I've been bothered by the 'find your spiritual path' stuff and how it seems to tell you that if you are in a relationship with someone who is stuck then it's 'ok' to leave.
It bothers me because Gary Zukov, the author of the book 'Soul Stories' is an Ex Marine and I have had a lot of trouble thinking he would suggest that you should 'leave behind' a husband or wife who was stuck in extreme hurt and hopelessness.
So, I called one of the practitioners at the spiritual church we go to to have a meeting to talk about my situation, and also with the intention of asking about this 'finding your path' stuff.
I met with her (Dee) and told her my story, what was going on now, what the past 17 years have been like with W and stuff. She had some great insights into me, and basically observed a couple things which echo what others have said here:
1) As a child, I was put into a situation where I became hyper sensitive to my environment. I was required to keep things 'safe', and to fix whomever was broken. As an adult I do the same thing - I focus on other peoples needs, I fix, I protect.
2) When I needed support and 'fixing' my W couldn't do it - because SHE had never been given the tools in life to cope with difficult situations. Neither of her parents really dealt with their negative issues - the ignored them or let them build up till they ended up divorced.
Dee, like everyone here, said I need to just stop fixing ANYONE else and put all the energy I would have used into myself. As she put it, "your Wife needs to be put outside your circle and has to deal with her issues on her own now. You don't know how that will play out and you don't need to know because regardless, you can't be happy until you are whole again."
She didn't say "oh and if you do this she'll be attracted back to you" she just said that "when you change yourself to where you are whole again and where you no longer are hyper sensitive to 'saving' others, people will be attracted to you in a different way" "Maybe she will walk away on some 'journey' trying to discover her strengths, and if she returns to you, you'll be in a different place where you'll decide whether or not she works for you any more".
But it will come from a place where you don't just 'react and fix' but instead you CHOOSE what you will do. Before it was 'I have to do this'. Now it's "Is this really what I want to do?".
That's a difficult behavior to break, but I can see how it's consuming me and draining my life power.
So I asked her the 'big question'. "What about the 'Soul Stories' books (which they sell in their bookstore) and how Zukav seems to say that if one of the people in a relationship is stuck in negativity and the other wants to 'break free' of that and 'grow' he seems to imply that it's ok to end the relationship and move on.
She shook her head and said 'Yeah, that New Age stuff sometimes is misinterpreted by people who really don't know what the author meant." She gave an example of her husband and how they were growing apart and that she realized that it was because the communication was closed for a long time. Once they opened it and she began to find out how to discover her own spiritual comfort they changed their relationship but it took a long time.
She doesn't think my wife is doing the right thing from a 'spiritual perspective' but is running towards something that she thinks holds 'happiness' instead of looking inside.
I said that she's hurt and we know she doesn't know what to do to fix this so she's looking for happiness elsewhere. Dee said that she has to figure that out and there isn't anything I can do about it, nor should I. Instead I need to break my own patterns and allow myself to feel that I'm good enough and deserving of happiness on my own.
I mentioned that I thought most of her 'new age' spiritual were dysfunctional and that it seems like some people go far into that stuff to avoid the hard parts of their lives and she agreed with me.
I was surprised, I was expecting validation for my wifes actions but instead got the opposite, and was counseled to just let her go and fix my own stuff.
