Changing my responses

This is called bargaining. It’s part of the grieving process when a relationship is breaking apart. It’s important to remember that if it was in your wife’s power she would take it all from you and leave you homeless.

That’s hard to accept when it’s someone you loved.

I’ve mentioned before about this woman who jumped into my life last year when I told her I was going through a separation. She was immediately very protective and defensive of me and the kids.

I’ve since found out she was in a long term relationship, since high school, with someone who became progressively more abusive.

She told me her youngest was two when she fully realized who her husband was. Over the next ten years she moved utility bills into her name. Then she assumed responsibility for paying the mortgage. When the mortgage renewed, somehow she was able to renew it in just her name.

Once her youngest was 13, and her husband had no say where the child lived, she kicked him out. Her husband had nothing to prove that was actually his home at that point!

This woman recently told me “ you come to terms with it that this is a person who can cause harm to your family, because chaos, disorder, lack of stability, and financial hits are HARM. Then you ACT on that. Not on your feelings. My thoughts and feelings haven’t aligned in almost 15 years. You have to act on what’s real.”

I’m blown away by the mental strength some people have.

Your friend is absolutely correct. Sometimes we get so hung up on the psychological aspects of life we forget that acting logically on reality is what we need to do

I started off this thread with “changing my responses”

Is just like to say, I’ve kept that focus in my mind for months.

When things blew up at work I was wrecked for about two weeks, but forced myself to refocus my thinking. There are people who carry an insurmountable degree of injustice. The one I was complaining about??? I missed out on a promotion and don’t fit the mood at work. Oh well

I came to realizations about my father. He’s a damaged person who grew up with trauma. He’s a good, moral person. He’s never wrong, and he’s not empathetic. He actually has some kind of emotional block, and admitting he’s wrong makes him vulnerable. Ok. Lots of people have grown up with worse.

Even my hopes of other work has changed. My relationship with my prospective partners has become less frantic and less heightened and more realistic and focused to “what can we do, right now, to start? And how can we grow with little risk?”

And, I’ve become more demanding of the kids. Sorry. I can’t do it all. Y’all need to help more. Love you tho!



RDMercer

Wonderful. We are never too old to learn, grow & change