So true. I would expand on this a bit though..... The true love we all deserve, we have to "think" or maybe more accurately "feel" in our bones to know the true power of this statement.
With so many things... I know them in my head or think them in my head, but I don't know it or feel it in my bones! Which sometimes leaves Me open to triggers and emotional behaviors that contradict what I "think". Does this make sense to anyone else??? Anyway it was a pretty big deal for me to start sorting out thinking vs feeling.
Becky - your post really made me think about this a little more in depth. I totally agree with you. It makes perfect sense to me. I'm still sorting through a lot right now. I have a tendency these days to "think things that may not be true". The mind games roll around in my mind so often. My husband appears to be doing and saying all the right things but my mind keeps telling me differently. I feel I deserve ALL his love, a devoted love, a lifetime of his love. I think my husband loves me but sometimes I don't feel it.
This whole process of healing is so damn difficult and emotional and there are days I just don't want to deal with any of it. I want to pretend it just didn't happen, but then a little something triggers me and my knees go weak and my heart beats so fast I think my chest will explode. And then I don't know what to believe. I try to always go with my gut instinct and my instincts are usually right. I'm afraid to bring certain things up because "I should know everything there is by this point." I have one thing I need to see from my husband and I'm afraid to ask to see it. And I have no idea why. Am I afraid to maybe make him mad? Am I afraid of what I'll find? Maybe both of these things.
Becky, My head/heart has tripped me up my whole life. I can know something...but not know/feel it. I tend to do a lot of "fake it til you feel it", which is surprisingly effective. Feeling Lost, I would urge you to pay attention to how you feel when you imagine asking your husband for what you need. How does the feeling show up? As fear? Anxiety? Do you feel small? Voiceless? I think it's important, when we're rebuilding a marriage, to tackle that stuff. You need to be able to talk about difficult stuff. You need to be able to have a voice, to honour your needs and to know that he will make space for you. It's a dance...and your both learning different steps. You'll step on each other's toes (to keep with the analogy) but without changing steps, you're stuck in a marriage in which there isn't a place for you to express pain or confusion or seek answers.
Becky, I get it. My struggle comes in my head having read and learned enough to understand all the things that led up to my husband making the awful decisions he made and my heart still hurting when I think about it. Sometimes the pain of it still catches me off guard. We're over a year out. My H continues to show through his actions that he is present and working to rebuild our marriage. While he continues to work on himself, I'm working on me. And, wow, am I learning a lot! I believe it was you who posted about the online class with Brene Brown and Kristin Neff and I wanted to thank you. I was having a down day and I signed up right away. I rarely have time to sit down and read an entire book, but I can listen to the videos at my own pace. I'm working through it slowly, but it's really helped. It's allowing me to shift my thinking and learn to treat myself the way I would treat others. I'm also learning to separate his actions from how I feel about myself. I know intellectually that the affair wasn't about me or my shortcomings, but I still need to feel that in my heart. In many ways, I think that will come when I learn to be kinder to myself and that hasn't come as easily as I expected. I need to learn to shut down that inner critic that argues that it had anything to do with me. I like to think I'm getting there... slowly but surely.
Yes and we get frustrated and accept whatever love we get. My therapist gave us an article to read which helped us and I wanted to share it. It is about Gottmans research findings. Http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/happily-after-after/372573/?utm.(underscore)source(equals)atifb. An I pad doesn't have an underscore or equal sign. My husband actually got it and asked me questions.
Lynn - that was an excellent article. I shared it with my husband and he actually read it and said it was very good. I think that my husband and I HAVE to work on our marriage every day to make sure we continue on the right path. It doesn't hurt to send little reminders lest we get to complacent and comfortable. Thanks for sharing.
This is a great article. We both read it early on within weeks after dday. I read many of the Gottman's books too. My husband was very familiar with their research and findings since he is a therapist. Since we had been through dday he looked at it in an all new light. For us and especially my husband he really focused and worked at the turning towards me. And the showing kindness. He admitted with his actions and guilt that he could not do that before. He pushed himself away from me. But this article really was good at helping him focus and was easy for him to start doing. Thanks for posting this since it as good to revisit in a new phase.
Feeling lost, I totally agree we have to work on our marriage too. We have to make our relationship a priority. With just day to day life we have to be vigilant.
I would say that we accept the love that we think is possible. Either possible for us or possible at all. For a long time, I lost faith in anything better. Turns out, looking back, I've spent most of my life surrounded by a lot of selfish people and had come to the conclusion that I was the abnormal one. I wasn't in the mood to chase rainbows so I accepted what was offered.
LLP - I could not copy and paste the article. Even still, I found a great article… I am just not certain it is the one you are referring to. Could you please post the title of the article and perhaps the author, that way I can search for it. Thank you!
It is a hard thing to recondition myself. When I look at my day to day life and my relationships it is really hard work to make changes in how I feel and view things. I feel it most when I am tired or worn down. I feel like oh great we are slipping back into our old patterns. Or when my husband calls after golfing and asks if i need anything. And I think why is he calling but he is on his way home. Th We never happened before ever. And I almost feel like what we have is too good to be true or not reality. I have shared this with him and he has been really understanding and keeps assuring me he wants to be present. It is so hard still for me not to go to that place of oh he will let me down again. But he is working through it with me.
Hopeful 30, It can be hard to trust the changes we see because, well, we've been wrong before, right? Time will either bear out that these changes are real or not. In my case, the changes stuck. We both liked the new marriage so much better that we decided to keep it. :)
So true. I would expand on this a bit though..... The true love we all deserve, we have to "think" or maybe more accurately "feel" in our bones to know the true power of this statement.
