Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums We're separated--What Now? How is it SUPPOSED to work?

Wow, I think I did a really poor job of communicating my thoughts in my previous post.


Not sure what to say about my chicken exit. When I was little I was afraid of the ghosts in my closet. Some of my clothes were just lighter than others, so in the dark room they were these ghastly pale shapes that scared the crap out of me. My dad, probably just tired of being called into my room to reassure me, finally convinced me to get out of bed and go touch the "ghosts." Probably took me dozens of terrified trips out of my bed going TOWARD the ghosts when what I really wanted was to be as far from them as possible, but after a while, I wasn't scared of them anymore. That's sorta been my M.O. for scary stuff ever since - if my rational mind says it won't actually kill me, I force myself to face the fear head-on 'cause that's how I know to make the fear go away. That's how I learned public speaking, asking guys out, diving off the 3m board, etc. I'm not sure I use a chicken exit.


Well, being 0 for 1 on marriage wouldn't be an argument for my great skill and judgment. I guess I hadn't thought of it in terms of competence.

How could I not have known my husband was unhappy? I still don't think he was unhappy. I tried to make him negotiate a non-negotiable (kids) and he walked. But when my counselor told me I had to discuss it with him, I knew that that would forever change our relationship. I just couldn't disagree with her moral argument that he had a right to know. I'm pretty sure that if I had never started that conversation, he'd be sitting across the room from me right now.

Why should I have known he would leave me? We didn't get married too young or too quickly or anything like that. I'm sure we both meant our vows when we made them. He said, at the time of our split, that he wasn't surprised - that everywhere in his life, he's always waiting for the other shoe to drop - I couldn't have imagined us getting divorced even two months earlier. Heck, I still have hope that we won't.


I'm way too arrogant to struggle with this - I'll try anything. Okay, I haven't tried flying by flapping my wings, precisely because I'm sure I will fail and get hurt in the process. But I don't think that's a telling metaphor - I think human beings just can't fly by flapping their arms. I assume that I can do just about anything that is humanly possible if I'm willing to put in the time and effort.


Yeah, I have an empty spot already - my husband has been out of the house for 3.5 years. Who else has abandoned me? My husband isn't the first guy who ever broke up with me, but that's just par for the course, right?


Can you say more about this? I think of my life as pretty spoiled, rather than a life of scarcity. Worthy of having love? I don't even know what that means. I don't think people love us because we're worthy. I can value things and people if they give me stuff I want and I will stop valuing them if they stop serving me, but I love my tiny niece even when all she has to give me is a poopy diaper.


This is true - I REALLY want my life's work to be useful. Is that something I should work on? Is the idea that any time you find you need something from life, you should try to purge that, make yourself less "needy"? I'll have to think about that - I'm inclined to think I'd rather live in a world where EVERYONE wants to be useful.


My job takes time that I could otherwise spend connecting with family and friends, but then they mostly have jobs and aren't free during the day either. As for my husband, I was passionate about teaching when he met me - I think it was (is) one of the things he liked and respected about me. Certainly one of the things I admire and enjoy about him is his commitment to being good at what he does.


I'd learn. That happens every day. The "if" is almost funny 'cause I think everything I do well I learned by running out of ways to do it badly!


This is the thing I had an emotional reaction to. IF I had time alone! I spend way more time alone than I'd like. Sometimes I deal by posting on these boards. Sometimes I just suck it up 'cause there is stuff I need to do at home and no one else lives here. Sometimes I call a friend to go out, or just go to places (Panera, the library...) where I know there will be other people. If I spend too much time in solitude (I'd say 36 hours is about my max), I just go catatonic. I'll suddenly realize that four hours have passed and I've just been staring at the wall on the other side of the room. That's been true of me since I was old enough to be left without a babysitter. Alone time for a few hours on the beach or for a hike or something like that that just gives me time to be in my own thoughts is great. But really, I can comfortably go without food and water for a lot longer than I can comfortably go without being around people. And I think you're telling me I should try to change that about myself. Can you say why?

First, I don't think you did a poor job communicating your thoughts... I'm just probing...

And just so you know... I DID try flying by flapping my arms... that didn't work so I held a 1x4 length in each arm and that didn't give me much better lift, so I tried the glide approach by holding a sheet of plywood to my belly in a strong wind... I can attest that there are MANY human powered flight methods that will not work...

As you've answered above, a failed M has nothing to do with competence. I sometimes think successful, lifelong M's are not about M competence as much as it's about two people being too stubborn to D... and one can not be smart enough to read someone's mind, so there's no way for us to really know whether we should M someone in the first place... IOW, it's not because you aren't competent that you find yourself in your M sitch...

