Help me understand myself

[Hetta]

Wow. That's a lot to absorb. How amazing that your counselor was able to figure all of that out! What is the way forward for you guys now?

p.s. I'm glad your wife came home!

 

[seeingeyes]

Anyway, that's my update.

How awesome that you've been able to figure some of this out. It sure ain't easy to look at yourself through the microscope! Good work.

Is your wife the type that generally takes a lot of time during a fight? Or the sort that usually wants to get everything solved right away?

 

[Inkachu]

It takes a lot of courage to expose all this personal stuff here on CF. I respect you for making yourself vulnerable like that.

My first reaction to this whole thread was anger. Anger that you've been punishing your wife emotionally for YOUR insecurity issues.

I'm glad to hear that you're both in counseling; you need it, IMO.

I'm glad that you were able to do some digging into your past, and possibly find a root cause of your rampant, irrational insecurities. I hope that now, you can start to work on dealing with it together, with humility, patience, and understanding on the part of both you and your wife.

Best wishes.

 

[Audiomechanic]

Wow. That's a lot to absorb. How amazing that your counselor was able to figure all of that out! What is the way forward for you guys now?

p.s. I'm glad your wife came home!

Thanks. Me too. My therapist and I have been going over my codependency issues for a while now, so when I presented this issue to her and told what the messages were flowing around in my brain, she zeroed right in on where it comes from. I believe she's right too. She's a good therapist. There are a lot of quacks out there, but she's a good one.

How awesome that you've been able to figure some of this out. It sure ain't easy to look at yourself through the microscope! Good work.

Is your wife the type that generally takes a lot of time during a fight? Or the sort that usually wants to get everything solved right away?

It's definitely not easy. And that fact illustrates how important my wife is to me and how important our marriage is. Issues involving tattoos and sexual history have come up in previous relationships and I never once thought to examine myself to see if I was the problem. I always projected the irrational messages onto the other person, making it their doing (i.e. "Your tattoo is doing this to me"). The relationships didn't last much longer after that (with one exception which is a difficult one to remember.)

As to my wife and time, she's one who needs a bit of time. Sometimes quite a bit of time. Me being codependent, it is very difficult to accept that someone else is upset at me. Therefore, I must work to fix it IMMEDIATELY. However, this does not work with my wife, because she needs time and space to work out problems and return to a safe place. Earlier in our marriage, when problems would happen, I would smother her trying to fix it, instead of giving her the space and time she needed. This only made the problems worse. I have since learned to give her space and time. It took a few years, but I eventually came to the place where I don't force myself to give that space and time, but am actually at peace with it as well.

It takes a lot of courage to expose all this personal stuff here on CF. I respect you for making yourself vulnerable like that.

My first reaction to this whole thread was anger. Anger that you've been punishing your wife emotionally for YOUR insecurity issues.

I'm glad to hear that you're both in counseling; you need it, IMO.

I'm glad that you were able to do some digging into your past, and possibly find a root cause of your rampant, irrational insecurities. I hope that now, you can start to work on dealing with it together, with humility, patience, and understanding on the part of both you and your wife.

Best wishes.

Thanks.

There was some anger involved in this, sure. And there was projection as well. There was also projection on her side. There have been many times that she has projected her stuff (from her abusive upbringing) onto me, sometimes in very hurtful ways. I know she doesn't mean to, just as I didn't mean to in this instance. I wouldn't call my insecurities "rampant." That's a bit of a stretch as I don't have tons of triggers. Just a select few that don't get triggered very often.

 

[seeingeyes]

As to my wife and time, she's one who needs a bit of time. Sometimes quite a bit of time. Me being codependent, it is very difficult to accept that someone else is upset at me. Therefore, I must work to fix it IMMEDIATELY. However, this does not work with my wife, because she needs time and space to work out problems and return to a safe place. Earlier in our marriage, when problems would happen, I would smother her trying to fix it, instead of giving her the space and time she needed. This only made the problems worse. I have since learned to give her space and time. It took a few years, but I eventually came to the place where I don't force myself to give that space and time, but am actually at peace with it as well.

Ok, so her need for space right now is not something unusual, then. That's good.

I'm a Fix-It-Right-Now!!! kind of person myself. That's not necessarily a trait that comes from being codependent, nor is it a bad thing at all. In fact, look at how that feeling of pressure to fix this breach has pushed you into taking a step back and looking at yourself honestly and fearlessly! It's a strength, not a weakness.

Though, it does make it difficult to deal with these Actually-Think-Before-They-Speak people. My husband is one of those. Ugh. Who the hell do they think they are carefully considering their position before they respond?! Bah. How tiresomely slow.

