Second roller coaster ride (2)

[Card29]

All of the lying is going on behind my back. To my face, phone, text, whatever, it's mostly only S1 business.

It's an ugly situation with her parents. FIL is basically reliving his own D from 20 years ago, which apparently got very nasty. I'm guessing MIL is, too. He has said some nasty things about MIL on the phone that I've never heard him utter. I'm sure it was things he said during their D. I'm not leaning on him as a pillar of support, but I've had a phone call with him about once a week so far. I've encouraged him to give W space, and he's agreed. He's totally in the dark with what's going on with her, so are her siblings. If he loses his (bleep) on MIL or W, it won't do anyone any good, including S1. I acknowledge I can't control him, he's not my responsibility, but I'm just trying to be an influence. If it helps, great. If not, it's on him.

I've sensed projection not only from him, but also a friend I recently hung out with. Friend was with a woman for 5 years who sounds like she legitimately has narcissistic personality disorder, or something very similar. He lived through hell before he finally left. They have a daughter together. He was telling me all of the similarities he sees in my W compared to his X. It got me to research the topic. While I do think she shares a few traits of some different narcissism issues, it mostly just felt like projection from him. It felt like you could find narcissistic traits in anyone, if you wanted to. He also described a woman he dated for a few weeks earlier this year and acted like he spotted narcissism in her, too. Seems like he's seeing ghosts. These are just some of the psychological or seemingly unhelpful advice I've been given lately, and I thought I'd share to see if anyone had thoughts. I know people will mean well but can give bad advice or assessments.

Last week, she said she was filing for D this week. But now she says she has "1,000 things going on" and is going to wait a bit to file. She seems completely hell bent on filing, I'm not holding out hope for a miraculous turn of events right now. We agreed yesterday what to split (furniture, etc) and she agreed to put it in writing and for both of us to sign before she takes anything.

I have my second grief recovery class this Thursday. We're working through The Grief Recovery Handbook (J. James & R. Friedman). I've finished the homework for this week and have a good feeling about the class. I think it's going to help and will be very educational. So far, the reading has been about misconceptions about grief, the error of the "5 stages of grief" (it describes someone with a terminal illness, not someone dealing with a loss like death of someone else, or divorce) and common yet unhelpful coping strategies. Those are:

1. Don't feel bad / it's ok
2. Replace the loss
3. Grieve alone
4. "Time heals all wounds" (my in-laws are evidence against that)
5. Be strong / be strong for others (kids)
6. Keep busy

I've definitely been taught or learned #2, #4, #5 and #6. The bonus one I'll add is "Maybe it's for the best". Yeah maybe that's true, but nobody wants to hear that while they're grieving. I've been told that 2-3 times already.

[Ready2Change]

The error of the "5 stages of grief" .. and common yet unhelpful coping strategies. Those are:

1. Don't feel bad / it's ok
2. Replace the loss
3. Grieve alone
4. "Time heals all wounds" (my in-laws are evidence against that)
5. Be strong / be strong for others (kids)
6. Keep busy

I would be interest in seeing the list of helpful strategies. If you come across this while reading, would you mind posting?

[Card29]

Absolutely. I haven’t read ahead as I want to experience it with the class and not rush it.

[Card29]

I joined the gym. Lifted at lunch today. Shoulders are sore. Feels good. Mood has been good most of the day except for a phone call with W and the utilities company to get the account into my name only. Bad mood didnt last too long

Here’s a question: Our dog. He’s undoubtedly W’s. She had him before we moved in together, and he has always seen her as his master. I’m just a friend haha. But I have known him for a long time. She seemed open to me occasionally keeping him. Would this border on friend-zoning myself? Should I just let him go? Or should I be an open door for him, for example if she’s going out of town for a weekend? I do love the little guy. He’s a great companion. But I want to be careful during this time to not send the wrong message (“everything’s cool, your ol friend XH will dogsit for you while you go party”)

[Ready2Change]

I would be open to watching the dog on rare occasions, mostly emergencies etc. We had a poster awhile back that didn't have kids, but would do too much dog watching (IMHO).

I left my two dogs with X. I missed them, but I ended up with two new dogs and a cat.

[Card29]

I think that's where I'm leaning. Might need to detach from my good dog friend, unfortunately. I know I'll have dogs in my life in the future, but I'll hold off for now as that falls in the "replace the loss" category I just learned about in my grief class. It advises against replacing the loss until you've properly grieved.

