I've been asked to share some thoughts so here I go.
How many of you are at a point in your recovery that you can accept that you added to the breakdown in your marriage?
When I look back on my own marriage I have finally realized that I'm partly to blame. Maybe I always realized it but was not able to admit it. I'm not talking about that piece of cr-p list your x gives you that lists all the things you did wrong. We all know those lists were made up as an excuse. I'm talking about the real negative contribution you made.
I always thought I had a wonderful marriage. Always bragged because we never had a fight. I realize now that that was a symptom of trouble in my marriage. We never had a fight because we never talked about the things we didn't like. We brushed everything under the carpet or carried it around in our hearts.
There was so much stuff that I can now admit that I think there were other affairs during my marriage. I always felt that the relationship my spouse had with 2 different women at work were questionable and now I'm recovered enough to admit that I ignored them.
Eventually all that stuff eats away at the marriage and the strong base is gone. X started looking for something else and of course a new mistress was more than willing to give it. She sensed immediatly what I wasn't giving him and jumped in. It's not her fault he was out there available, she just saw an opportunity to improve her own life and did! It's X's fault and mine.
Now I'm not saying it's my fault the x ended up in an affair, he knew what he was doing was wrong and did it anyway. What I'm saying is I helped create a situation where he didn't think he could talk to me. I stopped being his best friend and he wanted one.
So my contribution to my own divorce is just that I stopped being my husband's best friend and it cost me my marriage.
Short of a spouse have a diagnosed illness I can't think of a case where we didn't all have some contribution.
So, here's the question, what was YOUR contribution?
You are so right! I, too, am not without fault in the marriage. I think my trouble was partially that I would not admit that or ever admit being wrong. I was always right and darn proud of it!
Just like you, there were other times when I thought my H might have cheated but I sure talked myself out of that way of thinking and of course he denied it. Thinking back - it is possible he cheated all through our M but was clever enough to keep it hidden. I could not let that happen, better not to know.
I also travelled too much. Too much time away from him. Maybe that works fine in some situations but my ex was needy and I think he needed me to be home more. I think I was running away. From a less than perfect homelife. Unlike you - my ex and I DID fight. Often. And fairly nasty. We never really learned effective ways to communicate.
Part of it comes from marrying your first BF, I think. And marrying young. It doesn't really prepare you for the future very well.
And we were saddled with a HUGE burden at a young age. Losing the child we knew to a horrible illness and instead, bringing home a disabled child from hospital, not the son we knew, but a much different version of him. Hard for anyone to comprehend. But he was ours and we loved him but life as we knew it changed forever. For there were years in hospitals and years in court rooms (malpractice suit). It takes its toll on your R, because you don't always agree on how to handle things
But I always put my children first. I would NEVER have cheated on him. I take responsibility for my part in our divorce. And yes - I told him so. And I apologized. But it was too late anyway. And now I wouldn't change a thing.
Yes porn is an excellent example of an issue that would be too hard to discuss in a marriage filled with avoidance. It's so embarrassing that my X use to blame our sons when I would see that someone had been on a porn site on the family computer. Those poor boys insisted that they weren't doing it but they got punished anyway because their Dad was they only other person in the house and he certainly wasn't going on those sites!!
I've been thinking lately about something my mother said recently. My Mother and Father were married for 30 years, divorced and then remarried. My Mother was the left behind when my Dad went off the deep end with a younger women and booze.
There are three kids in our family. My brother is the oldest was left behind by his wife of 34 years, my sister is next was left behind by her husband of 33 years, and them my I was left behind by my husband after 25 years.
My Mom was talking about thinking she had done something wrong in the way she raised us that caused us all to have these marriage problems. At the time, I told her it had nothing to do with her but lately I'm thinking that she did.
I think the example she and my Dad gave of not communicating effected us. It's what we knew, it's what we did in our own marriages.
Yeap four marriages and all three kids and Mom were left behind. What are the odds?
On the bright side my parents did find each other again. I actually was the Maid of Honor when my Mother and Father remarried. Of course my X was the Best Man - go figure!
My parents had been apart for several years. They had been legally seperated, got back together, split up and then got divorced. My Mom was dating and my Dad was trying to get his life together again.
One day Dad knocked on the door and asked if they could talk. He wanted to come home after five years. Mom didn't let him right away, they went to marriage Cons, had dates, my Dad was required to get out of debt, stuff like that. It took about ten months and then Mom let him move back in.
Not long after the second wedding Dad became extremely ill. He was terminal and required nearly constant care. Mom had lots of help and managed to keep him home with her for ten more years. The 11th year, Dad was in a nursing home. She went everyday rain or shine as Dad wouldn't eat unless she was there to feed him. When Dad finally passed away he was in Mom's arms.
Mom's alone again but not as a left behind anymore, now she's a dedicated widow who keeps his memory alive for all of us....
You'ld love her!
As for me, well I try to remember to communicate more. It's not always easy as Rob and I have such busy lives. Rob is doing double shifts at work and I'm a full time college student who also holds down a full time job. I think much of the time when we don't communicate it's from exhaustion rather than avoidance.
A thought occured to me the other day and this thread came to mind.
I have observed in myself and many others that most of us have what I have come to recognize as a "Fallback Position". By that I simply mean a self-preserving behaviour that we tend to run to when we perceive we are under pressure or threat or pain or desparation of any kind.
Why is this relevant to this thread? Well.... I recognize in myself that when the going gets tough, I tend to go to my fallback position which is trying to figure everything out. I go completely to my head and cannot hear my heart. I overprocess and try to win others to my way of thinking.
I further realize that this is a very self-destructive and relationship-destructive behaviour. I become unreachable because I retreat to my head. Thus the name.... Fallback Position.
I have observed in some others what appears to be other fallback positions. For example.... I have observed some guys I know who have histories of violence as having fallback positions of being the tough-guy. When their chips are down or they are under stress.... they resort to either violence or being super macho or some other manifestation that leaves them feeling or looking tough. Yet does this help them relate to anyone? Not that I have seen.
I have observed in some attractive women who have enjoyed attention for their attractiveness, that when cornered or insecure, they attempt to use their attractiveness to control a situation. Or present themselves as being even more together or attractive as their life becomes more disasterous and painful.
Or funny or sarcastic people who use humour to defend or retaliate. How well does this work in an R?
Am I making any sense?
I also have a friend who is a bit of an intellectual snob. When she is cornered.... oh man... her vocab consists of the most complex words that she uses to talk around and down to people. I can sense the pain and insecurity she is going through at the time and only see her become more distant as her intellectualization of things gets deeper. And thereby push us away. She actually tries to make constructive points but we cannot keep up with the complex logic and vocab.
In any or all of these examples, including my own, the fallback habits are so deeply engraned, we have a hard time seeing them. We are self-deceived in these senses. We think we are making progress but we are doing the exact opposite.
I tried to reason and argue with my X as she was leaving.... to the point where she wanted to leave all the more! And I thought I was compelling her to stay with my well-crafted reasoning and persuasive appeals! In my fallback position, I dont hear anyone! I am not really present. I am trying to control or at least feel safe. This is what I am trying to say! This is the relevance to the thread.
So.... Fallback Positions... make sense?...what are yours?
