A little reconciliation

I was just around the corner

Monday nights, every other week, I have piano lessons. When I came out of my lesson, which is just around the corner from where the house is, I noticed the messages from my husband. Just nice little messages, nothing heavy or demanding, just sweet.

I sent a couple of messages back. Then I thought “I wonder if he’d like to walk the dog with me?” So I phoned him.

Has it happens, who is on the next street approaching where I was stood. So I walked with him to the house, and then asked if you’d invite me in for a cup of tea.

Hey maybe a nice cuppa and we had a bit of a chat about the boiler and such things.

Then I told him I was quite upset about how things were left on Sunday. I think he appreciated the honesty. He said that he could see that I was losing the ability to focus and receive what he was saying (that was true: I had done way too much talking and listening and was quite frazzled), and that the house is his safe place: a boundary he has to enforce for his own well-being must be to keep it that way as far as possible. I understood that. I am terrible with boundaries, both my own and other people’s, so I am glad that he will maintain that one.

He understood that I felt greatly upset at being asked to leave again and the reasons for that.

I walked back to the flat after we hugged and reassured each other that they were loved.

I had my tea late (if you’re not British, then you might think that tea is a beverage – in this instance it’s the last meal of the day, usually taken around five or six in the evening – dinner suggests formality, and I’m too common to have supper), so I think that made it hard for me to get off to sleep, despite following the routine.

What is particularly remarkable is that I had a sex dream: I rarely remember my dreams anyway, and sex dreams are very rare for me. All I remember of it is the music of the drums. I woke up with an absolutely stonking erection!

I haven’t had a spontaneous erection for months.

Counselling

We covered a lot of ground in this evening’s counselling session. I suppose that in any one week a lot seems to happen for me to think about.

Library rooms

I talked about books; that I’d been in a couple of friends houses where there are books taking up an entire wall, or a whole room, and how I loved the feeling of being in a room with books – how peaceful it made me feel.

When was young, I used to collect books. Sometimes old books because they were beautiful, but also books that I loved to read – an entire day of Terry Pratchett, my childhood Enid Blyton, my ancient history books, a twenty-volume encyclopaedia from the early twentieth century. I loved to catalogue them, sort and index them.

My husband doesn’t much like books, and persuaded me to get rid of just of them. Now I am allowed one bookcase in the lounge and another small one upstairs, hidden away.

I still love books and miss having them.

I think I am asking my husband for too many compromises at the moment to ask him to let me resume collecting books.

But books were (and still are) a special interest or mine.

Compromise

I was likening my husband’s brain as a computer designed and optimised for verbal communication, whereas my brain isn’t (I’m not sure what it is really designed for – written communication? pattern recognition?). I’m order for me to communicate verbally, I need to install additional software, which are effectively additional levels of processing necessary to perform the same activity that my husband’s brain is optimised for. This comes at a performance cost (ie slower and more resource intensive).

It suddenly dawned on me that I’m order for my husband to communicate with me the way I need, that he will have to install additional software – which would feel uncomfortable for him, be more resource intensive, and therefore slower.

I wondered whether there is somehow a middle ground where our two communication styles can meet?

Puppy

I told my counsellor about this friend that I’d meet up with in London in Saturday. This friend is into puppy play and even showed me his hood. We were both kind of excited and we both talked about maybe meeting up again to do some puppy play – if my husband will permit it.

My counsellor was excited for me, until he realised the “husband permission” caveat. The husband does know that this friend is into puppy play, so maybe he’d be ok with it.

We talked a little about what it’s like to be a puppy. My counsellor asked if I felt calmer when I wore the hood; I feel excited and naughty and love to run around upstairs like a puppy that knows it shouldn’t be there and lie in the bed. Naughty pup!

Kink and boundaries

We talked about the discussion that my husband and I had on the beach about going to a fetish club. That was exciting, but he and I have a lot of talking to do about boundaries I think before that can happen. It maybe not. We just need to keep talking.

My counsellor asked whether my husband was “stable” enough for that. So I talked about Sunday night and Monday, where my husband asked me to leave the house when he saw that I wasn’t in such a good space in order to protect the house as his safe space, I am glad that he did that: I am terrible with boundaries, but I think I just learn to be grateful when somebody asserts their boundaries.

Going out in the early days

A long time ago, we used to go to the Caberet in one of the pubs in town. We would both drink. After the Caberet had finished, I would try to get us to head towards home. Hubby wouldn’t come.

I would get quite upset and angry. I needed to get up in the morning, he was so inconsiderate!

I took on the responsibility to get us both home.

Reflecting tonight on those times, I realised:

I wasn’t responsible for getting him home
I could leave at any time I wanted to
That my need to leave wasn’t just about work – it was about my routines
That I could see that he wasn’t really ok, so I felt that I needed to take care of him

Was talked more on this, and it became apparent that my need to leave a nightclub suddenly was possibly an autistic response to sensory overwhelm. I might want to be there, but it would suddenly just become too much and I would have to leave.

I would get angry and irritable because he wouldn’t leave. Those kinds of emotions don’t usually work too encourage people to do what you want – I think that my urgent need to flee and the resultant mini-meltdown, might have sometimes tripped my husband into one of his dark spaces.

Using shame and control

I would use shame in an attempt to make my husband “mend his ways”: is say things like “you’ve let me down, you’ve let your clients down, you’ve let your friends down, you’ve let yourself down, you’ve let my family down” – you get the gist.

Shame was a tool used by my family to control my brother and me: “We’re not angry, we are just very disappointed in you” – or sometimes even more direct “you ought to be ashamed of yourself”.

These were the tools in my toolbox and until about 2012 I didn’t see anything wrong in using them.

But I was piling shame onto a man who already carried a lot of shame.

I suppose I shouldn’t be too hard on myself – as I say – that was one of the few tools in my toolbox – and I wanted his harmful behaviour to stop. He was hurting me, but he was also hurting himself.

I can only say that since I have learnt better, that particular tool has not been deployed since.

Pup J