Expressing My Thoughts To My Husband

[Cecilia]

This is a copy of a letter I sent to my husband (with some sections edited out to protect privacy . . . I'm learning how to use this site a little bit better, I think )

Hi,

I tried to think as I drove the girls to school about the best way to communicate my
thoughts to you and I thought that perhaps writing them out is the best thing.

I don't know how to tell you any more than I have how much I love you and want to be with
you, but I don't think that you are happy and I don't know how to devise a "game plan"
for your life. Your life is your life and you have to create a life that is going to be
rewarding for you.

If I could create a plan for you for the next while, it would look something like this . . . [edited by me b/c of personal info]

The online community and support network and resources of www.malesurvivor.org are
awesome. I have learned so much in the time that I have spent on their website. I
think that your emotional scars are not being attended to properly. I think that in our
relationship, we talk about the problems created by your childhood trauma, but we have
never really found a way to talk about what really happened to you and to be intimate and
honest about the reality of your experience. I think you have deep wounds
that affect everything you do and more than anything I want to do whatever I can do to
help you to have a safe space in which to heal. But you have to want to heal.


I will do anything, but I won't do what we have been doing.

However, as I said at the beginning of this letter, my suggestions may sound terrible to
you. I don't know what you need or want.

Our finances are a mess, but they can be rectified over time. We have resources and
family members willing to help, but I think some of the emotional healing has to occur,
first.

My priority right now has to be with creating a calm, stable, dependable life for the
girls.

I can think of many, many long term options. If you really want to build a house, then maybe you should build a house and I can commute my last year of law school. If you don't want to
build a house there, then sell the property and focus on your shop. If you don't want to
build a house or have a shop, then let go of both and find a new path. The world is
limitless and full of possibility.

You said to me on the phone that, "This is not all my fault." I don't think all of this
is your fault. I think you are a beautiful, worthwhile, intelligent, deeply caring and
loving man. But I think you have been so severely traumatized by life that you cannot
respond safely in the world. The world is full of bad, mean-spirited people with selfish
intentions (and, I include myself in that category sometimes as I am human and full of
faults), but to respond to the world with rage and anger (whether it be sending
threatening notes to the corner video guy or lashing out at the landlord) is not
acceptable behavior for an adult. You have also lashed out in me in ways that are
extremely damaging to the point that I feel so criticized by you in everything that I do
and in every choice that I make that I absolutely fall apart. I cannot live that way
anymore.

These are my thoughts. I will stand by you. I will hold our family together and keep us
going while you spend time finding out who you are and what you want from life.
Until you can find your own sense of self-worth, though, we cannot have an equal
relationship.

I am attaching an article I found that I thought you would appreciate. If you need help
with phone numbers or contacts or anything, I will help you.

I love you.

Cecilia

 

[roadrunner]

Cecilia,

In reading this letter I tried to view it from two perspectives: your husband's and yours.

Viewing this letter as a survivor I think what I saw is great (I know you had to keep some things private). You are very supportive of him, but at the same time he gets the hard and painful facts as well. That's really important. He gets the message that you love him and want things to work, but you expect some changes and you have needs and priorities of your own to consider, most especially your children.

Reading the letter from YOUR perspective, there is also a lot of good stuff set forth. Most especially, you say you are open to suggestions but you are not prepared to accept things the way they are now. You also draw a sharp distinction between support, which you are willing to give, and tolerance of endless emotional abuse, which must stop. All that's very good.

But I have a few questions for you and please believe me when I say I don't mean to be critical of you. They are rhetorical and I just want to ask you to think about them:

1. You say the following: "I don't know how to devise a 'game plan' for your life. Your life is your life and you have to create a life that is going to be rewarding for you." Then you outline a porposed plan for him. But where is Cecilia's game plan? How do things need to work out so Cecilia can be happy? When you say his life is his life, you make it sound like you will be happy with anything, so long as it makes him genuinely happy.

2. You talk about his healing, and yes, that's crucial. But don't you get to say somewhere here: "Hey, I have been hurt too"? I don't mean hurt by his emotional outburts; I mean he needs to know that HIS abuse issues are directly and immediately harming all those closest to him, including you and the girls.

3. The property he owns: You refer to building a house, his shop, and whatever. What he wants. What he has in mind. But what works for you?