But over the years, I've landed on a solution. What I do, is I take that time to write out (on paper, with an actual pen) not an apology, or an explanation, or any kind of promises, or a list of the apologies I want (those things sort of demand a response), but just a summary of what I like about him today, what I appreciate about him, or what I've learned from him.

This side-steps the current argument, and speaks to the underlying love and respect that I have for him, and so it's a way that I can communicate to him without rushing his timeline (though he really should hurry up ).

It's really helped me to "patiently" wait him out. And as a happy side-effect, I think it's helped him to want to resolve the conflict sooner. (It's hard to stay mad at a chick who thinks you're the bee's knees, I guess.)

Just a thought for your consideration.

God bless you, bro. Hang in there.

 

[McScribe]

Thank you for giving us an update. What you're going through is difficult. it's hard for two people who have their own hurts to work together to help one another. It does sound like your counselor has your interests as a couple at heart, and that's a good thing. I greatly respect your balanced approach to this--both recognizing your part and your wife's is a wise way to deal with this.

 

[CounselorForChrist]

Wow what an awesome update. Baby steps in the right direction are still better then no steps. While this may have been a hard trial for you two, it will only build up the marriage and make you two stronger as a couple.

 

[WolfGate]

Prayers for y'all.

 

[sdmsanjose]

quote of Automechanic

The thought process I learned was that my worth was determined by how much praise I received from others, and being others' "savior" or teacher or "knight in shining armor." I also along the way developed a bit of an unnatural view of beauty as well, although I'm not sure where or when. So how this translates to tattoos in girls I'm interested in and with: when I see a girl with a tattoo, my mind immediately thinks that "everyone will think she's cooler than me, she'll show off that tattoo to everyone and they'll be interested in her and not me, and she did that without me and/or before me so I can't show her that cool thing or teach her or do it for her, and that tattoo makes her need me less, therefore my worth is less." The thought patterns are extremely irrational, but the subconscious mind, the most powerful part of your mind (and also the simplest) is not always rational. That's where all this is coming from.

Automechanic
You are very brave to put your situation out there in writing. That actually shows strength.

I am glad that you have a good therapist because what you described about yourself can ruin a relationship. I am sure you know that but I just want to encourage you to go 100 MPH in overcoming what you have discovered about yourself.

I know that a spouse can have a strong affect on one’s worth but studying and realizing that God says that you are worth a lot to Him can offset some of that dependence on wife and others. I hope that your therapist incorporates some of that in addition to the other things that she can show you to get better. I know that emotions and past experiences can be strong but that is why trusting in the word of God is so important. His word is more reliable than emotions and past experiences.

 

[WalksWithChrist]

Update: My hurt from this tattoo thing and my reaction to it touched on an emotional wound that my wife has left over from her abusive parents. She became extremely hurt and left the house Sunday. She stayed at a friend's house that night (I do not know which friend). She made it clear to me in an email that she would be spending the next few nights at a hotel.

My wife and I have been seeing the same therapist (not together, separately) for a couple years now (she's seen her a lot longer than I have) and we had a pretty good session last night. Now, this therapist is not a marriage counselor, but and individual therapist. So My session was at 6 last night and my wife's was at 7. During my session, we probed into the meaning and source of all these jealous feelings and messages and think we've found it. One of the things I had been seeing this therapist for is codependency (on several different levels but I'll just touch on the relevant one here). Growing up, my bio father left my mother when I was two weeks old. I never knew him. My mom remarried when I was around 6 years old. But there was a 5-6 year gap in there where I didn't have a direct father. My mom and I lived across the street from my grandparents during that time and my grandparents babysat me during the day while my mom worked. My grandfather stepped in as surrogate father, which is a good thing, for the most part. My grandfather was very codependent himself. He put others' needs before himself and even his family (in unhealthy ways), his ego was large and was fed by helping others (and receiving the praise), teaching others (because he's better than they are at X....and receiving the praise), and he definitely had a "my way or my way" attitude. Well, I picked up on most of that being so young and it worked its way into my personality. The thought process I learned was that my worth was determined by how much praise I received from others, and being others' "savior" or teacher or "knight in shining armor." I also along the way developed a bit of an unnatural view of beauty as well, although I'm not sure where or when. So how this translates to tattoos in girls I'm interested in and with: when I see a girl with a tattoo, my mind immediately thinks that "everyone will think she's cooler than me, she'll show off that tattoo to everyone and they'll be interested in her and not me, and she did that without me and/or before me so I can't show her that cool thing or teach her or do it for her, and that tattoo makes her need me less, therefore my worth is less." The thought patterns are extremely irrational, but the subconscious mind, the most powerful part of your mind (and also the simplest) is not always rational. That's where all this is coming from.

