Living with groundlessness

[AntoniaB]

Hey Punkin, thanks for stopping by, and now that you mention it I do remember of your nightmares and sleeping issues. I agree with you about the subconscious cleaning house--I think this is what my doc. was getting at too which is why she asked me to just focus on what's going on in the nightmares as opposed to trying to "run away" from them.

Alcohol generally shuts it all off, but then I have to deal with a hangover the next day, which isn't fun, so I'd been cutting down on alcohol lately for that reason.

My mom said why don't I just take the ambien for awhile and not worry about the fact that I have no refills...I guess I worry about "stockpiling" medicine as I've had docs before who have given me an initial course of something and then cut me off sayign the drugs are habit-forming (and yet I know others with sort of open prescriptions of this stuff, go figure)...but when I saw her I wasn't having the nightmares...if I go back after a month and I still am, I don't think she's going to just let me twist in the wind ;-)

I know there are quick fixes like a roommate or a dog, but then I think, isn't it better to nip this now, I can't guarantee I'll have a live-in companion forever. It's amazing to me how this goes back to childhood and overprotective parents. If I could wipe one memory, it would be the one where dad insisted that he was always watching me so no harm would ever come...it was a nice thing to say but darn if that didn't become gospel to me, so much so that to this day when I ever have any issue my parents are begging me to "come home so they can take care of me."

It's nice that they are like this, but it doesn't help me be a grownup.

[~ kd ~]

If you talk to a reputable security company (ie. find a referral if you can) I'm sure you can get some perimeter alarms for cheap enough which would include a spot light... enough to discourage thieves before they even get to your porch or windows...

And put up signs saying no trespassing by order of smith and wesson or some such...

[punkin]

"Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again."

[AntoniaB]

Punkin you always have the funniest thing to say :-)

Just sitting here musing tonight before I take my ambien...incidentally my mood is much better the day after I take it, and I'm more productive, so clearly the better sleep it affords makes a difference.

Anyway this is what I think hurts me to this day the most. My XH killed my hopes and dreams, specifically, the ONE THING I wanted more than anything else in the world was to "mate for life." I mean that was really important to me. I am sure that it's because I met him at 19 and had been a virgin till then, him too, and this was something he and I despite not being "religious" really put a lot of stock in and felt really good about.

I just picked up Julia Child's book to read and just like practically every other book's acknowledgements, she thanks her husband of this huge number of years. That's what made me think of this...that I will never get to be "one of those people" anymore who look back and say that I was married to the same man my whole life. It's just gone, poof. Unless I decide to remain celibate, I'll not have been monogamous "for life" as I wanted to be. I don't know if I ever said this before here, but I dedicated my first book to XH and there it is, every time I open it or teach from it, the dedication where I say "I love you--forever", which was engraved on the inside of his wedding band. There it is, staring me in the face, the fact that he ended up becoming a liar and he broke the vows and turned away from me.

It just makes me sad. I know that when your dream dies you have to come up with a new dream, and when the goal you had is taken from you and there is nothing you can do about it, you have to accept it, but somehow it just feels like whatever I come up with now in this area of my life will be second best, a consolation prize because you ended up choosing a liar for your husband and you didn't know any better 2 decades ago.

No matter how many books I write I can't run from this fact and I can't erase it. It just feels like there is a black mark in my permanent record, to use a school metaphor, and it's written with permanent ink.

[beatrice]

Antonia, you have very wisely written on many occasions, and often helped me. I share your sentiments, BUT have come to realise that if we are to survive we have to change our thinking, as you have also said. Yes, we have fallen short of our ideal. And that would have been the case also had your xh died. Nothing in this life is permanent and it is a dangerous fallacy to live with this belief, comforting though it is [i know, I have been there, and screamed against fate for what happened] But my parents endured the loss of my beautiful sister at age 25. healthy happy and recently married. So loss is a part of life, however unfair it is. Your h chose not to grow, and you are moving onwards.

In some ways it is a disguised blessing, hard to see, I admit(!), for if you had stayed together your xh would have held you back, and you might have been a lesser Antonia, perfect from one perspective, but limited in other important ways. The poet John Keats said in a series of letters to friends that life is about making your soul. This is the refiners fire.

[AntoniaB]

You know Beatrice I have a friend/colleague whose husband died after about 20 years...and she is now remarried, but her first husband is still a big presence in her life. I tried to help her put things away this wkend. She moved several months ago and has not really put anything away. She packed up the old house, which was hers and the first husband's stuff--and moved into the new house which she and the new husband own, but the new husband is in England for half the year. She is unable to put things away. She keeps saying she has to "go through" and "figure out what stays and what goes" and "make sure she finds the things that her deceased husband gave her over the years, like letters, to hide them from new husband as he wouldn't like seeing them." New husband (with whom she has been for 5 years) was married 2 times before he married her. I don't see why he'd care. I think it's more about her. I don't think she can let the deceased husband go, even with a new life in so many ways.

Now the difference I see between our situations is that her first husband loved her completely till the moment he died. He did not betray her. Ever. But mine did. So in my mind, I'm cheated of this future with him because he CHOSE to cut me off/cut me out of his life. But I guess what you're saying is that even someone who lost a spouse to an unexpected death feels the same thing? See I've always thought as horrible as it would be, if XH had died and not betrayed me, I'd at least know that he loved me till he died, and I don't "get that". But maybe it's not a better feeling? I can't ask my friend this. I don't know her well enough to ask something that personal.

