Chuck, when I posted to you, I thought you were totally stuck, not making any progress with the heart and flying situation. Had I had more information, I would not have posted exactly the way I did.
I mostly wanted to share what I did when I had a major loss. I didn't want to minimize the impact, not flying as a career had on you. Being stuck or feeling short changed in life isn't much fun. I have been there a couple of times and am saddened to see others there too. Best wishes on what ever you were/are feeling.
Lil, I said it made me so sad, because one of the simple pleasures I had looked forward to (my H lost his leg after we were married 4 years) was long walks with my husband
Lil, I see and feel in my own way, some of your loss. Hugs to you ((((Lil)))), Walking with your H sounded like a very comforting thing, and then it is taken away from both of you. Sad.
I concur what the therapist said, missed the point you were making, and agree with you, dufus, dufus, dufus.
Everyone, would you please listen to yourselves? In subtle ways you're telling Chuck not to feel what he is feeling
There are a lot of voices going on in my head from my schizophrenia driven narcissim, But I dont think I qualify as everyone, But since this post was a reply to my post.... No I didnt tell Chuck not to feel anything. Subtly or directly. I asked him if he had taken certain actions...
If he feels that I did, he seems intelligent and literate enough to let me know. I know what you were trying to do, and thought it was the right direction to go, myself. Still Im sure Chuck is capable of having more then one line of discussion happen concurrently, and I learned more about him (as did you) from his replys. I do know about desire over death, Ive been clinically dead more then a couple times pursuing my desires, and had death kiss me so strongly on the lips other times it made my butt pucker up.
I hope things are going well for you Lil, and you are finding ways to take care of you. (((LIL)))
Chuck. Since my days as a commercial diver, its very difficult for me to turn of that mission/goal oriented attitude myself and do it for the sake of doing it. I still love it, but I need a reason.
I was not addressing you in particular, bf-- funny that you thought I was.
Quote: If he feels that I did, he seems intelligent and literate enough to let me know.
He did let you (and the rest of us) know-- over and over again. To the point of losing the thread of the convo, which was NOT how to find a substitute for flying, but how to connect with his grief and with his wife.
Chuck keeps telling us that no one knows exactly how he feels. So let's give him that. In fact, no one does know exactly how someone else feels. And to insist that you do FEELS like devaluation, whether that was the intention or not.
Yes he is capable of saying that (and he DID say it), but are YOU and the other helpful people capable of hearing it?
Last night I posted this, thought more of it and erased it. Lets face it I have more than my share of problems and am not schooled in this yet I have gotten good info from all of you. So wth, here it is again.
CAC, It seems you are inlove with 2 women. Mrs C has had one hell of a time competing with the exilleration of the Lady of the Wind, but, my guess, took happiness in your happiness. Now that that illusive Lady of the Wind is only in your memory and causes you pain, she is pained for you.
You love 2 women. The one in your memory, the one at your side. Take care to not let the pain of your memory, dreams and desires drive away the woman at your side.
{{{hugs}}}
Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at every turn.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
So I was watching "Saturday Night Live" the other night, and a "report" on the "Weekend Update" segment struck me. paraphrasing: "Ford has announced that they will discontinue the popular "Taurus" soon. Now, millions of 30-something Americans will have to find another way to express that they've completely given up on all their hopes and dreams".
Guess what kind of car I drive?
I've had 2 of them.
hey, I know its not an exciting car, but they were cheap!!
Well the Sable, Merc's sister car is very comfortable to drive and reliable.
They are replacing the Taurus with the already released Ford 500. I don't know what era this is but the Pontiac G6 replaced the Grand Prix/Trans Am/Bonneville...
Guess my total era is now gone...GTO Cobra Fireb1rd etc were already distroyed.
Thanks...
Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at every turn.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
The term Madonna-whore complex refers to a psychological complex in Freudian psychoanalysis that develops in the human male. The term is also used popularly, often with subtly different meanings.
According to Freudian psychology, this complex often develops when the sufferer is raised by a cold and distant mother. Such a man will often court women with qualities of his mother, hoping to fulfill a need for intimacy unmet in childhood. Often, the wife begins to be seen as mother to the husband — a Madonna figure — and thus not a possible object of sexual attraction. For this reason, in the mind of the sufferer love and sex cannot be mixed, and the man is reluctant to have sexual relations with his wife, for that, he thinks unconsciously, would be as incest. He will reserve sexuality for "bad" or "dirty" women, and will not develop normal feelings of love in these sexual relationships.
