WAS showing you positive signs? WAIT- READ THIS!

[Maybell]

Zues, thanks for this great post. (I also appreciated the sales advice about Maybes up there... perfect timing for the new year, thank you!!)

I’ve been really struggling a lot with my anger the last few weeks owing to an interaction with the ex that went really poorly. I’ve been reflecting on our marriage and wondering how it went so wrong. And what I’ve come up with is that his affairs were the result of tiny decisions he made over 16 years to not face the fact that he doesn’t know everything and that he thinks that the solutions that work for other people for growing up, learning, coping with setbacks, etc., don’t apply to him. He treated things like therapy and self-help books as crutches for the weak, not tools for ordinary people, including him. And that disdain for “soft” wisdom led him to maladaptive, self-destructive behaviors.

I’m not at all saying that there weren’t things I could have done better in our marriage. There definitely are places that I would love to go back and kick myself. Hard. But during our years together I faced some similar challenges to his, and adapted to them really differently. He even identified the differences in one of his long, word-salad letters telling me why he was blowing up our whole family life. But he couldn’t see the difference in the impact that had between him and me.

If I had behaved differently in those places where I wish I could get a do-over, it may have blown up the marriage sooner. Or maybe later, but we’d have had a very different life. But the marriage could not have lasted because he consistently made incremental choices even before the cheating that doomed it. Because he is the person he is, and because he sees change (and happiness) as something that happens from the outside, rather than from the inside, he does not have the capacity to sustain a deep, close relationship, with me or anybody else, over the long term. With some things that have happened with the kids and in his career, I see that he also doesn’t really understand the meaning and value of commitment. With qualities like those, our divorce was inevitable, even if he had had the honor to end it respectfully, before he started cheating. Cheating is the symptom of his inability to value commitment — because he’d rather maintain the comfortable status quo than treat his partner with openness and respect.

He told my daughter that he “doesn’t believe in marriage anymore,” which is weird to me. His parents have been married 46 years. Most of the people around him are married, with varying degrees of satisfaction. But somehow he “doesn’t believe in it.” I think there’s a piece of him that understands that HE can’t figure out how to make it work, but instead he’s externalized it to a thing that he can’t believe in, despite all the evidence around him that people make it work all the time.

Your post is so perfect in part because of the line “they’re further gone than we realize.” My marriage started deteriorating promptly after the wedding. I can point to events within the first six months that were gigantic red flags... but by that point, I was MARRIED, which for me meant, all in. The red flags I saw meant he wasn’t, but I don’t think he could have said so, or would have agreed that that was what they meant. I also REALLY appreciated the idea of “medicating with good intentions” (another idea that will tremendously help my sales career...) because that was a HUGE factor in our marriage as well. Maybe on both sides. I think he did the best he could with the tools he had (hence, our sixteen married years together), but at the end of the day, the tools he had weren’t enough and he couldn’t or wouldn’t see that. He was like a carpenter who showed up with a hammer and a screwdriver and nothing else, who couldn’t believe that finer tools, like a level or a measuring tape, could be useful. My toolsbox was fuller but he would never let me use them, and because of that I developed maladaptive behaviors as well.

For the newbies here, I’ve been divorced a couple of years now, and haven’t lived with my ex for almost four years. It’s taken me ALL this time to really internalize the truth of my marriage. Zues’s post is an important piece in my putting everything into perspective. I have struggled so hard with anger, grief, and blame (mostly of him — the cheating made that part inevitable). But it’s truly NOT ABOUT ME at all. I just happened to be there. These things are about him and they are patterns that he will repeat until he has the humility that he doesn’t know as much as he thinks he knows.

I’m in a new relationship now and I can see my flaws more clearly because I have a partner who is more open to learning and self-discovery, and less afraid of conflict between us. I am absolutely not perfect, and neither is he. But at least we have the tools to build a connection that can be practical as well as personal. I have the opportunity to continue growing within the relationship. I don’t know if the relationship will last (I hope it does, but I don’t know), but I appreciate so much that it has given me perspective on me, on my ex, and on my marriage. That marriage wasn’t a happy place for me either, but I found ways to operate within it that allowed for my happiness. My ex couldn’t see the difference between that and “making me happy.” Finally learning that is going to bring me some peace.

This is really long and I don’t mean for it to be a hijack. Your post, Zues, was one of the most perceptive things I’ve seen from you and I appreciate it. It has really helped me. I’m sorry for all the pain your ex inflicted on you and I hope you find peace yourself. For the newbies here, when you’re living in the heat of this moment in your marriage, it’s really, really hard to have this kind of perspective, It’s taken me four years of living apart from my ex to develop the detachment needed to see this painful chain of events with some perspective. Please adopt Zues’s words, because your instincts are to cling to the attachment, not to let it go. But letting it go is the only way to understand where you really are. Think of it as being stuck on an unmapped island and needing to go to the top of a mountain to see where you really are. If you’re situation is new, you might be on the beach, wondering where the fresh water is. You might be climbing the mountain wondering if you’ll be able to find fresh water at all (and that climb is so hard when you’re thirsty...) The view from the mountaintop (detachment) will help you understand your position and resources. It will help you plan your route, figure out where to find shelter, and everything.

Finally, Zues says, no relationship talks ever. He’s right. If your spouse had the ability or the information to make things right, there would have been no bomb drop. There would have been incremental opportunities over time to prevent the situation. That person who is blowing up your world does not have the information you’re looking for. You have to get to the mountaintop, detachment, and come to your own understanding of the situation.

Good luck.