Lately I've thought a bit about the role of social media and marriages/happiness today. There are lots of positive things on SM, but there's also so many traps, too. FB, Snap, TikTok, IG, Twitter/Z - they all have ruthlessly smart algorithms, and they aren't designed to help or improve you. They're designed to keep you engaged. They especially prey on our insecurities. How you look, how much money you have, political/societal fears, etc. If you're a happy, well-adjusted person, maybe they're nothing more than a time vampire. But for someone really struggling, like W has been for the last 13 months, I think SM is terrible. For her, I don't think it was the amount of time she spent on it (she's a busy body when stressed - she tries to work/clean/fold/sweep/shop/cook her way out of stress), but rather how vulnerable she was to it when she did get on. I'm journaling this as a "here's this thought, now let me get it out of my head and move on" since I obviously have no influence on that situation now.

For me, it's a time vampire. I'm the one who can sit down on the couch after the kids go to bed and swipe twitter, reddit and youtube for hours. Hours and hours. I steer clear of the "social" apps like IG and FB as I do find myself comparing my life to those people much more easily. I still do get a lot of it on my preferred sites, though. It is more about money and politics. Ashamed I don't make more money (I actually make decent money, but it feels like so much less now than it did 3 years ago, not to mention daycare $$$). The politics just get me pissed off. Lately I've at least been able to detach from the political stuff more. I just realize how little control I or really any of us have with it. Sure I'll still go vote, but I'm not spending time getting riled up about this or that issue. if things change for the better someday, awesome. However, I am still spending entirely too much time with mindless swiping for sports, cheap laughs, and even "educational" YT videos. Yes they're interesting and educational, but watching them for 3 hours makes none of the information stick, I go to bed late, I usually feel worse when I'm done, etc. I really need to cut back on my screen time.

Current list of self-work:

** Top priority: Proper grieving of M**
- Re-prioritizing kids after grasping after W the last few months as I felt her slip away
- Alcohol (stopped for now, no binge drinking in the future)
- Sleep habits
- Workout habits
- Building and maintaining friendships
- Less screen time

[DnJ]

Hello Card

Absolutely agree with your assessment of the algorithms. Of course, that is a constant pressure from almost everywhere in our modern world.

Ah, sitting in the shade of a tree with a gentle breeze. The smells of BBQ wafting through the air. The feel of lush grass upon your bare feet. Might be a better world if folks grounded themselves a bit more often.

I do like your self-work list. Achieving such worthy goals is accomplished in small steps. To that end, being more specific will help. (You may have done that, and just listed the summary so please take no offence.) Some samples:

- Sleep habits. I will be in bed by 10:00 pm on week nights. With no caffeinated beverages past 7:00 pm.

- Workout habits. I will do 30 minutes at the gym on Tuesdays and Thursdays. (Ramp up from there as time progresses.)

- Building and maintaining friendships. Meet best friend for monthly BBQ. Set up six week schedule of diner with my three friends (each time the location shifts to the next person’s house). Have a monthly card game night with <insert names>.

I’m sure you get the idea. By the way, the game night would probably work well with daughter. And likely would be more often. For a couple more years anyhow.

Have a great day.

D

[Card29]

Hi DnJ,

You are correct that I have more specific goals that I just didn't spell out, at least for a few of them. Thanks for the suggestions, especially about scheduling time with friends, not just winging it. Winging it will be hard for me, especially the weeks I have my kids. Without realizing it, I've actually already done this with one friend that I haven't seen much the last few months. He lives on the other side of the city. My Thursday night grief recovery class is on that side of town. So we have a standing agreement that we'll get together after my class. We went to a game together last night.

Mood update: I've felt much better the last 3-4 days. I have an appetite in the morning again. The lows aren't as low or as long lasting. But this week is W's move out, except for bigger items which she will get next week. So we went through the house on Tuesday and agreed on what she would take. We made a list of what she's taking and signed both copies. The utilities and wifi were in her name, so we switched all of that over. She actually screwed me a little (on accident) as I will not have internet for the next week. I mentioned it to her without being angry, but just standing up for myself. But all of these events have added up to me not feeling very good today so far. I'm really feeling the losses. W, her R with D11, my R with in-laws. And last night was my last night with our dog.

Conversations with in-laws: I spoke with the rest of W's family. I had a 45 minute call with her sister. I sent a surface-level group text to her younger brothers, not talking about any details of the situation. And I had a short phone call with MIL.

SIL is the 2nd oldest of the 4 siblings (W is oldest), and is by far the most well-adjusted these days. I knew from FIL that she is not happy with W's decision. W isn't speaking to her still (after they spoke almost daily for years). I absolutely know that blood is thicker than water, and she will support her sister. And we even talked about that. I just thought we owed each other a conversation. I didn't bury W. She led with the idea that she didn't believe some of the things W has said to FIL or MIL, or that they weren't reasons to leave a M.