I do think it's interesting that you worry that others might find you incompetent... There's something there that might suggest self doubt which often points to feelings of being unworthy... and of not trusting yourself capable...

I'm going to leave the chicken exit alone for now. Why its useful is once you recognize your chicken exit or avoidance technique, you can be more aware of it when it shows up and you can change your behaviour instead of regressing to it.

Scarcity isn't just a monetary or objectification thing... sometimes we have scarcity of love or scarcity of connectedness or scarcity of spirituality or... scarcity of knowledge...

VERY interesting about where you find value in people. A car gets us from point a to point b. A car can indicate we have "succeeded". A more expensive car means we're more successful? A fuel efficient car means we're frugal or environmentally conscious?

If people are not providing you with some intrinsic value, do they have no value? What are friends for? Are they simply an asset and resource to draw upon when we have need? What is a spouse for?

Is a spouse simply someone who helps build the financial coffers, help with mortgage / rent / food, some entertainment value? Is a spouse's purpose solely to procreate? When a spouse no longer provides us with value, what is their purpose in our lives? Can we expect that they will always provide us with tangible value?

If people don't love us because we're worthy of their love, why do you suppose people would love us?

Why do you love your niece?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I think one of the places you live in scarcity is time. That might even be your chicken exit. When you find a hole in your life... an empty spot... you go out and try to fill it... that would be a form of avoidance...

I think that most people want to leave their mark on this earth in one way or another. To be useful and otherwise provide value in some way.

At what cost?

This is great stuff. There's a lot coming out here and so much to be investigated. Time to break it down into core components, soon.

I really want to get deeper into the concept of being needed. We'll "put a pin in that".... lol...

And yes, I want to discuss more about "time alone" and how it might be ruling your life. Another thing on the "to do" list...

Two key things here:
+ Time
+ Alone

ahhhh... ok...

Can you tell me one thing in your life that you found was the most challenging thing for you to do?

Do you ever daydream?

Oh, and one more thing if you could answer this for me, please...

Are you really interested in putting yourself out there to learn something deep about yourself? I have an idea of something for you to try if you are up to it...

I love that image! Thanks!


I see this a lot in the colleagues I most respect. It is almost as if the fear of incompetence is what drove them, and me, to become however competent we are. Self-doubt? Yep. I routinely bite off more than I can chew, and I'm pleasantly surprised if I succeed anyway and kinda pissed off when I (predictably) don't, but yeah, I always go into those things unsure of whether I can pull it off or not. I started this Divorce Busting stuff with a WHOLE lot of doubts as to whether I could make it work, where "work" didn't mean to me a process of self-discovery - I meant "it's never too late to save your marriage."


I'll lay claim to a scarcity of romantic love, but that's not something I think I'm choosing to impose on myself. I would be thrilled to reconcile my relationship with my husband. I suppose I could also find romantic love by giving up on H and finding someone else. But, at least at the moment, I'm not prepared to love another man back. Use him to prop up my ego, maybe, but not love.

Gotta end this message before my battery dies...

I think maybe we're agreeing about this? I am distinguishing what and whom I value from what and whom I love. Value is connected to worth. I value my bank account because it has my money in it. I would be upset to lose it. But I certainly don't love it, and if it didn't have any money in it, I wouldn't value it or be upset to lose it anymore. I value the cashier who just checked me out at the grocery store, because without her I couldn't have bought the food I needed to feed my cats. I don't love her. I'm not really even sure that the cashier wasn't a he - I really wasn't paying attention. She was only valuable to me insofar as she helped me finish my shopping trip and go home. If she had screwed up my order and made it take 40 minutes instead of 2 to get out of the store, I would value her less. Bank account/ cashier, I value them because they are somehow worthy of the value I place upon them, and they can lose that value by ceasing to be worthy.
Becca? I have no idea why I love her. Maybe I just decided to love her because she's a blood relation? Maybe it's just a hormonal thing - she was just the right temperature and the right weight and the right smell to make my mammal brain squirt out a bunch of oxytocin and now I'm hooked. I dunno. But it isn't because she's done something to be worthy, and there isn't anything she can do to make herself no longer worthy. She is and will always be precious simply because she is Becca.


I valued my husband for being a reliable roommate. I would have valued him for procreating had we gone that route. But I loved him because, I dunno, we just fit. He understood me. I like who I am when I'm with him. I could imagine growing old with him.
I proposed to him after only a couple weeks of dating. I'd known him in college and I remember him as attractive, as a nice guy, but just a casual friend, so dating felt really different - he was so on his best behavior, charming and funny and considerate. I thought I was just enjoying having him in my life because he was treating me so incredibly well. Then he wrecked my car 1000 miles from home and we were in a rental place and he had maxed out his credit card and couldn't keep the loaner long enough to go back and get the car and he was pissy and obnoxious and anything but at his best behavior and it hit me that I still wanted him in my life.


