming from very early childhood/infancy.  Uncomfortable feelings of vulnerability results in need for control.  As prior therapist said to me; ex summed up by saying; "self-protection at any and all costs".

None of these behaviors are a function of Joe; other than my attraction to them.  Joe was trying to  please ex's demands so she would open up and feel safe letting me love her.  I did this by absorbing what she said like a sponge, trying to be what I thought she wanted me to be, dancing to whatever music she was playing and walking on eggshells (similar to what I experienced as a boy with my unavailable Mother). 

In the beginning of our marriage, Joe was her student (so grateful to have had a teacher and she was a very good one!).  As student grew and learned he challenged the teacher and this created greater need to control.  End of marriage saw ex locking herself in bedroom for months out of complete fear with no rational justification other than feeling vulnerable and exposed.  Vulnerability-anxiety reached an unbearable height resulting in the ultimate form of control (safety), complete withdrawal.

Here is some of my ad-lib and post-session add-on thoughts in regards to being painted black.  When the feeling of vulnerability became too powerful, the mind made up stories about why the marriage would not/did not work, the stories matched the feelings so therefore must be true.  A form of PTSD emotional blackout occurred that selectively pushed out unsafe memories (of feeling vulnerable: having good feelings about the marriage); similar (same?) to a PTSD episode that runs on a hyped sense of emotion creating the sensation of fear but it is not based in the present moment.

So I think the answer to my opening question is that people need to be vulnerable to receive.  Even if your partner is very giving, they too must be willing to receive in order for the r/s to be successful.  I have felt a lot of guilt about being the “sole recipient”(self-label) of so many marital benefits.  Honestly, I am really not sure what she received from our 15 years together?  My injured self said I was a selfish taker (she probably  agrees with that one).  My rational self says she loved me deeply but could not let me love her back and so kept me at a safe distance (verbal abuse, gaslighting etc).  My ex-therapist said that I was her “project”.  Uggh, boy does that hurt!  What a way to frame a 15 year marriage that you treated the partner as a “project”, talk about detached.

In re-thinking the beginning of the r/s and marriage, she always shared her deep anxieties with me.  However, over time, she kept pushing me away with verbal put downs and then added pressures of buying a house and having a family on top of this.  The result was escalated pressure to achieve my/our life goals.  The “life-dreams” felt so out of sorts and misaligned even as I desperately desired them and tried so hard to force myself to overlook marital issues and achieve them.  This escalation kept compounding as time went by.  I suspect that this was part of the pattern – keep everything out of balance and you can’t get too close. 

Against this backdrop my internals kept having a recurring gnawing feeling; “something is not right”.  But I never knew what it was (until I got here).   None of what I am saying implies that I did not do things that were harmful to the marriage and my/our goals, I did.  But I never understood what was happening and how I constantly experienced feeling a one-sided struggle to understand our big picture.  Every slight I made was always exaggerated from her emotional point of view.  It kept breaking the continuity of our entire being.  After which aforementioned incidents were settled and we seemed to be back on track, it would recur over and again and each time for some mysterious reason that was impossible to name or resolve and for which I was always the lightning rod of.

I am now 5 months post-divorce and still struggle with many of these thoughts on a daily basis.  The therapy is definitely helping to clarify and name what IT is; its emotional nature and origins.  Going with this new "vulnerability" assumption, seems to be an emotional and logical balm to my open-ended wounds and questions that eases the pain, but does not eliminate it.   

I am still grappling with hope for a future – the same hope I had for with her.  One that I now believe I am more appropriately equipped to realize – but not by myself and with added doubts now being older.

JRB

[joeramabeme]

Hi All

As some of you may know from reading my past posts, I have found a new therapist and am at last getting some well needed guidance like a drink of water in the desert.  So wanted to share some notes from tonight's session.

I started session commenting on my recent observation that ex seemed to never have received much from marriage.  I came to that as I have endlessly pondered how she could have left a marriage where so much was revealed, grown and (I thought) cherished.  The understanding that I have come to is that she did not receive what I did and so the ending of the marriage did not hold the same significance for her.  Here are the highlights.