One of my main motivations for the call was about FIL. He can be hot headed, and I could see him negatively affecting the situation. As I said before, this situation has triggered his D from 20 years inside of him. We talked about how, whenever W starts talking to SIL again, that SIL will be one of the best voices in W's life. And we talked about FIL and that dynamic with W. She agreed 100%, and after our call, she spoke with FIL. I had a brief chat with FIL later, and he said SIL and him agreed that FIL will give W space until he calms down, and SIL would be the one to talk to W, whenever she's ready. They had been planning a group call, almost like an intervention.

I emphasized it wasn't about SIL saving our M. Our M is between me and W only. W just needs the positive influence, regardless of our future. S1 needs a healthy mom, and we want W to be the healthiest, happiest version of herself. SIL has been benefited greatly from counseling and other mental health activities the last few years, so I really hope she can be a positive influence.

I talked to SIL about what my understanding of W's motivations and feelings have been. I recapped a lot of the last year that I didn't feel comfortable sharing with her before this went down (W's struggles, some of the episodes that occurred leading up to BD) to help give her more perspective since W has not shared anything really intimate with any of her family in a long time. I was the only one to witness it as W can't wear that mask 24/7. Her family lives 5 hours away, so she can put on the happy act for 2-3 days during a visit, and on 15 minute FaceTime calls. It partially feels like violating some rules I've seen here, especially Wonka's tip to not ask friends/family for help. But I also wasn't asking SIL to intervene, to try to talk sense into her, etc. We talked about the opposite, that those would fall on deaf ears at best, and push her further away at worst.

Again, while this all felt like violating some rules, I knew that SIL was not going to get an ounce of truth from the situation today, and was going to be operating on confusion and misinformation. Maybe this was a mistake, but I felt strongly compelled to fill her in on some of the details, to at least let her know how much she has struggled for the last year and this isn't just out of the blue.

My phone call with MIL was mostly surface level, and it was maybe 5 minutes long. I wanted to at least have one phone call with her so that it didn't feel like there were battle lines being drawn (me calling FIL and SIL, but not MIL). W is talking to MIL daily, because MIL isn't challenging anything she's doing. And that's fine, I am not trying to influence that. Not one person on the planet can change that besides MIL and W.

Now that I've had those calls with the in-laws, I don't plan on making any more, as much as I like talking to them. It will hurt my detachment, and if word of regular conversations get back to W, I see her interpreting it as manipulative and pursuing.

Upcoming plans: I have a night with D11 and S1 tonight. I was going to take D11 to the planetarium, as we haven't been in years. But I just checked and it's still closed from COVID. Weird.

My ex-BIL and I are going to a concert out of town tomorrow. He is also going through a D. I don't know how I feel about that as I don't feel like I'm position to help someone out right now. But I'll just see how it goes. My counselor said it might be really good for me.

And speaking of counselor, my next IC appointment is this coming Tuesday.

[Card29]

Grief recovery class: I had class #2 of 8 last night. It was strange because at the time I was riding high and felt really detached. I did not have the anxiety or stress. I almost felt bad about that. Other people in the class were bawling their eyes out about their struggles. And they have some very dark things that have happened to them. But I still have a lot of hope or this class.

Yesterday, we recapped the reading assignment, and mostly just talked about our reactions to it and what we've experienced in our own situations as it pertains to the text. We talked a lot about the unhelpful interactions from loved ones (or even "not so loved" ones). We all got a sheet with this drawing of a couple of dozen people climbing all over a tree, exhibiting various emotions. We circled which one we identify with right now, and which one we want to identify with in the future. I picked the person who looked unhappy, and was staring at a happy couple. I am very envious of friend's and family's relationships and marriages. But I know they aren't all perfect, and I feel that way because I've lost the comfort of mine. My emotions want me to be right back in a relationship, whether it's W or someone else. My logical thoughts know that's not a good idea right now (or even in near future, likely measured in years). It was good to identify what I'm feeling, why, and what I really need at the moment. My emotional extinct would have me in the "Replace the Loss" category, which is one of the missteps to recovery from grief.

Homework assignment for the week is reading the next 3 chapters, filling out a work sheet pertaining to the reading material, and then taking 1 small step towards being the "tree person" you hope to be in the future.

One interesting note that I saw on the homework assignment was this: 99% of your grief is not your fault. It's your natural reaction to a loss. But 1% is on you. We can't control the 99%, and we can't change the loss. But we can control the 1%, which is ourselves. I haven't read the text yet, so I'm guessing it will go into more detail about how this works in practice. My guess for why those numbers are like that is to absolve the griever from responsibility without making them feel helpless.

[Card29]

W fully moving out today. I should have left before she got there. Not feeling great. Did not act “as if” I’m doing great