I just can't seem to figure myself out. Perhaps I spend too much time over analyzing things and that is the problem. BUT, still, I wonder why it is that I react the way I do to some things.
Earlier this week, I received a telephone message from Lovey. She was looking for some of her X-rays and wanted me to check to see if I could find them in the piles of leftovers she left for me when she departed on June 20. I looked and didn't find them.
Just hearing her voice set me off.
I didn't talk to her directly....all I heard was the recording of her voice in my voicemail at home. Every muscle in my body tensed....my jaw clenched. My doctor and other friends say that this is probably how I always was around her, but my living life alone without her is so different, that when I do have those bodily responses to her, I am in a better position to notice.
Perhaps.
Nonetheless, it isn't pleasant. Hopefully when the divorce is finished, I can better control contact with her...and minimize it to an all time low so that I don't have to have this happen.
Maybe one day I will be able to not have this happen in her presence.
This morning on the way in to the office, #1 called to say she and her sister were in Knoxville, TN...headed to Winchester, VA to visit their mother. They're going to be there for two full nights and won't get to my house until sometime on Sunday evening.
I thought they were only going to be there on Saturday night.
I had planned for them to be at my house on Sunday in time for lunch.
I was wrong...
I'm a little bothered by all this and I don't know why. After all, Lovey is their mother and she deserves time with them. Am I getting to be overly possessive? Is this a shred of jealousy surfacing?
This stuff has got to go! I'm secure in my relationship with my kids. Lovey has lots of fences to mend.
No need for jealousy here on my part!
4 comments:
Oh, I suspect that after some time these emotions you're having will go away. Everything is still so fresh.
Frank:
You asked “what is wrong with me?” I doubt that anything is really “wrong” with you, but you are naturally feeling insecure and frightened. After all your world has been turned upside down, what you thought about your primary relationship has been proven inaccurate. If that can happen with one relationship it might happen with others. You naturally are insecure about all your other relationships, frightened that what you think that you know about them may also prove to be inaccurate. This is not wrong, it is what you feel. You may not “like” those feelings but they are what you are feeling. Telling yourself that they are “wrong” and thus suppressing them will make them stronger.
Also you are angry with “Lovey”, she betrayed your trust, as I am sure she feels you betrayed her’s. Who is at fault or who is more at fault does not matter, you have unresolved anger and each time that you are reminded of her, feel the anger, and then suppress it (saying it is wrong), the stronger the anger becomes.
These feelings are not going to go away by beating yourself over the head with “what’s wrong with me?” and trying to suppress them or doing things to divert your attention away from them. The only way that I know of to deal with them is to acknowledge them as truly a part of what you are feeling at the present time. To own them, as ugly as they may be, just like I need to own my thinning hair rather than try to hide it with a comb over. Acknowledge them, as you have done in your blog, examine just how far they extend now. Truly feel them and watch them as they change, they will change. And forgive yourself for being human as God created you.
Feeling anger and insecurity is not a sin. Allowing those feelings to build, by repressing them, to the point that they poison our motives, that is where we get into trouble.
Rick
Hi buddy, I think you just miss them.
I had a therapist who liked to remind me that my natural, baseline approach to life is to be a bit neurotic, over-analyzing things or obsessing at times, and that it tended to increase somewhat under stress.
He used neurotic to describe a trait, not a pathology, and helped me see it as an effective coping mechanism which was likely to mellow with time as I moved away from crisis management and tension.
It helps me to find concrete, positive things that I can do for myself when life gets like that, because it generally doesn't work for me to just try to obsess less -- or to limit my wondering/worrying about my obsessiveness.
And, of course, there are times when I just have to be where I'm at -- admit that I'm sad, mad, grieving, whatever, and live with that in order to work toward letting go of it.
My sense from meeting you is that there isn't a damn thing wrong with you. You're a sweet, authentic, personable guy. Every one of us is working through various challenges, and you seem to be doing that in admirable fashion. Sure, it's frustrating and intense, but that's just a part of real life, and those things will mellow out over time.
Take care....
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