Make things better by looking ahead....

[sage]

Sage, you continue to show such marvelous insight, please give yourself a break! How can you be the "unchosen" when he's chosen to be with YOU????
Shiny

SB -- You've asked the million dollar question...I drove home on Friday, radio off, no distractions, just contemplating what you asked.

WARNING: what follows is a purely analytical, non-action oriented, treatise on part of what makes Sage tick. It will be melodramatic, it will be self-indulgent (well, my self, not yours). It may even be boring! You won't miss a thing by skipping merrily along to the next post!

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So -- what's all this "unchosen" stuff about? Why do I feel unchosen when he is choosing to be with me? Here's the stream of consciousness that I wrote down as I was contemplating this...

When it came down to it, H chose easing of his own pain over protecting me. He chose meeting his wants and his needs over me and my safety. What am I referring to? well, the a of course ... h is in pain (of my creation? of his?) and ultimately turns to someone else to help ease that -- did he willfully ignore my pain? my safety? my needs?

Who else did this? well, Dad of course.

When I was in my teens, my parents separated after a VERY stormy M. My mother completely freaked out after D left -- she really became extremely unstable -- did crazy stuff -- we'd be driving in the car and she'd be full of rage at someone or something and she'd scream "I should just drive this car into the next tree and put us all out of our misery" -- yah, not the kind of thing you want to hear when you're NOT in control of the vehicle.

One night, mom got a knife and kept me and my younger sister "hostage" threatening to stab us both and then herself. She ranted and raved for what seemed like hours but was probably only an hour. She threatened to kill us, she threatened to kill herself. We stood, backs up against the wall, while she lost it in front of us. I finally made it to the phone and called my father -- his response "what do you want me to do about it? call her therapist." -- um, dad? I want you to tear your sorry A$$ away from ow and her kids and get over here and protect me!

He didn't. Mom eventually drove herself to the hospital where she spent the summer "recuperating".

Keep me safe. Protect me. Put me first. You can see where it all comes from.

A question -- it was reasonable to "expect" protection from my father -- is it reasonable to expect if from my H? Is it or is it not reasonable to expect him to NOT have an A? To protect me?

So...in part, the feeling of being "unchosen" is NOT so much about ow but about feeling as though H chose himself over me. When I really think about it, I'm confused about whether that is reasonable or unreasonable.

I thought that he would protect me. If easing his pain puts me in jeopardy? Couldn't he have just chosen to throw himself into his work instead????

Now, of course, when I obsess about his still being in contact with ow it IS about choosing her over me in my mind -- but maybe it still is about him choosing himself over me. blahblahblah.

so...so much of "it" makes more sense to me now -- the desire to be the "chosen" one -- to be the one selected. It occurred to me this AM that I probably could have "almost" as easily been the OW to someone -- then, of course, I'd be sitting in a therapists chair someplace whining "why won't he choose me over his wife?" BUT, there's an important element that would have prevented that -- it's critical that I be the "right" choice -- isn't a daughter the right choice over your new girlfriend? Isn't your wife the "right" choice over ow? Gotta be the "right" choice in the cosmic sense of the word -- THEN, have to be PERFECT at being the right one -- gotta be the perfect wife 'cause then the choice is obvious, no?

Ah, poor, poor me. Perhaps more seriously, poor, poor H. (in some ways) -- carrying the burden for every crappy, cruddy thing that has happened to Sage. 'course, it SUCKS bigtime that he did what he did, RIGHT??? Not gonna make an excuse for that now or ever.

I can see now why I've been waiting for the "words" -- what could be more healing that a shout it from the rooftops declaration -- I CHOOSE YOU! he said. You are CHOOSEABLE! Would that help? Would I be fixed then?

I don't actually know what to do with all of this...I realize that I have placed a huge burden on h (unfair, too) to make me feel whole and right and chosen. I realize that I've stripped away everything else, too, that could and should be part of me and my life -- a satisfying job, family, friends, etc and have stood in front of h and said, ok it's your job to make me feel good. A thousand times not fair.

Of course, there's a part of me that wonders if I haven't "chosen" someone who will end up being unable to chose me anyway -- in other words, while I think I have placed a large and unfair burden on h, I still believe that it's reasonable to expect my h to commit to me, to be faithful to me and our m. Maybe it's the scope of the expectation that made that impossible for him -- or, maybe I've chosen someone who won't be able to be faithful to me ever -- at all. That, of course, is another big old fear.

So...how do I know? Well, first things first, right? I gotta strip off the BS from the past and take that burden off h. Then I've got to pull off all the present crap -- gotta rebuild my life with work, friends, family. Not fair for him to shoulder all of that! Gotta fill up the "sage" hole, too -- that stuff that only comes from me. What'll be left is what's aok to expect from my spouse.

How to get there? take care of the past with mindfulness work -- get rid of all the cobwebs and crap. take care of the present with DB'ing -- rebuild my life, "choose" myself. Revel in the wonderful stuff that h does every day. Appreciate him, love him, choose him. Stop making him pay for everything that happened before him. Am I still making him pay for his A? gotta figure that out.

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Have you made it this far? Jeez! I don't even have anything to offer up as a reward! Just thanks, I guess!

Sage