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My heart so badly wants to turn itoff again. Between my mind and how my heart feels, the pain , the sadness, shame and the feeling of useless came crumbling into it last night.
I've allways been the strong one. THe one who thinks logically in crisis, who is the person to goto for answers. Crisis means turning off the feeling. But it also means coldness and it also means all negative angry strong type emotions, the ones that carry you through the day when nothing else will.
That's what I feel my heart saying. Hearing my BH voice over the phone, his tears , his anger , his hurt, the loss, the disbelief, the defeat, the fact that he is happy away at work, and not so much here, that nothing has changed.
And for him it may be so, for me, the changes have been internal, my thought patterns my way of looking at things.
And yet there is still that part of me that wants to turn off. To be open and vulnerable hurts, and I know if he leaves I will be even more broken, I can feel it happening.
Im working so hard not to turn that switch off, to allow myself to feel.
My councellor has tried to get me to see why that part of me is in me. And I understand it and I know it was used to protect me, but it is another one of my tools that have had such a negative impact on my adult life , especially my marriage.
Its also affected my relationship with my parents and siblings, they are close but the more I look at the relationships its on a superficial basis. Its built on lies and secrets, so how can any feelings be true.
SOrry I am all over the place. I have been trying to journal, vocalize, voice record , video record, my thoughts and feelings and its not working. It so stuck in my head and I can't get it out. Or if I do its like this jumbled mess.

Well goodmorning all, time to start the day. I've cancelled my appointments for the day, kinda useless to even try today. Going for coffee with a girlfriend , she talks lot so I won't have too. Thanks for listening this morning.

So your go-to coping mechanism was to turn the feelings off, to shut down and go into autopilot mode. And now you have figured out how to not do that. To feel. WHat's wrong with that? Thats exactly where you want to be.

Look Joan, this shit is crazy hard... changing the way we have been for years and years. Old coping got you here. But know that what you are becoming is so much better. You have to rememeber that.

Nobody likes to feel vulnerable. But to truly experience all there is to life, we have to let ourselves be just that.

To be open and vulnerable hurts, and I know if he leaves I will be even more broken, I can feel it happening.

No you won't be. You were broken before. You are getting better. Keep pushing forward, no matter how hard the wind is blowing.

I'm a BS, but I relate to what you're saying. Please don't allow yourself to switch it off again. My WS has left, it hurt so much, on top of everything else, but I refuse to make myself numb again. These feelings have been hard earned and I never want to go back to the way I was before. In a sense, my feelings have become a prize that I will never relinquish, it cost too much to win them.

In a sense, my feelings have become a prize that I will never relinquish, it cost too much to win them.

YES!!

I can relate to your post so much!
Not having any relationships be truly authentic to "protect" myself from hurt.

softcentre is right feelings are a prize! A wonderful prize. I'm slowly opening up and allowing myself to be vulnerable. It IS a slow process, I can't just shut off 30 years of hiding my feelings, esp when I hid them from myself.

Keep going, don't shut off.

Thank you for your words. I'm trying, and the years of doing it I can relate. I too have 30 some years of shutting it off, to protect to see this world as untrustworthy and I have found I put trust into the wrong people, and I now don't trust myself to know what is real or not, or what has been planted in my head .
So many thing so many thoughts are bombarding my heart and mind that nothing seems normal.
In all of this and before as selfish as it is my H is my rock. The earth. He grounded me. WHat I am having a hard time doing is finding in me that grounding. that rock.
Anyways, in all that I am trying to stay open, trying to allow myself to feel . I think what may be happening is all my repressed feelings that I have tucked away are coming through at the same time as trying to deal with my feelings about the affair and the hurt and pain I've inflicted on my H.
Thank for listening to the ramblings of the person I am right now.

My h and I were discussing this today. His way of shutting off the feelings. That he had always done this.

How hard it is to not do it still.

Very hard for me to wrap my head around. I have always been ruled by my feelings and didn't listen to my head.

It seems like a similar struggle, to some how integrate the two.

Thank you for your post, it helped me to understand a bit more.