I have been really home sick lately, like to the point of feeling like there is something missing from my life, that if "only I were home, I would be so much better, my kids would be so much better, life would be so much better". What is that about? Why do I feel that if I just move my family back home, (being Michigan), that everything will be better? I have been driving myself crazy trying to figure out legitimate reasons for that way of thinking. Not that going home is a bad thing. I believe that having a larger family unit; Aunts, Uncles, Great Aunts, Great Uncles, Cousins, 2nd Cousins would be beneficial to my children, who really don't have friends or people to hang out with and visit on a regular basis.
Family has ALWAYS been a big deal for me. I have been struggling to find "my family" since well I guess my mom died, and even though I come from a large family, I was the baby so I wasn't really "close" to my brothers and sisters, well except for one; Steve and his wife Pat. They went above and beyond trying to make me feel loved and a "part" of something. Pat told me a little while ago, when I first openly admitted to my family about the abuse and the bad choices that I made, because of that abuse and the lack of anyone "helping" me. (Not that I blame them per say, the choices were my choices, but I couldn't help but feel if someone had reached out to me, I might have made better ones). Then I realized, someone did; Pat and I shut her out! My one saving moment and I turned away and lied to her, she of course could read me like a book, still can to this day, but didn't push, knew that I would come to her in time. Unfortunately, due to circumstances that took me further and further away in distance, it took me 20 years to go to her and my brother and confess my "sins". It was a healing moment for me, because here I was being extremely vulnerable to people whose opinions of me mattered so much. In the past all I felt was rejection or judgments, but from her and Steve I only felt love, unconditional love and acceptance.
I want my children to have that feeling too, that no matter what they do or do not do, whether they become successful or just live paycheck to paycheck there is unconditional love here. They will never be judged or made to feel not good enough, and yet I am struggling with whether or not that is really what I am putting out there to them. Are they really feeling that unconditional love and sense of belonging and pride that I felt when talking with and just being around my family? I hold so tightly to this family because I feel so far away and almost alienated from my family. So I am almost obsessively trying to fix my family. This one has to regardless whether we all fit or not. Am I trying to make a complete family; mother father and children, where there just can't be? Are we capable of being a cohesive harmonious family? Am I trying to make a mule into a show horse, is the county way of putting it I guess.
James and I are struggling, and I don't think either one of us really knows what fears are truly in the others heart. How much hurt or resentment is being harbored there, because of the actions or non-actions of the other. There is a wall and I am not sure how to get around or over it at this point in time. I actually feel that through my attempts to help him see clearer as to what is fear based, I am actually succeeding in doing the opposite and actually handing him more bricks to barricade himself behind. I know he has a strong fear of being rejected and a lot of past experiences have helped to cement that foundation, so a lot of his actions are, I feel, done to prove his point, that he is unworthy and unlovable. I know it isn't how he wants to live or love, but he doesn't know any other way and he isn't consciously making decisions, his fear is leading him. I love my husband, but I have to remember that loving someone means doing what is best for them and not what is best because you think it is. I also know that there are things about me that I am probably doing wrong as well that hurt or anger him. I try to "self medicate", meaning that because I have been in counseling, I am taking psychology I have been told by quite a few professionals as well as friends and family that I have a keen grasp of the human psyche, I cannot, more importantly should not been trying to counsel my husband or myself. Although, I can listen to him, I cannot steer him in any direction, because I am emotionally invested. I am not skilled enough to separate his needs from my own emotional gains. Meaning, I would have to ask to myself constantly, am I doing this because it would be what is best for him or best for me? I try to always think about what I want to say and how to say it so that I am heard in the way that I am meaning and not coming from a place of anger or resentment or superiority. That just seems to cause me to ask more questions and question my motives even more, almost to the point that I do nothing because I am so unsure of what it is I am really trying to do. Am I saying or doing XYZ because it is really what he needs to hear and see or is it so that I can be right and to the world that I can save him, I can make him better. Hey all you doubters out there, I told you a person could be saved and I saved him. I didn't think that is what I was doing? I thought I was doing it because I love this man, but if I wasn't why would that thought even pop into my head? It raises all sorts of questions and I start to color my thinking and question every thought that I have.
I want to go vacant for just a few hours; no thoughts, no questions, nothing but peaceful calm, because here there are too many questions and too much thinking....
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