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Okay. So I've noticed that whenever something comes up that reminds BH of the infidelity (DDay antiversary, me getting ready to travel, me sacrificing sleep to prioritize something else, etc.) my H acts out towards me and our conflict level spikes.

Intellectually, I understand why this happens-- he is hurting. I caused a tremendous amount of that hurt, and I think I have a responsibility to respond to it with empathy.

But I also don't feel like I "deserve" to be treated that way, and I think that he has a responsibility to at least *attempt* self-regulation.

The question becomes: where is the line between empathy/understanding/forgiveness, and codependency? How do I demonstrate that empathy while also protecting myself from mistreatment, and feeling like I'm self-abandoning again?

I feel very fragile right now. Like the New Me is some newborn fawn attempting to walk on wobbly legs, and I'm proudly standing overtop of her with my antlers held out menacingly, ready to fuck up anyone who gets in her way. (That's probably me splitting again, isn't it?)

Hi Morbs,

What you described is similar to what happens between me and my BS.

I don't have a solution or particular wisdom to share. I am learning to detach during these triggers: not in the sense that I don't have empathy or don't care about my BS' feelings, but in the sense that I don't take his reaction as a personal attack to me. I engage very little with the conflict and I focus on listening while I mentally remember why he is triggered. Truth to be told, sometimes I mainly focus on thinking why he is triggered so I can stop myself from reacting or feeling too crushed.

This is how I usually manage the "regular" triggers.

I am not saying it's easy, sometimes I feel like a pressure cooker, the pressure always going up and I am a split-second away from exploding. Don't.

Occasionally, I am feel that in that specific moment I don't deserve the harsh words, because I wasn't doing anything wrong (in the present). But I focus on the fact that those reactions come from my past behaviour. It's still very hard though.

Like you, I also feel like I am building a "new self". I don't know if the following will resonate with you, if not, ignore me!
You described your new self like a newborn fawn learning to walk on her wobbly legs. And that you want to protect her. What about if this newborn fawn was actually able to deal with all of this? She doesn't need protection from your old self, she is the protector, she is the best version of you, what you actually need to be to navigate this and become who you want to be. She is an active actor. When shit gets hard, she doesn't need to be protected or to escape.

(Obviously this doesn't mean undertaking all sort of abuse. I am talking on the assumption your BS' reactions are in the range of a BS reactions. Which can still be feel extremely raw and rough).

Hugs

Thanks for sharing your internal process. I think possibly taking a moment to recognize, sort of detach/depersonalize, and employ curiosity about his internal state and what he could be wanting underneath the behavior would be helpful... I just have to remember to do it in the moment when I'm emotionally activated too!

The New Me fawn is the person I want to be. She has so much potential, but she is also vulnerable to crippling injury or death right now. Eventually she will grow to be able to protect herself and she won't need... I'm just going to call the protector part "Big Deer..." She won't need Big Deer to fend off attackers, whether internal or external. But that will take time.

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 11:11 AM, Tuesday, August 18th]

I think possibly taking a moment to recognize, sort of detach/depersonalize, and employ curiosity about his internal state and what he could be wanting underneath the behavior would be helpful... I just have to remember to do it in the moment when I'm emotionally activated too!

I totally understand, sometimes I am so emotionally activated too that the only thing I can focus on is "keeping my mouth shut". Like my mind is screaming but I keep mentally saying "keep your mouth shut". This usually happens when the situation gets really intense or it has been ongoing for some time.

But yes, I think generally detaching a bit helps, although it doesn't make the situation less painful.

In my case, after the storm passed, sometimes my BS actually acknowledged that I wasn't defensive or I didn't get all reactive (in my case this is also an actual change in my behaviour that intertwined with other toxic patterns).

I have read on several posts here, that sometimes BSs were (involuntarily) going heavy on their WS to test them.
While I am not sure this is what is going on with my BS, when I navigate the roughest moments in a non-reactive way, and with more listening and just accepting things, I do perceive a small shift from him.

I'm glad to hear that he recognizes your efforts

I am practicing roleplaying with AI so I can build up some muscle memory for when I'm activated.

I think for me, the problem isn't that he starts in about the infidelity. It's that he'll start in extra hard on some other marital dissatisfaction he has (like if I prioritize one thing over another, and he wants me to pivot to soothe his immediate feelings about the deprioritized thing), and I don't know if it's because he's just upset about the deprioritized thing or if it's also that he's triggering over the infidelity. The Fawn wants to ignore the demand to pivot and keep on faithfully with the prioritized thing, without sacrificing my personal needs and plans in favor of his. She's vulnerable to continual pressure from him and fight-picking until the conversation has become so emotionally costly that she gives in out of exhaustion. Big Deers role should be less "attack with antlers in order to defend Fawn. Tell him to go fuck himself!" and more "Hey Fawn, this is a snare. Let's reassert the boundary, ask if this is really about the deprioritized thing or if there's something deeper going on, and see if there's something else we can do for him without breaking the boundary."