ReplyDeleteWith so many things... I know them in my head or think them in my head, but I don't know it or feel it in my bones! Which sometimes leaves
Me open to triggers and emotional behaviors that contradict what I "think". Does this make sense to anyone else??? Anyway it was a pretty big deal for me to start sorting out thinking vs feeling.
Love to all
Becky.
Becky - your post really made me think about this a little more in depth. I totally agree with you. It makes perfect sense to me. I'm still sorting through a lot right now. I have a tendency these days to "think things that may not be true". The mind games roll around in my mind so often. My husband appears to be doing and saying all the right things but my mind keeps telling me differently. I feel I deserve ALL his love, a devoted love, a lifetime of his love. I think my husband loves me but sometimes I don't feel it.
DeleteThis whole process of healing is so damn difficult and emotional and there are days I just don't want to deal with any of it. I want to pretend it just didn't happen, but then a little something triggers me and my knees go weak and my heart beats so fast I think my chest will explode. And then I don't know what to believe. I try to always go with my gut instinct and my instincts are usually right. I'm afraid to bring certain things up because "I should know everything there is by this point." I have one thing I need to see from my husband and I'm afraid to ask to see it. And I have no idea why. Am I afraid to maybe make him mad? Am I afraid of what I'll find? Maybe both of these things.
Becky,
DeleteMy head/heart has tripped me up my whole life. I can know something...but not know/feel it. I tend to do a lot of "fake it til you feel it", which is surprisingly effective.
Feeling Lost, I would urge you to pay attention to how you feel when you imagine asking your husband for what you need. How does the feeling show up? As fear? Anxiety? Do you feel small? Voiceless?
I think it's important, when we're rebuilding a marriage, to tackle that stuff. You need to be able to talk about difficult stuff. You need to be able to have a voice, to honour your needs and to know that he will make space for you. It's a dance...and your both learning different steps. You'll step on each other's toes (to keep with the analogy) but without changing steps, you're stuck in a marriage in which there isn't a place for you to express pain or confusion or seek answers.
Becky,
DeleteI get it. My struggle comes in my head having read and learned enough to understand all the things that led up to my husband making the awful decisions he made and my heart still hurting when I think about it. Sometimes the pain of it still catches me off guard. We're over a year out. My H continues to show through his actions that he is present and working to rebuild our marriage. While he continues to work on himself, I'm working on me. And, wow, am I learning a lot!
I believe it was you who posted about the online class with Brene Brown and Kristin Neff and I wanted to thank you. I was having a down day and I signed up right away. I rarely have time to sit down and read an entire book, but I can listen to the videos at my own pace. I'm working through it slowly, but it's really helped. It's allowing me to shift my thinking and learn to treat myself the way I would treat others.
I'm also learning to separate his actions from how I feel about myself. I know intellectually that the affair wasn't about me or my shortcomings, but I still need to feel that in my heart. In many ways, I think that will come when I learn to be kinder to myself and that hasn't come as easily as I expected. I need to learn to shut down that inner critic that argues that it had anything to do with me. I like to think I'm getting there... slowly but surely.
Yes and we get frustrated and accept whatever love we get. My therapist gave us an article to read which helped us and I wanted to share it. It is about Gottmans research findings. Http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/happily-after-after/372573/?utm.(underscore)source(equals)atifb. An I pad doesn't have an underscore or equal sign. My husband actually got it and asked me questions.
ReplyDeleteLynn - that was an excellent article. I shared it with my husband and he actually read it and said it was very good. I think that my husband and I HAVE to work on our marriage every day to make sure we continue on the right path. It doesn't hurt to send little reminders lest we get to complacent and comfortable. Thanks for sharing.
DeleteLynn,
DeleteThis is a great article. We both read it early on within weeks after dday. I read many of the Gottman's books too. My husband was very familiar with their research and findings since he is a therapist. Since we had been through dday he looked at it in an all new light. For us and especially my husband he really focused and worked at the turning towards me. And the showing kindness. He admitted with his actions and guilt that he could not do that before. He pushed himself away from me. But this article really was good at helping him focus and was easy for him to start doing. Thanks for posting this since it as good to revisit in a new phase.
Feeling lost, I totally agree we have to work on our marriage too. We have to make our relationship a priority. With just day to day life we have to be vigilant.
Great article, LLP! Thanks for sharing.
DeleteI would say that we accept the love that we think is possible.
Either possible for us or possible at all. For a long time, I lost faith in anything better. Turns out, looking back, I've spent most of my life surrounded by a lot of selfish people and had come to the conclusion that I was the abnormal one. I wasn't in the mood to chase rainbows so I accepted what was offered.
LLP - I could not copy and paste the article. Even still, I found a great article… I am just not certain it is the one you are referring to. Could you please post the title of the article and perhaps the author, that way I can search for it. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteIt is a hard thing to recondition myself. When I look at my day to day life and my relationships it is really hard work to make changes in how I feel and view things. I feel it most when I am tired or worn down. I feel like oh great we are slipping back into our old patterns. Or when my husband calls after golfing and asks if i need anything. And I think why is he calling but he is on his way home. Th We never happened before ever. And I almost feel like what we have is too good to be true or not reality. I have shared this with him and he has been really understanding and keeps assuring me he wants to be present. It is so hard still for me not to go to that place of oh he will let me down again. But he is working through it with me.
ReplyDeleteHopeful 30,
DeleteIt can be hard to trust the changes we see because, well, we've been wrong before, right? Time will either bear out that these changes are real or not. In my case, the changes stuck. We both liked the new marriage so much better that we decided to keep it. :)
The article is Masters of Love by Emily Esfahani Smith
ReplyDeleteThank you Lynn - yes, it is the one I read. I will read with my husband.
ReplyDeleteAlso, did you all see front cover of Time - not a fabulous article, yet interesting.