GR is hard!

[losingmyself]

I have decided to start posting here. I really do want to go through with this, I am just a coward.
So, I have been GR'ing. It is not easy!
DD is not going to be staying with us, or me, when she comes home, if you've read my other posts, H had a fit and started cleaning stuff up because he wasn't going to live with her, and if I had to make a choice, then I should choose my kids.
But now that she's not going to be with me, then all that just goes away, and he's all peppy and happy, and talks non stop. When he talks, it's like a mosquito buzzing around by my ear. It's just irritating, and my responses are "Oh. Mmhmm"
So, I get asked why I'm so crabby, all the expected things. I say it's hard, not because I want to respond, but because my brain just wants to say "Why don't you just shut the f up???" But I can't do that.
My only feelings toward him are hatred. I cannot go back to pretending like everything is normal.
I am so very grateful that I can come to my job every day and be with normal people that I enjoy being around.
And talk to you here, people who are on the same path as I am.
I just had to vent!

[square]

Ugh, agreed. I can GR some stuff but when he directly says "wow, you're in a horrible mood" I want to explode.

The thing I do when that happens is completely against my personality, worldview, morality. I do a little smirk. And then I keep on gray rockin'.

[losingmyself]

 
Here's to us going through it.
I hope it gets easier, but I'm going to guess they make it more and more difficult.
"In order to get past it, you have to go through it" I don't know where I heard that from. Deb Mirza?

[escapingman]

GR/MC becomes easy when you finally have had enough. When there is no desire to engage it just comes natural. The hard bit is taking the shouting from the PD who doesn't like it one bit. For me I could have kept it going on forever as I really didn't care in the end, but when uNPD decided to turn up the heat by sending my daughter after me instead I had to stop it. You can't MC/GR a child and when the child is running the PD's business the game is over.

To all of you who is doing MC/GR at home for survival, please leave before it is to late. I am not saying things are great in immediate aftermath, but it is SOOOOOOO much better than living with a PD.

[PlantFlowersNotWeeds]

I remind myself that the biggest revenge on a PD - or the worst thing to do to them - is silence.  No reaction, no reply, no engagement.

This reminder helps me GR/NC when I want to scream at him and tell him what I think.  But really, all that would do is give him the power.

When I have to, the only communication that is okay for me, is texting.  That way he can't hear my voice, my tone, etc... and get any satisfaction that he is getting to me.  I love to respond via text with just an "ok".  To any comment I don't agree with.  Or, I don't respond at all.    I've also used the occasional "?" when he gets angry in texts.  That stops it right away and he won't text anymore.

I recently spoke on the phone with my STBXnPD after 3 weeks or so silence, and after 2 minutes (no exaggeration) he was pushing my buttons and got to me - I just hung up.  He is so skilled at manipulating quickly and effectively that my thinking brain can't keep up because my emotional brain is so MAD.   Our son just turned 18, so there's no need to talk on the phone again.  I'm done with it.

[Catothecat]

It got easier for me because it became a new habit.  I just replaced the old habit I had of reflexively responding to the nonsense with the new one of not responding.  It was more of switch turning off and another one turning on than a conscious decision.  I now know it was my instinctive way of protecting myself. 

When I finally did this with my uNPDexh, he had a really hard time understanding what I was doing because he was used to being able to constantly and continually tell me either what a great person he was or what a rotten person I was for not appreciating his greatness.  We would have conversation after conversation covering these two topics, with me usually conceding to him because it was easier.  But that only encouraged him and I spent years listening to this same conversation.

It ended when I stopped contributing my part.  His expectation was that he could push those buttons and manipulate me into a corner, so when I stopped playing the game he initially upped his attacks and/or concerns until it finally got through to him that I wasn't playing any more.  It wasn't very long after we got to that point when I left.  I suspect we could've gone several more years in that state of stasis but when he finally shut up and disconnected the silence helped me realize I was done with being this unhappy.

[Stillirise]

I'm not sure if this will be reassuring or discouraging, but here's a perspective from 2 years post-divorce chaos. We still have kids in school, so I can't go completely NC with the updxh.  However, my life is exponentially better than it was during the marriage, and living under the same roof. 

Over the last couple of years, a pattern has emerged.  Right now, we are in a relatively calm period, where I've been maintaining MC, and remaining pleasant, without giving away too many details about my life outside that of a co-parent. I've been noticing for the last month or so, xh seems to be thinking we can be friends, and wants to engage in friendly discussions about things other than the kids.  Seems harmless—if I didn't know what I thankfully know now. I have been tightening up my MC, and moving back toward GR, at times.  To someone on the outside, this could be viewed as me being the "difficult" one in the co-parent relationship.  I don't care.  Eventually, too much interaction will escalate, and end badly. 

I want you to be reassured that things can really be so much better than they are now.  However, I also want to remind you that these tools will sometimes be necessary for the remainder of the time you have to engage in any way with a PD. Try to look at it like you're honing essential life skills. Best wishes to you, on your journey!