Helcat,

” Do you think a simple apology might work for you? For example, “Sorry for being late, I know it’s a trigger for you. I don’t ever want to make you feel unseen.””

Yes. When the apology feels true, then it does release the trigger. If he used this phrasing it would be even better, the problem is often his “apologizing” comes across fake. I am not sure if I am reading it correctly but I am pretty confident in my ability to read these things. Like sometimes he will apologize but I feel he is just saying it to just end the conversation and move on, other times his apologies are “I’m sorry but…” and that “but” just negates it all for me and I stop hearing what he’s saying. Honestly a false apology hasn’t happened in a while, I think/hope he realizes they are ineffective. I have learned he can also be passive aggressive but doesn’t know he’s doing it when I confront him, he makes me feel stupid for even thinking it could have been passive aggressive and this bothers me. It concerns me he does not see that his “jokes” are passive aggressive and pretty obvious to me. Another reason I know they are not just jokes is because when we are having a consistently good time he doesn’t “joke” around.

The difficulty with apologising is that some men hate it. My husband did and felt like an apology meant that he had to mean that he’d done something wrong. Instead of simply being a way to validate emotions. Women are prepped by society to apologise in a variety of different scenarios and understand that it’s largely about validation and manners. I had to talk to him and explain that it’s not that he was doing something wrong. It’s just showing that he cared and empathised with how I felt.

I want to straight up just read this to him because it is so true. He does struggle to apologize and all I really want is just recognition of how it could have been harmful to me.

“To a lot of people, taking a break just means breaking up. So I can understand why he feels scared by this idea. Perhaps you could take a break without actively using that term. What would taking a break look like to you?”

These are good questions. While living together I felt the need for a break quite heavily, but since moving out, it is sort of a break in itself. I see him about 2-3 days a week instead of 24/7, he is not a big texter or any social media communication so we have full days without talking which I think is what I need because before our lives were so intertwined that everything I did was around him. What I did for food that day was a communication with him, or how we relaxed at the end of the day, or even when I would come home/leave or even shower and wash my hair! So now I can breathe a bit more and just make decisions for only myself, so that I don’t forget my needs and my self care, which I often gave up if he was home. I hope these things don’t make us a bad match, and i hope I can heal in this semi-break period and then be able to relax with him again living together.

“I think that having my trauma invalidated, which is a big part of my life would make me feel unseen too. What do you think?”

*this paragraph is sad, I am not sure how else to describe it, so read when you have your mental armor on, I don’t want to harm your mood.

Yes I believe that having trauma invalidated is even another form of trauma, because I feel triggered when I feel invalidated in certain ways, let alone invalidated trauma, it can be gut wrenching depending on how close that person is to you. My trauma has been very invalidated, my dad was one of those types who just believed anxiety made you weak and you could power through anything with a 5 am workout, egg whites and money. Rabbit trail: My brother is not mentally well, he is 2 1/2 years younger than me, actually turns 22 tomorrow wow. Anyways he was in no way a jock growing up, he hated the sports my dad would try to bribe him to play, my dad has no relationship with him he doesn’t understand him at all. My brother is sensitive, musical, inventive, and intelligent, but these positive traits about him shut down through the divorce, maybe earlier. Unseen fully by my dad, even more than I am, he developed a video game addiction, and gambling as well now. He has very low self esteem and was diagnosed with manic depression and prescribed in 2020. He would have outburst of anger to my mom and sisters, so much so they no longer felt safe with him around and he is now living at my grandparents…the place my dad was raised, so I do not think it is helping him. Side note my sister, two years younger than him, was also rejected by my dad. She is a strong woman, I am naturally softer, she did not fit the mold of what my dad thought made a girl a girl, she was constantly in trouble as a kid, spanked too much and I also would cry hearing it as a kid because my dad would get angry with her, she was pretty devious she would have lots of tantrums and hated authority. Anyways come her 18th birthday she moved to another state to live with my Aunt and her family, they are very religious (Christian) they are vegan and just very kind people who pretty much adopted her after she spent the last 8 summers there as well. My youngest sister is the only one still home and she’s an amazing dancer and my dad still to this day tells her she should try a “real” sport. This infuriates me. Bringing this out of the rabbit hole now, me and all my siblings are unseen, and relate to each other in this way. If we told my dad this, he would deny any of it being his fault, he would say we didn’t communicate with him enough, or we are exaggerating the pain or that our whole generation is just weak. Having trauma invalidated, especially by the one that traumatized you is angering, for me anyways. Anger that turns to a deep sadness and feeling of being UNSEEN. Even writing this paragraph took a lot out of me, feel like I need a yoga class right now ha!

