Where did my life go?

[AntoniaB]

IB the wanting to turn things over to someone else to make decisions is, I think, a remnant of your dynamic with your XH. It may be that you actually made a lot of the decisions and took charge of a lot during your marriage, but it "felt" like he was still "steering the ship" because of his presence. If you were raised at all in a patriarchal environment, as most of us were, I think even when women are responsible for many things they don't "own" that the are or were responsible. There is always a man there who seems to be "holding them up" or supporting them with their decisions, or TAKING CREDIT even when the woman did the work.

Example: there was an outbreak of robberies in my parents' area a few months ago. Mom mentioned it to dad. Dad, who is an invalid with a walker, said, 'Well no one will break into this house, don't you worry, because I'm here all the time.' I assure you that my mom is much more capable of physically dealing with a burglar than my dad. But this is the attitude. I'm a man, and I'm here to protect you. I'm here to catch you if you make a decision and it backfires.

If that is a message you have heard for your whole life in so many words, then you have internally told yourself that you are not AS capable of taking care of yourself and your family alone as you would be if your XH was there. My doctor said this to me: when I say man what is the word that comes to mind? I said "protector/supporter/buffer from the outside world/from problems." She said "why don't you say any of that when I say woman?"

Her advice was to really focus on all the ways women have proven themselves to be JUST AS GOOD at being protectors as men, or even situations where women were the rock that held men up, or women were the ones who kept children cared for without men's help.

I guess my advice to you is to consider how much of what you are feeling right now is your own doubt in your abilities, or is it the internalized voice of a patriarachal world or upbringing or marriage haunting you, telling you you can't do it alone.

Because if it's mainly the voice of the external world saying you can't do it and you're internalizing that, well, you can certainly change that around.

IB you have to shut that voice down, because it's lying to you. You HAVE taken on all these decisions, you HAVE been a single parent now for quite some time and you have kept things stable and acted with dignity and respect. You probably were taking on a huge amount of the responsiblity even during the marriage, too, but you didn't "own" what you were doing. You didn't really notice all you did. You just did what you thought a wife was "supposed" to do.

Every time I have that feeling I "need" XH back (or I need some man to "replace" him) because I hate all the responsibility and feel like it's not fair that I have to do this alone, I try to tell myself that the doubt is the voice of patriarchy telling me I'm not capable, and that I need to listen to the voice of matriarchy, which says oh yes, you have been capable for a long time now and will continue to be. I try to turn it into a women's rights issue, if you know what I mean.

My sister looked at the size of my yard the other day and said, "when I see what you have to do alone, it just makes me want to cry at how much it is." I said "You know what? Don't even go there. Women before me had more to take care of and women after me will too. I probably can't do as good a job as he used to do with my help, and that's ok. I do my best."

Just a disclaimer: I hope this email doesn't come off as male-bashing--it's just that I get the sense that the feeling of needing the spouse there because of feeling overwhelmed seems to be a female thing more than a male thing...I could be wrong...but it seems like women going through divorce have a bit more self-doubt about their ability to carry on alone than men do, at least based on my experience/what my doctor has told me.