Couples therapy this weekend offered me another opportunity to see something I didn't know I didn't know.
In my family, people don't take responsibility for their feelings. In my mother's mind, every emotion she has ever felt has been because of somebody else.
What I didn't realize is that when my husband expresses a feeling, I hear two things:
1. I have done something wrong
2. I will be made responsible for his feelings, and making them better, no matter what
As a result, when he is telling me feelings, I respond to 1 and 2 above (what I hear) by getting hurt, angry and defensive. And he feels I angry, alone and resentful because I don't get/hear what he is actually expressing, and is also unaware that I'm responding to 1 and 2 above instead of his feelings.
It's a wonder anyone can communicate at all.
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This is an open journal of my experience coping with infidelity and sex addiction. Or...What To Expect When You Weren't Expecting.
Resources
- What is sex addiction?
- Dr. Patrick Carnes' Web Site
- Sex, Love and Addiction - Dr Rob Weiss Podcast
- Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction by Patrick Carnes, Ph.D.
- Don't Call It Love by Patrick Carnes, Ph.D.
- Seeking Integrity
- The Center for Healthy Sex
- S-Anon spouse/partner/family support group
- Co-SLAA spouse/partner/family support group
- CoSA spouse/partner/family support group
- When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron
- The Places That Scare You by Pema Chodron
- No Death, No Fear by Thich Nhat Hanh
- Writings of Anthony de Mello, SJ
- Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen by Shunryu Suzuki
- Surviving Infidelity by Rona B. Subotnik
- After the Affair by Janis A. Spring
- The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner
Blog Archive
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2007
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December
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- Sometimes I can't feel my feelings
- More emotions coming to the surface
- Reading about fear has helped
- Where does the pain come from?
- Higher power speaking again
- On a positive note...a sign of my growth
- There is still grief
- Yes, I really live with a sex addict
- The addict among us
- Learning from dogs
- Surge
- The Shield
- Your needs? I don't really care
- Checking my thinking
- Sad for the days
- He came home last night
- Still feeling the distance
- Getting past the past
- Blind spots
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December
(19)
About Me
- woman.anonymous7
- Woman. Late 50s. In a committed relationship with Husband for 34 years. Married in 1997. Husband started seeking out lap dances to orgasm around 1994/95, hand jobs and blow job from prostitutes around 2001 when I was pregnant. Intercourse with prostitutes began in 2003, and was discovered for the first time June 1, 2007.
The Point of Marriage
"The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky." - Rainer Maria Rilke
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1 comment:
It's amazing to me too -- and amazing what we pick up from our parents and incorporate into our own patterns and understandings.
I learned from my parents that I am responsible for other people's emotional states -- and I am responsible for foreseeing and providing for their wants. When my husband asks me a simple question like, "Do we have any more chips?" I immediately get defensive and angry, because I learned from my parents' interactions that it was my job to provide or be blamed.
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