EveningRose

I think I've come so far and overcome so much. And I have.

But then I have a night like tonight.

I've been seeing someone for 8 months, someone who's very open about his feelings, very upfront, very honest, and tells me repeatedly he's crazy about me and all the things he admires about me, specifically. He's 100% respectful of my boundaries on certain issues although they're totally different from the way he's lived his life. He's respectful of my time with my kids.

Yet he does a small thing, very small, and I end up feeling neglected and unloved, wondering if he's really just playing games, wondering if he's up to something behind my back, and starting to slide into something a little like a depression. Rationally, I know the thing I'm unhappy about was probably about the fact that he has to work very early in the morning. I know people at another forum I'm on would say tell him it upset me, regardless, talk about feelings, communicate.

It all has me upset, second-guessing, and more importantly, realizing that after 18 years with an alcoholic father and going from that almost directly to 20+ years with an ACOA husband who took advantage of that and played mind games...I have no idea what's normal in a relationship with a normal, healthy person. How normal are my fears and reactions? Do normal people really talk about these little things even when they suspect they're being foolish? How much do normal, healthy couples respect and help each other along with such issues (because I know all of us have them, even healthy, normal people)?

Most importantly: do we ever learn what's normal?

DavidG

Hi Evening Rose...

I come to this board from another, where I am more active...

this is a major characteristic of an adult child.

I have begun to believe that norms are created by groups of people...
...I think it is a rite of passage we adult child miss out on in our teens and
twenties. I think at that age do do become the group...

..the group is a moving, milling entity, but it offers security and identity...

my tuppence worth- a great share... I wish you and yours all of the best!

take care out there...

DavidG.

PS I AM NOT recruiting for that other board... I am trying to communicate the same sense over here... :>)

DesertEyes

One of the biggest lessons for me has been that I have a completely wrong "dictionary" of words. I learned the meaning of words from my toxic family. Words like "love", "responsibility", "truth". I have had to re-discover what those words _really_ mean, and discard those old definitions.

I see three entirely different concepts. "Normal", "healthy" and "me".

Normal is what statisticians come up with when they add up their numbers. Divorce is normal in 30 some percent of marriages in the first 3 years. That is "normal", just a number.

Healthy is what allows me to live a life filled with serenity, peace and comfort. Healthy has nothing to do with normal.

Me is where I happen to be in my recovery today. I am healthy in many aspects of my life, and still making progress in others. What other people do with their lives is really none of my business. What others consider normal is also not my concern.

Where "me" is today, where my feelings are, my fears, my "PTSD" and other sensitivites, that is what matters to me. I know that when my feelings go wild, the way you describe your reaction, it's because some old memory has triggered a warning alarm in my ACoA emergeny response system. I know those emotions are valid, they are just not useful today.

What "normal" people talk about does not help me, how much they respect each other does not help me. _I_ need to decide what I am ready to talk about today, and what I will talk about tommorow. I decide how much respect and help I need.

As it turns out, I need 100% respect. When my emotions do that "instant alert" reflex you mention I need about an hour by myself, to walk around the building, take some deep breaths, touch the grass and the trees and "ground myself" in the present so that I can ignore those old "alarms". After I am grounded I can come back and say "Sorry I reacted that way, I will talk about it at my next meet, and thank you for understanding".

I still don't know what's "normal". I have found something better, I have found "me", and I have found what is healthy for me. "Me" is making progress just fine and I am creating my own "normal" just for me

Mike

EveningRose

Thank you, Desert Eyes, for some thoughts well worth re-reading and pondering.

I'm wondering, with another hour of life under my belt and reading your words, if I need to be asking--also or instead of the question about normal--what's reasonable to expect from other people. I guess the question would be, then, what do normal couples give each other, so that I know what's reasonable to ask, or if what I want is completely unreasonable. XH let me know repeatedly that the things I wanted were unreasonable, irrational, and ridiculous (although of course it turns out that he was cheating and the best defense is a good offense) and it leaves me still unsure of myself.

frances2011

These are beautiful, worthy questions.

I love and honor your question ER. I wanted to offer my perspective.

