I have been working all morning on my Impossible Goal. I made it about my business. I realised how much of it is down to my thought work. That led me to doing a couple of “overall life” models where I put the F line as being Anxious and the T line as “nothing is working out (my life in general). Because I often have trouble wondering exactly what is causing my anxiety or worry I decided in this model to write out all circumstances in my life. Just the facts. With that I looked at it and felt such a sense of relief. I took a really long time to digest this model and saw that there was not one thing in my life really that warranted the worry/anxiety I have been feeling nearly all the time. I decided that I worry about things that “may go wrong” rather than looking at what actually is.
Anyway, today I went about continuing with my business IG goal work then “happened” to watch this random video that showed up whilst I was taking a 5 min break on this young guy “pranking” his gf by ignoring her. He was supposed to do this for 24 hours, apparently it’s a YouTube thing…
Well, watching him ignore her for apparently no reason and the way she was upset by it (she reacted by asking and asking what she had done wrong, hugging him, ignoring him back etc and eventually crying), really hit me hard. By then reading the comments -some people saying this was abuse and gas lighting and that prank or no prank the gf should absolutely not have stood for it.
Well – several times throughout our relationship, my husband has chosen to not speak or engage. Watching the video immediately took me to that place I have felt when he does this and I was immediately aware that I have a lot going on in my mind about my relationship and had not included in the C line yesterday that I have a husband who sometimes doesn’t talk/changes plans at the last minute etc. My thoughts about this have caused huge huge fear, panic in the moment and lingering anxiety after the fact about it happening again. Clearly.
Now I realise just how much I have to benefit from losing my co-dependency with others (especially him). It absolutely affects my whole life. I’d go as far as to say I want a successful business to distract myself from worrying about what others are thinking/doing or to gain their approval. What if I just removed that whole need in the first place?! Maybe that should be my 2020 IG.
Back to my husband and doing a model on this. In the C line is it already too un-neutral to put Husband is ignoring me? Because that certainly doesn’t feel neutral. But it is what he’s doing…
Should the C be: Husband chooses to say no words and chooses to not look at me/close his eyes/sleep/work or whatever it happens to be? That feels more neutral than “ignores me” although that’s clearly what he’s doing in the moment!
UM
C Husband says no words and focuses on something else
T ?
F Terror/panic/abandonment (all of these within seconds of one another because I think I have many really fast thoughts when it happens.
A Ask him why. Ask him to change his mind. Ask him to talk/look at me. Scream. Tell him I’ve had enough. Beg. Go out. Tell him I love him and I want to help (Not all of these in the same circumstance but they’ve all happened one time or another).
R He continues to ignore me and typically comes around the following day. By which time I’m resentful, feel overruled, angry at him and myself for putting up with it/reacting weekly, tell him it can’t happen again. Worry about it happening again.
Please help me with the model here. More than anything in the world I want to feel empowered enough to allow him to feel and act however he wishes. Friends, counsellors etc who say it’s terrible gaslighting behaviour on his behalf onl make me feel even more fearful and worried. It’s not an empowering thought to have. I believe I am putting way too much credit to him for how I feel. But the other part of me (in the moment) thinks how dare he do this to me. He thinks he is hurting me and whether I feel hurt or not I don’t want him to want to hurt me.
Argh. Thanks for helping me clear this all up.