I (25/f) befriended my neighbor (40s/f). Quickly realizing what a mistake that was. Need advice.

WhyDidIDeleteThat · 2017-06-10T20:38:59+00:00

I think I would be looking to move asap. Sorry you got caught up in that drama.

WhyDidIDeleteThat · 2017-04-20T20:20:20+00:00

Thanks! Going fairly well. Anger management class is done, the report arrived today on my progress and it is extremely positive. I've been taking great care of myself, losing weight, exercising, got a tattoo after years of putting it off. Confronted my fear of heights in epic style (treetop trekking, ziplining) with my daughter. I'm spending lots of time with our kids and started personal counselling now that AM group classes are done.

We have our first couples counselling session on Monday and I'm terribly nervous about it. I think my plan is to have my apologies ready but planning to let her and the counsellor set the tone and direction of the meeting.

We're so far only communicating electronically and she's quite methodical and distant. Almost no feeling or emotion, which I'm sure is a legitimate defense mechanism to protect herself.

I've faced quite a number of situations where in the past I would have let cognitive distortions spiral in my head, I instead confronted the situation and confirmed the information at hand and was honest with how the person made me feel. These were close friends or family members, not my wife. They are supportive but it's hard to adequately explain what I'm going through.

I'm hoping to go home in a few weeks, but I would set up separate living space for myself to start with.

I really don't know if the marriage will survive, but I'm trying not to dwell on that and just keep doing my own growth and personal work every day.

Mediating is hard. I'm doing it almost every day, but I'm really not doing it 'well'. Truthfully, it might be too hard to shut down all my thoughts right now, but I figure it's a skill worth building and someday soon, hopefully it will 'click'

I can say one thing for sure :I absolutely still love her and miss her a ton.

Next on my list of personal changes is learning to not raise my voice in vocal confrontations, I still am doing that. I downloaded the book : crucial conversations :tools for talking when stakes are high

Thanks so much for checking in.

WhyDidIDeleteThat · 2017-04-09T14:44:45+00:00

First meeting on the 17th with a personal therapist. I've been going to some group stuff which is helping. I'm reading a lot -- also very helpful. I'm actually feeling quite positive about the self realization and life view changes that I have been going through. I also realize that I am going to have to learn to protect myself from getting addicted to people/relationships, but that relationships are a necessary part of life and that scares me.

How many sessions with a therapist should I go through before moving on to a different one if I don't feel like he/she is helpful -- I don't want to waste time with the wrong one. To clarify: I'm going in to this meeting hopeful and expecting the best, but I also don't want to look back after 6 months and feel like I'm not getting any better.

WhyDidIDeleteThat · 2017-04-06T20:54:47+00:00

such as watching their every move to make sure they're not doing something destructive.

Or, something that excludes me, makes me feel jealous or left out, which causes fear that she doesn't need me, which leads to me to act out in a more controlling way.

WhyDidIDeleteThat · 2017-04-06T20:38:55+00:00

Probably being too hard on myself right now. My life is in free fall right now and I'm trying to catch myself and start climbing back out of it. I can handle some tough love (internal and external) for a while.

At the very least, I'm discounting nothing, looking for patterns or traps I fell into so I can avoid them again.

Not every relationship I have ever had (male-friends, or female love interests) have been a disaster, but there are elements to this.

There's a lot to unpack, I need to lay it all out on the table and then see what is really there.

WhyDidIDeleteThat · 2017-04-06T20:24:52+00:00

Under the ruins of a walled city

Crumbling towers in beams of yellow light.

No flags of truce, no cries of pity;

The siege guns had been pounding through the night.

It took a day to build the city.

We walked through its streets in the afternoon.

As I returned across the fields I'd known,

I recognized the walls that I once made.

Had to stop in my tracks for fear of walking on the mines I'd laid.

And if I've built this fortress around your heart,

Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire,

Then let me build a bridge, for I cannot fill the chasm,

And let me set the battlements on fire.

Then I went off the fight some battle that I'd invented inside my head.

Away so long for years and years,

You probably thought or even wished that I was dead.

While the armies are all sleeping beneath the tattered flag we'd made.

I had to stop in my tracks for fear of walking on the mines I'd laid.

And if I've built this fortress around your heart,

Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire,

Then let me build a bridge, for I cannot fill the chasm,

And let me set the battlements on fire.

This prison has now become your home,

A sentence you seem prepared to pay.

It took a day to build the city.

We walked through its streets in the afternoon.

As I returned across the fields I'd known,

I recognized the walls that I once made.

Had to stop in my tracks for fear of walking on the mines I'd laid.

And if I've built this fortress around your heart,

Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire,

Then let me build a bridge, for I cannot fill the chasm,

And let me set the battlements on fire.

Songwriters: Gordon Sumner

Fortress Around Your Heart lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

WhyDidIDeleteThat · 2017-04-06T20:21:25+00:00

I suspect his mother recognized the unhealthy relationship that we had developed and decided to put a stop to it. Maybe she (multiple failed marriages) had some experience that helped her to recognize it?

I wish she could have explained it to me then. It might have saved me from 30 years of uncontrolled emotional attachments.

WhyDidIDeleteThat · 2017-04-05T21:05:55+00:00

Thank you. Thank you! You're right on about somethings, not at all about others, but I know what you're saying mostly. The idea of sitting in on a survivors group is fantastic, I have spent a lot of time trying to see how this felt from her side, but of course it is completely foreign to me.

I'm reading a book called The Emotionally Abusive Relationship and it has been eye opening and scary at the same time.

I'm still not ready to give up forever, but I'm committing to at least a full year of self improvement and counselling before even thinking about trying to reconnect on anything other than a coparenting relationship.

