Keep Your Hands Offa My Mojo

[hoosiermama]

@Gypsy - that's a posting that rocks. Thanks for that.

We've done some fun stuff so far - christmas tree shaped jellos, snowman cakes, DIY decorations.

Part of the problem is that I've sort of cycled back to those early post-post-Bomb Shock feelings, but can't find the time or space to let them run themselves out. I'm not doing any of those maladaptive non-DB behaviors, mind you--not doing any DB'ing, either--just experiencing that immediate sense of anger-grief-loss-confusion. I'm not even taking much from my as-usually swell interactions with Miss Someone. I don't expect it to last, but it definitely sucks to be "back" in that way. And seeing Themselves struggle I inevitably hear echoing in my head those WAWords from the Bomb: "I decided my happiness is more important than the kids'."

I don't know that she still feels that way, or whether in fact she ever felt that way - it's not my place to mind-read, excuse, or guess. But I do know the very fact that she could say that so rankles that..... Well you know.

Ah, the cycling. Yet another way to Embrace the Suck. I've found that the smallest, most unanticipated triggers (grocery shopping, for God's sake) can set off a cycling and throw me a few steps backward into feelings I thought I had worked thru. It's grief--and it requires working thru at a zillion levels. It gives you the opportunity to look at your loss, and feel your loss, from a different perspective each time. It still sucks big time, but it represents progress in a weird way. And there's no trigger quite like the holidays, nor watching your children struggle because of a parent's self-serving choices. Interestingly, you'll get blasted and 2x4'd on here for wallowing in it--but wallow we must. Not to wallow and feel the anger-grief-loss-confusion means getting stuck there for longer periods of time, and nobody wants that. The only way out of it is through it.

As for whether or not she meant it when she said her happiness was more important than her children's--yeah, she did. Somehow they get to a point in their mental gymnastics where that actually makes sense to them. For my xH, one of the statements was that in jettisoning his life and cleaving to his "soulmate," he was "living into his truth." Peculiar chaplain-esque jargon aside, it felt hugely rejecting--like his life with me was a lie. However, 18 months later, I recognize how deeply "true" it is--his true self is narcissistic, immature, and self-serving. Anything more than that that I had expected from him was, indeed, a lie. The midlife crisis or whatever the h*ll happened internally just removed whatever brakes he had on his selfishness. Same with the soon-to-be-former-Mrs.-Smiley: whatever "diagnosis" fits her life-changing process, the chain is off whatever dark and creeping being had been living under some rocky ledge inside. Freed to roam about and wreak havoc in everyone's lives while she feels good and fulfilled and entitled to be doing it. There ought to be a DSM-IV category for whatever mental derangement this is--it's such a syndrome, such a pattern, and so destructive to themselves (and Themselves) that it deserves study and treatment.

Does she currently feel that her happiness is more important than anyone else's? Who knows. Maybe, maybe not; maybe she'll grow out of that. The critical issue is that at one point it was, and it set off a whole waterfall of consequences for everyone else. Some would say she wasn't in her right mind when she said/felt/did all that, and that may be true. I've kinda come to believe that my xH was most authentically and honestly being himself. Much about my sitch is atypical, but just thought I'd share my perspective in case it might prove helpful.