I didn't really want to start a new thread...so I'll just post these thoughts here and let them lead where they may...
I've noticed a lot of tossing out of insults of the WAS spouse on here lately - and I just wonder if it really does any good to call someone's wife a b!tch or a someone's husband a bastard, etc...When we're left, abandoned and hurting - there's already so much anger and sadness mixed together - it just doesn't seem helpful to add to the tension by suggesting that the WAS is somehow a bad person...Of course, they are often responsible for some reprehensible behavior - but I tend to think that WASes suffer terribly with their own decisions - and that, despite all appearances, they are not happy or secure in themselves.
Beyond that, insulting another person's WAS seems to put so much energy into thinking about that WAS as the source of one's pain and sorrow - which I don't think is very accurate. For all their faults, it often seems that the very qualities that cause our WAS to leave us are the same qualities that drew us to them...and that drew them to us...not the need to cheat, etc, but certainly the stuff that allows us to entangle ourselves so easily with our spouses - and thus lose ourselves all too much through an unhealthy understand of love.
It does seem accurate to me to say that marriages help people work through unfinished business - sometimes, both partners can find a way to work through that business together - while other times, we're left and forced to work on our issues by ourselves...that's not the fault of our spouses - nor is it our own fault - but it is, instead, the result of a dynamic that we very much helped create. Does that mean that I don't hold my STBX responsible for giving up and walking out on our marriage and breaking up our family? Yes and no....
While my STBX did leave...I know, without any doubt, that I did my share of pushing as well...(and leaving)...the difference was just that I wanted to work on things when she decided to leave - and she found that she could not...Now we've both left the marriage - and so it's done with - over - and, while that's a tragedy, it's also a process that allowed me to see very clearly that I was very deep into an emotionally abusive marriage in which I was treated very poorly...and in which I had accepted a lot of terrible stuff as normal.
But getting back to my point...my STBX might strike me as less than sane at times - and even cruel - but I know that she's a good person - I've seen it in her in the past - and I've seen it in her even since she dropped the bomb - but something about me and the dynamic presented by "us" just brought out the worst of her unfinished business - and our marriage just didn't stand a chance...especially if she didn't want to do the work to face it and fix it for herself. Will she ever step up and face her reality? I have no idea...but it doesn't help for me or anyone else to insult her as she suffers through her confusion...in other words...If what she says and does really isn't about me - then there's no reason for ME to internalize her anger and allow it to poison me as it's already affected her. I feel sometimes like we can do a disservice to other here by joining them in their anger toward their WASes rather than helping them to focus instead on themselves - first and foremost - since that's where the real work begins.
I think yours is a very important post and I am glad you made it. Thank you.
I, too, have noticed a lot of insulting of the WAS's here. While I think anger and the expression of anger toward one's own WAS has a time and a place, even if it comes across as insults in one's post, I do not think it is very helpful when others join in.
The most important part of the work we all do here is trying to save ourselves and make ourselves whole - without the need for another person to complete us. When others join in on the insults, it keeps the LBS's focus outward on the WAS and, I think, it prolongs the anger he or she feels. I think we have to feel and pass through anger to get to a resolution, no matter whether the marriage is saved or not.
Also, I think when a LBS uses insults, it is indicative of unresolved feelings. It is said that the opposite of love is ambivalence, not hatred. Hatred is, like love, feuled by passion. I am not suggesting that just because one uses an epithet towards her WAS that she is still madly in love, but, I do think there may be some unresolved feelings to be explored. It might be better if we asked the poster to think about what those might be, rather than join in name calling.
As you have suggested, Carlos, I think it is our responsibility here on these boards to support others by helping them focus on themselves and figuring out and meeting their own needs as they move through this process.
With the exception of a couple of threads where I think your points are well taken, I read much more frustration (and, often, too much mind-reading) into statements by the LBS in reference to the WAS. I may be reading the wrong threads, but what you are citing doesn't seem all that prevalent.
That being said, there are a couple of threads in which that behavior of the WAS has been unabashedly abhorrent toward the LBS or, worse yet, their own children. In instances like this where newbies especially are accepting too much of the blame and in crisis, is it really so awful call the WAS a "coward" or words to that effect?
Yes, the direction you suggest is ultimately to support others by helping them focus on themselves, but very early on when they are still in the "picking oneself up off of the floor" phase commiserating as noted may help get the LBS into a mindset where they can do so (nice run-on sentence, eh?)...
But, again I may not be following the threads where you two have noted a prevalence.
-AlexEN
New: What a Weekend
H-48 WAW-49 M-22 S-14,9 D-11 EA disc.-11/07 PA disc.-3/08 EA2?-6/08 to ?
Carlos and VV, I agree. I don't use the acronyms anymore (WAW, DAM, LBS, WAH etc.) I just call people who they are. I think it makes it harder for the posters here to drop their anger if they dehumanise their spouse. Cheers
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.
I do agree that, especially in the early days, new posters need a lot of support and, to some extent, commiseration. I also agree that we have all seen some shocking behavior exhibited by some WAS's. That said, I think there is a difference between calling someone's actions cowardly and calling someone a coward. I think the former provides more help than harm and the latter more harm than good.
I do agree that, especially in the early days, new posters need a lot of support and, to some extent, commiseration. I also agree that we have all seen some shocking behavior exhibited by some WAS's. That said, I think there is a difference between calling someone's actions cowardly and calling someone a coward. I think the former provides more help than harm and the latter more harm than good.
V.
Yes, that is a very good distinction.
I don't care what Carlos says, you are good with words...
New: What a Weekend
H-48 WAW-49 M-22 S-14,9 D-11 EA disc.-11/07 PA disc.-3/08 EA2?-6/08 to ?
It's a shame how complicated things get when there are children involved...My parents divorced when I was 11 - and within a few years my mother started telling us (I am the youngest of three) that my father left because he met another woman. The information didn't help us at all - in fact, it only made us think that my father loved this woman more than he loved us - at least that's what it made me think...and it was a thought I carried/carry with me through my life...even though I know it's not entirely accurate.
When my father heard about my STBX dropping the bomb and wanting to leave - he came out to see me (a rarity) - and while he was here he told me a lot about how his divorce from my mother affected him - about his feelings of failure - and how hard it was for him to deal with not wanting to be with my mother - and feeling like we had turned against him...he wasn't saying he was right to feel this way - just explaining how he felt he failed us as a father when we were kids...
I'm mentioning this here for what it's worth...since, in a sense, knowing that my father had an affair never helped us cope with it - it just introduced more questions that I could not understand until just recently in my life...
Don't know why...this stuff was just on my mind this evening...
