I wrote recently about feeling annoyed with my soon-to-be ex-husband who I believe is trying to make things difficult for me.

The question was asked:
What is the upside of believing that my husband is purposely trying to make things difficult for me?
My first and strongest response is: It is true. He is trying to make things difficult for me – then my mind thinks of proof… he has two lawyers, he’s making everything legal, he asks for flexibility while he doesn’t provide it, he has told me not to speak with his family, he has frozen my retirement account, he told me if I don’t give him certain custody we will continue to have conflict… I could go on and on.

I’m wondering what would be the upside of thinking something other than this. Just imagining thinking something else makes me feel a bit uneasy and scared. Like I could be lulled into thinking he’s a wonderful human being like I thought he was when I married him, and then he will do something else to try to harm me. I won’t have my guard up.

So I guess the other two advantages are: I keeps me from being harmed by him??? Or maybe I can’t prevent this harm… It keeps me with my guard up?

There have been times that I thought something he was doing was a bit weird, but I didn’t track it or make a big deal of it in my mind. Now I find it would have been helpful to write all these things down to track them.

So other advantage is keeping vigilant and keeping track of stuff he does, because I never know in the moment the real reason behind something I find out later on.

So if I have a number of upsides or advantages, I’m not sure where to go now. I think these are all valid. And I’m still in this situation of him doing XYZ and it impacting me.

Is the idea that I tell myself, “Of course he did and that’s okay.” Sometimes that works, but other times I’m needing something different. Are there other alternatives?