When ‘Good’ Things Go Bad

My UH has been trying to take on more actions toward getting things accomplished. I have requested, for years, that he maintain his own list or method ‘tool’, as he would do at work, to facilitate his participation in the household responsibilities. He is ADD, but manages to use tools of accommodation for it at work. Why not at home?

BIG issue over the years.

He – under invested. Me- over invested.

Anyways– day before yesterday he arrived home (when he said he would by text– a good thing) wearing a Santa suit. He’s been talking about getting one for three years and in fact it has been on the list. So a ‘good’ thing, right? Not for my lizard brain PTSD nervous system. To take an action, even a ‘good’ one, then use a white lie “I’m swimming” he texted, to cover up that he was Santa suit shopping so he could ‘surprise’ me–not good for a PTSD nervous system. Not good to tell even a white lie when you have been lying for years and keeping secrets. Not good.

Yesterday he walks by me while I am painting and says “I’m taking in the Vespa”. WHAT? Although we have talked about getting the Vespa up and running again for four or five years, he did not run it past me that he wanted to do it now. He loves the Vespa, even though it is ‘mine’–given to me by him in 2007. (He rides it way more than I do–yeah, that kind of gift) We had agreed to put it off until we had expendable income. He got a refund of old pay a couple months ago–so he figures he can do this. All true. Good thing.

What is NOT good is when he goes ahead and acts without keeping me on the page. What is not good is when he ‘works’ on list things that are fun for him, but not on the list things that are less fun. You know, those responsibility things. Balance is all I ask.

So I sent him an email 4:25a.m because I did not want to wake him (even though I am triggered by my lizard brain and not feeling safe) and I wanted to organize my thoughts to present calmly and graciously. In the email I applauded his list efforts and explained how untenable any ‘surprises’ are for me and my PTSD lizard brain. Especially ones that leave me in the dark about actions (kind of part of the definition of a surprise/secret) I’ve told him not to surprise me any more. My nervous system gets triggered.

We’ll see how he reacts. Will he ‘get it’ and apologize/empathize or will he get angry/defensive/make it about him with some version of “I can’t ever do anything right” (shame- see photo of man in box looking like a caught bad little boy, above) All I can do is make a request. I am not responsible for how he reacts. I can only be gracious, reasonable, kind—and request.

Home from Deployment

My daughter came home from her nine month deployment in Afghanistan yesterday. Her hubby posted some photos of the whole regiment arriving, then a couple of them embracing and two of my daughter arriving home and seeing her eighteen month old daughter for the first time.

My daughter’s face was shiny slick with tears as she smiled cheek to cheek with a grinning hubby and her face red , eyes gleaming with more tears as she lifted her daughter who knew it was mommy because of the daily FaceTiming they’d been doing. I can imagine my daughter was wondering if her baby would remember her as she’s been gone half her short life. Thank God for technology.

I cried as I looked at these photos. So many emotions were all jumbled around my aching heart. I feel like I am missing out on so much of their lives yet I am so happy for their reunion. I also remember being apart from my husband early in our marriage when he was still on active duty. How hard it was to spend so long apart. And then a sharp pain in my heart remembering how many of those times my husband was gone on recruiting trips, first in the military and then in civilian life–cheating on me and his family. How could he? How could so much precious beauty be devalued? I will never understand the incomprehensible.

Then I missed them, because they are on the other side of the country. I can’t just hop in the car and go hug my daughter. Even if I could, she has grown more and more distant from me, especially since the revelation of her father’s infidelity. She judges me as harshly as him, more so. She loves her Santa Dad. Respects her responsible mom, but doesn’t seem to want to be close. It hurts my heart. Her dad has filled her head with stuff about me—negative judgements, yet she has built her own. And I don’t understand that either. My heart aches for her–that she has to live knowing her parent’s marriage was not what she thought. Me too.

