Saturday night was the best sleep that I have had in such a long time. Woke up at 0730...and I haven't slept that late since college. I was at the point of exhaustion...maybe it was that combined with the extra dose of Nyquil that did it. Whatever it was, it worked wonders.
Hit the gym extra hard yesterday, and it was much needed. Weights until the point of total muscle failure. Sure, I'm sore today but that's a good and much-needed pain. Exercise - the single BEST anti-depressant there is.
A good friend from one of the far-off duty stations flew in over the weekend and I ended up meeting him for a few beers Saturday night. On top of all our catching up, we ended up talking about the death of marriages. He brought up some very, very good points about "terms" being thrown around about spouses who leave. Pretty much our conversation about our experiences revolved around this. This may ruffle some feathers on here, if so, then well so be it.
The gist of our conversation about spouses who leave can be lumped into two categories: those who just do not want to be married anymore and those who are broken (as in my ex's case).
B, as I shall call him, feels that terms being thrown around (for example - MLC, etc) are overblown and often used as a crutch by us left-behinds to sort of an excuse to make us feel better for them leaving. Sort of like saying they did something like that because they are bad or whatever...whatever it takes to give us an explanation. He went to say that for those spouses who leave that aren't broken, leave/have affairs/etc because they no longer want to be married for us, for whatever reason. More often than not, its because we stopped being the person we were when we got married in the first place. They feel trapped to the point where they either seek it out or fall prey. Some will stay married during affairs in all due to their comfort zone. Some for children. Affairs aren't excusable by any means. And what one has done before will do again.
And then there are the broken ones. The ones who come from such a traumatic past that they know of no other way than to leave. However, even that isn't an excuse - especially for a fully functioning adult. Some use it as a crutch. Some can't help it. All need help. As my IC (and was our MC) said, mine acted in survival mode from her childhood...she did what she had to in order to "survive," whether it be from beatings/burnings or sexual assault or whatever. The only thing she knew was to fully play along without disagreement. And to never speak up. And to leave at the first sign of something not following her fairy tale. Some, as mine did/does, are so desperate for attention that they actively follow someone who shows them what the perceive to be true, as mine did...which is another form of childhood survival.
At any rate, the discussion was a long and good one - I needed that in more ways than one. Kind of made me see things in a different light. I fully expect to be drug across the coals on here and welcome discussion.
There are moments in this life when you are so confident in the rightness of your actions, that not even for a second do you consider the option that you might be wrong.
