Posted by onceupon on September 4, 2008, at 13:09:09
In reply to others as holders of our memories » onceupon, posted by lucie lu on September 3, 2008, at 9:35:02
"it is an important glue that can be one of the things holding the partnership together. So it may be one of the good things about your marriage, and it might help if there were someway to explore it together? He probably feels the same."
Thanks for this. I never thought about exploring this together. It's tricky though, because sometimes I feel like I'm holding on to the relationship only because of these shared memories. Well, and our son, but that's a different story.
> Again I was talking in short-hand. My T is the only one who was on this journey with me, the only one who remembers with me or suffered the effects in therapy with me. (My family suffered in other ways but that's not something I particularly want to remember.) That shared experience is now a chunk in each of us. There is no one else who really knows. Perhaps the large importance of that journey in my life (and his) will eventually fade as other meaningful journeys are taken. Mine involved a lot of identity work, sorting through really poorly integrated dissociated ego states... now I'm pretty much a single, integrated nutso :) but no one but him would ever know anything about that, or knew about any of the states themselves. I'm still working on some identity issues but the worst has been worked through. So that's why I called him a living reservoir of my past - because he is the one who knew all the pieces and helped put me it all together.
Ah, I see what you mean now. It almost sounds like he's played a sort of parental role with you, getting to see you and help you "grow up" as it were (I don't mean this in a pejorative sense - i.e., he's just witnessed a lot of change in you that wasn't and couldn't be apparent to others). Maybe termination feels a little like the death of a parent - that *other* living reservoir of our growth (because of course, you're a reservoir of that same growth) can't be accessed.
> Yes, actually in retrospect it was, and I didn't see it coming. Previously we have always pretty much vacationed at similar times, so I was occupied doing other things too. I have never before had to stay home while he was away for a month. It did make things very different. And being forewarned now, hopefully I will not be unprepared if the next meeting too is still a bit strange and unfulfilling. I'll try to be patient - and call him in between if I need to.I hope you mean you'll try to be patient with him AND yourself.
>
> You are great. I got you (at least I think I did) Thanks very much for writing and helping me reflect more about this part of it all.
>No problem. It's nice to learn vicariously while on this board too :)
once
poster:onceupon
thread:849897
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080826/msgs/850302.html