4. I don't see anything here about his habit of absconding for days with no communication to the family. Is this okay with you? Your silence about it suggests that it isn't a big issue and you are prepared to tolerate this in the future.

See what I mean? There is a lot about Cecilia that didn't get said. Okay for now - the letter is a good start and will give him some things to think about.

What I see here is an incredibly kind and loving woman that your husband is damned lucky to have by his side. It's great that you are devoting so much of yourself to his problems and his healing.

But this love and concern have to have a strong source: a woman who feels that HER needs and feelings are also important. If that source isn't sustained and supported itself, it will fade and it's ability to give love and support to others will weaken.

To paraphrase John Donne, "No one is an island". Please do take care of Cecilia. Too many people - including YOU and your girls - need her.

Much love,
Larry

 

[Cecilia]

Dear Larry,

Thank you for your response. I have a couple of thoughts . . .
I am, finally, on a path that is incredibly meaningful to me. I am in law school and the more I come to know about csa the more I want to continue in my area of interest (criminal defense) because over and over I see people who have been victimized since their childhood who are further victimized by our system. I read the information about Honey (I can't remember her last name) on the "About" section of the website and found it very inspirational. I love my life. I love my children. And, I love my husband.

When he met me, I was in a dark, dark period of my life and he supported and loved me. Were his intentions "the best," as he was not coming from a very whole place himself, I don't know . . . but we ended up together and I appreciate the love he has shown to me.

He "followed" me to law school, and tried to be supportive, but he has been very conflicted.

One of the most important things I have learned from this site thus far is the way that I allowed our "discussions" about the criminal trial against his perp to substitute for *real* and revealing discussions between the two of us about our feelings about both of our abuse histories.

I came from a family where nothing was discussed and the less said the better. I see that what I do is think that "if we just talk about everything then everything will be safe." BUT, I think what I do is substitute the sharing of information for an understanding about how to be intimate with another adult. I have not seen that until reading some of the posts here.

Does that make sense?

The encouragement from people on this site to take care of myself is very inspiring to me.

Thank you.

Cecilia

 

[roadrunner]

Cecilia,

What you say makes all the sense in the world. Of particular interest was this:

I came from a family where nothing was discussed and the less said the better. I see that what I do is think that "if we just talk about everything then everything will be safe".

This strikes me as really important. When you were young you were denied access to a vital area of growth: the freedom to ask your questions and talk about things that were important to you. This isn't just a matter of inconvenience, because if you are closed off from this then you are also closed off from opportunities to develop a solid sense of confidence and you learn the false lesson that your questions aren't important. But children and young people are FULL of questions and things they need to talk about, and if that isn't considered important, then the obvious conclusion is that the kid himself (or herself in this case) isn't important. What YOU need and think doesn't count. "Children should be seen and not heard", as the old hateful adage went.

I see two results coming from this, if I may. The first, as you yourself see, is that when someone comes along and is willing to TALK to you, it feels so wonderful, like a release from some dark dungeon. And in a way, of course, it is. But it isn't enough if the subject is always going to be someone else's needs and never yours. But this fact is difficult to see, because at the moment the attention and validation seem so fulfilling.

The other is that perhaps you are not accustomed to setting boundaries and stating your needs and concerns because in the past it was always deemed so inappropriate that you should do so, and in the past doing so only had negative results. Intellectually you can see you need to do this, but actually following through is difficult. Why? That's easy. We are comfortable with what we know and what has worked in the past. What you seem to have in mind is, again if I may quote, "if we just talk about everything then everything will be safe". But that's not true if the convo is never about what you need and want. So okay, the rules of the game have to change. But if they do then that means striking out into new territory, and that feels threatening or poses the danger of rejection or failure. What? Cecilia WANTS something? NEEDS something? For HERSELF? Outrageous!

See what I mean? I'm not saying you can't do this, like it's beyond you or something like that. It just looks to me, based on what you say, that this is new territory for you. If that is so, I would say you should absolutely go ahead and explore it to see what's there for you.

It's not just something that's our right as individuals, I would say it's also essential to our personal growth. I don't see how anyone can be happy or fulfilled if they define these goals in terms of satisfying someone else's agenda, especially if that other person is going through a challenging emotional and personal crisis of their own.

Much love,
Larry