I’m angry because
“What is going on inside your mind to trigger the emotion of anger? I know you have this answer.” ~Erin on When is it okay for me to be angry?
I am angry because I am not getting what I want. But more than that, I’m getting the same old shit in new packaging. I’m angry because I feel that the rules have changed when HE says they’ve changed, so I’m angry that I’m giving my power to him AGAIN.
I’m angry because my throat and chest are reacting in the same old heart-squeezing way and that my mind can’t find footing on a slippery slope.
I’m angry because I feel that I cannot SAY I’m angry at him to him. I know better than that, so why can’t I just do it?
I’m angry because I don’t know how to “calm down” or to be less “emotional”. I’m angry because I cannot seem to give him a clean slate and “move forward from here” instead of anchor myself in the past.
I’m angry because I cannot fully articulate the pain and frustration, heart ache and fear that I feel.
And I’m angry because there doesn’t seem to be a gray area between “Stay” and “Go”. I’m angry that I can’t fix this solely by wanting it fixed.
Erin, I don’t think I have the answer. I cannot seem to pinpoint a single “why” and that really makes me angry. I don’t know where to start fixing so many whys.
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January 11th, 2010 at 1:21 AM
You are so so close! I see you at the edge of a raging sea with one hand stretched out towards the shore…
I want to hug you up and squeeze you so hard!! Reading your posts is seeing me – me last year, me last month.
Your husbands alcoholism makes it harder. Harder to pick through the crap and harder on all of you. You have way more courage than you have begun to give yourself credit for. My father is an alcoholic, very much like your husband in habit. My god you are sane! I don’t know if people outside of alcoholism really ever get what it does to the people in alcoholic families. To stay sane in those circumstances wins you a purple heart.
Today I had a discussion with my husband. He told me that he wants to make our marriage work. Then he told me that he needs something from me. He asked me not to treat him like a teen ager on probation.
My first thought came from the old place – I thought about how unfair it was to make him feel guilty all the time and how that was not conducive to fixing our marriage. I started to feel guilty and worried that my behavior had damaged what thread of love was left.
I was just at the precipice of accepting this and vowing to “try harder” and it hit me – holy crap bat man, are you kidding me?
I have been begging him for 20 years to stop hurting me, begging him to please stop treating me like the enemy and realize that I loved him and just wanted us to have a happy marriage. I have been begging him for 20 years to recognize that my pleas were not selfish as he said and to recognize that I am a good woman. A very good woman.
I am standing there looking at him and seeing the game…he is asking me to take on responsibility one more time for HIS mistakes. HE caused this problem. NOT ME. HE is the one who treated me like a second class citizen. HE is the one who calls me names and rages at me (and then says I stared that shit). HE is the abusive one and I almost accepted that he wanted me to take responsibility again.
“You ARE on probation. I am so damn hurt and beaten down I don’t know that I will ever get up again. I dont trust you at all. As far as I am concerned you should be down on your knees begging for forgiveness. You put me through hell for 20 years and if you really want this marriage to work you will just have to accept feeling like you are on probation. I have done everything I know how and everything I can. Its up to you now. YOU decide what you are going to do with this. You decide what YOU are going to do to make our marriage work”
I have to tell you, it felt really, really good to just say what was on my mind and I did not feel guilty at all.
A year ago, I would have caved at “I dont know how long I can feel like this” I would have made promises to treat him better, I would have tried to act so sweet so that he knew I was sincere. I would have done anything to make sure he did not feel any pain.
Because, I reasoned, if he felt pain, then I was not doing all I could to make our marriage work. If he was hurting in any way then it had to be my fault for failing him.
But what about failing me? Why is failing ME less important? If he feels pain does it really mean I didn’t try hard enough?
For weeks the phrase “you cant kick a dog and not expect that he will bite you” kept running through my head. Over and over. Every time he is an ass to me and I “bite back” he blames me for the pain of my bite. Now if this was a real dog we were talking about, my intelligent husband would say “damn fool, of course the dog is going to bite you. I dont feel for you buddy”
I am rambling but the point I wanted to make is that it is OK for our husbands to feel the pain of their own mistakes. It is OK for them to feel and deal with what they created for themselves. Just like it is OK for us to validate our own anger, it is OK for them to feel whatever they will feel if their actions lead to us “biteing back”.
“I dont ever want to purposefully hurt you. But this is what you did and this is how I feel about it and this is the consequence for what you did.” So be it.
I have decided that my husband IS responsible for his own behavior. HE chose his course of action – he can feel the pain of failing in that course of action. dont have to take that pain on and I dont have to accept responsibility no matter what he tries to do to get me to take it on.
You are welcome to write to me any time you choose. You can see my email address right?
I am out here for you!
January 14th, 2010 at 2:58 PM
I think you need to learn to love yourself, you need to smile be happy, love, think nice thoughts, find out who you really are, find things that make you laugh then laugh till your sides burst, dance around the room sing out loud, do you not think you deserve to be happy then you need to start healing, this may mean letting go of bad things in your relationship which is probably building up a lot of negative feelings let them go find things you like to do be a bit selfish when it comes to your relationship with your partner put yourself first, spoil yourself everyone has a right to love and happyness.