First Steps
Really... first steps.
Marriage counseling is very very hard.
Silly me. I thought that he was the only one who needed to change. Ha!
I'm a mess inside to the point that I make myself physically sick. I worry and worry and worry and control and manipulate and whine and pout and freak out if all does not go according to my plan. Funny - nobody from the outside would know. I keep it all inside. Then I lash out at R. Pretty crappy, right? Right.
If I don't get my way, I put on the smile and never speak up. When I do I loose it.
Why?
Hmmmm.... lets see. Dig dig dig. Flipping through the rolodex of my past looking for clues. Flip flip flip.
I really think in stems back to about 2nd or 3rd grade. I was pulled out of a blissfully fun recess to go and take some sort of test at a strange office with a strange man. It was an IQ test. I taught myself to read when I was 3, to understand multiplication and division when I was in Kindergarten. I was reading at a 12th grade level by the time I was 5 or 6. So... they wanted to test me to see where I was in comparison to all of the other kids.
The results of said test??? Me not understanding what was going on, thinking I was being punished and crying uncontrollably. I remember being swatted on the butt for "blowing my only chance". That's a lot for a kid to take at that age. All I wanted to do was dig up ant hills and catch frogs and blugills and chase fireflies and eat icecream until I puked. I'd sleep in my swimsuit so I could get an early start in the morning. I must have smelled terrific!
My parents were so mad at me and I really had no real clue why. Little did I know that pop was valedictorian of his high school and both times he graduated from college with degrees in Chemical Engineering and something else like Physical Chemistry and Organic Chemistry. He played piano for the city's orchestra. Mom was valedictorian of her college class, and also was the 1st female president of Beta Alpha Psi, the accounting fraternity on campus. She had 4 job offers from the "Big 8" accounting firms. There was a very high pedestal that I was placed on. Too high. I was never really allowed to be a kid.
Theatre, cello lessons, ice skating, horseback riding, piano lessons, oboe lessons, swim team, debate team, AP Bio, AP English, AP Chem, so much more. If I didn't succeed, I was nothing in my parents eyes. I remember getting grounded for bringing home 'B's on my report card, locked in my room with nothing to eat until I did two chapters ahead in my math book. Yikes.
I rebelled a bit. Just a bit. Because I was looking for their favor, and my brother got it worse than I did, so I could still jockey for the poll position no matter how crappy I was. All I wanted was their love and attention and true affection - not something that was a reward for meeting THEIR expectations.
I'm not sure which is worse. Neglect or too high expectations.
Funny. R got the neglect side of this coin. He lived in a house where it wasn't safe. His parents could have cared less if he had what he needed. He was too busy dodging flying knife blades and cigarette butts. It wasn't safe to depend on anyone, so he learned to depend only on himself. He couldn't depend on his mother - she was always drunk. He couldn't depend on his father - he had a habit of knocking the shit out of his kids. His older sisters moved out when they were 13 and 15. R moved out once he got into High School. He lived in a friend's garage for a whole summer. Then went into foster care from there. Right into the Navy after he barely graduated.
Interesting. Both sisters are divorced. His parents are separated. One sister and his younger brother are drug addicts and the coke-head sister is wanted for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars to feed her $300.00 a day coke habit.
So what is it that made the two of us come together? We have each other's medicine. And not in the way we think we do.
Our councilors pointed out something to us that I think made both of us catch ourselves. They said that if we didn't sort out our crap, the same thing would happen in any other relationship we ever had. Marriage would last only about 5 years and it would all fall apart again.
We need to make some changes.
More later.
Marriage counseling is very very hard.
Silly me. I thought that he was the only one who needed to change. Ha!
I'm a mess inside to the point that I make myself physically sick. I worry and worry and worry and control and manipulate and whine and pout and freak out if all does not go according to my plan. Funny - nobody from the outside would know. I keep it all inside. Then I lash out at R. Pretty crappy, right? Right.
If I don't get my way, I put on the smile and never speak up. When I do I loose it.
Why?
Hmmmm.... lets see. Dig dig dig. Flipping through the rolodex of my past looking for clues. Flip flip flip.
I really think in stems back to about 2nd or 3rd grade. I was pulled out of a blissfully fun recess to go and take some sort of test at a strange office with a strange man. It was an IQ test. I taught myself to read when I was 3, to understand multiplication and division when I was in Kindergarten. I was reading at a 12th grade level by the time I was 5 or 6. So... they wanted to test me to see where I was in comparison to all of the other kids.
The results of said test??? Me not understanding what was going on, thinking I was being punished and crying uncontrollably. I remember being swatted on the butt for "blowing my only chance". That's a lot for a kid to take at that age. All I wanted to do was dig up ant hills and catch frogs and blugills and chase fireflies and eat icecream until I puked. I'd sleep in my swimsuit so I could get an early start in the morning. I must have smelled terrific!
My parents were so mad at me and I really had no real clue why. Little did I know that pop was valedictorian of his high school and both times he graduated from college with degrees in Chemical Engineering and something else like Physical Chemistry and Organic Chemistry. He played piano for the city's orchestra. Mom was valedictorian of her college class, and also was the 1st female president of Beta Alpha Psi, the accounting fraternity on campus. She had 4 job offers from the "Big 8" accounting firms. There was a very high pedestal that I was placed on. Too high. I was never really allowed to be a kid.
Theatre, cello lessons, ice skating, horseback riding, piano lessons, oboe lessons, swim team, debate team, AP Bio, AP English, AP Chem, so much more. If I didn't succeed, I was nothing in my parents eyes. I remember getting grounded for bringing home 'B's on my report card, locked in my room with nothing to eat until I did two chapters ahead in my math book. Yikes.
I rebelled a bit. Just a bit. Because I was looking for their favor, and my brother got it worse than I did, so I could still jockey for the poll position no matter how crappy I was. All I wanted was their love and attention and true affection - not something that was a reward for meeting THEIR expectations.
I'm not sure which is worse. Neglect or too high expectations.
Funny. R got the neglect side of this coin. He lived in a house where it wasn't safe. His parents could have cared less if he had what he needed. He was too busy dodging flying knife blades and cigarette butts. It wasn't safe to depend on anyone, so he learned to depend only on himself. He couldn't depend on his mother - she was always drunk. He couldn't depend on his father - he had a habit of knocking the shit out of his kids. His older sisters moved out when they were 13 and 15. R moved out once he got into High School. He lived in a friend's garage for a whole summer. Then went into foster care from there. Right into the Navy after he barely graduated.
Interesting. Both sisters are divorced. His parents are separated. One sister and his younger brother are drug addicts and the coke-head sister is wanted for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars to feed her $300.00 a day coke habit.
So what is it that made the two of us come together? We have each other's medicine. And not in the way we think we do.
Our councilors pointed out something to us that I think made both of us catch ourselves. They said that if we didn't sort out our crap, the same thing would happen in any other relationship we ever had. Marriage would last only about 5 years and it would all fall apart again.
We need to make some changes.
More later.
posted by Mama Moon | 10:12 AM
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