Sometimes it feels like I have all but lost my family. Either to death or distance or betrayal. My family is small so there are not many people anyways. My heart aches for what I wish I had. Yet I know that a lot of people have distant families, both geographically and/or emotionally. I certainly am not unique in that. To build expectations for it to be different is a set up for resentment and unhappiness. So I try to be as thankful as I can for what I do have. They are heathy. They are reunited. My UH is much less angry than he used to be. He is continuing to go to 12 step groups and therapy. He puts himself in the path of recovery. I can wish all I want that he would become a man of integrity and reliability—use the tools he is exposed to at all those meetings, but once again—expectations build resentment and unhappiness.

It is so hard not to want. I don’t know how to stop wanting and wishing

As the Alanon slogan says:

Let Go And Let God.

So difficult, so sad, so painful.

I will see my daughter in mid March. I am grateful for what short visits I can.

I am grateful.

New Twist

I work as an in home care giver. Today I went to train for and with a new client; an eighty five year old woman who lives overlooking the sea not far from where I lived as a senior in high school. I even drove by my old place on the way there. Such a pretty location.

Anyways, this woman’s house reminded me of my parent’s house. All original 1960’s furniture, appliances, kitchen cabinets, the works. The caregiver that usually works for them trained me in how to prepare the special foods the client needs. Very particular. I am looking forward to time with this new client to learn about her. She had dozens of framed photos of family all over the house. Evidently they all live far away, so I can relate.

Her husband is still alive and lives there too. HE seemed quiet and to himself.

It is always like a puzzle when meeting new care clients. Even though the company I work for provides basic information about them, it is in the talking face to face that I get to know each. I look forward to learning about them. Everyone has such a unique life story. Perhaps it is why I love older people. They have had so much life experience and thus stories. A real wealth of humanity.

Caring for others gets me out of the house. I am a home body and have the tendancy to stay home unless there’s a good reason not to. My work gets me out and about. I can empathize with the elderly and their challenges as they age. I cared for my parents in the last couple years of their lives. It is a bittersweet time. I find a lot of inspiration in how many folks deal with the inevitable slowing down. And I find myself more and more reflecting back on my own life. Way back before marriage and kids. Back when I was just me. That person who had so much life ahead and so much love to give.

I miss her. I miss being her. That person who thought no one would ever hurt her if she just worked hard and gave her all. I miss being her. I miss the love and protection of my parents.

People so often say the cliche “older and wiser’, as though that is the ultimate aspiration. Personally, I’d rather not be wiser when that means facing the reality day after day of being used and betrayed. All my goodness and giving gobbled up without being treated with the respect and care it deserved—I deserve. No one deserves to be lied to and manipulated. Especially not one who gives her all.

So the new care client’s home brings back a flood of memories of the girl and young woman I was. A really genuinely nice person. Tender hearted, empathetic, loving. I feel sad for her—for me. She did not get her measure of reward for all she gave. But then life isn’t fair though, is it?

While at work I got a text from my daughter telling me she is back on American soil. Afghanistan deployment is over. Praise God. I am so grateful she is home with her family in North Carolina. Truly grateful. More bittersweet–home, but so far away. SO very far away. May God bless her and keep her safe. May she never have to experience intimate betrayal. I pray her husband will be good to her. I pray for my granddaughter and her safety. I feel so left out of their lives. It makes me sad. Yet I am grateful they are together again and well.

Life is funny that way. Bitter and sweet.

Tomatoes in February

I read somewhere that Southern California is one of the only places in the United States that can grow tomatoes outdoors to harvest in winter.

And so I cautiously planted in late September.

You know what?

They were right.

Oh yee of little faith.

Just because something sounds impossible and has indeed been proven to be impossible almost everywhere else—does not mean that it is impossible. Not here. Not now.

And just like tomatoes– a pretty smooth, shiny red fruit that plays vegetable and looks like it is still in its larval stage when sliced open, we who are struggling to recover from a life blown up can look normal, even pretty on the outside, but are all squishy and unfinished on the inside.