T said ex is “shallow”: meaning, lacks depth of ability to be vulnerable, therefore, intimacy is not at the same level for her as for me.  Fear of vulnerability relates to feeling unsafe and need to protect self; probably stemming from very early childhood/infancy.  Uncomfortable feelings of vulnerability results in need for control.  As prior therapist said to me; ex summed up by saying; "self-protection at any and all costs".

None of these behaviors are a function of Joe; other than my attraction to them.  Joe was trying to  please ex's demands so she would open up and feel safe letting me love her.  I did this by absorbing what she said like a sponge, trying to be what I thought she wanted me to be, dancing to whatever music she was playing and walking on eggshells (similar to what I experienced as a boy with my unavailable Mother). 

In the beginning of our marriage, Joe was her student (so grateful to have had a teacher and she was a very good one!).  As student grew and learned he challenged the teacher and this created greater need to control.  End of marriage saw ex locking herself in bedroom for months out of complete fear with no rational justification other than feeling vulnerable and exposed.  Vulnerability-anxiety reached an unbearable height resulting in the ultimate form of control (safety), complete withdrawal.

Here is some of my ad-lib and post-session add-on thoughts in regards to being painted black.  When the feeling of vulnerability became too powerful, the mind made up stories about why the marriage would not/did not work, the stories matched the feelings so therefore must be true.  A form of PTSD emotional blackout occurred that selectively pushed out unsafe memories (of feeling vulnerable: having good feelings about the marriage); similar (same?) to a PTSD episode that runs on a hyped sense of emotion creating the sensation of fear but it is not based in the present moment.

So I think the answer to my opening question is that people need to be vulnerable to receive.  Even if your partner is very giving, they too must be willing to receive in order for the r/s to be successful.  I have felt a lot of guilt about being the “sole recipient”(self-label) of so many marital benefits.  Honestly, I am really not sure what she received from our 15 years together?  My injured self said I was a selfish taker (she probably  agrees with that one).  My rational self says she loved me deeply but could not let me love her back and so kept me at a safe distance (verbal abuse, gaslighting etc).  My ex-therapist said that I was her “project”.  Uggh, boy does that hurt!  What a way to frame a 15 year marriage that you treated the partner as a “project”, talk about detached.

In re-thinking the beginning of the r/s and marriage, she always shared her deep anxieties with me.  However, over time, she kept pushing me away with verbal put downs and then added pressures of buying a house and having a family on top of this.  The result was escalated pressure to achieve my/our life goals.  The “life-dreams” felt so out of sorts and misaligned even as I desperately desired them and tried so hard to force myself to overlook marital issues and achieve them.  This escalation kept compounding as time went by.  I suspect that this was part of the pattern – keep everything out of balance and you can’t get too close. 

Against this backdrop my internals kept having a recurring gnawing feeling; “something is not right”.  But I never knew what it was (until I got here).   None of what I am saying implies that I did not do things that were harmful to the marriage and my/our goals, I did.  But I never understood what was happening and how I constantly experienced feeling a one-sided struggle to understand our big picture.  Every slight I made was always exaggerated from her emotional point of view.  It kept breaking the continuity of our entire being.  After which aforementioned incidents were settled and we seemed to be back on track, it would recur over and again and each time for some mysterious reason that was impossible to name or resolve and for which I was always the lightning rod of.

I am now 5 months post-divorce and still struggle with many of these thoughts on a daily basis.  The therapy is definitely helping to clarify and name what IT is; its emotional nature and origins.  Going with this new "vulnerability" assumption, seems to be an emotional and logical balm to my open-ended wounds and questions that eases the pain, but does not eliminate it.   

I am still grappling with hope for a future – the same hope I had for with her.  One that I now believe I am more appropriately equipped to realize – but not by myself and with added doubts now being older.

JRB