How to fix me...

[WaitWhatOh]

I don't know where to start, except I know I need to say something or go crazy overthinking. I am struggling massively and pretending it's all fine. I feel so very very unimportant and somewhere around priority 257 on everyone's list. I know -how fucking needy I sound/am. DH is very busy. Works hard, always on the phone even on evenings/days off. Very stressed very important. Kind of pat me on the head attitude towards me. He's far too busy to do much with me, he is home only to work from home or sleep or eat. so I threw myself into activities and hobbies. Trying to keep busy but feeling desperately lonely underneath. Occasionally I attempt to say how I feel and get caught up in some row that always ends up being my fault and me apologising. That man can seriously sulk!! Today he gave me the lecture about being so needy, insecure and 'fucking mental' I needed to hear it apparently. :(
Despite thinking he's an arse for speaking to me quite like that I know he has a point. I am lonely I do want to spend more time with him and I do wish I was fabulously important to him and top of his list some days. What a shallow needy creature I am. What do I do... How do I feel better? how do I fix me?

Yup, you are amazing! Love hearing you talking with a new focus, like you are becoming the centre of your own life again, iyswim.

Yay! Woop Woop!

Agree the numbness isn't a worry at this stage. Feels weird but probably your mind protecting you.

Btw - don't go to relate with him. Not ever. Never ever ever. Never.

Springy - well I would. I wouldn't expect it to work. I can see firstly he is quite shocked now. He never thought I was so unhappy (he just never thought) and he certainly never thought I'd do anything about it.
Secondly I'll make any effort. He won't make any effort. I'll go to the courses or groups or therapy he thinks I need -because they won't find everything wrong with me that he thinks they will. He would actually be making a huge effort/change if he said okay then let's get some help. (He won't I bet money he won't )
And I will be seen and I will be noted as making all efforts before I give up.

Do read this to see why couples counselling isn't recommended when there is abuse.

I've had some difficult experiences in my life, Wait, but without doubt the darkest moment was when I went to couples counselling with my abusive ex. It was the most desolate experience. 'Headfuck' doesn't begin to describe it.

You're assuming that underneath the surface your h understands and will, given the right circumstances, respond to sense, reason, decency. If so, you are wrong. You and I and the majority have a conscience, generally understand right and wrong. Abusers don't have this when it comes to the relationship. They have a wholly different, and fierce, agenda: to make you obey and serve them. They will go to extraordinary lengths to pursue their sum; they never give up.

Wait, abusers are a lost cause. Very, very rarely will an abuser change. Your h has significantly abused you across the spectrum for a l-o-n-g time. It is practically certain he is a million miles from seeing the light.

My abuser convinced our therapist - a top London psychiatrist as it happens. The idiot therapist told my h I was controlling and abusive. I'm living with the legacy of that idiot pronouncement to this day.

*aim

And I will be seen and I will be noted as making all efforts before I give up.

By whom, though? There is this tremendous social narrative, isn't there, that women "must try everything before giving up" on a marriage. You have tried for twenty years. That's more than enough trying, surely? Too much already, one might say!

And then, in the aftermath, we spend a further several months or years berating ourselves for putting up with it so long; making our children put up with it; for losing ourselves and years of our lives. Nobody out here - this side of the mirror - values self-torture. Persisting in power games for no real purpose, and with no possible winning outcome, is seen as futile or damaging. Because it is!

You're already on the moral high ground, Wait. You always have been.

So who's doing this seeing & noting of your continued persistence?
Could it be your husband?
What purpose would that serve, I wonder ...

I went to an introductory mediation session with XH. The mediator was very sensible, very professional, had a separate talk with each of us and then one with us both together. XH said to me afterwards, "I never knew you felt like that". I replied that if he had actually listened to what I was saying at any time over the last 20+ years he would have known, because I certainly hadn't said anything new to the mediator that I hadn't said to him numerous times before. He thought it had been very productive and that we should keep going. I said ok, on condition that he paid half the cost (it was about £250 per session iirc, this was a few years ago). He didn't agree to that, so I said in that case I am not willing to go again. A few days later I got a letter from the mediation provider that said our next session was booked on x date. I rang them up to explain that this was a mistake and they said no, XH had booked it. So he still wasn't fucking listening.

Please don't go to counselling with him. No one but you will care that you have or not, you don't have to justify anything to anyone.

I went to counselling with my ex, he used every single thing I said in a session against me, every time, while presenting himself as a reasonable & charming, if slightly overwhelmed by his huge self importance.

When I finally had a one to one meeting with counsellor and told her all this she told me she thought he had a personality disorder and I should leave as quickly as was practical. However this was in a different country and I have NEVER heard a woman be given this advice here.

Be very careful with yourself Wait

Wait I'm sensing a new stronger you emerging from your shell. It sounds like you have had a breakthrough.