That truth divulged, we betrayed tomatoes who have had the good fortune to have a good education, high speed internet, a penchant for research and a drive to learn have all the ingredients to move forward in our life. Maybe it can be said that we are as rare as juicy ripe tomatoes in February.

Even though being lucky to live in a time and place where I have access to lots of information, it doesn’t make having a recalcitrant unfaithful any easier to live on the other side of day in and out. And I know I should be soooo grateful. I am.

It still stinks to have an unengaged, fearful, short fused person living under the same roof who looks like someone I used to be married to.

So here’s to you–living in late winter, probably tomato-less, worse yet– eating those pale plastic things they sell in the market that they call tomatoes. Hang in there and take it one day at a time.

And believe that summer will eventually come. With real tomatoes possible for us all.

Just maybe life will be sweet and juicy again.

One can dream.

One day at a time.

Dead, But Not Gone

I watched the Kobe and Gianna memorial service today. It was heart wrenching to hear the grief and loss in the voices of those who spoke of him. Loved ones taken from us too early and all of a sudden is such a cruel loss. Those cut down in their prime, or even more difficult, as children, leave such a hole in the lives of all who know them, depend on them, interact with them.

Which brought me to the comparison of the grief suffered in the reality of intimate betrayal.

My spouse’s body is still here. I see him every day. The person I fell in love with is gone. Some betrayed say that person died on the day they found out about the betrayal. In my case, my UH died a long and lonely death.

I lived with him for years as he slowly withdrew emotional connection and physical investment in ‘us’. A thousand little betrayal cuts piled up upon my heart. A thousand failures to follow through with agreements, chores, responsibilities. A thousand withholdings of help. YEs, on D-day I lost him in full suckerpuch experience, but it had been building for years. I had felt alone in our marriage and so often abandoned.

“Is it so much easier to lose your husband by choice?” Kathy Bate’s character says to her daughter who is grieving the loss of her husband to cancer in the film P.S. I Love You. Kathy’s husband left her for another woman years before.

I can answer that with a resounding ‘NO!!’.

It would have been easier had he died. How do I know that? Because I’ve suffered the loss of both parents and a brother. None of that came close to my spouse’s betrayal or the loss of the person I thought I knew. He abandoned me and our marriage by choice. He killed our marriage volitionally. He chose to betray us time after time and year after year. And he still chooses abandonment–disconnection—surface interaction.

My husband is dead.

In his place is a person I do not know. The man I married would never have even considered touching another woman. He would never have spent his daughter’s inheritance. He would not have spent our retirement nest egg. He would never have considered chasing after other women. Never.

I don’t know this person who looks like the person I married, but does not act like him. The person I married would not allow me to suffer in silence in order to maintain his comfort and shame. He would not have withheld love from me as he does now every single day he remains silent–knowing full well I need him to talk. To share his understanding, compassion and remorse.

But he chooses to remain silent. Day after day. Days adding up and turning into a thousand little cuts of withholding love in favor of abandonment. This doppelgänger that looks like my husband is silent. And in his silence, he is cruel.

I don’t know him.

And I don’t want to know him or be around him.

His likeness and presence taunts me with the reality of all I have lost. And with the reality that he does not love me and has not loved me for many years. He does not and will not give me his heart. He keeps it locked away inside the shell of a man who happens to look like the guy I married. Only older. So much older. Dorian Grey has been outed and his image now matches the old image of the painting that has been in the closet for thirty years. The painting of the person who could betray and lie and manipulate the woman he swore to love… into staying with him, into sleeping with him–into believing he was someone he most definitely was not.

So no–it is not easier to lose your spouse through his choices.

It stinks.

Greif sucks.

Only the shell of him remains to taunt me.