Sending a release of muscle tension to you (as I needed it as well)

Seaturtle

Anita,

Thank you for acknowledging what I went through in highschool.

“my goodness, for crying out loud … Basically, you were bullied on your first thread.”

Unfortunately the response felt normal to me, but at the same time not what I expected from reading the forums and seeing people being heard and given insight.

I like your principle of “Do no harm,” just hearing you say there are responses you have regretted on here, and witnessing how it makes me feel to receive a response like I did, I will be careful myself.

“it takes a village, like the saying goes. Let’s help each other best we can to feel more secure… in the insecure world we live in.”

This idea of needing community, a village, has never felt more real to me than this year. Moving away from my family in Washington, I have lots of uncles, aunts, and cousins that support me, leaving this for Arizona has made me realize how important community really is. I really want to find that for myself long term.

“His behavior during that one hour, in those circumstances (a golf tournament with friends) is not an indication of how he’d behave in normal circumstances on the long-run”

I did fear this. He was drinking and of course on vacation so I was getting his most low inhibitions self. He works in finances and holds large amounts of money for people and invests it for them, so I can imagine he needs to know how to get people to trust him. My loved ones are my weakness when it comes to reading people, because I want it so bad. When he asked me how I switched from a “jock” to an artist, and I told him I think I was an artist trying to be a jock, he got emotional and that seemed to me he was emotional about the fact he realizes he didn’t see me before. But this could all be very wishful thinking. He does see a therapist, and has since the divorce, it is actual his couples therapist that is his current one… it’s all very strange to me, that he has therapy yet doesn’t seem to be becoming more aware. The therapist is someone who took my dads side in the divorce, my mom says she always felt that woman did not like her and found her texting my dad once, while they were on a vacation that the therapist recommended, to try and reconcile the marriage.

“lessening and enduring emotional discomfort and not expecting perfect execution or linear progress.”

This is something I will be keeping in mind, thank you. Might become a sticky note quote -by Anita, haha.

” I think that taking an actual break (not a breakup) for long-enough will take care of your current heightened distress level and will open your heart and mind to feeling way better about him and about yourself.”

This is something I have considered several times. I have brought it up to my partner twice, and it sacred him both times and he quickly said no, that he did not want that. Now that you also know of his fear to be given the silent treatment, this is a reason I have hesitated to initiate a break, because I don’t want to trigger him in this way. I don’t want him to pull away from me and I certainly don’t want to be dating other people.

“…except for the quick and relatively easy, short-term solution of breaking up with him. A solution I imagine that you will regret on the long-term”

Exactly, sometimes I wonder if I can see into potential futures… or I just overthink so much that I trick myself into thinking that. Because it’s like I can see myself breaking up with him, exactly how it would happen, an impulse. I can see it relieving me for a while, but then, by the time I healed he would have closed his heart to me and forever be the one that got away. I can see myself wanting to be with someone else that has triggers as well, to make myself feel better, I would have someone to help, and less pressure to heal myself quickly before I ruin the relationship. But then I would eventually heal and outgrow that person, unless we healed together, but it’s much harder to predict other people. I then think, how powerful relationship with my current partner would be if we helped each other heal and stuck around to do so,, however this thought gives me some commitment fear, I think, and is where the voice of doubt chimes in, asking me “but is he the one you want a powerful relationship with, what if there is someone better suited.” I think that last one is the most superficial of all the thoughts, but it ties a bow on that whole thought spiral and I then feel stuck and indecisive.

You need your distress level- over days and weeks- to get lower first, so that you can think clearly and come up with reasonable, effective long-term solutions.

Back to taking a break, I have contemplated this for a year now, and I think a year been in this distress. I talked to one of my Aunts about this, her relationship with my uncle is the only relationship in my life I look up to. Her input was a break as well, as that also worked for her relationship early on. Now you bringing this up as well, I think I have been running from this idea and thought moving out would be enough. I just moved out two weeks and and thought I would see if that helps before taking a break, but honestly it is what I want and know I need. I just don’t know how to present it to him without losing him?

I appreciate you Anita,

Sending good vibrations 🙂

Thank you Anita, I look forward to your response tomorrow, enjoy your rest <3

Dear Helcat,

“Have you considered that as you struggle with your issues, your partner struggles with feeling he’s done something wrong? … People who are less stable can struggle when people express difficult emotions sometimes.”