For couples, my experience is being married to a sane, loving man who had a happy childhood. (I know! Right? How crazy is that!) Not perfect, but every day he knew he and his brothers were loved and cared for. My answer is that "reasonable" is pretty much whatever I want to say, will be accepted and considered gently. I expect and accept that sometimes he won't agree. We discuss and reach compromises or table the discussion for another day. Apologies are accepted readily. Amends are made and then in the past. Every day is pretty much easy and safe and fun. No hidden agendas. He accepts my ACOA-ness and helps me through the scary parts, like offering a hand across a rocky bit on a trail. He's not carrying me, just helping me. I help him too, with stuff he's lousy at.

And here's my riff on the question as it relates to my broader search for "what do normal people think and feel like and expect to have happen?"

I think of "normal" like a cup of coffee. There's the cup that I enjoy by myself, then the coffee I share with my husband. I like to make coffee for friends, how they like it. Sugar, milk? These are the bedrock of my "normal."

And I LOVE to go to coffee shops. Everyone there is enjoying their coffee the way they like it, or tea, or hot cocoa, but we're all enjoying things together. Everyone is polite to others. Some are sitting reading by themselves. Some are open to conversation. Some sit and linger. Some rush out out. Everyone's choice is respected.

My cup is never empty. I can get my coffee and fill my cup at my liking whenever I wish. At the coffee shop, no one screams or controls other peoples' coffee choices. Coffee might get spilled but it's not violent or scary or on purpose. No one takes my coffee. I don't look into other peoples' cups to see what they are drinking. They don't comment on my choice. I have enough money to buy whatever I want and can leave and come on my choosing.

NWGRITS

I'm new to this board, and this is my first posting. This is something I deal with every day as an ACoA. While my husband didn't grow up in a family with an addiction problem, his father ruled with an iron, verbally and emotionally abusive fist. Even still, in the eyes of the Almighty Dad my husband isn't capable of doing anything with his life and doesn't do anything as well as his father, blahblahblah. I know better because I live with him every day, and I love him for who he is. That doesn't mean that life together is easy. Neither one of us is really sure of what "normal" behavior is in a relationship. He doesn't like to communicate and bottles things up. I've become possibly a bit TOO confrontational, in the sense that I bring everything out in the open in order to work through it. We're both learning each others' boundaries, but it's getting better every day. We support each other in hard times, and recognize each others' strengths. We're finding what works for US, which is really all that matters. Our kids (all four of em!) are happy, well adjusted, smart, caring, compassionate people. We may not have gotten off to a great start ourselves, but we're stopping the abuse with the next generation.

I guess what I'm getting at here is, if it upsets you that he leaves early for work, maybe just say, "You work so hard and I appreciate all that you do, but sometimes it really stinks that you have to go so early in the morning. It makes me feel lonely, but I know that's just my feelings about it. Maybe we can have a date night/Sleep-In Saturday/Whatever-works-for-you and spend some time together soon?" I really doubt he gets up crazy early just to spite you. So, just a thought.

And on "normal," I got this from a friend a while back and taped it up on the bathroom mirror: "Normal is nothing more than a setting on the dryer."

GingerM

Rose,

I'm sorry I haven't been around much, but my life may be sort of kind of stabilizing and I'm hoping to be around a little more.

For background, my life for the past year or so has involved taking care of everyone except me. In the past month, I've had to fire two people and put my dog down. Needless to say, I wasn't in a great place.

My husband then did something that set off not only alarms, but a very very potent trigger for me. I completely lost my cool. I believe this is the second or perhaps third time in the 15 years we've been together that I just plain lost it. No one who knows me would have recognized my behavior as me.

What I said to my dear husband (who has very much patience!) was absolutely uncalled for, in appropriate, had very little to do with him and very much to do with me. To answer your question of "do normal people talk about these things?"

