Posted by Honore on April 18, 2007, at 13:49:10
In reply to Today's Session, posted by jammerlich on April 17, 2007, at 22:58:23
One of many things I think after reading your account is that you say that your husband says that he was never "in love" with you. And you believe that this is true, and negates or even makes a mockery of your coming to believe in and rely on that love.
When I hear you say that, I think-- he says that now-- he has various ways of explaining himself to himself (and to others) NOW-- but that doesn't mean that what he says now is true to what he felt then-- or true to anything. Except his need to see himself in a certain way, now-- which leads to this version of who is was, and what he felt.
But it's only a version-- a story about himself that makes him feel like he's in one piece now-- he's gay and he wasn't in love with you-- that makes him feel safer, more secure.
Maybe he doesn't know what to make of his love for you-- and he wants to put it into a little box-- a safe box of not being 'inlove" love.
But it's important, very important, for you not to accept his story, which is written by him (unconciously) to make himself safer. It makes him safer, at your expense-- it simplifies and smoothes out troubling discontinuities, at the sacrifice of something crucial to you.
you dont have to accept that narrative. For one thing, I don't believe it's true. When people said it was obvious he loved you a great deal-- I think they were seeing something that was true-- and valid.
You need to create (or discover) your own truth-- not his. He is not necessarily the best teller of your story -- you really are the only one who can tell your truth.
Right now, you're hearing all the fears, and doubts and self-loathing-- not remembering the wonderful, loveable, admirable person whom he loved and was in love with (even if he did later realize that he was primarily gay). You can find the story in which he fell in love with a wonderful woman and married her, and then found, despite that, that he couldn't commit to a straight life, that he needed to express parts of himself at odds with that love-- and that he had to sacrifice it in order to follow that other path.(That's just a version-- you really are the one who can find that real story.)
But I would never never base my deepest truth on someone;s self-justifying words-- I would base it on a long and very very honest (and not self-abnegating) look. Maybe you can't do that now-- but you can admit that you don't have to accept his words as the "last word" on what he felt.
The hold that the present exerts on memory is profound= we always see reflected in the past those parts that are most consistent with what we feel and are now--
I know this doesn't prove that you're loveable and were loved in the way you wanted-- even though I suspect you were. But at least open the door to the possiblity of that-- I think you're punishing yourself for failing-- as you think-- when you didn't fail, by accepting those words at face value-- .
I wish you could see that you don't have to== and that they most likely aren't true. Even if it's easy to rationalize them as true-- or to say that they somehow "must" be. Life and emotions are much more irrational and complex than his simple story.
Honore
poster:Honore
thread:750897
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070406/msgs/751044.html