Quote:
Originally Posted by chaotic13
MEU, you don't have to answer this but... If this occured a year ago, how might have your actions been different? Like, immediately afterwards you kind of indicated an awkwardness that caused you and the guy to sit separately on the couch and that he ultimately gave you a peak on the cheek and left. What would have happened a year ago, when you didn't become conscious of your actions and weren't thinking to yourself..."Hey, this isn't what I'm looking for. I want more than this? Might you have ended up doing more stuff you might later regret, endangering other or yourself, getting tangled up with this guy to the point that he become a regular at your door step? Just something to consider. Maybe you did slip into the old pattern a bit, but being conscious of it DID likely make a difference.
One positive I saw in your post was, while you were in the midst of the situation you realized what you were doing and how it was making you feel. IDK... This seems like movement in the right direction to me. The guilt shame and disgust that your feeling now I know sucks. I think many here have been here before too. Where you've been working so hard to be conscious of and avoid old patterns but find yourself doing them yet again.
In my own journey it seems like first I did things and did realize what I did until days later when the situation turned really ugly. Then the delay got shorter and shorter until I was then realizing what I was doing while I was doing it. For me with SOME old patterns I've gotten to the point where I can recognize what is happening and then successfully and actively change course get have a slightly different outcome. That to me is what learning is all about, getting to a point where not only you are conscious of what you're doing but you can change the behavior. Any educator will tell ya UNLEARNING is sooooo much harder that learning. Its not easy, it is not at all a linear progression, and often you might do very well in avoid some situations and make not progress at all in others.
The hardest part about making changes for me is not what others think of me, it what I end up feelig and thinking of myself.
Mew I hope you can give yourself some grace and forgiveness.
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Thank you.....
A year ago, I was married to my husband - and I never could imagine being with someone else. Even though it was an unhealthy marriage, I was glad to be married and to not have to deal with what comes with developing a relationship. I have many, many barriers when it comes to touch, and it's hard to imagine them going away - which leads me in awful directions when it comes to intimacy with a man, as a form of self-protection. Ugh.
It is true though that before I was married, I felt very different being in this kind of situation. It's like night and day.
The thing that scares me, I think, is that I don't know how to attract a healthy person....My life has been nothing but dysfunction. I don't know any other way....
My T said something to me last week about my ex, saying that the average person couldn't conceive of all of what he's done. I was a bit surprised that he was so emphatic about that, because to me, his behavior wasn't that odd, and is my normal. I don't know anything different...