I just made that title up and I like it, but I suspect someone’s thought of it before.
Anyways, much calmer today. Yesterday brought home that with Mags’s new world outlook, we can really get on the same wavelength which is both interesting and disturbing. I’m glad though that after Mags clicked the “San” link, I clicked the “Sassy” link. It would be hard to not root for San and Mags still a little, if it weren’t for that. San is still a reasonably classy guy, if you overlook what he did to Mags and her kids.
So I wrote this whole thing yesterday and it was helpful to me but I took it down because it was kind of long and screedy. I thought maybe I would see what percolated out today.
And of everything I read quickly through…one thing kind of stood out to me as so sad and so explanatory that I thought I would write about it. Sass’s dad died, which is so very sad and I’m sad for her and her family.
In her blog, Sass wrote something like (I didn’t save direct quotes) “She [me] wouldn’t approve of me helping my mother anyway.”
And…yeah, there it is. What the fuck? Where do I start here.
First, I really don’t know how you can know me and have been in my life for the last decade of my mother putting the chairs I (UIL) was sodomized over in her home and me continuing to go talk to her nicely on her porch but holding the line at not entering the house, walking that delicate line between holding my boundary about the chairs and still maintaining some kind of caring relationship…taking care of loads of family…and think that I would not approve or get or whatever the word was, helping one’s newly widowed mother. I’ve paid rent for relatives for years. I’ve shown up when my grandfather was dying to make sure he wasn’t being mistreated, and because he asked, I’ve looked after my parents.
What the hell voice is that in her head, that she ascribes to me?
What’s worse is, I kind of think I know how you could justify it. Because it’s true, if we were talking and she said say (I have no idea if this is the plan), “I’m going to move my mother in with me,” I would indeed have said “will that be okay with everyone else?”
Because…in my world, over here, that is one thing partners of multiples do for them…they check in. And I mean…I won’t betray confidences but there is stuff that their mother did to their self-image that might indicate it could be hard for some of them.
But I’d just be asking.
Not only that.
But Lohr and Sass frequently did ask me similar things about when we were seeing my mother and how was that for Dominic and Lyria. Am I to understand, then, that they were “disapproving” of something and I missed it?
What the hell does “approval” mean anyway?
I mean, I’m all about talking things out with the people we love and trust. I love that; I do it all the time; part of this whole read-the-blog thing is that I sort of made myself (note the agency: I made myself) accountable to Nicholas over it and then I have to say yeah…I failed at my own goals and my own promise here. It’s human and understandable but…I failed. And then I have to metaphorically or astrally look in his eyes and kind of see what that means for him.
But ultimately…my choice would be my choice.
I have kind of zero problem, actually, saying I know you don’t approve but I have to do this anyway. if that’s what it takes. (In the above case though, it wouldn’t be that.$
I have much more problem saying this is going to hurt you, but. The second is one million times harder. I’ve done that too, not least telling Carl we were multiple and I didn’t feel like his wife. But the first…that’s sort of where my moral or behavioural compass is oriented. If I really, really think something is the right course, and it doesn’t involve someone else’s body/mind/spirit or children or whatever, then I’m glad to listen and maybe be swayed but…as a person I have to behave in accordance with what I think it right.
I also expect, really, that that is what adults do.
So…if this shadow-me that disapproved did, even though I wouldn’t, I would still support Sass in her decision. As I did many times.
But no really what I loved was that Sass was still making up this blaming, disapproving, negative voice for me. About something I would feel the opposite about.
I kind of wonder if it works. Does it work, to externalize your inner critic and then divorce it? I guess it does, at least for a while. I mean sure…I’ve had those thoughts, someone won’t like something. But for the most part…I’d check in. And although it’s been a while for most things, sure, when we first broke up I had that sort of negative sound in my head but ultimately but…I knew the thoughts were mine.
Anyways, it brought home that there really was no way for the real me to be heard, over the voice in her head. I was thinking it’s too bad you can’t download thought, because in some alternate universe, after the breakup she would have found my thoughts during the relationship and been ashamed of herself.
Now though, I do struggle.
~~~
After my humorous (yes, I have a gallows funny bone) post about what Sass’s journal could say, I did write my own. I might publish it retroactively. The complimentary stuff was easy; I wasn’t the one who fell out of love after all. [ETA: Originally. Originally. Now; so over it. After last summer and the astral kids bullshit? Yah. Still, I can remember what was good too. Just clarifying. :)]
But I figured if I had said her ideal blog post would admit she was a shit to me, I would have to take another run at abusive as a self-descriptor.
I will admit I did not get too far, but a conversation I had with Nicholas came to mind. We can’t do X and I said fine, but then I get to complain about X. This is my way because for me, what is verbal generally is able to be dealt with. As a minor example, if my mother said “your room is a mess,” well, then she was calm and we were not in crazytown. But coming home to chaos and screaming or silence…deadly. Part of my not-blowing-up thing is to address feelings early.
But…Nicholas experiences the complaining as “fix X.” In his world, even if I say “I’m just complaining” it is still hard for him not to read it as me trying to accomplish X. (And, I think, it’s vaguely tacky.)
Because we can talk about it without making each other into villains (something Sass and I used to do, long ago, or so I thought :)) we are sort of gradually meeting halfway, I think. I am making an effort to complain less and he to trust that my complaining is bark not bite.
But here is the insight: if you were a person who took someone expressing an opinion or complaint as a requirement or something, you might comment with the expectation that the other person would do something. Like yesterday!
For example: it’s hard that you are married to Carl.
My response: Yeah, it is.
Expected response: at the very least, shame at not fixing it now.
I mean…I never was not married (this is one example, but a key one). The whole thing started, continued, and grew on that basis. I mean…they were here. Carl was a bit spaced out worrying we were leaving but…it’s not like he was introduced as the roomate.
And that was hard. All of it on everyone, and yes, we were the y-connector. But everyone had information and choice.
And to me hard is…just hard. It’s not you need to change this. for me, if I mean that – and sometimes I have, in relationships – then I say that. Hard means…let’s revel in our shared strength, in our choices, in sleep deprivation due to having children with the audacity to have colds; plenty of things are hard. But oh the delights too.
Anyways, I would call that a lack of sensitivity. To these nuances, particularly if one expected them.
I was insensitive, both by nature and even more so once my energy turned to my obsessive desire to have child- needing to focus on getting through Liam’s nightmare pregnancy. (Sass quote.) I think that would be a ver fair statement.
So that was today’s recovery work.
