Thoughtful Thursday

Well, I didn't get emotional last week, but I sure as hell did get emotional this week.  Without going into too much detail, we talked about how I went from emotionally needy (growing up) to not (now).  We talked about why and when and how that change came about.  It's like I've gone from desperately seeking affection and attention, to desperately seeking solitude. Sort of related to this, we talked about being backed into corners, "damned if I do/damned if I don't" situations, or what the psychological world calls a "double bind."  The official definition of a double bind is:

"A psychological impasse created when contradictory demands are made of an individual, such as a child or an employee, so that no matter which directive is followed, the response will be construed as incorrect."

I seem to find myself caught in a lot of those in my life - where no matter what I do or choose or say, it's going to be somehow wrong to the other person.  It happened with my parents, and I have to say it happens a lot with my husband, too.

Sometimes I'm just completely baffled at life in general... how did I get here?  Where do I go from here? What am I doing wrong? What am I doing right? What paths should/shouldn't I choose? Is it wrong that sometimes I feel like I liked things the way they were before - behind my safe little wall, acting like people expected me to act - because at least it made them happy.

And then I find myself wondering and second guessing the reasons for my problems with intimacy.  What if - and this is a giant if - the problems aren't as much the issues from my past but my issues in the present?  What I mean is, what if it's like the age old question of the chicken and the egg?  What if my husband and I caused these issues with the warped relationship we've had since the beginning?  How do we fall in love with each other all over again as the people we are now, and leave the past in the past?

I wonder this because I told my therapist about a middle of the night heart to heart that my husband and I shared the other night.  My husband was feeling really worried about our marriage in general and I have to say that he made himself completely vulnerable to me.  He really let it all out, even though some of the things he said made me cringe.  But I was really relieved that for once I knew exactly how he felt about me and things in general.  So anyway, he made himself vulnerable, we had a really good talk and we both felt better afterwards.  But that's where our paths diverged, because after the talk I wanted to roll over and fall asleep in his arms, and he wanted to be intimate.  So I got on the defensive in my head and went through the normal battle that I always deal with around that, and I can only imagine what was going on in his head. 

Anyway... I didn't mean for this to be such a long rambling post and I apologize... I'm just having one of my "lost and confused" moments.