It's been a big week, yeah? You sound a lot more grounded today than earlier in the week?
I've been away from the boards, because I've been questioning my right to hand out gratuitous advice left, right and centre when I didn't 'get my husband back'. Your thread has some very experienced DBers posting, many of whom have successfully reconciled with their partners - and here am I waxing lyrical about the benefits of 'finding yourself' when I infact 'found myself' divorced.
Nevertheless, I've just spent the weekend with my x-husband and his sons, my step-sons who I was the primary carer for for 10 years and after some good conversations with him and the boys and some reflection about what we are all doing here after all I've decided to go easy on myself and count myself a DB success after all.
This board and the people who post here saved my life in 2005. The skills I learned here with the help of experienced posters and people experienced in life helped me find the resources that I will draw on for the rest of my life - and not all of them got their husbands back either.
The amazing thing about this community is that it's a great leveller. A collection of woman (and men) from all over the world, all ages, with all sorts of expertise, who generously give of their time and experiences to help us learn.
Now the problem with that is we all come with our own baggage, our own perceptions, biases, bigotry, view of the world. Every poster on here has been through their own personal version of hell. Hence, the zeal with which we hold tight to our own philosophy of what will work and what won't. There are some general principles that will always work - those things that are about
* setting goals * detaching * getting a life * positive mental attitude * communication - by which I mean loving validation etc
Then there is some other stuff that's more arbitary - like building our own self esteem, losing our victim status, taking back our own power, learning from our mistakes, understanding co-dependency, loving ourselves. Over on the MLC board there is a gorgeous woman who's screen name is Rollercoaster Rider - she's almost made a PhD out of research on midlife crisis. I've disagreed with her from time-to-time on the veracity of some of her research - but regardless she's got a whole library full of other more nebulous psychological issues associated with the relationship crisis we are all going through. (Her husband recently came home for good after a couple of years of going back and forth, so she's onto something!!) All of us have our own set of these personal - what works for us - set of language around the work we need to do on ourselves. Sometimes that's confusing, mostly I think because of language and what means one thing to you might mean something entirely different to me.
My point however is we have the chance on this board to take the information and advice that means something to us and use it.
I admire the way your posts are heartbreakingly honest. Don't lose that.
I talked to my x-husband about you today, I told him your story as you've written it here and he said "Geez - they do sound like us don't they?" He had tears in his eyes. I said yeah, I hope they work it out and he said "I wish I could shake that stupid bloke (referring to your husband), he doesn't know how much he'll lose."
Do I think there is hope for your marriage? Yeah, I do. In fact I will go so far as to say that I'll bet you 5 self help books of your choice that within 12 to 18 months, provided you've done the work you need to do on yourself, healed some of your own stuff and followed the DB principles, he'll tell you he's made the biggest mistake of his life. What I wouldn't bet on is that you'll take him back at that stage.
Righto. Individual counsellor and work to do on oneself. I hear what you are saying about her not being very 'solution focussed' but maybe that's ok for an individual counsellor. Like you've got a DB counsellor for your marriage, but maybe a more traditional style of analysis might be the way to go for your personal issues.
The reason she wants to talk about your childhood and stuff is to help you to figure out why you act a particular way about things that happen. There is a view that all of us have issues because of things that have happened to us since we were born (some new-age psychologists reckon we could even have issues from things that happened to us in past lives!!! mmmmm???).
So what she's getting at is trying to figure out why you have reacted so intensely to this threat to your marriage. The idea is that mental life functions on both conscious and unconscious levels and that childhood events have a powerful psychological influence throughout life. Our unconscious mind is ridiculously powerful and it could be that yours has some damage around abandonment or fear of being alone or whatever that has triggered a disproportionate mental response to your husband signalling the end of your marriage.
You have to admit, it is unusual that, while you were upset, you could cope when he was just sleeping with someone else because you thought there was hope he might come back to you - but when he signalled that he might not come back to you, you really hit the wall. So through a process of analysis, she wants Tam's adult brain to rationally process that (ie husband sleeps with someone, but says he's going to come back to marriage - I'm OK. Husband is sleeping with someone else and is not coming back to the marriage - I'm freaking out) and then decide if that's a response that she thinks she can live with. Rationally, what's the bigger betrayal? Sleeping with someone else or leaving you? But which one did you most react to?
What will happen through that process of looking at some of your reactions and behaviours with a rational adult brain is that you might start to see some patterns that as a grown up you can do without and you can ask your consious mind to work on your unconsious mind to 're-programme' some of the less helpful messages you've been set up to receive.
That sort of work is uncomfortable to do, but it's really worth it because it helps you to understand why you are the way you are - gives you resources to change some of the things you want to change and provides resiliance so that next time you are blindsided, you'll have the knowledge and skills you need to bounce rather than be flattened.
On the issue of sleeping, I'm still not great at it. Hard, sweating, heartrate up to 170 for 30 - 45 mintues every day is very very good. Failing that (and this week I am certainly failing that) I've had the best results by setting up a routine for bedtime. If I take the dog for a quick walk, have a shower, make a cup of tea, read a chapter of my novel and then put the ear phones on with a relaxation cd, I generally sleep like a baby.
Routine is good. Relaxation DVDs are good. Warm milk is good. Hot showers are good. Prayer is good. (I'm such a preacher though - I almost turned into an alcoholic in my first year of so of this because I was so scared to go to bed and lie awake that I'd drink a bottle of wine every night to make me pass out. I DO NOT advocate that method, but I tell you so you can feel superior if I sound like I'm being a know-it-all!!!)
Good decision re Easter. I know it'll be hard for you, but it's the right decision.
Tam, I know you are doing the best you can, as fast as you can. I don't know where the on/off switch is that makes you switch from a mediocre DBer to a great one. I think it just takes time.
You are very lucky to have such good advice from experienced women here on your thread. The advice is tough and the views are not sugar coated - and that's for your own good.
Take care and keep posting.
Thinking of you. V
PS. My e-mail address is perkins_virginia@hotmail.com if you ever want to just e-mail me. Cheers
V
Never make someone a priority, who makes you an option.