Sounds like you are in the right track.

I would say during those high conflict moments, remember if he can start relying on your softness during those times it’s the very thing that builds his trust in your love.

You do not deserve to be treated badly of course, but it never sounds like it’s outside of normal. I know this part is hard for you because you also have trouble regulating in those moments because you are very sensitive. I am sure it triggers a lot of feelings of being unloved/unlovable by your step dad.

Weird idea, but you are a mom and I know young children can’t regulate and I doubt you take it personally when your daughter throws a fit. Try and be maternal in those moments. Use the coping you have as a mom. Making him feel your love and patience is not conditional I think may be so new to him he may start to notice the changes we are beginning to see in you.

The young and tender new parts are hard to maintain at stressful times. I think it’s a big step you can now see what is triggering him and why instead of not associating it with the affair, you really had a hard time seeing that for a while.

I think he may move more towards regulating when he feels you solidly understand his pain and respond with love consistently. You are moving in the right direction. You will need to do that for a long period of time and keep working towards that person you are trying to become. I honestly would give that a year or so and see where you are at.

Remember, he wouldn’t have this pain if he didn’t genuinely love you. I think if you remind yourself of that and soothe that inner child inside by giving her the love she is seeking. It’s hard for sure. And I don’t think he should be able to do this forever, but give it loads of time - at least a year or so.

I think it’s still early for him to self regulate we when he is triggered. Especially after some of your less healed behavior didn’t really provide much reassurance, and because this isn’t the first affair—he is facing a great deal of feeling abandoned and uncertainty about your love and the future. This growth you are having is going to benefit all three of you.

After a lot of time passes maybe you guys can listen to audiobooks books about self regulation with the understanding this is something you are working on and something that can benefit both of you to hear.

I think it’s still early for him to self regulate we when he is triggered.

Yep. Unfortunately, that was my experience, too.

Shortly after that first antiversary I hit yet another anger stage. Mostly, I was angry that after a YEAR I still didn't feel I was healing enough. And, I knew from SI members that year two would be harder than year one, which was true enough.

I'm sure when he lashes out at you that it hurts. And yes, in some respects you've earned his ire. My ex-wife took the heat as well as she could, would often apologize for causing the pain, and try to be loving and reassuring. She would also let me know that she was hurting, too. That didn’t always land well in the moment. However, when she did flinch and let me know that the lashings hurt, I had to do a little self-examination and reflecting. That may have taken a few days for me to process. I'd often write about this on SI and members helped calm me down and process, process, process...

So, maybe not in the moment, but when you've both calmed down, apologize for whatever triggered him and then gently let him know that his lashing out it hurts. It may not land well in the moment, but rest assured that, generally speaking, we men hate hurting our women (protective instincts).

Speak your peace, Morbs, quietly, gently and firmly.

IIRC, you've described a childhood that was very abusive. When your H triggers, do you also trigger back to the abused child/teen?

Have you tried getting re-oriented in and to the present by, say, deep breaths, looking around to notice what you actually see, hear, smell, touch, reminding yourself consciously that your H is not your previous abuser?

What does your therapist say when you bring this up?

I would say during those high conflict moments, remember if he can start relying on your softness during those times it’s the very thing that builds his trust in your love.

Well, it's going to be a very weird combination of hardness where I maintain a boundary and behave like the Fawn/Big Deer pair, and softness where I'm working on the infidelity recovery with him. So I hope he's buckled up

You do not deserve to be treated badly of course, but it never sounds like it’s outside of normal. I know this part is hard for you because you also have trouble regulating in those moments because you are very sensitive. I am sure it triggers a lot of feelings of being unloved/unlovable by your step dad.

The dynamic is very hard to explain, especially piecemeal-ly over different posts here. That's alright though; I understand it and I don't need everyone else to understand perfectly too, nor do I need to compare it to the norm. I feel like I'm making enough progress with self-love that I am less reliant on H's approval, and I am moving away from constantly needing to manage his immediate feelings... This is great!

but you are a mom and I know young children can’t regulate and I doubt you take it personally when your daughter throws a fit.

