Still Learning...

[Rita]

(((Sage))))

I noticed in this post and others of yours that you say a lot about how poorly you are doing when it is clear that you are doing very well, are an amazing mom and are handling a disgusting situation with as much grace as you possibly can. And on this post you write this very interesting and insightful and very not-whiny post and then sort of pre-apologize for it being too onerous to read!

And it seems this is the same thing you are doing with your H. How do I know? I WAS YOU.

You are living in a totally impossible horrific situation with a person who ripped out your heart, stomped on it while forcing you to watch and then began demanding that you make him feel better for having had to rip and stomp and make you watch. He undermined everything your love and marriage and family and business stood for, and demanded that you understand why he must do that. And then you are wondering why you sometimes feel a bad feeling or have trouble focusing. And in between you take your four beautiful children ice skating and call across the ice to your darlings, "Look up! Look at where you want to go!" and that is a glorious light-filled moment they will never ever forget, it will feed their souls -- and then you wonder why you would dread having to be around a man who makes you feel rejected and who makes you question your whole life together and your worth as a woman and a mother and a business partner, you berate yourself for not being detached enough to not enjoy negotiating the practicalities of how to best parent while someone rips your family apart, And in the background lurks an evil husband snatcher who thinks she has a right to destroy five lives for her "happiness." And then you apologize for writing something onerous!

I am being a little hyperbolic here, but I noticed this theme of this amazing woman feeling that she had to apologize, so I want to highlight it so you can see it.

I try not to get involved with anyone new to these boards because it's so painful to watch others start this process, but sometimes someone comes along and just is so lovely and so likeable and such a beautiful spirit that I do start following along. And you, Sage, are one such beautiful spirit.

So stop apologizing. Keep looking up at where you want to go, but take a moment to lie on the floor and cry in a ball and I will rub your shoulder and cry too and say, yes, yes, yes, I know, it hurts, and it's so wrong and not what we signed up for and it will refine us into gold but it hurts like h$ll. You have to feel worthy of that pain too, of knowing that someone hurt you and it was wrong, before you can move on to detaching from it. Otherwise you'll think that you should do better at not feeling things and the temptation is to minimize the things as if anyone should be able to get over them lickety split instead of moving towards accepting the very painful and very wrong things. Worse yet, you'll apologize to H that he had to go through the pain of destroying you -- not directly, but by this simmering feeling you have, and which I recognize quite well. Hope it won't take you seven years to realize that like it did me!

I think divorce is wrong and should be avoided at all costs, and I believe in marriage and even believe that your H doesn't really want to divorce and maybe would come back one day when his blinders are off, but I also know from hard experience that you have to let them go and do that, and that you never have to validate what they are doing. What they are doing is dead wrong and horrible and destroys lives. You will be okay, that is true! You will do amazing things and help your children heal, whether or not H ever returns. But I just don't want you to fall into that trap of thinking you have to validate anything. Acceptance is different from validating. One may have to accept the amputation of a limb to avoid gangrene. But that doesn't mean we should start thinking it's a great thing to amputate a limb or that it's not going to hurt like a B for a long long time and make everything we planned for our lives change. We can one day strut down the runway like Victoria Modesta and know that it all happens for a reason but that doesn't mean that amputation is by its nature an easy thing to do or get over.