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Originally Posted by Etcetera1
Yes, him apologising is great. Sounds like the counselling session helped with that. As for the rest of the convo, what I would try instead is, just appreciate him having apologised, express that appreciation (which you already did), and give him something concrete that he can do to be able to be there for you in a better way in future.
As a summary, what I think is: If most of your convos are like that, then no wonder that it won't lead anywhere, as he won't be able to magically become emotionally mature and emotionally giving to you and take care of your - otherwise understandable - resentment while also trying to deal with the addiction, the new job, and all expectations at once.
Yes it was dismissive of your thoughts, though to me it does not seem like he wanted to force you into thinking something else specifically.
Overall, to me it came off as, when he's not overburdened, he cares about how he affects you but he needs to focus on concrete actions, problem solving to be able to do it in practice.
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Side note- I think counselor feedback introduced the idea of him “being there for me” so he apologized in that way. He said during session that he could/should have just rubbed my feet or something when he was “worried” about me. (instead of questioning me thoughtlessly and then telling me I’m not doing enough for no reason, and then saying I blame him for how I feel and I should learn to be responsible for myself).
And I see that I wanted him to apologize for trashing on me when he thought I was down, instead of him apologizing that he didn’t rub my feet. Im at the point where I just don’t want him disrespecting me and I expect little else. I think I’m happier when he is ignoring me :-( because the risk of his negative attention.
I’m moving on from it now, but I was annoyed that he was in my opinion lying to the counselor about his motives and I had to call him out in front of her taking guts to do so, and then he eventually came more clean to her about how he treated me, but really doesn’t take ownership of it. For whatever reason I don’t know.
He told me yesterday that he had almost reached out to his abuser to have a kindly conversation. I was shocked because it is very out of the blue, and asked him if it was because of the book he is reading influencing him. He said yes, but that he stopped himself eventually from reaching out. I told him I was glad he didn’t do that, and it could be like self harm and very triggering/dangerous for his mental health. He agreed and then wrote himself a note that not contacting that person is a rule.
So this helped me realize how unstable he is still, and it makes more sense how he acts so off to me since it seems his mind is all over the place trying to understand and implement these tools that he is getting. Although the book he found on his own perhaps and not something he received from doctors.