But I wonder. I think in the scheme of life I know that there are people who have it worse than me--like people who have a terminal illness and must deal with that, or who have to watch a loved one die. My brother in law just experienced that this week. Yet in the scheme of "relationships" I feel like those of us who are betrayed have it "worse" than anyone else...but maybe that's not true.

My B. in law said once "at least your ex is still alive, I can never see my sister again (as his sister died of cancer 2 years ago). And I think yeah, he's alive, but he doesn't care a whit about me anymore. So that's not helping.

I sound like a child, I really do. Just stuff I have to work through and put into perspective. I have to get rid of the "it's not fair" mantra. I have to tell myself that crap happens to good people too, all the time....

[beatrice]

Antonia - I think this is a tough one. I have two friends who are widows - one of the husbands was a close friend of mine. Both of them have told me that they think what happened to me was worse, in a way [I didn't ask for this btw!]

I think the betrayal is a huge additional factor, but the common area is that all of us feel at times as if we were 'robbed' of our future. What I also see in the case of MLCers is that some years down the line, they are still unhappy and confused. This is not my wanting to see it: my xh is a lonely and messed up man. So it does feel absolutely pointless.

I think what I was also trying to say is that a lot of stuff happens that we cannot see the point of, so all we can do is focus on recovery. What might have been and what we feel 'should' have been are huge drains on our recovery. I believe we have to go there, but not get stuck.

Another friend of mine remarrried about 10 years ago, and said she could not imagine every being so happy wit her first husband, who left her with two fairly young children. They had been together nearly twenty years when he left, and she recovered, met a lovely man some time down the line, and married him.

Like us she considered herself married for life. But she is now with someone else, and very happy. I have known her a long time.

[angel61]

I had thought about that as well.....

and I do think that the betrayal, the rejection, is truly a fate worse than death. Unless the story is one like a co-worker of mine has.... where her H died in an accident then she found out that he had been betraying her, not with another woman, but financially .... robbing their family of their conjugal savings, sending their money home to his parents, and even compromising their family home! This woman was depressed for 7 years! then she married again, unfortunately, the new guy is also a jerk. She has sworn off men at this point.

[Kimmerz]

I must put my two cents in too! My personal experience is that getting dumped by our spouses after long term marriages is worse than death. Many people say that Divorce is worse than death! Im friends with my stbx's aunt, and she says her Divorce due to her xh extreme MLC was worse than death.

I say this because losing my mother rather unexpectedly was the worse thing I ever went through, up until this. Yet I find myself grieving over the loss of my marriage just as I did the loss of my mother. I think right now Im just finally coming out of the fog. I had been doing pretty well, but whe OW came into the picture it damn near devastated me.

This may sound rude, but you can't argue with dead! I also believe in life after death, that we have a soul and that we cross over to the other side. We're eternally happy, all the questions we ever had are answered, and we re-live all the emotions of our lives for a time. We can feel the love everyone feels towards us. As bad as things have gotten between him and I, he won't know how much I loved him until he crosses over, or some huge miracle like NO OTHER is brought down from God above and he just finally gets it, and accepts it!

It's hard to know you've been left, while the other half is somewhere else shacking up with someone else, saying horrible things about you to someone else, and still hating you for things that don't have anything to do with the price of tea in China!

Where as if they had passed on, you can focus on the good, relive the good, and convey the good back to them, and they accept it, yet though they're not in physical form.

my wacky 2 cents worth!

[AntoniaB]

Kimmerz you actually made me laugh, probably unintentionally, with your comment "while the other half is somewhere else shacking up..." That was nice to laugh instead of cry, ha ha.

This is where I clearly am not over XH at all, as I do NOT want his rel. with OW to succeed...he actually said to me in person that he knew I wouldnt' be happy till he failed, and he knew I didn't even want him back, just that I wanted him to fail. I said "I only want you to fail at your rel. with her. I don't even care if you have a GOOD rel. with someone else. I just want HER to pay for what she did to me and I want you to pay for what you did to us. They we're even."

Yep, that came outta my mouth. I can't even imagine wishing him well with OW, I think because she was the siren who drew him away from me. It doesn't matter that my rational mind says he's a mess and my life is probably BETTER without him, I still can't feel like it is UNTIL I am in a good rel. with someone else. I really feel like this is true. Maybe if I'd had other rel. with other men prior to him I'd feel differently, but he's "it" as far as the only adult rel. I've ever had.

I am convinced that she is terrible for him and making him WORSE and MORE self-indulgent/self-centered than he ever was, so yeah, I want him away from her, and I can't have any effect on that.

Ok so on to another thing...I made myself go out and get some culture tonight; I went in to my college to hear this pianist play, really insane avant garde stuff, and I got there and it was like the few people I work with who were there who were really just acquaintances were being SO nice, inviting me to sit with them, telling me they missed having me at work, asking about my research...and the dean and president were there, and I talked to so many people and I was just treated so nicely.

Meanwhile, before I went, I'm sitting in a restaurant for dinner, silenting resenting every single couple in there, because I'm the only one alone, ALWAYS. Even the 2 older men who came in to meet one another, buddies, just dissed their wives who weren't there, saying stuff like 'hey where's your wife?' and the other saying "in Missouri' and the first saying 'oh what's she doing?' and the other saying 'I don't effing care!'

And the couples, all of them just ignoring one another on their cell phones or browsing the web waiting for their food...

When I was married XH and I never did this crap. People don't know what they have. They really don't. And I know half of them probably have crappy marriages, but I bet a lot don't, and they just act like it's an entitlement and I think we're all here to say it isn't.

Gosh am I in an angry phase or what? ;-)