So after my session, it was my wife's turn, but instead of us just swapping, the therapist convinced her to come into the room while I was still there and explain this stuff to her. If I tried, she wouldn't have received it as she was shut down to me (and still is). My wife did receive it, but it still in a not-good place (as am I). The therapist did manage to convince her to come home last night and sleep at home. She slept in another room, but at least she was home and not in some hotel. I'm thankful for that. It seems we still have a long way to go as my wife did not want anything to do with me when she left for work this morning and peeled out in front of the house. But it's progress I think.

This was the perfect storm of both of us poking old but fresh open emotional wounds in each other at the same time. I don't think either of us was trying to hurt the other, she got the tattoo, I reacted because my old wound was poked and my reaction poked her old wound and here we are.

Anyway, that's my update.

Sounds like a ways to go, but progress still. I hope you both continue to get help and grow closer together.

 

[Audiomechanic]

Thanks for the encouragement everyone. I definitely need it.

It's especially hard to try to resolve this, because my knee jerk reactions that I must resist to this old irrational belief system are either to give in to it and fall back into the hell I was in for a couple days, or to try an pander to it or appease it. Neither is an appropriate action as I must continue to convince my subconscious (the part of the mind that is not easily convinced...and for good reason) that this thought process is irrational and that another new belief system that is rational is needed. I'm at the point now where I want to appease this old belief system more than give into it. For example, messages telling me to tell her, "Please let this be the last tattoo you get." That appeases the old belief system and reinforces the fear/jealousy that is there instead of resolving it. Another example that comes up is, "as long as she doesn't show it off, I guess it's not that bad." More appeasing the same belief system. During our session Monday night, my wife made a comment that made me feel better, but it shouldn't have. She told the therapist, "I feel ugly..." That made me feel better because, "wow, she doesn't feel awesome with this new tattoo after all! She's not going to walk around beaming about how much better than me she is and how much more awesome she is with this tattoo!" How selfish and irrational is that?! I should have felt terrible for my reaction causing her to feel that way about herself, because she is NOT ugly, even with the tattoo. But that was more appeasing the old belief system. This is a very slippery slope in my mind, and the difference between trying to change the old belief system into something much more rational and appease the old belief system is very much fuzzy unless I am very purposeful in defining every message I think about it.

This is definitely an uphill battle. I've come some way in fighting my old codependent "let-everyone-take-advantage-of-me" stuff, but I've got a long way to go. This woman is worth this fight. Of all the things I doubt in life, that's not one of them.

On the plus side, my wife allowed me to hug her this morning. She's fighting her own old bad belief systems and is very depressed right now. I was a bit surprised when she agreed to letting me hug her. She started crying as soon as I did.

What stinks is the timing of all of this. Our 5th year anniversary is Oct 4th. Right around the corner and 5 years is a milestone. Hopefully we'll be healed enough by then to enjoy it and celebrate it.

The Serenity Prayer has been on my mind through this. Especially the first part:

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things that I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference."

 

[hijklmnop]

I'm not surprised that your wife is hurt given the circumstances under which she got te tattoo. That said, I'm glad you are seeking professional help and hope that you can come to a place of peace in your min with this situation soon, for both of your sakes.

 

[Luther073082]

As of now, she doesn't believe what she's done is betrayal.

I think this might be the root problem. But that may just be me speaking as both my wife and I have a firm "no tats" rule.

 

[hijklmnop]

I'm dumbfounded by how many people feel that her getting a tattoo signifying something monumental in her life is a "betrayal".

 

[seeingeyes]

This woman is worth this fight. Of all the things I doubt in life, that's not one of them.

That would look great on a card attached to a bouquet for your anniversary.

Marriage is never all sunshine and puppy dogs. Anyone who says it is has never been married.

Love is not fluffy bunnies and sugar pops. Love is fierce.

Keep fighting, brother.

 

[WalksWithChrist]

Thanks for the encouragement everyone. I definitely need it.

