Carlos, Good to hear from you! Sounds like your self-awareness and boundaries are helping you. You are worth it. Cheers Amigo Coach
M22,H45,W45 S21/18D12 Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties and at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
Nice to see these notes from both of you waiting for me here... I've been away from the site for a while - and just kind of doing my best to live my life - and sort things out as they continue to come my way.
Maintaining self-awareness and minding the necessary boundaries have made a tremendous difference in my life. I still get a tightness in my chest at times - a sign to me of unfinished business - but it's something that I'm figuring out how to move through more and more each day.
A dear friend of mine sometimes tells me that she thinks I'm far too cruel to myself - mostly because of the ways in which she says I judge myself quite harshly...I know there's some truth to her words - that I do, on occasion, put too much focus on the problems I have with myself - and not enough focus on just doing what I have to do to get through those issues.
Though perhaps that's part of the lesson I was to learn through my experience with my second marriage. In B I found someone who had a knack for responding to my concerns about myself with the same kind of harsh negativity I had experienced while growing up with my father. It's not B's fault that I needed to work through my issues through our relationship - that was my responsibility - but it might also be the only way in which I can finally break from a pattern that just hasn't served me well in my life...namely...the tendency I have of tossing grenades in my path when things look most promising and calm...
I don't think I tossed to many grenades into my way with regards to my marriage to B - of course there were some here and there - but I am certain that I tossed bombs in my way with my personal journey that ran alongside our marriage...and I never fully accepted that I was doing this - and could not see it as clearly as I do now.
As I'm writing these words, I'm feeling in me a capacity to forgive abusive behavior, a capacity that I accept as a good thing - though also a sign of my troubled past. As I write, I get quick flashes of memories - of moments with B when things were okay - and I have to take a moment to reflect on the rest of the memory - not just the good moments that got me through a day - but the rest of the day - the tensions that made moments explode into bitter accusations and even insults...and I don't want any of that in my life again...ever. My goodness, I feel like I'm being so vague - and yet it's just how the words are flowing today - with an imprecision that almost has the capacity to mimic the evanescence of each memory...the imperfection of each moment once it's brought from the faded past into a different present and into a moment of inspection that's so far removed from the destructive dynamic that had become not just my relationship with B but also my relationship with myself.
I make a living with words...and yet recently I've been convinced that words are meaningless...that words have such small purpose when held up against a measure of one's actions...it makes me feel like words are fine for creating fictions - for telling stories - and admitting they are just stories - but that words just can't accomplish much in terms of maintaining a relationship...It's a harsh indictment of something that I love...words...and I think it may just mean that I've hit a point where I've tipped too far toward the negative side of my own movement toward what should have been myself...and maybe it's because there's still some fear or darkness there that I still have to resolve. At least the concerns are about how to improve myself now...not about how to protect myself from someone that I love...
Hm...what to say...what to say... Well, I had a nice Father's Day with both of my boys for most of the day...My S12 is with me for the summer now - so we've already been having a lot of fun together - taught him how to cook dinner tonight...and B finally agreed to allow me to have S2 with me on Sunday - though she insisted that I only have him with me from 10am-5pm - because, in her words, he needs consistency...
A few days ago I let slip that I don't trust her and that I think she's self centered...well...it kind of came out because she was acting a bit strange when I asked her if she would be dropping S2 off at his daycare last Friday - since they were having a Father's Day Breakfast...she said she hadn't heard anything about it - this, despite the fact that there was a huge sign on the front gate to the daycare and the main door to the building that announced it in clear letters...so I got annoyed with her apparent lie, and she accused me of being a jerk...to which I said, "It may seem to you that I'm a jerk because I think you're a self-centered person and I don't trust you." She didn't say anything in response - just looked kind of shocked...while I sort of smiled to myself - since the words didn't come from malice - but just from a real sentiment toward her...
Eventually I got a strange, wandering email from her taking issue with my not trusting her - and suggesting that I am not willing to work with her in our son's best interests...well, since she didn't ask any questions of me, however, I did not respond. The only email from her that I did respond to was a recent one in which I once again had to remind her that she does not respect my rights as S2's father - and took issue with her bizarre assertion that S2 - who turns 3 in Sept - must still nurse at night...and so, according to her logic, he cannot spend nights with me yet...
