Posted by alexandra_k on July 26, 2014, at 16:39:36
In reply to Re: Not thinking right, posted by Partlycloudy on July 26, 2014, at 7:24:00
Part of my thinking... Is that sometimes people need / want different degrees of intimacy. What might feel like being far away to one person can feel like being excruciatingly close to another...
I think quite a lot of women seek intimacy from outside their marital relationship. Things like women's groups where there is conversation about books or films or various hobbies or processing traumas...
Quite a lot of guys like to do things like... Lifting weights in the gym. No talking... Just a group of people all doing something sort of together. Cycling. Team sports... Everyone moving together. Mouths being closed.
Can lead to the same feeling... Of connection. Of being part of something greater than yourself. Of feeling accepted. Valued. At home. Can't do anything about what naturally makes us feel that way... But can make comprimises sometimes for a person we love... But they ain't ever going to change it.
Of course it would be very very very very very different indeed if he was having an affair or something like that - being intimate with another person in the way you want to be intimate with him...
I've long thought I was more like a guy in my way of thinking... I really do think that that is true. It is why I like the gym. And on the one hand I'm glad when other women are inspired to lift weights... And on the other hand I'm always disapointed when they go about ruining the space for me by turning it into a social club.
Anyway... If things are sort of like this... THen what is left for you to do is to look outside the marriage to get needs met. This isn't uncommon... I often think the best marriages are marriages between two relatively independent people. No single person can be everything to us that we require...
> I am also going to speak with a neuroscientist from the local uni about treatment possibilities regarding addiction and early childhood trauma. It's become quite the hot subject lately, and I would rather put all of that behind me instead of dragging it with me.
Sure. SOmetimes I"m not sure that the 'direct' approach is the approach that is most likely to have us moving forwards... When I was focused on staying clean as my biggest focus... I lost sight of why the hell I should be clean. Instead of focusing on staying clean... I focused on things I wanted to do / be (that required me to stay clean). Going to university.. Doing classes... Meeting people who surely wouldn't put up with me when I was high etc. Busy-ing up my life with those things... So I had less time to want to use.
It didn't make all the sh*t go away, that's for sure. But I think it helped it more than attempting to focus on it directly did... And... When I was being productive at university... Uh... THose were actually the times when I got the best help I've ever been offered...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1068500
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20140702/msgs/1068802.html