I actually really struggle not to take it personally when my daughter throws a fit 😬 I tend to get triggered because my thoughts move to "well if you just cooperated with me on A instead of fighting me every step of the way, then we could move onto B and then C! But you are causing us to be stuck on A and there are all kinds of negative consequences to that! Consequences that are then your fault, child, that I have to deal with, that I am being blamed for..." It doesn't help that I am also afforded a certain amount of authority at my job through my leadership position, and it's a real mindfuck to go from that kind of institutionally-mandated respect and obedience from my juniors, to the flagrant disrespect and disobedience of a young child, who has virtually no experience with or knowledge about anything but is simultaneously extremely confident in her convictions... But I'm working on it. I'm supposed to be remembering that she's 5 and not a coworker, even if certain things I've learned from my job translate excellently to parenting a child.

I'm also trying to refrain from comparing H's behaviors from that of a child because I really do not want to start feeling like I'm his mother. I think that would present a huge risk of losing respect and desire for him. I have certain expectations of him as an adult (especially one that is 2.5 decades older than me.)

I hope he can begin to separate out what is an infidelity-related emotion and what is a regular emotion, and that he learns that I still love him even if I stop catering to his every immediate, non-infidelity-related feeling. The plan is still to get to a place where I'm juggling all the balls in a way that's satisfactory for both of us, but I need to set some of them down on a rotating basis to get there, and he'll need to trust me and manage his own feelings about it when that happens. I am neither preventing him from having those immediate feelings nor attempting to manage them for him any longer. They just are.

Similarly, I am sitting with my own negative emotions instead of running from them constantly, asking for actionable, concrete resolutions to marital issues as they arise, rather than letting him manage my immediate emotions and then letting the actual resolution fall to the side (which has historically produced later confusion and frustration on his part when I bring up the unresolved issue again, because he thought we were "past this already" since I allowed myself to be emotionally soothed in the moment.)

This is how we break the toxic cycle. This is the Dawn of the Deer.

I think it’s still early for him to self regulate we when he is triggered.

I don't expect him to be able to do it completely or perfectly yet. I just want to see some sort of sign that he is trying in the moment. I see him recognize the triggering after the massive conflict has died down, but I'd like to start seeing glimmers of recognition while the conflict is beginning or happening, even if he doesn't successfully regulate the emotion itself. The conflicts are very emotionally expensive for me and my funds are running low...Hopefully me implementing curiosity and check ins will help with that.

After a lot of time passes maybe you guys can listen to audiobooks books about self regulation with the understanding this is something you are working on and something that can benefit both of you to hear.

That's a great idea! Would also solve the problem of the occasional long, silent car rides with one another where I feel disconnected from him.

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Speak your peace, Morbs, quietly, gently and firmly.

Will do! 🫡

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What does your therapist say when you bring this up?

She mostly just listens to me ramble until we run out of time in our session.

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 8:10 PM, Tuesday, August 18th]

I don't expect him to be able to do it completely or perfectly yet. I just want to see some sort of sign that he is trying in the moment. I see him recognize the triggering after the massive conflict has died down, but I'd like to start seeing glimmers of recognition while the conflict is beginning or happening, even if he doesn't successfully regulate the emotion itself. The conflicts are very emotionally expensive for me and my funds are running low...Hopefully me implementing curiosity and check ins will help with that.

I think it’s still too much to ask at this point. He likely floods, and I am saying this in the most non judgmental way—-who you were for many months of this process it would be difficult to see love in your responses. You litigated so much of why logically he couldn’t feel this way and a traumatized brain is not logical at all.

I would expect this to maybe get better sometime late in yeqr 2 or early 3, especially if he doesn’t feel like he has to fight you to be seen. I know I can’t see the whole picture but I have read a lot from you and who you were when you got here versus the glimmers of who you are becoming is great, but there is still going to be more growth AND he will not calm down until he begins to see it.

As for the mom thing—-I did not expect you felt that way about your daughter. I was NOT suggesting you mother him or act like his mother.

I was suggesting you use a skill you already have and apply it differently. I didn’t expect you didn’t have the skill at all. I am not shaming you but with your response I can see why it didn’t land.

Personally when I had a young child, I understood they felt overwhelmed by their feelings and didn’t have the vocabulary to explain it to me, nor the emotional control. I am not saying a bs is a child or should be treated like one but there is this deep understanding you have in they can’t help it and you just let them let it out and comfort them and then talk to them when they are more emotionally calm and can take you in.

The whole point is when he is feeling so many conflicting emotions at once you should be soft. Don’t argue. It should amount to "I know you are feeling a lot of things right now. I understand why. I am here and I am not going anywhere."

If he is screaming at you, then you hold a boundary. "It doesn’t feel good to either of us for you to scream. Let’s take a break and talk about what’s going on. We can work through it together." I am using this as an example because I don’t exactly know what the issue is. Everything you describe him he sounds like I would expect someone who has been betrayed to sound like—you don’t like the normal label but what you describe just does sound like my experience and many others descriptions.

[This message edited by hikingout at 8:20 PM, Tuesday, August 18th]