It's all become part of the strange new world of trying to maintain contact with someone I don't trust - with someone that has, again and again, acted in deceptive ways, but refuses to see any of her actions as duplicitous at all. She's an odd one...last week when I took S2 to the doctor for a follow up appointment (he had a mild pneumonia) - she didn't ask about what the doctor said until late in the afternoon the next day...not a word when she came by to pick up S2 the evening of his appointment...
But I'm just kind of journaling here...reminding myself of her behavior so that I can revisit this again in the future - if need be. I've moved on from my life with her - and though I still feel the occasional hint of loss - I don't ever find myself with a desire to reconcile...too much damage done - and now that my S12 has opened up to me about how he felt about her...I'm more cautious than ever about even having her see my S12 at all...
As for my own life...I'm doing well...still working on regaining a firm self of confidence in myself...and still learning to be open to the present on a daily basis. Which is to say, my year of turmoil seems to be calming down...and I am happy.
I don't know if it's just me, or if my perspective has shifted, or what it is...but it seems like sometimes we just spend too much time talking about our spouses when what we should be doing is getting ourselves back in order...focusing on what we've lost and what brought us to a given point in our lives that seems like nothing but crisis after crisis...
For me, in my situation, I went from being the first to talk about divorce, to being the one who wanted to fight for our marriage - to being the one that lifted himself off the floor in an empty home, struck hard by the heaviness of all that I was losing - to finally arriving at this strange point where I knew what it meant to let go...and what it meant to feel happy...
Here are the most important lessons I've learned over the last year of my life:
1. Fear tells me that I am avoiding something in my life - something deep and pressing that I must address. It is a force that obfuscates the real situations - and sets up little paper dolls that act out drama and invite my attention - but never help me get anywhere until I look past the dolls and see that I had long been the lonely puppeteer.
2. Liars always seem to tell you they're going to lie...often with promises and condemnation of others..in my case, it was my STBX telling me, with disgust in her voice, about all the people having affairs while she was working out of town...and, of course, she ended up having an affair while working out of town.
3. Letting go is not an action in and of itself, nor is detachment - it is a process - and it takes as long as it will take - and it can be extremely painful - but letting go is one of the only ways I can see that allow a person to love another in a healthy way - since it begins with a comfort in loving oneself in a healthy way.
4. One of the only ways to gain clarity when in a space of pain, turmoil or fear, is to accept it and feel the emotions that come with it. There were many times over the last year I felt a burden on my chest - a terrible pain that felt like it could grow into a parasite and devour me from the inside out...until I would find a safe space - both physically and in my and heart - and in my soul - and allow myself to feel that pain, that sorrow, that wrenching pain. It doesn't happen as often any more - but when the emotions arrive, I know now to allow myself to feel them...since as they subside, there is always a lingering moment of clarity. Sometimes that clarity lasts a day, sometimes two...but I know that as I feel and purge, that clarity will become more and more of my present...and that allows plenty of room for hope.
5. The lapses of our partners do not make them evil - their lapses make them as much a collection of their past as we are of ours...my wife had an affair...and I forgave her....she then started to have another EA...and I would have forgiven her again...and I've even forgiven her the need she had to spread lies about me to her family - and I still love her - though with that love is an awareness that I cannot be with this person. I want the best for her - wish she could find it for herself - but so long as she does not believe she needs to change anything in her life, I don't think she will ever learn to be happy. That's sad to me...but she must travel her journey, just as I am now traveling (and enjoying) mine.
6. Loving an abusive partner - which was very difficult for me to admit - can mean that we're trying to sort out why we were abused by trying to understand a new abuser. It's a fruitless endeavor...since the abuser's behavior never has anything to do with the abused...so looking for answers there, and getting addicted to the (familiar) pain got me nowhere until I let her go and rediscovered just how calm my life is...how happy I am...how entangled I had allowed myself to become with a reality that was not mine...which leads me to...
7. It is quite possible to love someone completely - but to do so in a completely unhealthy way. As my T put it, I loved so much that when my partner tried to return the love I was no longer there...I had given up too much of myself in order to feel/be loved. And now, to me, that is the epitome of unhealthy love.
