Living with groundlessness

[AntoniaB]

Thanks AJ, everything you're saying is really helpful.

Yeah, between the lines, I "heard" this guy sort of giving off the "getting a woman in my life is what I need to fix me", especially when he told me that after his divorce in 2010, that he was doing really badly "until" he started seeing a new woman (whom he is no longer seeing). I think it's his job loss that really sent him over the edge, but the quickness of job loss on top of divorce meant he never put any thought into why his wife left him and filed (he said she left him several years ago and then she came back and they "tried" and then she "suddenly" filed, and he kept just saying he had no idea why any of this ever happened, but she has 100% custody of the kid).

It is so weird, I feel like if there is a barometer of what men I find attractive, it's ones who have found a way to take a tragedy and turn it into an opportunity to learn more about themselves and to grow, and I just wasn't seeing that with this guy. I saw a "runner." And I guess that meant that despite his good looks, he wasn't "attractive" after all.

[AntoniaB]

So I mentioned a few days ago that XH sent me a check for vet bills. I wrote him a short and sweet thank you note via email, just said it was really nice of him, that me and the cats had a lot of gratitude that he was so generous, and that we hoped that he would take good care of himself.

Today was his first day back at work after the holidays which I'm sure he spent with OW at his parents' house (sidebar we aren't FB friends but I can see who his new friends are, and he friended a person from his hometown/highschool over the break, and I can't tell you how nuts this is as he abhorred his hometown and anyone who went to school there...this woman predates me/wouldn't know me, though, so, and she isn't the first "pre-Antonia" person he's friended on FB).

Anyway today the minute he gets to work, he emails a reply to say we are all very welcome, he hopes we had a nice holiday and hopes that we all stay healthy for a long time. Then he writes..."3 1/2 weeks till Christmas Break...I can do this..."

See it again? Why does he keep reaching out on the job thing?

Basically I replied that I could help him with his approach to his job if he wanted the help, but I seriously doubt he'll take me up on the offer. I feel like his back will need to be against a wall to ever change his attitude or perception.

I have gone round and round in my own head asking myself "why on earth did you offer to help him out", and all I can come up with honestly is that this is what I do now, this is the kind of thing that generally makes me feel good, using what I learned from here or from therapy and helping other people out.

It's like, I have terrible hopes that his time with OW is bad ;-) but it actually does bother me to think he's so miserable otherwise. I guess one could call this empathy for the devil, ha ha (bad Rolling Stones reference there!)

My only expectation is that he won't take me up on the offer :-)

[punkin]

In keeping with the Rock Music Theme, allow me to say, it seems we are all on the Highway to Hell in one respect or another. If you are like me, Antonia, you have trouble separting good heart from hopeful fool. Not that my X has asked me for any advice.

I guess you have to ask yourself are you doing what you would do for anyone, or is this because of the hope of emotional reciprocation of some kind? Me, I'm so used to living between a rock and a hard place I'm ready to dig a hole and pull it in after me.

[AntoniaB]

I think I'm doing it because I would do it for "MOST" anyone. As in, if OW was asking me to pull her in the boat and I had room, I'd let her drown. I just have all the anger directed at her. It't not hard to because she looks like such a complete obnoxious diva from any pics I've seen, incredibly self-centered (and that's what a few random people have told me). I don't think I'm doing it for emotional reciprocation (the hope of it) as I am so sure he will ignore me at least right now, and so far, he has.

The only thing that runs through my mind is a line from a book I love where a character writes a poem and then tears it up, and her lover asks her why and she says she wrote about them, and their love, and she intends to scatter the thoughts from the train in hopes that some of them take root.

That's what is in my head. A story :-)

[AntoniaB]

Well. He did contact me back to say thank you for caring and I didn't need to worry about him (I never said I was worried) and didn't say he didn't want the help but didn't say he didn't...it was more like he just threw his hands up, told me one thing he was doing to "get through the day", and then he made some jokes about how I'd feel differently when I went back to work after the sabbatical or said that I must have a good drug supplier, then he said "ONLY KIDDING, don't get mad."

The joking means I touched a nerve. It's what he does when I get too close to home.

So I emailed back and tried to explain some of the changes I made in my own thinking to turn from being a pessimistic thinker into an optimistic one, and then said look, I'm just putting this out there, if you take it to heart you do, if you don't, you don't.

Then I sent the email and realized something with shocking clarity: this is the second time in our lives we had this discussion. This is the SAME conversation in general that was our first. The only change is we were talking about BEING students then, in college, and I was looking at college as this open field of grand possibility, and he was poking fun at my optimism and saying I was naive, and college and being a student was just boring, and pointless, and the only thing that mattered was being "off" from school, having fun, and I was arguing "NO! There is so much more out there!"

The SAME conversation. 23 years later. If any of you have seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, you'll know how true that movie is in some ways...

I guess the only difference is that this time around I think "nah....your words fall on deaf ears...he's doomed." where the other time I was like "I CAN CHANGE HIM!!!"

[AntoniaB]

So I told him what I was doing in my own work approach that made me more peaceful or accepting of stuff out of my control (we both work in education), and basically he decided to turn on me and spew.

First, he sent an email calling me "arrogant", "condescending", and "mystical" and attacked me for being a professor and "not understanding" that he "does God's work" and I don't because they don't fail kids out and I guess that he thinks I personally can get kids kicked out of college. (I fail kids and sometimes get them back and our students are marginally illiterate, but I didn't point this out to him; I ignored him).

Then I got a second angry email about how he thinks I'm assuming that he's got a terrible LIFE and that he isn't happy when he is, and that he just made an innocent offhand "hate my job" comment that I turned into a statement that encompassed his whole life, and that I subconsciously want him to be miserable and fail, and that he has a "really bright future" ahead of him and he's not being malicious but if he wants my advice, he'll ask for it.

So I very patiently replied without getting angry that I had been receiving emails from him at since August concerning his job, and that if he didn't want me to assume he was having difficulty at work, he should stop sending me complaints. I said I never made any reference anywhere to anything BUT his job, and that if I wanted him to fail or be miserable, then why would I be telling him the way that I got over my angst about the educational "system" to become a happier person in a very tough job?

AND.....I think we're back to no contact now :-)

[punkin]

Antonia,

I believe No Contact is exactly what you need. It sounds a if he peeked out of the rabbit hole for a moment, but when you responded, he ducked back in.

It sounds as if you are perhaps, as I am, a "FIXER". All our intentions are good, but somewhere along the way, we became 'controlling' and 'think I'm stupid'.

Perhaps the only way to fix our situations is to not fix them at all. As they say, let him swing in the wind.

[AntoniaB]

You're absolutely right, Punkin, and I'm following your advice. The funny thing is that like EVERYONE in my life likes when I give them help...whether it's a student or friend or boss or new acquaintance. It's one of the things people say is a good trait of mine, that I can listen and figure out a way to help someone approach a problem in a different way or see the glass half full when they see it half empty. He is the only person who has ever resisted that trait in me and this was pretty much the most hardcore antagonism I've ever seen from him and we're not even together.

[punkin]

Amen. The very traits that he originally LOVED about me, he now seems to detest, resent, abhor.

Thence commeth the long nights of "What did I do?"

[AntoniaB]

I don't think we did anything. I think we're awesome and they s*ck. Now just repeat that till it sinks in ;-)

I just met a new friend last night for dinner and she said that all women she knows (including herself) blame the OW down the line and let the X off the hook. She just said "why do we do it? I just don't know."

I dunno either.