Yes he constantly thinks he has done something wrong, but I can totally see how he felt that way with how I would communicate him pressing a trigger. I would ask him why he kept hurting me. At the time, and quite honestly still, during the trigger response I feel upset the pain could have been avoided by him being more in-tuned with my feelings. I will literally tell him exactly what triggers me and sometimes he just goes and obliviously does it again and that makes me so upset, has he done something wrong in this case? When I have very clearly told him certain things are very touchy for me, him being late to dates is a common argument we have. That feeling of being forgotten by him, and therefore being unseen, hits me hard whenever he is late which is at least once every two weeks or so, if not more. I get upset, then he gets upset cause to him he is on time 80% of the time and I should accept that, but that’s way easier said than done, I cant just turn off the trigger or I would. But he thinks I should just be mentally stronger, like he seems to be.

“You felt comfortable when he was comfortable because when he was uncomfortable he would make you feel very unwanted.”

-Exactly.

“Your mother taught you to be very in touch with your desires because she attempted to go above and beyond to meet your desires at times.”

-Very interesting and feels true.

“At the same time you feel like you’re indecisive. Potentially, you are in two minds about things when this occurs?”

I feel like I am always in two minds, or at lest the majority of the time. Do you know of helpful techniques to focus and be in unity with one mind?

“They believe that if they act perfectly in certain ways that they can prevent abuse by managing their parents mood.”

This is definitely a mentality I remember happening, but I also remember feeling like no matter how hard I tried I fell short and something was wrong with me for it.

Helcat, on your last point, I would love for this to be a continual conversation, one of my fears is being stagnant in self improvement, but I can feel how effective this conversation is for me, and I hope you are benefiting from it as well?

I feel that same impulse to let people know they have been heard, it also hurts me deeply when I am the cause of someone else being on the “unseen” end of an interaction with me. I find that with people who do not have this sensitivity I can come across as if I am over doing, like my partner, when I lived with him I would make sure he heard me and make sure he felt heard and it was almost like I was being too proactive because he would respond as though I had already asked the question, like “yes yes you are all good baby just be.” I still do this and even feel unsettled to let a text message go without responding, but he does not get that feeling and is fine not responding, which used to really bother me cause it made me feel unseen, I am still working on reminding myself that doesn’t mean he doesn’t see me, he just simply isn’t letting me know he sees me. (like my Dad did with me! just realized this now, My dad felt unseen and would internally accuse me of not seeing his pain and empathizing with him, all because little to my knowledge his insecure self needed me to literally tell him he was seen. I literally began to do this for him, he would say he felt  I was ungrateful for what he did for me, so much that I started to send him random texts like “I love you” “I am thankful for all you do” (he paid my tuition so I would thank him for that randomly and often). I think seeing a therapist is definitely a huge reason my self awareness is where it is at today, but also my dad training me to care for him how he needed, made me have to be hyper-aware of how he was feeling so that I could proactively be what he needed so I didn’t get criticized later, a defense mechanism that lead to awareness of the people around me and what they need.

*this is probably one of the reasons you chose my thread to invest some of your time and mental energy to, because I began my post expressing how I felt unseen in my last thread I started in the forums. Just a thought but I am curious on your thoughts here?

It is so interesting that you bring up the mirror metaphor, I had never heard this before until just today, right before this post I am writing, I read the thread from Caroline on “self doubt, not being sure of myself.” In it I saw your metaphor on your mother being a mirror and I thought alot about that. I related to Caroline in her feeling helpless and feeling small tasks are more daunting for her than others due to her mother, and it made me wonder about my own mother and I need to reflect more on this but my immediate thoughts are that she used to make small tasks look more daunting, she had a huge shopping addiction with my dads credit card, which money was a huge argument they had all the time. Anyways she revealed to me many coping mechanisms for when someone hurts you, she drank wine, shopped and turned to other men. She was deeply empathetic which I appreciate seeing in the mirror, but she was also very insecure. I don’t think she knew who she was, and was insecure in group settings, but would act confident because she was a beautiful woman and she knew it and would flaunt it for validation.

Wow, what you said about your mother and long tirades about how you don’t care for her, as if you were out to get her, like she was paranoid. This is so hard, dealing with a parent with trust issues that they project onto you is so unfair. We were so young, trying to discover who we were and our own parent tells us we are someone who doesn’t know how to show someone we care about them. I would cry every time my dad would go on this tirade, because I am someone who cares so deeply for people, so that he accused me of the opposite made me feel so lost, made me wonder if I knew myself at all. I wonder if this created self doubt in you? and how you overcame/ are overcoming this self doubt? My dad to this day still very often misinterprets what I do and who I am and it hurts every time, he thinks I am selfish and is probably why I have fears of being selfish or narcisstic. It is scary when someone tells you that you are coming across a certain way that is unbeknownst to you, it makes me self conscious about how I do come across, which if I let myself overthink this I become awkward in social situations.