stuff to work through
It seems that I have a bit of a thing to work/live through.
For some time now I've found it hard to feel close to my SO. I have been feeling unimportant and precarious in his life. We've been arguing lots - mostly because I feel frightened and have lashed out at him for thing things I see him do that trigger feelings of unimportance. I've been suggesting ways that we can deal with it - being clearer about arrangements to meet, making time to see each other on our own and the like.
A short phone conversation on Monday night ended with me lying awake most of the night thinking about why I feel so precarious in my SO's life. And I think that lots of the problem is that I strongly associate loss through death with the endings of other significant relationships.
In the past 4 years, there have been 3 deaths of huge significance in my life. The first was my BIL who died suddenly leaving my young sis alone with a 2 year old and 8 week old twins to care for. That time was horrible for all of us (of course, worse for my sister).
At that time I had a very close friend. We spoke every day, shared our hopes, dreams, problems. Saw each other often. When BIL died, she stopped talking to me - didn't answer texts, phone calls, e-mails.
Ages later, I found out what happened. She'd gotten a bf (now her husband) and prefers to have friends who share her lifestyle. So she dumped me for another girl (and later dumped her when her life changed). I found all of this out from the girl I was dumped from who is now a friend of mine.
Then, about 15 or so months ago, one of my dogs died after years of difficult, stressful and horrible illness. During the time she was deteriorating, another friend of mine had been becoming distant. She was spending more and more time with a girl she'd started to work with and was less and less interested in me. I kind of told myself that I was being silly and paranoid and needed to get over myself. But still, I felt I was being excluded and ignored.
When my dog, K died, I heard nothing from my friend. Not a text, e-mail - nothing. We have masses of friends in common and so she would have known. The lack of contact at such a difficult time (this friend knew my dog well, is a dog lover herself and knew all the difficulties we had been through) made me realise that the friendship was over.
Again - although the timing sucked, this was nothing to do with me really. Turns out that my friend's work colleague has a history of wanting her friends to only be friends with her. She will lie and manipulate to isolate them and make sure they are only friends with her.
So while I understand intellectually that these losses were not directed at me exactly and had nothing to do with what was going on in my life, emotionally, I feel that loss through death will mean the end of whatever is the most significant relationship in my life at that time.
And so I'm terrified and feel precarious in my relationship with my SO. The fear is what cause me to lash out at him.
Tuesday this week was horrible. I felt down and hopeless about ever dealing with this.
I still don't have a plan but I've been chatting about it to friends, my SO and e-mailing my SO my thoughts (and telling him how much I appreciate him and his influence in my life).
I still feel horrible. And incredibly angry about the way my ex friends handled the ends of those relationships.
But now I don't feel so hopeless. I think that a bit of time thinking, examining and turning the problem over in my mind will help. As will keeping on talking to my SO about it.
I don't want these feelings to go just yet. I want to examine them, understand them and learn from them.
IP