Well, if you want a healthy relationship, yes, yes they do. After getting the kneejerk reaction under control, and figuring out where it came from (that actually didn't take long), I went back to my husband. I apologized. I told him everything that lead up to my losing my sh*t on him. I told him I believed my behavior was unacceptable and innappropriate. I asked him to forgive me my slip (really? it was not a pretty scene. I was WAY out of line, and my reaction was well out of what would be considered proportionate to the stimulus). I told him that, unfortunatly, he just got to bear the brunt of other people's actions and the stress that I've been living under, but that I did not believe that in any way excused my actions.

In other words, I took OWNERSHIP of my life, my actions and my decisions - especially the bad ones. By taking ownership of it and saying "I am like this" I can also add onto that statement "and I have the power to change."

Is that normal? Well, based on my experience with The Public, no, it's not normal. Most people are not introspective, most people can't tell you what lies underneath their anger, most people can't even apologize. So I am not normal. I am, instead, healthy.

Do we ever learn what normal is? I think I'm getting a handle on it. Look around you. Look at how most people handle things like getting cut off in traffic, or having someone walk too slowly across a crosswalk, or having someone cut in line at the grocery store or any number of other utterly mundane things that are really very meaningless in life. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like somewhere around half of the people I see are total jerks. This is what "normal" looks like, and I want nothing to do with it.

I want to be healthy. I want to be the one in charge of my life, not spend my life in perpetual reaction to other people's actions.

And that means that I must tell my husband what's going on inside my head when one of my triggers gets hit and I behave in a manner I'm not proud of. I must accept and own my shortcomings along with the things I'm proud of. I must allow people inside my head so that they can understand me better (how far inside depends on how close I am to them).

I believe that that is healthy behavior. Ownership, responsibility for my actions, the ability to let go of the actions of others as a controlling influence of my behavior. I don't want to be normal. The more I see of "normal", the less I like it.

tromboneliness

Excellent point! People's public behavior -- by which I mean how they act when they're among strangers they don't expect to see again, the best example being on the road -- says a lot. Driving aggressively is rampant, especially here in the northeast -- but in normal traffic that's moving along, even if slowly because of rush hour, I doubt very much that it's possible to reduce your commute time by more than a couple of minutes, no matter how many times you stomp on the gas, change lanes, zip in and out of traffic to get past a slower car, etc., etc. Yet that's the norm! There's this universal attitude that driving at the average speed is for chumps -- everyone wants to be superior, more important, and more skilled than... all those other people driving to work. What's the point? Is it better to get to work two minutes earlier, all worked up from passing inferior forms of life in traffic for an hour?

That's not to say that I don't pass slowpokes on occasion (especially in the 'Vette ), but... why be a jerk about it?

T

PlasticInsanity

Considering the growing number of people who are affected by alcoholism, acoa's are slowly becoming the 'norm'. I find this kind of funny and ironic; the past how many years of my life I've been wishing and striving to be normal.

If he works early, I imagine he most likely doesn't enjoy getting up early (I work at 6:30 and despise it). Maybe tell him how you miss him in the mornings, and ask if you can call him or if he can call you. Or, if he has a cellphone, send him a text.

Mracoa

I used to think i had if figured out. But after some triggers and stress, the clarity I thought I had turned out to be a mirage.

I'm starting to question the value of determining what is "normal". Does it really matter what "normal" is?

Like some others have pointed out, some "normal" behaviors are deplorable. So, maybe just figuring out what "works" for me and my loved ones is better than "normal".

I'd like to get to the point I could just enjoy the journey wherever it takes me. I've spent so many years obsessing with a vision of what normal is, and wasting my time trying to control the path. Worry consumes me every time something goes not quite as planned. I'm working on letting go of the control, and working on the enjoyment part.

SLady

Perhaps, you need to ask yourself why you are unhappy that he has to work very early in the morning. Does this remind you of your ex-husband or your father in any way and therefore it makes you unhappy? Or are you're unhappy because you think he gets up early and meet another woman before he start work, is that it? If that is the case, you can ask him leading questions to reassure yourself eg., 'I notice you get up so early, what time do you start work?'

In our case, my mother was mentally ill and my husband's father was an alcoholic, so we both do not know what normal is in a relationship. I really struggle with my daughter because I do not know what a normal, healthy mother-daughter relationship is.

