Posted by sunny10 on May 18, 2005, at 9:33:02
In reply to ((((((((((Sunny10)))))))))) » sunny10, posted by Damos on May 17, 2005, at 17:04:47
thanks for the hug.
Everything is the same as last week.
I am just so tired of being locked into a state of waiting.
I have promised to give my SO this time (until June 15th) to gather his own thoughts and not talk about "the future of us", but it is so hard to bite my tongue when he says things that are ambiguous.
He says things like, "we should also check out Texas by the beaches- we don't have to move to Hawaii to live at the beach and have great weather year 'round", to "we should go back to Rehobeth Beach this summer- we really liked it there last year", to "I can only deal with the actual beach for a couple of hours, then I want to show off and take my beautiful woman off the beach to make love and everyone will be jealous", to "it's really great that I can work my schedule around my new rock climbing partner. He has family obligations, but now there's only one family to schedule around instead of two".
Any of those statements could be taken any number of ways, both positive and negative (though the last one can only be positive if it was a test to see if I would react- he needs to feel loved, too) but I can't ask questions- I've been asked to give him time. And since I know that he HAS these anger management issues BECAUSE he's got so much on his mind, it wouldn't help if I bent my own promised boundary.
That's the downside to boundaries.... sometimes they tie your hands. But it is important to me to be a person of my word. How can I expect HIM to keep promises if I can't?!?
So I wait. I wait to see if he is really going to keep his promise of going to the therpaist. If he can go with an open mind, he WILL get help, he WILL get some help in dealing with the fact that he gave up his entire lifestyle of the preceding twelve years. It was his choice to make these changes, (he knows that he has outgrown this lifestyle) but we all know that change is hard- even if we know we need it.
He makes 15 dollars less per hour. He no longer sees the friends that he saw EVERY EVENING. He doesn't "shoot over to Boulder for a concert with his buddies" a couple of times a month, doesn't hang out with buddies to "do recreational drugs". We are talking MAJOR lifestyle changes, here, and he doesn't talk about them with me- probably because he thinks that I will feel either at fault because he moved here "for me" or, at the very least, under pressure to "replace" what he has lost in some way.
But the upshot is that either way, I'm the one that deals with the repercussions of the emotions that bottle up inside of him. I'd prefer to hear him talk and deal with the "feel guilty or not" scenario than get strangled when he's drunk!!!
I'd rather have him talk to a professional to help him deal with it!
So- I made that "time boundary" to make him feel safe and to give myself some time, too. Now I have to deal with not needing as much time as he- but needing answers. Answers that HE can probably not answer, anyway- but the therapist will, as we are seeing the same one for the purpose of turning individual therapy into couples therapy ONLY IF the T determines that my SO is NOT just a manipulator. I have found that I am not a very good judge of character when it comes to my love life. I need to let the professionals make the distinction this time. Because I love my SO, but, other than a rare few, everyone is telling me to drop him like a hot potato. Oh well...time will tell.
I am just hating the waiting. I am as alternately paranoid and loving as I was this time last month...
Waiting, waiting...
poster:sunny10
thread:496008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20050513/msgs/499386.html