Relationships of choice - life after PD parents

[Justme729]

I am finally at a point where I feel free from my family of origin.  I said my peace.   She is equal to an any random person.   I always think of a cashier at a store.   You make polite small talk.   Maybe if you frequent the same store you get to know them a bit.   But it's superficial and at the end of the day there are no emotional strings attached.   I am living my best life and enjoying many milestones my mother (and father) choose to miss out on.   I've said my peace that I am enjoying every moment with my children while grieving what they robbed from me.   Nothing they can say or do will change the fact that they screwed up royally.  And I don't have the desire to include (her) especially.  I acknowledged she's tried to make amends, but I can't force something that isn't there.   That is a consequence of her actions, it's a little too late. 

Anyhow, because of the trauma I have always been very dominate and head strong in my marriage.   If I am in a good place, everyone is.   If I am not, everyone suffers.  I've been able to maintain that role.  However, now that I've let go of the past and trauma I want my spouse to step it up.   To be more dominate in the relationship.  I am spiraling out of control not knowing where things stand with him.  He's looking to me for answers and to solve everything.   I don't want to anymore.   I want him to take charge in the day to day and more in the intimacy department (he never instigates anything).  I don't know who to explain this shift to him and I'm not sure I even fully understand it.   It is also out of his element to take charge.   He was the child in his family of origin who was seen and not heard.  Very dominate siblings.   So it has always been natural for him to let me take the reins.   I don't know what I need, but I need something and what we got now isn't working.  I've never in my life felt peace from my childhood.  Like the weight is totally lifted.   

[NarcKiddo]

Maybe check out the theory of Transactional Analysis. I found it helpful.

Essentially there are three states: adult, parent and child.

Two adults interacting should generally both be in adult state. Occasionally within a relationship one might be more parent and the other more child. For example if one is ill and needs to be looked after they may be more like a child and the other will assume more of a parent role for a time. This is fine but if people adopt roles because they are shunted into them or due to unhealthy coping mechanisms then it is not good.

In my case it was dangerous for me to be a child even as a child. My mother was too volatile and powerful. As I got older she parentified me so she could adopt more of a child state.

Early in my marriage (there is quite a big age gap) my husband would (unintentionally) treat me in a way that was more like a parent and I would feel he was shunting me into child state. I hated that. The only way to get out of it (I thought at the time) was to force myself into parent state and him into child state. There was friction for a while but eventually he realised life was smoother that way. He, too, was brought up by a PD and for all I know he is actually quite happy letting me take parent state. I dislike parent state but I know how to do it and it does not feel viscerally dangerous in the way child state does.

I have a lot of work to do now but if I consciously think about trying to behave as an adult in my relationships it helps a lot. With my husband I find responding to childish behaviour as an adult rather than as a parent brings him into adult state too, pretty fast, actually. With my mother, who still longs for me to be in parent state most of the time, I clutch grimly onto adult state and it helps. It will be a very long time before I feel comfortable enough with anyone to allow myself to be in child state and have them look after me, even though I sometimes wish that would happen. I just don't have the trust. But it may come.

Given what you say about your husband's history it sounds like he knows how to be in child state. So if you have taken parent state rather than adult state, he has been OK with that. I wonder if your desire for him to take charge in the way you describe is actually a desire to push him into parent state so you can just be looked after for a while. I totally get the desire, but maybe the first step is for both of you to assume adult state and see how that goes. It may be slow going. But for the day to day, could you perhaps think of the things you would like him to take over. Then pick the easiest one for him and tell him it is now his responsibility. That means you not criticising him if he does not do whatever it is in the precise way you would do it. He is responsible and should be allowed to do it his way. When he sees he can be an adult about that, taking over other responsibilities should come easier. Eventually you should reach a sensible point at which you are equal partners. From there you might be able to say on occasion "husband, this week I am exhausted and I need to recharge my batteries. Can you please take over everything".  And vice versa.I don't know what to advise in the intimacy department but I think if you can get the marriage in general onto a more adult footing things may improve.

Bear in mind that you have said you have always dominated. If you are not in a good place everyone suffers. That is all he knows. You can say until you are blue in the face that it won't happen any more and he might be able to accept that intellectually but emotionally maybe not so much. Seems to me this situation calls for baby steps.

I wish you well.

[Srcyu]

That's how some marriages break down, when one person starts thinking about what the other one "should" be doing.
With you it's a case of what you "want" him to do.

It's all a bit unfair on him.
You are still in dominant mode by trying to make him behave in a different way in order to please you.

You are empowered by your successful pulling  away from your parents. The void of not knowing what you want is the after affect of the all encompassing burden your parents were squashing you with. Overall, it has made you more dominant not less.

Your brain is possibly still on high alert, ready to take on the next thing in your life that you're not happy with. Does it have to be your marriage?


milly

[monamurre]

It is really normal for marriages to be significantly effected by the communication patterns, triggers, and overall baggage that people bring into them. As you learn more about yourself and start to change your internal patterns you are also going to have to renegotiate things like communication and roles in the relationship.

That said, I think Windmill was onto something. If your focus is only on what you want your husband to change you might end up very frustrated. The only person you can really control or changes is yourself. I think you named the challenge you are facing:

  If I am in a good place, everyone is.   If I am not, everyone suffers. 

Working on managing your emotions so they don't spill over on to other people is a great place to start. I suggest talking to your husband about what changes you would like to make in your interactions with him (letting go of the leadership role sometimes), explain to him why this is coming up now (processing and letting go of trauma), and ask if he can step into that role.