It's especially hard to try to resolve this, because my knee jerk reactions that I must resist to this old irrational belief system are either to give in to it and fall back into the hell I was in for a couple days, or to try an pander to it or appease it. Neither is an appropriate action as I must continue to convince my subconscious (the part of the mind that is not easily convinced...and for good reason) that this thought process is irrational and that another new belief system that is rational is needed. I'm at the point now where I want to appease this old belief system more than give into it. For example, messages telling me to tell her, "Please let this be the last tattoo you get." That appeases the old belief system and reinforces the fear/jealousy that is there instead of resolving it. Another example that comes up is, "as long as she doesn't show it off, I guess it's not that bad." More appeasing the same belief system. During our session Monday night, my wife made a comment that made me feel better, but it shouldn't have. She told the therapist, "I feel ugly..." That made me feel better because, "wow, she doesn't feel awesome with this new tattoo after all! She's not going to walk around beaming about how much better than me she is and how much more awesome she is with this tattoo!" How selfish and irrational is that?! I should have felt terrible for my reaction causing her to feel that way about herself, because she is NOT ugly, even with the tattoo. But that was more appeasing the old belief system. This is a very slippery slope in my mind, and the difference between trying to change the old belief system into something much more rational and appease the old belief system is very much fuzzy unless I am very purposeful in defining every message I think about it.

This is definitely an uphill battle. I've come some way in fighting my old codependent "let-everyone-take-advantage-of-me" stuff, but I've got a long way to go. This woman is worth this fight. Of all the things I doubt in life, that's not one of them.

On the plus side, my wife allowed me to hug her this morning. She's fighting her own old bad belief systems and is very depressed right now. I was a bit surprised when she agreed to letting me hug her. She started crying as soon as I did.

What stinks is the timing of all of this. Our 5th year anniversary is Oct 4th. Right around the corner and 5 years is a milestone. Hopefully we'll be healed enough by then to enjoy it and celebrate it.

The Serenity Prayer has been on my mind through this. Especially the first part:

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things that I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference."

It took me a long time, but I have mostly gotten over codependency. When you are raised a certain way, it can take a long time to unlearn all those behaviors. But it can be done.

 

[Audiomechanic]

That would look great on a card attached to a bouquet for your anniversary.

Marriage is never all sunshine and puppy dogs. Anyone who says it is has never been married.

Love is not fluffy bunnies and sugar pops. Love is fierce.

Keep fighting, brother.

Oh, I know. Nobody knows as much as I do, except maybe a couple who has fought cancer or some other debilitating disease. My wife developed conversion disorder only a few months after our marriage that lasted consistently more than 6 months, and then she had episodes of it for years thereafter. She still has episodes every now and then. But trust me, after being married for only a few months and then looking at my wife who could not walk, speak, move, recognize her surroundings and was basically trapped inside her own mind...for months, I know marriage is not roses and puppies. Plus fighting our own problems and demons and inadvertently attacking each other with those demons while not meaning to, has taken quite a toll over the past 5 years, but I'm not ready to give up. Not at all. Our marriage has been the postcard for every description of "tough" you can think of. And all in 5 short years.

The Mayo clinic has a good writeup on Conversion Disorder if you're curious.

Conversion disorder - MayoClinic.com

It took me a long time, but I have mostly gotten over codependency. When you are raised a certain way, it can take a long time to unlearn all those behaviors. But it can be done.

Thanks, brother. That's my hope too.

 

[sdmsanjose]

I'm dumbfounded by how many people feel that her getting a tattoo signifying something monumental in her life is a "betrayal".

Me too!

There is a heck of a lot more issues to be put at the top of the priority list than the one mentioned above.

I would assume that the IC is a good one and has laid out ACTIONS that they both can take to help with the irrational thoughts and emotions.

 

[Audiomechanic]

Update: So my wife has been home all week, still sleeping in the guest bedroom, but at least she's home. Couple nights ago we had a long conversation about what happened and I expanded on what the therapist told her during my session. I explained that it was a reaction, not unlike jerking your hand off a hot stove, and that the reaction came from a very irrational belief system that I developed very early on in my life. And one I am working to correct now. She asked me questions trying to rationalize my behavior and I told her she can't do that. Since my behavior came from an irrational place, it doesn't and won't make sense. Trying to rationalize something irrational will just make one crazy. So I told her she has to try and remember where all of this came from, that it doesn't make any sense, and that I am working to correct it.

I then gave her my heartfelt and meaningful apology for it all, which she thanked me for.

Last night we made even more progress. She had taken a bunch of pictures of her trip to see her sister which she had not shown to me yet (mostly because the tattoo pictures were in there). So I put them up on the big-screen slideshow style and she narrated. We didn't skip the tattoo ones and she went without a sock last night (the tattoo is on her ankle). I felt some of those old feeling creep up, but worked through them and didn't let myself slip back into them. We had a good conversation and she even laughed a couple times. She still slept in the guest bedroom last night though. I'm trying to give her the time she needs (which is tough for someone who talks through problems and doesn't like being apart from her when there's unresolved issues. But I have to give her space and time to heal.

 

[hijklmnop]

Good stuff!!