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Originally Posted by Open Eyes
One thing that might help you is to think about this as if your husband was a horse. I think you know enough about horses where you know horses can develop bad habits right?
Your husband has been practicing behavior patterns for a long time and YOU have been trained according to his behaviors. That is what Stockholm's is about. Your husband has learned to invade your boundaries and you had learned how to allow him to do that with you. It's pretty much like you were broke a certain way. And what begins to develop is a "victim mentality" and this is often a learned pattern like Western Training where the person is broke that way and doesn't "know" how to ride "Normal and healthy".
For me, truth is I never know when that door opens whether I am going to have to deal with Mr. Hyde who brings in all his frustration and fills my home with anger and a mean angry person. Yet, my husband can also be kind and sensitive and loving. I know how you "want to believe" and what it's like to live with someone who has these two personalities.
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Absolutely correct. I have been trained to react a certain way. and Just like an unruly horse who does not respect boundaries and the rider/owner becomes fearful of him, that only gives him more power. Power to repeat, power to push the limits, and even the power to abuse. A horse can be the abuser, biting, kicking, chasing, intimidating the rider/owner.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Open Eyes
One thing I have come to recognize it how this behavior is "familiar" to me because my father and my older sister exhibits these behavior patterns and I was broke to see that as "normal" and expect to have that behavior in my environment.
When a horse is broke Western and somehow gets away from that and begins to learn English, if a person gets on that horse and begins to ride it Western, it will respond and ride Western. You have left your husband a few times and once for a while and you even began to experience less stress too. Then you thought you were stronger and gave in and went back to your husband and once again he rode you Western and because you were broke that way you began to go right back to what you had been trained in your relationship with him. Well, that's how he trained you and rides you when you are around him. It's very hard to change that in a person when that person learned how to interact and exist a certain way. That person has to first become aware of his bad behaviors and training style, but that doesn't mean that person will be able to stop that behavior pattern that tends to be so automatic in them. And what you have in your relationship is how you both learned how to interact with each other in unhealthy ways. You both have been broke this way and it is a lot of work and really takes commitment in both individuals to work on developing a healthier way of interacting with each other.
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You are so right. This is what I am familiar with. Being treated a certain way is something I tolerate.
I did leave, on more then one occasion. I always return. It is very much like you explain. That is the whole thing Stockholm is created upon. Training, rewards and expectations, and fear. I returned last time, and I keep finding myself believing it will be different and I know that it is highly unlikely that it will.
Much like that little horse who is a biter, once he has been thought not to bite and you start to trust that you will no longer get bitten, it is when that guard is let down that he comes by and sneaks a bite and hurts you yet again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Open Eyes
The human brain is set up to "navigate" and that's really how most mammals/animals are designed to be. So in that we create our own mental maps where we develop ways of navigating around whatever environment we grow up in, much like how a horse learns to navigate in how to ride western if that horse is brought up in a western riding barn/community. We all get to a point where once we learn something we tend to navigate that way without even consciously thinking about it and that becomes how we are "broke" to function. That is why people don't like "change" and tend to stay with what they know and can feel so uncomfortable leaving an environment/culture/lifestyle they have become so familiar with.
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I agree. I am so used to how this thing rolls. As long as everyone in the barn follows the rules then no one gets hurt. Here at my house we all try very hard to follow his rules. If we follow the rules then no one gets hurt. But you can't follow the rules, there are just to many to remember them all. They don;t all apply all the time, often they apply some of the time and only in certain circumstances. The rules often change to, and the rules apply to everyone except the person who made the rules.