My husband on the other hand, felt rejected by all of his family. His mother, although a good woman, was constantly putting him down, where else his older brother (who bore a striking resemblance to his alcoholic dad) could do no wrong. My husband's problems (before he met me and recent) is all related to his abandonment/rejection issues and the need to rescue others (including stray cats and wild foxes!) who have been abandoned just like him.

After saying that, I do feel that our marriage/relationship is normal as normal can be.

In that, we are honest with one another, respectful to one another (ie., no abuse - physical or emotional) and support one another in work / business. I do not play emotional games, or manipulate him or anything of that sort, neither does he. Our daughter is well adjusted, compassionate with strong moral values.

Where we struggle is discussing and handling conflict in a healthy way. We both very sensitive to criticism and get hurt easily, so when the problem gets overwhelming, we both want to 'run away' from the problem. Most couples have problem with communicating, so, I guess we're normal too in that respect.

So to answer your question 'Do normal people really talk about these little things even when they suspect they're being foolish?

Yes they do, if it bothers you so much and it is upsetting you, you need to tell him how you feel.

EveningRose

Thank you for all the answers. To clarify one thing, this is a boyfriend, not a husband.

And I think I was unclear about the morning issue. I said:

Rationally, I know the thing I'm unhappy about was probably about the fact that he has to work very early in the morning

I see how I worded that poorly. I'm not upset that he works early, at all. We don't live together or spend nights together, nothing like that. I was upset, at the time, about feeling blown off, when I had time to get together later in the evening, and he didn't have time. I know the not having time had a lot, perhaps everything, to do with having to get up quite early. Of course feeling blown off was not just about that one incident, but about several times in a row of not having time when I did.

Ginger, I hope things are beginning to look up for you. While I have had other issues (lots of appliances needing repair even though they're quite new, deadlines at work, running 15 hours a day non-stop trying to deal with things, ex announcing he's too broke to pay child support...) much different from yours, I, too, feel like it's just too much hitting lately.

You make an excellent distinction between normal and healthy, and I agree. I guess I always figured the rest of the world was healthy, and therefore normal, that the two must be one and the same thing.

So I guess I should be asking what's healthy? What's the right thing to do? What should healthy people do?

My original questions included:

He and I did end up talking about how I felt blown off. It didn't exactly go so well, for reasons beyond my initial fear. I inadvertently stated things, including some of the bigger issues in a way that set off his worst fears. He reacted as if I'd told him we were breaking up. Bit by bit, we talked more, he made an effort, I made an effort, and things seem to be good again.

So I guess what I've concluded is that healthy couples should talk about these little things; that we all have our triggers and fears; that no one is as 'normal' and/or healthy as we're all trying to be.

SLady

You are not being foolish. A guy repeatedly told you he is crazy about you, so naturally, you expected him to drop everything some evenings to spend time with you.

What is more important than knowing what is healthy, what is the right thing to do is the ability to spot 'unhealthy patterns' in your relationships.

Like say you met a guy, he opened his heart and feelings to you (kind of trying to reel you in) and when you're interested (ie hooked), he then distanced himself/blow you off/ignore you. If you distance yourself, he then pursues you to reel you back in again. This is a red flag. It is like 'bait & switch'. If he baits you into marriage, you will be lonely and unhappy. You will be looking towards him for love and affection, and he will consistently be too busy/got no time for you/ignores you/blows you off (ie emotionally unavailable to you). Before you know it, you are repeating the pattern of your childhood in your new relationship.

Another type of men you should avoid is men who look towards you as their saviour. An emotionally healthy man or woman will be emotionally available at all times ( not blowing hot or cold) does not need rescuing and, of course, is not emotionally abusive.

My husband's few relationships before he knew me were so 'messed up', I did not knew this before I married him. Unfortunately one came back to haunt him 30+ years later and almost break up our marriage in the process.

Melbadaze

Before I entered therapy. Normal is what I thought others were. I realise now the world is full of shades of grey. It's more about degrees of insanity (said in the kindest possible way), We're all a bit messed up. It was an eye opener for me to realise this.