Couch 55...And on it goes....

thanks for clarifying Wiki... its my personal decision to not vote at all because I have candidates I like in both parties but for different races...

MUE...congrats!! That is so very cool. Good job!

OMG, wiki, that's horrible! I am SO sorry about the baby.

And you are not creepy AT ALL for the thoughts you are experiencing. I've had those very thoughts as well - and I'm sure others have as well. The feelings that come with those thoughts are terrifying, and I'm so sad that you're enduring this.

Wiki... its okay if you decide not to read my PM...maybe its too triggering...

Wikid, I also don't think you're gross. I think many of us would flash on that very sad image of the tiny coffin.

Ready, I completely understand what you're saying. I have a similar issue with my husband, even when we're getting along. He thinks I am just "wrong" for engaging in conflict and therefore will never take my side. He says that is his opinion and he is entitled to it, and my desire for him to back me up or be on my side (ever) means I just want a puppet. From my end, I am pretty sure that I am not wrong each and every time there is a disagreement with my family or whoever, and I am pretty sure in his head, he concludes I am wrong so that he can avoid the discomfort of a conflict. He did finally admit that he looks for reasons that I might be wrong to avoid an argument with anyone other than me. Me, he is fine arguing with. No one else.

Anyway, my point was that I get the ambivalence between someone giving an opinion that hurts your feelings, or wanting someone to agree with you and/or to have your back, and the knowledge that the other person is entitled to their opinions.

Ready...I frequently split the ticket as well, I am not registered with a party. I do vote in primaries, but usually just to vote against someone I really dislike. That's how I decide which primary to vote in.

Thanks MUE and MKAC....it really helps to think "normal" in this case.

I just keep remembering when I drove out there to visit her, and as little as she is, she gripped tightly on to my finger. Her little fingers couldn't even wrap around my whole finger...her arm is smaller than my finger. She is't much bigger than a Barbie doll. But she has spunk. I honestly hope that she fights thru this.

I wouldn't like it if my H didn't have my back. There are times when he disagrees with me, and tells me he thinks I am wrong. He won't get angry with someone just because I am....but if I am very hurt by someone, he generally stands up for me.

I don't have anything as bad as child dying going on in my life but today I feel like I am at my absolute limit. I am incredibly depressed and overwhelmed.

MKAC...you want to talk about it?

With my partner, she had to learn/agree not to ask me if I agreed with her, because often I did not or at least not completely and I am extremely unwilling, if someone asks, to just go along with a blanket yes or no as to me it is not accurate and I fear I may be committing to something I do not mean. Sometimes she would point out she did that for me (just agree even when she was not in full agreement). I was flabbergasted as to why she would do that - it is not something that matters to me and it sometimes got us off track because she would think me not grateful enough for her support, and I was all off on I did not want or view that as support and wanted her to stop as it seemed like trapping me. I have tried to explain that I know she is an adult who can take care of herself, why would she need me to jump in to "support her" when I have no stake in the argument one way or the other and in fact usually think it could be handled differently if she did not want the argument. I have learned to not give this as an explanation right away and to just say "there there" rather than explain how I could see the other side's argument as at least a valid argument.
These are just some examples. And we do tease about "stopdog speak" (as she thinks she is the more usual in this situation and I don't disagree in terms of what I observe others doing). I also have a great resistance to doing what is to me, ganging up on someone else. So if partner disagrees with Person X and Person X disagrees with partner - I feel the situation is evenly matched and does not need me. If Person X had several people agreeing against partner, and I did not think partner wrong, then I might opine in partner's position. If it looks like partner and others are against Person X, I am almost always going to defend Person X.

Really? I always thought it varied by state. I am not registered with either party and was told by election officials that due to that I couldn't vote in the primary other than local non-party stuff that was on the ballot (i.e. city council, mayor, etc.)

I am certainly understanding of the idea of living with adversity in a relationship. My exH and I were rarely on the same page, and it did make for a very stressful household. I ended up distancing myself from him and becoming self-protective. When I think back to the times when our views differed so much, I knew it was pointless to even try to work through it with him. He wasn't capable or willing.

I've learned so much in group T about healthy communication, negotiating to get our needs met, etc. - yet when I think back to my marriage, I know that it would not have worked. It felt too dangerous to open up emotionally with him.

I felt something today..

We got to church this morning, dropped the kids off at kid's church and went and had a seat in the sanctuary. We are still rather new to this church, and have yet to make any close connections with anybody. Still, people come to us on and off say hi, how are we doing, shoot the breeze for a couple of moments. During this time, I just commented to my h that I miss having people to talk to. The people at my old church I have known (most of them anyways) since I was 12 years old, and the rest of them for about 7 years. All of a sudden this emmence feeling of lonliness came over me. I cried (something I have been trying to do for months now) just about the whole church service.

The fact is, even if we were still at our old church, I had withdrawn a lot from my friends there. I have done the same with my h and other close family members. I put walls up, I don't let people in anymore. T and I were just talking about this on Friday.. We were talking about the roots of when I started doing this and how lonely I must have felt as a 10 or 11 year old feeling like b/c of things that had happened to me in my short life has caused me to using these coping mechanisms. I have been telling me t for a while now, I just want to feel something. I did today.. its not a great feeling, but I know there are things that I need to change to let those people in that meet the criteria for being trustworthy in my life.