Popularly, the term is used to describe an unsatisfiable desire by a man to have his wife or other female partner exhibit both of these mutually exclusive traits. This introduces a dilemma where men may feel unable to love any women that can satisfy them sexually and are unable to be sexually satisfied by any women that they can love. Alternatively, the term is to describe or attempt to justify the behavior of men who pursue multiple women as a way of fulfilling each of these needs.
For some men, love and sex don't mix. They save love and marriage for "good" women, and only enjoy sex with "bad" women.
In cases of the Madonna/Whore Complex (or Syndrome), a husband's relationship with his wife may be based upon the unmet intimacy needs he had as an infant. He may unconsciously seek out a woman who reminds him of his mother so that those needs can finally be met.
When these men marry, they marry a "good" woman. For them, virginity or the lack thereof, divides "good" from "bad." They will love her, protect her, and treasure her.
They don't feel comfortable having sex with her once they marry. It would be "dirty," like having sex with their own mother, the purest "good" woman in their life.
When or if their wife becomes a mother, the lines blur even more for him between his wife and his mother.
The Madonna/Whore husband will be sexually active but not with his wife. He will have sex outside of marriage, not for love but because he has an active sex drive.
Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at every turn.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Yes he is capable of saying that (and he DID say it), but are YOU and the other helpful people capable of hearing it?
Huh?
Pardon me, what was that you said?
I couldnt hear you over the cacaphony of self involved voices in my head. LOL.
I hope the style of this post is a reaction to something I said, and remains aimed at me. The obtuse dissembling I sense in this post, is not like you. I know I'm just one of many that appreciate your normally forthright viewpoint and additions to the threads.
Lostgal, I thought your post was a great analogy. focusing on a lost love, instead of appreciating the one in front of us.
Geez, blackfoot, are you pretending that you don't follow this?
Here's a play-by-play:
Chuck was starting to reveal the pain in his life, the stuff he is protecting. First it came out that he had to give up his dream of flying because of a heart condition. I suggested that he take some time to grieve that loss. He said that his W had said the same thing to him-- namely, that he needed to grieve that loss. I thought this was HUGE-- that she was empathetic enough to observe this and comment on it. I suggested that she might be enlisted as an ALLY in his effort to reach some healing over what clearly is a very big issue in his life.
Then you and some others (not just you) started telling Chuck of their lost dreams, making suggestions about stuff he could do to still be involved with flying, etc.
Chuck deflected most of those suggestions with comments that boiled down to "you people really don't understand my pain, so stop acting like you do."
I took the position that that was a perfectly legitimate response and that we should respect it. I said that while those suggestions were well-intentioned, they were premature. Somewhere later, Chuck might very well find a way to be involved with flying, but NOW the task is to deal with the feelings of loss and not try to gloss over those feelings.
Chuck AGREED with me here and in doing so, revealed another piece of the puzzle:
Lil: These statements by the other posters ARE meant to offer you comfort, because people don't want you to hurt, but they are about as comforting as when people said to me beside my huband's coffin, "You're young-- you'll meet someone." Yes, people said that. That was true, but way premature.
Chuck: there's certain things that people just won't "get" until its happened to them. "loss of a spouse" is a big one. ane while they were partly "right" ("you'll find someone"), you won't ever replace H. not ever. life goes on, sure, and it may be a good one, but it won't be the same one.
I found this to be the case with infertility, which w and I had to go through. I used to "not get it". then it happened to me; now I get it. here's a tip: don't ever ever ever say to anyone thats having this kind of difficulty, "why don't you just adopt?". OK? just don't.
namely, that he and his wife also had infertility issues. There is a lot of grief and sadness in Chuck's household. No doubt these have something to do with the relationship issues Chuck and his W are experiencing. I was trying to get back to the topic of grieving and acknowledging the unresolved issues between C and his W. To me, these were germaine to the marriage issues topic rather than further suggestions that he find substitutes for flying or just accept that lots of people have lost dreams so get over it. Of course wandering off the main path (where the discomfort is) and knocking ultra-lights, etc., is a lot more appealing than sticking with painful issues. (All of my pilot friends agree that ULs are death machines.)
I'll just add that the infertility has been "resolved". I only mentioned it as an analogy...an example of something that is difficult or impossible to truly understand unless you've been there. But yeah, it does reveal another piece of a puzzle re: our "R". the issue was resolved...we have a beautiful 3-year-old son...but the scars from the process through which we had to go to get here, remain. this wasn't the cause of our problems, though. we weren't exactly "swinging from the chandeliers" before we decided to become parents. But it certainly did intensify whatever underlying issues that were already there.