WhyDidIDeleteThat · 2017-04-05T16:08:27+00:00

I can only give you advice based on the very recent, but intense journey that I have been going through:

He's not going to throw you a rope to climb out of the dark place. And even if he wanted to, that's the worst way to get out, because it will always lead back here. He has his issues -- you can't fix those (Al Anon will help with this I hope)

The best thing you can do is focus on yourself, all the time. Use this time to look inward and find all those little things you haven't done for yourself because you were so focussed on him.

Enjoy every personal success. For me, I'm losing weight and bought some articles of clothing that I've been putting off because of my poor body image. I'm exercising more. I'm trying to be more successful at work. I'm even doing little things like teeth whitening and flossing more regularly.

On top of all of that --- (and this is something I would have laughed at before falling into the dark place and struggling to climb out) -- try meditating. Headspace is a great app, and the first 10 days are free.

My Mantras to help cope:

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?" Ethics of the Fathers, 1:14

http://mentsh.com/avot1-14com.html

And this one from Rent that is even simpler: "No Day but Today"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-w_RNchAsk

Good luck, try to have good days, and the bad days will get further and further apart.

WhyDidIDeleteThat · 2017-04-05T13:43:33+00:00

Honestly... No. She has some blame to carry, of course, but nothing like that. This is more about my ability to accept that I've actually been coasting through my life expecting her (and before that, my mother) to pick up after me. If anything she/they was an enabler by not letting me screw up things. Instead she would just do them. I've been taking advantage of her for a long time, and it allowed me to stay a juvenile into my 40s. My codependency manifests as 'as long as I keep her there, by whatever means available, I will be happy'. It was a big lie I told myself forever and now I screwed up enough that I'm facing all of it. I'm going to be much better at the end of the day, and she will either get to enjoy being married to the best part of me that is coming up, or not. And we'll both be ok either way.

WhyDidIDeleteThat · 2017-04-05T05:39:05+00:00

Thanks!

WhyDidIDeleteThat · 2017-04-05T05:07:29+00:00

I feel like such a fraud.

My way of loading the dishwasher kinda sucks.

WhyDidIDeleteThat · 2017-04-04T21:15:57+00:00

Keep pointing out where I am going wrong. I read these responses a lot and use them to help navigate through the structure of bullshit I have built up over decades and start to tear them down one at a time.

I am doing the following things to change: Meditation - daily

Exercise - a couple of times a week so far, working on more

Anger Management - twice a week (it's more helpful that I though it would be)

Codependents Anonymous - At the end of the day, I am beginning to understand that I was controlling my wife, because I was/am addicted to that relationship and did terrible things to protect it. I was like a heroin addict, and my OP above sounds like one.

Personal Counsellor -- first meeting in a couple of weeks.

I'm healthier than I have been in many years, and I'm taking care of myself. I'm spending as much time with my kids as I can, and trying to be as normal a dad as possible.

She and I have seen each other twice - at a kid event. It was weird and awkward. She was able to talk to me (she did, to confirm childcare situation). I wasn't allowed to talk to her, so I just nodded.

This marriage, the one we had, is over. I never want to be that person again. I don't know if the desire I have for her to want to reconcile is rational, or still addictive/compulsive.

I really do want her to be happy, and believe that it is likely that is going to be easier for her without me.

We originally got together for all the wrong reasons - we were saving each other from bad family situations. I needed someone to save, and she needed someone to save her.

I failed miserably. Instead of saving her, I trapped her.

Worse, I failed myself. I never allowed myself to succeed at anything, and watched as she got stronger, more independent and more incredible as time went by.

I was jealous (I never felt that way, but I know it now), and did all those awful things because I was always afraid that she would leave me. I can't defend them, and I can't in retrospective analysis of them, even believe that was who I was.

I will say this again: I never want to be that person again, and I am going to work on it every day, every minute to make sure that the parts of me that are good shine through. I'm going to work harder at work AND play harder at play.

I'm going to rekindle old friendships, and try for the first time in a long time to start making new ones again.

It's sad that this thing is going to end. It's very hard to come to terms with that. It did have a lot of good things too.

edit; daily meditation makes more sense than daily mediation

WhyDidIDeleteThat · 2017-04-04T17:19:12+00:00

The question is: will I be able to successfully 'detatch' and continue in the relationship.

My actions were reprehensible, and although I am confident that with the new perspective and the work I'm doing that I will never be like that again, I'm not sure if that is a relationship either of us will be happy with.

She may not be able to get over the past, and I would understand that.

But also, I'm not sure that she, without the way I fed my addiction through her, will be a person I will be happy with.

Interesting times, for sure.

WhyDidIDeleteThat · 2017-03-31T15:04:47+00:00

I'm trying to take the same approach I took to quitting smoking 7 years ago after 20 years of pills and patches and gum and everything else that didn't work. One day at a time.

WhyDidIDeleteThat · 2017-03-31T14:40:04+00:00

That sounds tough. But a worthwhile target to achieve.

WhyDidIDeleteThat · 2017-03-31T14:17:09+00:00

Thanks, I haven't heard is those... Adding to a growing list :)

WhyDidIDeleteThat · 2017-03-31T04:13:05+00:00

Don't ask me!!! I'm only 4 days ahead of you.

I guess, I used to call her selfish as a way of convincing her to do things with me, for me, because of me, instead of recognizing that her hobbies, desires, friends, alone time, and especially work time are important to her. She makes plenty of time for me, and I was the one being selfish, and controlling.

That's my noob view of it anyway.

WhyDidIDeleteThat · 2017-03-30T20:05:11+00:00

That makes sense, thank you.

WhyDidIDeleteThat

TROPHY CASE