Anyways, just wanted to share.

Healed... that sounded like it was powerful....

I hope you find a way to start letting people in your fortress... I started by building a window... a small thing that is easily opened and closed... it helped me to have a visual when I was experimenting with that... it is a long process with many walls quickly rebuilt...and then lowered again...

I was upset that W wouldn't back me up in disputes with my FOO. But that was a long time ago. She was a coper and a peacemaker.

((MKAC))

You don't need a reason to get my support.

Thank you. Mostly it's just feeling stressed and overwhelmed with D still being in a lot of pain and chronically tired and having to be the one to help her do the physical therapy at home and get her to the appointments. It involves causing her extra pain and between how much I hate to cause her pain, plus how upset she gets with me, it just seems too much some days. Work is stressful because I'm at the new firm and still adjusting.

Home is stressful with the stuff with my son that I mentioned before. H still thinks I am a pretty horrible person for physically moving the boy out of my room and in my son's head what was a firm, steady push to move him out, has escalated to me SHOVING him out. S keeps bringing it up to try to make me feel guilty so I will let him have his way on a variety of issues. I am standing my ground -- I apologized for yelling at him and touching him -- but I maintain that I have a right to peace and safety in my room, and neither H nor S seem to think that has anything to do with anything. They do not think it is at all relevant that they all followed me into my room when I said I didn't want to discuss it anymore, and refused to leave when I asked them to repeatedly.

Also I have only gotten to ride something like 5 times all year and it's already the end of June. I was supposed to ride today, but my horse would not get in the trailer to go over to where I was supposed to meet my friends. I co-own a trailer with a friend -- as in I own HALF of it. She has used it a lot without me the last two years and I am still paying half of all expenses, even though I only used it once last year. She keeps it at her house and acts very put upon if I take it to my house. Anyway, when we ride, I have to get the bumper pull trailer ready (air tires, etc), load my horse and all my stuff into the bumper pull, and go to her house. Whereupon, I have to help her get the big trailer ready (air tires, etc) because she says she cannot do it by herself, unload my horse and all my stuff and re-load them in the big trailer. I have asked her to come to my house and pick me up, but she says it is extra gas and time for her and the other person who rides with us and that is not fair to the other person. However, she has on MULTIPLE occasions insisted we drive 30 minutes and more out of our way for this same friend and several other friends and I am only 10 minutes from her house.

Big long story as background to say when my horse wouldn't load, my friend was calling me on the phone, wanting to leave, not wanting to wait and trying to get me to hurry. She did not offer to help. She did not offer to come get me. I was like, if you're ready to go and in a hurry, you can just come here. She said no, they'd wait "a little longer." Finally I was just like, **** it, if you're in that much of a hurry, just go. So they did.

So I was enraged at the horse, and at my friends and my H chooses this time to walk around heaving these huge sighs as if his life is sooooo hard. He and I had been getting along really well. D is being really difficult because she's in pain and doesn't want to do anything. It's as if everyone has waited until I am suicidally depressed again to be total dickheads to me.

I think that is probably the issue for him as well. He won't even back me up with our children, however. Last year when I was trying to help my son with some homework, he got really frustrated and pushed me down twice and held me down the second time, and when I pushed him off me, my H totally blamed me.

Thanks CE. I really do appreciate that.

(((MKAC))) I am sorry you're going thru crap right now. I really hope you find some peace, maybe a horseback ride? Or a run? Something to just care for your self.

SORRY....we posted at the same time...I get why you can't take a ride.

Yeah, I was really, REALLY looking forward to riding. Probably too much and a little too desperate to get away.

MKAC.... with these two incidents with your S... have you ever talked about it with your T?

Your S really needs to learn that it is never okay to knock down or hold down anyone... not his mother or his sister or anyone?

I'm not being judgemental towards you here but maybe those scenes really need to be further explored in family counseling.... maybe there is a dynamic between you two that neither of you understand...

I have discussed it with T, and we have discussed it in marriage counseling as well. We have been trying to address the issues. In 18 years, my son and I have had these two physical incidents. My son and I discussed the other one afterwards, and his intent was not to push me down the first time (into a chair, not like onto the ground or anything), and then he panicked and wanted me to stay there and talk to him and not go away. My son thinks our relationship is really good overall. I dunno. My son still sometimes uses his size and physical strength in a way I wish he didn't, and we discuss it a lot.

That's so good MKAC.... sounds like you are on top of it and that you two are good at communicating...

wikid, I am so sorry to hear about Avery... so terrible for your nephew and his family, and for you. Your feelings around this are definitely not weird or creepy as far as I can see. Be kind to yourself.

mu_e, that is awesome about being Outstanding Interpreter of the month! Well done!

(((mkac))) That does suck.

I have had a pretty good day in Budapest, and I did get a massage in the afternoon. Now I can almost look over my left shoulder, which is awesome. My back is still very painful, but better than before. So that is good.

Also, I will try to refrain from posting about relationships or communication in future. I don't think I have anything constructive to say, and I know I can't help anybody else when I'm so desperately bad at it myself. I would so much like to be married to somebody I could be open with, but it can't happen with H, and I'm not about to end a marriage that is in most respects very functional.

Mastodon.... if only those who were perfect responded to threads.... PC would not exist...

please don't refrain from posting about anything... everyone's input is appreciated