Well we are in a terrible spiral right now.
Let me back up a bit…
My WH and I had a wonderful M. There were small issues, but things were always good and I would say very intimate.
We had small issues but they never seemed like big issues. One of those small issues was that, at times, my WH would not validate my feelings about things. He always played devils advocate. Always looked for logical reasons to 'why' something wasn't how I was seeing it or feeling it. It bothered me at the time, but truly it seemed like a small thing.
Sometimes I would say to him that I just needed him to be on my side. Sometimes I just wanted him to say "Yes, so and so is a real bitch." Instead, he would do things like point out why maybe this particular person was doing a certain thing, etc…
SOmetimes you just want the support not the rationale.
^^It turns out that this is a huge FOO issue for me and why it bothered me as much as it did. My feelings about everything were never considered. I was told my sister was fragile and if I was upset, I was to move along because my sister deserved pity.
My mother died in 2010. When she died, my father could not accept my mothers illness (she had alzheimers) and denied my mom was as bad as she was. He was leaving her alone by herself at times and just not accepting what was happening. I believe he is NPD. At any rate, I was pushing for her treatment and I found out just how much power a child has over a father who knows his rights. NONE. Basically, my father was able to treat my mom however he wanted, No calls to social services or the county for the department of aging helped. I was told that he was her guardian.
I had been the daughter that cooked for my parents several nights a week and who took my parents on vacation and to my kids events at school. My sister did nothing.
When this happened with my mom and I was pushing my dad to get treatment for my mom, he turned to my sister who did nothing. (She was the one who was the sibling I had tiptoe around) She bailed him out. When the county came to visit his home, my sister cleaned it up and made it look as if all was well. I crumpled to pieces.
During this time I was in a depression and my M was not as important. In fact, nothing really was.. And my left brained husband did not know how to offer support to me. He did not understand the intense FOO issues that this event kicked up for me. Neither did I while I was in the middle of it. But once again I felt not validated. Not by my family and not by my husband. My feelings were not important. And my sister, once again, was the savior, the golden child and she hadn't done anything for my parents for the past 10 years.
Then my WH's EA begins. I can start to see the budding relationship between him and COW. I express my displeasure. I tell him it bothers me that he speaks to her the way he speaks to me. He discounts my feelings and chooses to continue this friendship.
For him, the left brain thinker, nothing was going on and he was treating her the same exact way he would treat any other person he worked with and was friends with. Which may be fine, but the piece that was missing for me here is that it bothered me. The fact that it bothered me should have been enough. I didn't care what logical explanation he could muster… My feelings about her should have been enough for him to stop the friendship.
Fast forward a few months, and now my WH was hiding some of the things he was doing for work with the OW. Definitely an EA and sliding down the slope.
When dday happened, it was non validation all over again. EA's, by their nature alone, are hard to define. Add that to a man who is left brain and you can imagine that I spent a lot of time not being validated for what I believed to be happening and what he logically thought was happening.
So, yes, Blakesteele, I can trace it back to my childhood, but I do think our M was good at one point, for a large part of our M lives actually.
What happened for us was a perfect storm. My mom's passing, my dad's handling of it, my sister coming to the rescue, my WH not knowing how to deal with all this emotional stuff I was going through, the COW, my WH's handling of that….
FOO came out and hit the fan. And the problem was/is that I wasn't a child anymore. I couldn't do anything as a child when I wasn't validated, but as an adult I realized I had a voice. And I used it, like a pit bull to be heard and to be validated. I wasn't backing down.
On the flip side: My WH's mom was an emotional hot mess when he was growing up. She would lash out, freak out, lots of drama, etc… My left brained, logical thinking husband learned early on "That's mom. Let her vent. Don't respond because it is safer. And then move on."
^^This coping mechanism is what came out of him when the shit hit the fan. I was an emotional hot mess, so he reverted to stoicism.
When he DID have to respond he went for logic. Logic has no business dealing with emotions. And so you can see the spiral that began for us. His stoicism was translated by me as not caring, rugsweeping, not validating etc… My being bat shit crazy about being ignored was me being his mom and he reverted to "ignore and it shall pass."
We now know what was happening. Many months of therapy later. My WH still does not see it all. All of this is outside of his thinking. He is trying, but he is so emotionally stunted (counselors words) that he has a very hard time feeling this or getting it completely.
He now knows that the relationship with OW was not a good thing. He is getting that. What he doesn't get is the not validating thing is the underlying theme. And it is the source of my resentment.
We are stuck in this spiral. It is getting frustrating.