Sunday, November 25, 2007

struggle for balance

Last night, I tried to give my partner a "restitution gift." It's a tool our therapist taught us to clear up messes. The concept is that when someone in the relationship does something that hurts the other one, we can offer a restitution gift. It has to be something that the giver would LOVE to give and the receiver would LOVE to get.

Here's the background. It's complicated. Stay with me. (Or don't. I'm really just trying to sort it out for myself.) I had shared that I was really hurt by my partner saying "fuck you" to me during an intentional dialogue. He suggested that we talk about it, and that she offer me a restitution gift. She got upset and said that I owed her one. She said she didn't remember why but that she's sure I didn't give her one a couple of months ago. Actually, from my memory, even that incident was about me trying to own my part of a problem without her being willing to own hers. I had owned my piece of an issue and offered a restitution gift. She refused the gift, didn't own her piece, and left mad. Then about a week later, she comes back and says she's changed her mind and wants a restitution gift. I don't remember whether I gave it to her or not. It was a long time ago. But I agreed to give her one this week. And she agreed to process with me about my feelings about her saying "fuck you" to me during an intentional dialogue. (If you're trying to keep up, that's what brought up the restitution gift in the first place.)

So, last night I tried to give my restitution gift, a body massage. First, she told me that I wasn't really massaging, I was just touching. Then, she told me I was rubbing too hard. I told her I needed to stop. I was trying to give her a gift, and all I kept hearing was that I wasn't doing it right. One of my biggest triggers is that I'm not good enough, and it was getting majorly activated. Then, she got triggered by my being triggered. I'm not going to go into her stuff, but I acknowledged her feelings, and held her and she went to sleep.

OK, here's some of what's bothering me. I tried to take care of her by giving her the restitution gift. She has yet to bring up the dialogue about the "fuck you." Maybe she will before Wednesday, but I doubt it. Ok, I know, that's having an expectation, which is a premeditated resentment.

But things feel way out of balance for me. It feels like I take care of her, and she takes care of her. Last night, what went better for me was that I took care of me too by stopping when I needed to and by sharing my feelings. She took care of her by sharing her feelings. I took care of her by acknowledging, reflecting, and then holding her. So what went better is that I took care of me and I took care of her and she took care of her. At least I was in the equation, since I tried taking car of me. But something's still missing here.

5 comments:

Mantramine said...

premeditated resentments- nice. I don't do that.... I'm not codependant.

I don't know if it's right that you bring these things to my attention. I was quite fine being oblivious to my premeditated resentments.

I'm glad you took care of you, even if it was only 1/3 of the puzzle

Mary P Jones (MPJ) said...

Good for you for taking care of you. I like your "baking up resentment like a pie" tag. :) The idea of a restitution gift makes me uncomfortable. I couldn't make that work in my own relationship -- although I'm mulling why that is...

joy said...

Yuck. Why do they act like that? And why do we act like that? One day, let's put on our ninja suits, cover our faces, get our fire staffs, and just beat the ever-loving shit out of them. Just beat and beat and beat. And then, of course, we can nurse their wounds and make it better and all that old bullshit. But god...reading this made me feel so frustrated for you.

Anonymous said...

I'm not so sure she does "take care of her."

x,
Scout

woman.anonymous7 said...

Congratulations for being able to take care of yourself in the situation. It's a milestone to be celebrated!

I'm working on getting that question ingrained in my thought process. Am I taking care of myself? It's nowhere close to being an automatic response yet, but at least I'm aware it's a question that needs to be asked. Small steps are still steps.

And thanks for visiting me.