Dear Helcat:

“Is there anything on your mind that you would like to talk about?“- thank you for the offer. My thinking while lying awake at night is not about my personal life happenings and concerns, but about people I read about in books (when I used to read books), or people in the news who are in terrible situations. Recently, I day dream (during the night, lol) about these people being rescued, about good people helping them, I visualize everything in detail.

On March 11, 2022, you wrote: ” As a child I felt alone and unloved because of the abuse. For a long time, I struggled with feelings of not being good enough or being unlovable…. I worry that my loved ones will one day decide they made a mistake by caring for me and abandon me. Arguments definitely trigger these feelings“,  March 12: “My mother often told me she loved me, but her behaviour told me otherwise… I have a tendency to catastophise and expect the worst“.

May 25, 2022: “I had an argument with my husband… My pattern is to feel defensive, explain that I’m hurt… I seek reassurance from my husband that he didn’t mean to hurt my feelings. I have a recurring thought. I’m afraid of being abused…  I am hyper-vigilant, looking for signs of abuse“.

July 20, 2024: “it is a very old story that I tell myself. I am unlovable. I am broken. I don’t deserve love and am not worthy of it“.

Oct 20, 2024; “You are right though about trust in his love“- it is very difficult to continuously trust a person’s love while the narrative of the very old story is repeatedly playing in the background, or in one’s emotional core (particularly at times of tiredness, hunger or pain).

Yesterday, you also wrote: “I felt like I was good enough for the first time because he told me I was“-  his words were not powerful enough to silence the narrative of the very old story for good. No romantic partner (at his best) has this power.

From the little I understand, your husband has been stoic/ somewhat emotionally detached before your pregnancy, but because of the great distresses during and after pregnancy, he became less stoic/ less detached, more emotional and therefore, more reactive to your moods. Having two emotionally reactive partners in a relationship is more of a challenge than a situation when only one of the partners is over-reactive. You expressed something to this effect on Oct 1 (2024): “I’m glad that since the pregnancy and the baby he has been more open with his feelings. He was very stoic for a large part of our relationship“.

Back to your yesterday’s post: “It is going to take time for things to work out, one way or the other. I think that love is a choice especially when things are hard. It has to be chosen over and over again“- I hope things work out in ways that indicate that love was chosen. When one or two of the partners are emotional/ overreactive, self-discipline has to be practiced. This is what I do when I practice the NPARR strategy: Notice (that I just over-reacted emotionally), Pause (before I over-react behaviorally), Address (the situation: is there a situational solution required here? Can I provide the solution, or part of it, or is what I was thinking or saying or doing, part of the problem, adding to the problem, and not to the solution?…), Respond-or not (say, do, or not), Redirect (my attention elsewhere).

“Don’t worry… We do visit friends and my sister. So I do talk to some adults“- thank you, glad to read this!

“We just got some bad news. One of our friends is in hospital“- I wish him full recovery!

anita