I don't know why people love who they love, but it's clear to me it's not about earning that love. One of the most powerful bonds there is is between parents and children and God knows parents don't love their children 'cause the children are so generous to their parents or make their parents' lives so much easier. I believe in unconditional love, a love genuinely not founded on the condition of being worthy, in part because I have experienced it from my parents.


Oh, that is for sure true. The number of things I want to get done before tomorrow's fieldwork - before Friday's astronomy club - before the church fair on Saturday - is way more than I can accomplish in the next three days. I'd love to have an extra week, but if I had that, I'd blow a bunch more hours reading these bulletin boards or I'd pickle the last of the green beans, or something, 'cause it's hard to resist something I'd really like to do when my schedule doesn't make it IMPOSSIBLE. (I know this makes me sound about as disciplined as a three-year-old - I'm not a very disciplined person.) My mom is with you - she says I work too hard. I think it's only because what I love to do is what I get paid to do. She put in way more hours being a mother than I put into being a teacher, but she never thought of that as spending too much time on her career, even though being a mom was the career she chose for herself. I don't see what the difference is.


I think I don't understand the difference between a chicken exit and a life skill. I am going to die before I have done all the interesting and fun things I'd like to do, so I fill every minute with activity. That is avoidance of... lost time? I don't like being hungry, so I've learned to cook. That is avoidance of fasting? What is the difference between a chicken exit and simple self-care? I took your original question about chicken exits as meaning what do I do to avoid facing things that I really ought to face.


I'm willing to go there, but I don't think it has much to do with my being here. That is, my husband didn't particularly need me when we were married and I'm sure he doesn't need me now.


Again, okay. If you can "cure" me of the solitude-induced catatonia, I'd be cool with that. More time to do other stuff! ;-)


I might change my mind after I sleep on it, but at the moment the toughest thing I can think of was moving away from Mikey. I fell in love with him; he didn't fall in love with me. The relationship between the two of us kept us from getting involved with other people, but we were both clear that our relationship wasn't going anywhere. After two years of that limbo, I moved across country to free us from each other. I knew I had to do it but it was really hard to walk away from him, especially since I had to CHOOSE it - he didn't push me away.


Yeah, working in the garden or taking a walk on a sunny day will sometimes send me off into my own little world. Most common time though is staring out the window on the bus ride home from work. Sometimes I talk to people, sometimes I read, sometimes I nap, but most days I just watch the world go by.


Maybe? It depends what you suggest. I'm not up for disfiguring my face to find out how that changes my self-image, but if it's something benign I'll try it.

Alrighty, then...

So far, my experience of you is witty and fun with an innate sense of curiosity... adventure, if you will... great qualities...

Can you give me one word that describes your passion?



Yes, that is the intention of the phrase.

I wonder if people might call you a bit of a social butterfly...

When you first meet someone who eventually becomes a friend of yours, what is your first physical contact with them? When might the first physical contact with them occur? (ie. When introduced, when you next meet them, never?)

When you meet someone, how long might it take for you to realize that person will become a life long friend?

Would you rather go to a beach, a coffee shop, or a symphony?



Yes, based on your explanation, we are agreeing about this. So I'm glad this came out. I will explain later...



I'd bet your mom and I could have great conversations about you... lol!

OK, I'm going to stop there for now with one more question: What is the most embarrassing situation you have ever found yourself in?

Kaffe Diem, I don't know why you're spending so much time on me, and I can't tell where you're going with this wide variety of questions, but I'm gonna jump in.

Kids. Kids are fun. Kids are endlessly fascinating. Kids are infuriating. Kids are vulnerable. And I think it's true that societies should be judged by how they treat their young.


I can't recall anyone ever calling me that (or "witty" for that matter), but I know it is the case that other people think of me as outgoing when I think myself a bit shy. But on the butterfly thing, I don't flit around much. The five people I would describe as close friends have been my friends for 29, 28, 28, 24, and 24 years.


Not sure about this one. If I am formally introduced to someone when I meet them, I often shake hands. I touch people - students, friends, strangers in grocery stores - to get their attention. I tend to hug friends when I see them after a long time. I'm trying to think about the three people I would describe as my closest friends here, 'cause I met them all recently enough to remember it, and one is my boss - I know I shook his hand on first and second meeting and he high-fived me when I accepted the job. We hug, usually inspired either by my thanking him for something or him coming to apologize for something. Another of these three friends I don't know if I've ever even shaken her hand. She may have belayed me on a ropes course and I've borrowed her clothes and I've given her daughter piggy-back rides and we carried two toilets into the building together yesterday afternoon, but I may actually have never touched her. I can't recall...


