Sunday, August 27, 2006

This is a repeat...OF OLDER CONVERSATION(?)

Work with depressed man and their partners has convinced me that men's much-vaunted fear of women and of intimacy is really not a fear of EITHER. What men fear is subjugation. In the one up/one down, better than/less then, hierarchical world of traditional masculinity, one is either in control or controlled. Vulnerability, openness, yielding to another's wishes - many of the requiste skills for healthly relationships - can be experineced by men as invitations to be ATTACKED. Men's fear of entrapment, of female engulfment, is not really about women at all. It is a transposition of a male model of interaction to the living roon and the bedroom. When men fear that their women will "engulf" them, they fear that their women will act like men.

insert more from 318-319.

WWhat Real is talking about here between Joe and Barbara is something that has happened with darkdaughta and I except for the fact that darkdaughta does talk about how she is feeling. She is actually quite good and clear at proposing courses of actions and talking the lead at neigotating a path.

But I think this is where I experience my partner and the construction of her "engulfing" me. And it has become even worse, as I now move to actively sabotage all that was created. My latest and most tidy tactic is to not listen to anything DD says - at all, ever. And I want her to stop pointing it out to me. I want her to stop.

Memories of the past few days/weeks:
1. Camp director came up to DD to find out why Stinks missed grad performance. I agreed to handle this b4 hand, but drop the ball and left DD a sitting duck
2. After a long day out, DD told me she was hungry (she's breast feeding) and told me EXACTLY what to make her. I came downstairs and 20 minutes later( it felt like 5 minutes) , still- had still not gotten thru making the first part of the dish.

Truly though, I don't express love the same way as DD. I'm willing to take what I can get from her. I enjoy everything she gives me. But I don't give back in the same way.

I won't even always think first when it comes to Stinks and the new baby. I see things and blank that I ever saw them. Or I should saw, choose to blank them.

So here I am on blogger, at like 5 in the morning on Sunday.

Need to cry now.

Slipping backwards

Well. I'm barely communicating with my DD. The birth of the new baby has been amazing. We plan on doing so much, loving and laughing and caring and touching with him. BUt b4 I get to all of that - I'm still back at battling my little boy. Why did I write battle? You know who I battle? I battle DD. I battle stinks. I've been battling a fake opponent and I've sabotaged my process repeatedly.

I refuse to do anything different.
I'm always resting on my superior stuff. I saw this family riding the streetcar and the guy was so asleep at the wheel. He wasn't communicating with his partner about where to bring their stroller, how to navigate around the crowd etc. When it was time to get off, he just walked away from her. Sounds familiar.

I'm not walking away from DD when we are on the tram, but I walk away in conversation all the time. All of the issues in Az. have made it possible for my issues to be obsecured.

But that is all changing now, with the shifting of the house set-up.

These are (un)edit comments written at 4.57am.

I think about where I was even a few months ago on this blog. What happened to my 'progress'. What happened to staying focused? What do I have now? I'm gonna go read.