Is it your kids that you need to "prove" that you tried everything to? If so - let it go, they will understand when they are older.

As regards individual counselling, yes definitely go, especially if he's paying, because you can use that as a tool to further discover and strengthen yourself.

But I really wouldn't agree to couples counselling.

TBH my experience of couples counselling was not very good with my H. And he wasn't even abusive, just a bit shit.

The counsellor started us off with the expected "Tell us some things you admire about your partner."

I started off saying how I admired my H for creating the first UK male abuse survivors group, for being open and honest and helping other people, for keeping it together when his ex left and raising their son alone, on always being helpful and kind to others in need.

Then he turned to me and said "Well the thing is pockets is dead good at reading an writing an that so when there's any letters to write, I let her do it."

Two days later I called the counsellor and said cancel the rest of the sessions...

I asked XH that once, during the last knockin's. He mentioned my face and some of my expressions, my figure (which was actually not bad in those days), my hair, my laugh. I said but those are all external; what about the essential me, my character, what I'm like inside? It confused him totally - he had no idea what to say. Which in a way said it all.

I start to think I'm about to have that break down he wants me to have.
I feel really weird. Really removed from it. I don't feel anything when he texts other than 'ugh now what?'
I don't feel jealous, insecure in relation to him, worried, I am not pinning or sobbing.
I received a text from him saying oh god I think I've broke my ribs ( he's on a bike day. It's a possible thing)
I didn't answer. I DIDNT ANSWER. not for about an hour. Then I wrote 'whoops. Better get that checked out properly'

I felt nothing.
Okay actually I felt oh shit is he going to have to come home to be looked after ...
It's like to the whole world (and him)it's been a week of separation
To me it's been years of it.
So I think I'm further ahead than he is mentally, or our friends or our family.
What do I do to FEEL again. To know I'm not in some crazed auto pilot that will make the wrong choices....

You are not having a breakdown

And you DO feel - you felt irritated / annoyed /skeptical when he said he fell off his bike

You just can't accept your own feelings, because you are conditioned to think that you should be feeling something different .

Feelings aren't right or wrong, they just are .

And stop worrying about what your friends or family think or feel ( except your kids ) . You have enough on your plate dealing with yourself and the girls .

Those who love you will stand by you, whatever happens . Those who never liked you will be glad of the excuse to drop you . And you will make lots of new friends in your new life .

You will gain some and lose some . You will be suprised at the ones who will be a huge support to you and hurt by the ones who don't . Just like any big life change .

Your enjoying the peace! Nobody knocking you down and ending up arguing from a conversation! No walking on eggshells, just you and the girls god I bet it quite pleasant at home without him shouting.
Yes it is his house as well as yours but you Don't have to have him come back home!(unless you want)

"You're enjoying the peace" - Yes! Is that it, Wait, the freedom from drama and tiptoeing round the mood changes? :)

Wait tonight I put up some blinds I've got for the dc's rooms - got my dad to help - drilled loads of unnecessary holes but they're up

If my ex had been here: they would never have been put up, my dad wouldn't have been allowed to come and help and I would have been shouted at for all the holes drilled

But it's MY house and it's up to ME

It's a lovely feeling.

I hope you have it one day

Maybe you've just...had enough. And that's just fine.

I cannot accept its just fine, chocolate fingers, I am killing myself over it.

I am enjoying the peace.i assume it cannot last.

He is running out of time at his parents house. They are home from the sun soon. He can of course but living with them, as opposed to in their empty house, will drive him crackers. So I suspect he's coming home even if I say I'd rather he did not.
And I know he is sat there thinking wtf my wife had just had a tantrum. He will hate I've done this because he's had to tell people.
Far more than the fact I've done this pretty sad really.

I did get angry this morning. I hate that. I hear his voice saying see? You need help. You are angry and crazy.

My youngest was acting up. And I was so angry this situation has made her like that. And I felt such massive guilt. I did this. I made this situation arise.
The tension in my shoulders is horrible

Anger is normal. It is a healthy response to bad situations. Normal people feel angry. It is NOT a sign of madness - try not to believe him. (It will take time, but keep repeating it in your head till your gut has a chance to catch up!)

You are berating yourself for not feeling, then again for feeling angry. You have always been made to question yourself, like there's something wrong
with you, but there isn't. Without him, you're beginning to create his voice
inside your head criticising you, making you feel wrong for not feeling or feeling or whatever.

Be kind to yourself. Whatever you feel or don't feel, accept it. It's ok.

What about how you think?

You're listing here what other people think, what he thinks. But what about what you think?

How were you brought up? Were you brought up that the woman subsumes her identity in the man, first, the children second, the woman not even last but not at all.

You haven't done this. He's done it. You've called time on what he's done for years and years. That is, abused you by purposefully starving you, in a clear bid to control you heart and mind, of every essential human need, blamed you for gasping in agony, sneered at you that you were mad.