I think a pretty long time - a year or more. It's the sort of thing I'm only conscious of in retrospect.

Depends on my mood - right now I'd rather the symphony (to hear some loud Prokofiev or Tchaikovsky), but last week when it was grey all week, I was really craving the warmth of the sun on my face. I go to the coffee shop a lot more than the symphony or the beach - it's just less of a production - something I can do on a moment's notice.


God help me! In my defense, if I left school promptly at the end of the day to go to my local writer's group, hibernated for a week with my sewing machine for the local community theater, or was an active participant in a nearby astronomy club, my mother would think I had a healthy set of avocations. But because I write with the kids on my school newspaper staff, because the last set of costumes I made was for the school's spring play, and because my astronomy club is a small clan of nerdy students, that makes those activities "work" and me a "workaholic." I don't see what the difference is.


Ugh. I was a bed-wetter as a kid. Pediatrician said it would just stop on its own by the time I was five... then he said by the time I was seven... you get the picture. It didn't stop before I was old enough to go to a sleepover party, fall asleep WEARING the only pair of jeans I'd brought with me, and wake up with the singularly horrifying realization that there was no way I was getting out of that place without everyone in the house knowing I'd peed on myself.

Somehow these questions are related to the likely demise of my marriage?

For me... it's just a feeling...



I'm glad you're playing along...

I could tell you how it all works, but then I'd have to erase your memory... lol...



Only one of us has that answer... I'm going to submit it's not me...

Give me a bit to go through your last post again and I'll put a few observations together for you to mull... in the mean time, take a read back on your last few posts...

Try to read them as though it was someone else... Let me know if there's anything that jumps out at you...

OK, just going to put some stuff out there. Maybe it makes sense to you, maybe not...

It was quite interesting that Country_Song posted an article earlier today:

http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2199853#Post2199853

In it, it states (around someone who created a very busy life for themselves), "she ultimately realized she previously stayed busy to mask her loneliness, insecurity, and emotional pain."

What stands out to me in your posts is how you appear to connect with people and at what level. I had mentioned about being a social butterfly.

One thing that social butterflies tend to do is have LOTS of "friends" that they bounce around between, without ever really connecting at a deeper level with these people.

Not everyone does or should make deep connections with a lot of people. No one should be judged because of their relations with other people.

When you ask if the questions might be related to your M though, the answer would be "perhaps..."

You had mentioned about how you felt connected to your H. What no one but your H knows is how connected he felt with you. Perhaps he felt equally connected when you first got M. Perhaps, as you made yourself more and more busy with the rest of your life, your H may have resented that you weren't more and more attentive with him, as well. Maybe you thought you were, it may not have appeared that way to him.

I don't know of course, I'm just putting ideas out there as things that MIGHT be possible...

When we keep ourselves busy with things we believe are really important to us, it comes at a cost. We may have convinced ourselves that what we are doing IS very important to us, when the deeper reality is that we are hiding away from those things we don't want to deal with.

There were two tasks I thought might be worth trying, for you. Both of which might be very challenging for you. They're often very challenging for anyone...

The first is a challenge to connect with someone. In training circles, it's called "breaking bread":

The challenge is to go out for lunch and eat with someone you do not know and get to know them.

The second challenge was around scarcity. You had mentioned that you didn't feel you had scarcity around money. So I was going to challenge you to think of an amount of money that you would typically "waste" shopping. Maybe it's an extra 5 or 10 bucks. So double that amount and find a way to safely but effectively loose that money without knowing where it ends up. ie. Do not "give it" to someone. It might be dropping it on the ground in a mall or somewhere in your office complex or maybe in a park... The point is you don't want to just let it go on the street and have some begger chase after it between the cars... Could you do it? Would you do it?

Rather though, it really seemed that time was where you felt you might have scarcity. There's not enough time in a day, a week, a life, to do everything that you want to do.

So the challenge would be, spend one week "unbooking" yourself. Go to work, but don't do the "extra" stuff that you normally have planned. Instead, leave your calender open. During that week, everything you do that isn't specifically during your work day should be spontaneous.

Maybe the above will just be food for thought. No matter to me one way or the other.

If you ever do take up the challenges, I would love to know what your experiences were.

Stay well!

Maybe I'm just not able to step outside myself and read them as if reading about someone else. What strikes me is
(1) I'm very straightforward and maybe a bit argumentative
(2) This forum has settled into a dialogue between me and my unpaid therapist
(3) Your questions mystify me. My most embarrassing experience, beach/symphony/ or coffee shop, and _I'm_ the one who knows how this is connected to my marriage?