Chris' grandmother is dying. She is 100. Seeing her brings back bad memories. Being around a dying person is precious. Being around your dysfunctional family is not so precious...especially when they don't see themselves as dysfunctional.
I admit, most of the anger is at my husband...and behind it, the fear that he will leave.
The temptation is to shut down my feelings again in order to "play nice" or to be allowed to "play" at all. All my life has been in relationships with people who don't want to live on an emotional plane. They want to skate on the surface of life, never really getting to know themselves or one another. I fear that my husband is more like everybody else than he is like me.
What I fear more is that I'm somehow so screwed up that I'm out of touch with reality. I really think that is my base fear. All of the "normal" people live without feeling, understanding and real connection. I am abnormal. I ask too much by wanting to be honest. Kind, patient...but honest. Why is this so rare? Why is this so hard for so many people?
Here is an excerpt from a post I sent to a fellow "deprivation neurotic":
OK. It's not showing up...I wonder why. Joanne,
I’m so sorry you are hurting so much. Still, I feel tremendous hope for you.
You have “thawed out” a little. You are allowing your feelings to be heard!
I am in that process too, and it is scary. I might lose some relationships!
But I find that no matter how many “friends” or “loved ones” I might lose, I
cannot be fake anymore. I trust God to provide me all the support I need;
through Him, the Blessed Mother, the communion of Saints...and healthy people
here on earth. I belief it is worth it to possess myself.
Keep being real! Keep coming here for support. OK. There it is now.
I need to be reminded of the emotional freedom I seek. That really sums up the theme going on inside of me: emotional freedom. I need connection with people who allow me to be emotionally free. I especially hope to be emotionally free with my husband. I have real fear that he is not capable of it. He wants to be, I think. I hate not feeling connected to him. I am so scared of abandonment that I want to rush in and fill the gap between us. But such behavior has been killing me. I love him, but I am also furious with him. He doesn't fight fair. He's not emotionally honest. I don't think he knows how to be. He's living so much from his head...like I am trying NOT to do.
I told him how I was feeling about his family...which is not good. 8 years have not erased the memory of his mother bad mouthing me to my then-best friend or of his so called "friend" and former flame grilling me on the phone about my religion and my hesitancy to "get to know" her.
I asked him to consider supporting me in his actions. He says he is on my side, but he doesn't live like it. The attitude he took at the first Christmas we spend as a married couple hasn't changed. (He left the house to go play touch football without telling me where he was going.) He leaves me to fend for myself around his family. He disappears into that amorphous blob of sports, coffee, Disneyland, Santa and McDonalds.
Its so sad, really. Now he's mad at me...struggling, really, to get his bearings after I told him how I really feel. And I feel scared because we are disconnected.
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