Oh, oh.
The question is not whether you do or do not do anger well, pigless. The issue here is his anger, not yours.
The betrayal and mind games here are sickening. It is the betrayal, the lying, the pretend fear, the way he is trying to make you play the role of his mother instead of his woman ~ everything about this is wrong.
He is terrorizing you with fear of your own anger response, taunting you with it.
This is very wrong. We had a post once in FOO about the everyday banality of evil. About how it begins. To focus on a vulnerability (anger response) and then, coldly manipulate someone with their own decency (taking time to be certain the response you will make is kind and correct) is an evil beginning.
I am glad. This is the right thing to do, when the relationships through which we define ourselves turn cold and defensive and confusing. I am sorry this is happening, pigless. Something had to be done.
I think he understands that, pigless.
He is telling you a lie without words when he pretends to fear you because he is again out of work. The emphasis shifts from his using you (and behaving badly toward you ~ and toward your daughter ~ while he does it) to your anger response.
That is what I see him doing, pigless.
I think you were stellar in taking time to respond when you were angry. Good for you, pigless. There are people who will destroy us with our own decency. They do this by learning our vulnerabilities and mocking our attempts to be better people. As is true of any intimate relationship, those closest to us can derail our lives and destroy us from the inside out. Life is about learning. Make ten thousand mistakes. When we are with someone who tells us the times we were not perfect are the only things that matter about us, it is time to end that relationship.
You deserve better, pigless, than someone who turns every issue into an issue about your anger.
You are right to be angry. Your task is to handle it with integrity. To take time, which is what you did. Anger is okay. It is how we know we are being mistreated.
There is something so awful about him knowing what he did regarding his work, but not telling you before counseling. To me, it indicates something worse than a lack of integrity or courage.
He will have been manipulating the counselor with his words, with his actions and body language, prior to this session.
Very cold of him, to have done that to someone who trusted him.
And that is an honorable thing. I have been learning that there are people who compose a persona. The persona will be constructed to present someone who wants the same things we do. But there are little false notes. Trusting them, we disregard those little pings that tell us something is not as it seems. They shift the emphasis in the relationship. They tell us they are who they pretended to be, but that we are making it impossible for them to be that good person we still believe they are. Somehow, both people in the relationship come to believe that the person letting everyone down is us. If we are good and responsible people, we believe them. We try harder.
And they escalate the game.
We believe everything would be perfect again, if only we could be perfect, again. If only we weren't so angry or so whatever they tell us the problem is. We begin working very hard to address the issues they've told us we have.
But they were lying, pigless.
Maya Angelou wrote that when someone tells us who they are, we need to believe them. The first time.
Whoever he told you he was in the beginning, now he is telling you who he is.
And he's blaming who he is on you.
Just like we say about our children pigless, we have zero control over someone else's behaviors.
An ethical person would not be using your vulnerabilities to control your thinking about yourself.
Is he creating a scapegoat and a Golden Child do you think, pigless?
How awful, for both children.
And for you.
This is classic behavior, pigless. Isolation from your sources of strength and sanity.
And then, he quits working. He is home all the time. Our privacy is gone and with it, our self respect. And everything gets darker.
How awful for all of you, pigless.
In a way, this is good. You will be financially secure. The problem will be getting him to leave and stay gone.
He will not want to stay gone.
It seems always to be about his needs, pigless.
That is not what men do. They strengthen and console and encourage. And they are kind. And they are not so selfish as to respond to a young girl with pettiness. They are aware of the power of a father's words.
So is he.
He knows what he is doing.
It's the pattern he's setting up. During the time of his unemployment, he will have tightened his hold on you and your children. The emphasis will have come to be on his moods and his needs and your anger and how that makes him feel.
And how that makes him feel.
Working interferes with all that. If he is out of the home, if he is bringing money into the home, he loses a prime weapon created to increase your frustration levels.
This is called gaslighting. And yes, there is a name for it. It is another unbelievable thing some people do to other people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslight_(1944_film)
With him out of your home pigless, you will build a support base. He is isolating you, and has been for some time, to make you have no support. So, you will be alone for a little time, here. A number of months, but probably no longer than that. In the interim, you do have us.
And that will make all the difference.
Cedar
If you decide you wish you had not posted this publicly pigless, a moderator can delete this thread.