8. Actions do speak louder than words.
9. In the phrase, I love you, the copula "love" does more than link a subject to a predicate - it links two lives, however imperfect, however filled with joy or sorrow - but if there's too much of an imbalance, and that solitude of an "I" gets subsumed too much by the lure of the plentiful "you" then the balance falters - and the phrase falls apart. The "I" becomes blurry, the "you" can be replaced....and even the term "love" can be morphed into any number of confusing and unfamiliar phrases...all of them losing the power of that simple word, love.
10. Anger from another person, like fear in myself, is an indicator of something deeper at play. When I witness anger now, when I feel it expressed toward me, I try to step aside and let it rush past me, and try to see, instead, that intense anger rarely has anything to do with the present object of that anger. In other words...I don't take anyone's anger personally anymore...which comes in handy when dealing with a customer service rep who's just had a rough day or week...
Hi Carlos. It's been quite a while since I've been to one of your threads. This really stood out to me:
Originally Posted By: healthydad
Last Friday, as shew as picking up my S2 to go visit her parents for the weekend - she just had this strange presence about her - as though I should just do anything to accommodate her - and it upset me more than I wanted it to...Let me explain, I was at the top of the stairs holding my son, she was down on the street rummaging through her trunk - and supposedly in a hurry. Eventually, she looked up and said, "well, bring him down." To which I said, "I'm not going to bring him down to you, come up and get him." It was cold of me - I know - but I also know that she was trying to control me yet again - and it's become increasingly obvious to me that any kindness on my part will be taken advantage of by her...without fail...and so I prefer to offer only my indifference instead.
I don't think it's cold at all. It's more of you standing up and putting value on yourself and I think what you did was very healthy.
My W did a similar thing to me the other day. I was in the front yard working on fixing the paver stones leading to the front stoop. My kids were helping me dig some of them up.
I went inside to get a drink and told my W - "The kids are out front digging up the pavers". She turned to me and said, "Don't let them do that." I looked at her and said, "They're already doing it. And they are helping me." I said it in a way where my internal intention was - don't try to control what I am doing with the kids. Kind of like - this is how it is going to go and that's it...period.
It came across that way and I felt her change more to a position where she realized what was going on and then she started to explain why she said what she said. She was making it up on the fly and I didn't address any of it and I just went outside again.
It's taking care of me and standing up to a person who is controlling. Very healthy indeed.
The more I allow that kind of behavior from her, the less respect she will have for me. But more inportantly, the less respect I will have for myself.
MySitch Me-47 STBXW-41 D-5 S-8 ILYBNILWY-01/08 Want a D- 01/09 Physical Sep-01/10 D filed-06/10 Got 50% custody=09/11 Ride that wave!
Wow. This is an amazing post. Thank you for sharing your eloquent expression of all that you have learned on your own journey. I know many of us here, certainly I, can benefit from all that you share.
So much of what you have written is, really, the essence of the work we all need to do on ourselves, every day. Like you, I no longer see the benefit, or the merit for that matter, in talking about our spouses, focused on our losses or the roots of our current circumstances. Living, really living requires us to have our eyes wide open and facing forward, at least that is one of the things I have learned over the last 10 months that I have been here.
Your saying that you still love your SBXW made me ask myself that question about my SBXH. The answer is that I do love him, but I would not use the word "still" because the love is different now...it is a new love for a person I have known a long time but who is, himself, very different from the person I met and married. I am very different today, too. As you pointed out, letting go has been a process and part of that process has been accepting SBXH as he is today. Funny thing is that all the while I was learning to accept SBXH as he is today, I was, it turns out, learning to accept myself, too.
Oops, starting to feel like a hijacking...think I will stop myself and end with thanks to you, Carlos, for another great post.
Letting go is not an action in and of itself, nor is detachment - it is a process - and it takes as long as it will take - and it can be extremely painful - but letting go is one of the only ways I can see that allow a person to love another in a healthy way - since it begins with a comfort in loving oneself in a healthy way
...so true...!! Like they said, put on the oxygen mask for ourselves first...!! Take care of ourselves and the rest will follow on their own pace.
NW626
Me:33 STBXW:38 S:3 It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you fight the fight....!!