Spoiler alert, this is not going to work the first time. Changing patterns in a relationship takes both people willing to be vulnerable and try new things, as well as a willingness to fail a few (or more) times along the way. But, I think if you can reframe it in your head as a change you are making in yourself and communicate with him then you will have taken a good first step.

You may find that he has some complicated emotions about taking a backseat role that need to be worked out as well. So, be patient with yourself, and with him.

[Leonor]

Here's the crux if it:

"Anyhow, because of the trauma I have always been very dominate and head strong in my marriage.   If I am in a good place, everyone is.   If I am not, everyone suffers.  I've been able to maintain that role."

When I first read this paragraph, I thought that you were going to explore how you have unconsciously brought the trauma and pain of your family of origin into your home today: how your childhood survival skills of independence and self-control have at once empowered you but also caused distress in your marriage and parenting, and how perhaps you felt shock or sadness upon allowing this healing awareness to come up.

But instead (and this is not a judgement, Justme, just an observation) you pivot to blame your husband for not being more voiceful and empowered in your partnership.

But have you allowed him to stand beside you as a husband and father? It sounds to me as if he may have been punished for speaking his mind or offering to contribute in the past. Or that he has always been a kind of easygoing, soft place to fall, and that quality is what attracted you to him in the first place. That's the man you wanted, and that's the man you married.

To be "able to maintain" emotional control of your home space is a trauma-driven, anxiety response, not the perspective of an empowered, wise, healing woman. That is not dominant. That is domineering.

Instead of venting your frustration at the man who saw, loves, and accepts you as you are, trauma and all, turn that attention to yourself. Do you want to make the people around you miserable when you are upset for reasons that have nothing to do with them? Do you want them to feel happy only when you grant them permission? Do you want to suppress authentic sharing and connection, to heal the legacy of abuse in generations moving forward?

Go on a loooong walk. Look at trees and sky and birds and ground. And have a little heart to heart with yourself, just you and Justme. What do you want your home to feel like? Do you want your children to feel that their home is a free, open, and real space? Do you want them to breathe a sigh of relief when they walk through the door? Or do you want them to feel tense and a little sick in their stomach, waiting to figure out where mom's headspace is before they can allow themselves to say hello in the right tone of voice?

This is not to say that you have to do it all, be it all, and work it all out on your own. It doesn't mean that your husband can simply relinquish his role as a strong protective partner and refuse to co-lead your relationship. Totally the opposite! He is a grown -@#€ man and he can put on his man pants. He absolutely should figure out his own stuff and realize that he isn't holding up his end here. And yeah he absolutely may have been letting you dominate the release because it made his inner and outer worlds easy. He may be slacking off because it's easier to just blame you for all the problems you're having right now.

Okay, but that said, he won't - he can't - change until you do. Because you have been dominating him. You have been controlling him. And you have been telling him that this is what you want. He does not have the space to grow and change and shift right now, because you've kept him in this little emotional box in the corner. And once you say, okay, now I want you to grow, he may not know how, because he's likely afraid of angering you.

That's where the walk in the woods will help. That's where you can forget about him for a while (he's not going anywhere, it's fine) and just breathe and stretch and explore what you want to do and be and grow into. What would it feel like to actually experience peace between not you and mom or you and dad or you and husband, but between you and you?

I promise, Justme, that the answers that come to you in that long walk will bring up all kinds of feelings. Feelings that you were not free to experience and express in your childhood. It will feel intensely uncomfortable for you to even acknowledge that you have these feelings. You may not feel at peace after all. You may feel fury and then intense grief. You may feel joy and then total panic.

Because all of the control and dominance and power you are holding over your family is nothing compared to the control and dominance and power you are holding over yourself. Everything going on in your family and marriage is a reflection of what is going on inside of you. And it will keep happening until you can get really clear and generous and at peace with yourself.

And it's that peace and clarity and generosity that will guide you in looking at your relationship and figuring out where you can let go and appreciate and ask for help in a way that is inviting and honest and open and loving rather than judgemental and frustrated and domineering.

It's not your fault. You had to do it this way. And you did it. You made it! And now you've got the opportunity to do it a new way. Give yourself permission to do it in a new way.

[Call Me Cordelia]

Hi JustMe. I relate a lot to what you say!!!

I think you would find this thread I started in the fall super relevant: https://www.outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?topic=92363.msg788856#msg788856

Since then DH have been making it to counseling. We're still seeing the counselor separately at this point. But at long last DH is taking a good look at his childhood enmeshment with his mother and absent father wounds and how it's contributed to his own approaches in life and love with me. And I'm... still working on me. 

[Starboard Song]

... now that I've let go of the past and trauma I want my spouse to step it up.   To be more dominate in the relationship.  I am spiraling out of control not knowing where things stand with him.  He's looking to me for answers and to solve everything.   I don't want to anymore.   I want him to take charge in the day to day and more in the intimacy department (he never instigates anything).  I don't know how to explain this shift to him and I'm not sure I even fully understand it. ....  I don't know what I need, but I need something and what we got now isn't working.

You are in a dynamic situation. You described the change you are feeling quite well to us. I want to encourage you to share the same thoughts with him. It is very self-aware. You know things have been off-balance, and now you feel like you may need a change in that balance.

Realize he didn't sign up for this. You are changing the rules on him. So please consider using lots of conditionals and softening words: maybe, might, believe, over time. He doesn't need to be scared. And use "I" sentences. Let him know what you need, what you want, and that you love him. And do for him what you did with us: accept your ownership of how we got here. Let him know that you know you are making a big request. You think the changes would make you both happier, I believe: so let him know that. If you assure him of your love, and ask him to join you on a journey to reinvent your relationship, you may find he has more in him than you know.

I wish you so much good luck.