I don't know if it's just me, or if my perspective has shifted, or what it is...but it seems like sometimes we just spend too much time talking about our spouses when what we should be doing is getting ourselves back in order...focusing on what we've lost and what brought us to a given point in our lives that seems like nothing but crisis after crisis...
For me, in my situation, I went from being the first to talk about divorce, to being the one who wanted to fight for our marriage - to being the one that lifted himself off the floor in an empty home, struck hard by the heaviness of all that I was losing - to finally arriving at this strange point where I knew what it meant to let go...and what it meant to feel happy...
Here are the most important lessons I've learned over the last year of my life:
1. Fear tells me that I am avoiding something in my life - something deep and pressing that I must address. It is a force that obfuscates the real situations - and sets up little paper dolls that act out drama and invite my attention - but never help me get anywhere until I look past the dolls and see that I had long been the lonely puppeteer.
2. Liars always seem to tell you they're going to lie...often with promises and condemnation of others..in my case, it was my STBX telling me, with disgust in her voice, about all the people having affairs while she was working out of town...and, of course, she ended up having an affair while working out of town.
3. Letting go is not an action in and of itself, nor is detachment - it is a process - and it takes as long as it will take - and it can be extremely painful - but letting go is one of the only ways I can see that allow a person to love another in a healthy way - since it begins with a comfort in loving oneself in a healthy way.
4. One of the only ways to gain clarity when in a space of pain, turmoil or fear, is to accept it and feel the emotions that come with it. There were many times over the last year I felt a burden on my chest - a terrible pain that felt like it could grow into a parasite and devour me from the inside out...until I would find a safe space - both physically and in my and heart - and in my soul - and allow myself to feel that pain, that sorrow, that wrenching pain. It doesn't happen as often any more - but when the emotions arrive, I know now to allow myself to feel them...since as they subside, there is always a lingering moment of clarity. Sometimes that clarity lasts a day, sometimes two...but I know that as I feel and purge, that clarity will become more and more of my present...and that allows plenty of room for hope.
5. The lapses of our partners do not make them evil - their lapses make them as much a collection of their past as we are of ours...my wife had an affair...and I forgave her....she then started to have another EA...and I would have forgiven her again...and I've even forgiven her the need she had to spread lies about me to her family - and I still love her - though with that love is an awareness that I cannot be with this person. I want the best for her - wish she could find it for herself - but so long as she does not believe she needs to change anything in her life, I don't think she will ever learn to be happy. That's sad to me...but she must travel her journey, just as I am now traveling (and enjoying) mine.
6. Loving an abusive partner - which was very difficult for me to admit - can mean that we're trying to sort out why we were abused by trying to understand a new abuser. It's a fruitless endeavor...since the abuser's behavior never has anything to do with the abused...so looking for answers there, and getting addicted to the (familiar) pain got me nowhere until I let her go and rediscovered just how calm my life is...how happy I am...how entangled I had allowed myself to become with a reality that was not mine...which leads me to...
7. It is quite possible to love someone completely - but to do so in a completely unhealthy way. As my T put it, I loved so much that when my partner tried to return the love I was no longer there...I had given up too much of myself in order to feel/be loved. And now, to me, that is the epitome of unhealthy love.
8. Actions do speak louder than words.
9. In the phrase, I love you, the copula "love" does more than link a subject to a predicate - it links two lives, however imperfect, however filled with joy or sorrow - but if there's too much of an imbalance, and that solitude of an "I" gets subsumed too much by the lure of the plentiful "you" then the balance falters - and the phrase falls apart. The "I" becomes blurry, the "you" can be replaced....and even the term "love" can be morphed into any number of confusing and unfamiliar phrases...all of them losing the power of that simple word, love.
10. Anger from another person, like fear in myself, is an indicator of something deeper at play. When I witness anger now, when I feel it expressed toward me, I try to step aside and let it rush past me, and try to see, instead, that intense anger rarely has anything to do with the present object of that anger. In other words...I don't take anyone's anger personally anymore...which comes in handy when dealing with a customer service rep who's just had a rough day or week...
That's really good stuff. Looking back changes our perspective for sure. Can you check on SmileysPerson? I think you could offer him something and his is in your part of the country. Cheers Coach
M22,H45,W45 S21/18D12 Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties and at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