The Church of My Garden

I’ve not been going to regular services for the last couple months. I was not enjoying the service sitting next to my UH, It was hard to achieve calm when he continues to avoid me and processing. Sadly, he is a big trigger. So I told him I would be staying home until and unless I feel safer.

Well it has been a good thing. Example: Today I spent three and a half hours in my back garden trimming. There is something about repetitive work outdoors that feeds my soul. I get to enjoy the sun, the cool breeze and all the plants. By the time I am finished, I have accomplished a big portion of my pre-spring severe cut back of some of the bushes. The others have to wait until they have bloomed. Hawthorne gets the most exquisite pink flowers in March. The other bushes will soon fill in as the weather warms.

I have a gardener that comes for about twenty minutes a week. He does the cursory trimming, but not something that takes more time. He maintains the plants. I really appreciate his service. He worked for my parents before us, and his dad before him. Perhaps as I age I may have to pay him extra to do this more major trimming/lacing. But as long as I am able, it is a wonderful form of exercise and nature meditation.

I expect to be a bit sore tomorrow–a good sore. In the meantime I achieved nearly all my 10,000 step and some good muscular workout. Nice change from weights.

If you are fortunate enough to have a garden, I encourage you to spend time there. Even if you are not a gardener, there is something about the respiration of the plants. Their green presence is soothing. I can almost feel them breathe along with me.

Oh—and I had canine company. My dogs love to be where I am and I appreciate their support. Life abounds around me.

Laudry is done, bed remade with fresh sheets. It is so important to treat yourself well while you are recovering. And, heh, everyday. I know I too often gave too much, to my detriment. I have learned to take better care of myself. One of the positives resulting from betrayal. I will care for me even if no one else does—ESPECIALLY when no one else is.

And you need to care for yourself too. You deserve kindness. Let your heart rest by doing things that bring you joy.

Another Saturday Night

…and I ain’t got nobody…

Not so much this.

Although this song does come to mind when thinking about being in an unfamiliar place with no one to talk to. While the singer is looking for a lady friend to spend his money and time on, we who have been betrayed are looking for a new life.

When you are living with an intimacy anorexic, avoidant unfaithful, you are alone a lot. Left alone by one who avoids you because they do not want to hear about the consequences of their actions on you. They will not reassure you, express empathy or make repairs because that would make them uncomfortable.

So it is with all Saturday nights now. I no longer volunteer to go to the Saturday night speaker meeting through AA with my UH. I have detached from activities in support of him or to focus on ‘US’ because he is not willing to invest in them. Oh sure, he sits his butt in the seat, but he does not do the work. He does not take the wisdom learned and apply it. He does not and will not do the above mentioned necessaries to allow me to feel valued, respected and reassured that he is willing to process through all this.

He avoids it. Thus, he avoids me.

Unless there is something fun to do such as visiting a relative, going to see the grandchild, attending a concert or going on vacation. Then he is all in. Fun, fun, fun.

Recovery action? Nope.

So I spent some time perusing the local adult education catalogue. They are offering Tai chi. Something I want to try. Unfortunately they start their next session when I will be visiting my granddaughter across the country. So I dropped them an email asking if and when summer session begins.

I made a list of things I’ve long put on the back burner in favor of rest and recovery. I want to contact the publisher of a couple of my books to see if they would be interested in taking the books that have been discontinued by another publisher who has gone out of business. I also want to transfer my writing/author website to a new site because my old site has been frozen for quiet some time. Hacked, then cleaned up by my hosting company, though never able to get back into. I’d like to be able to add blogs over there, should I wish to.

I ordered another painting kit made from a photo of my foster daughter. I have completed a painting of my daughter and my son. I’m working toward having a small gallery of family paintings in my bedroom on the wall. After foster daughter I will paint one of my pooch. Then maybe one of myself. We’ll see.

So as you can see, I am moving forward in self care.

I am reading “The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessell Van Der Kolk. A classic about trauma and recovery. It is excellent, but pretty dense, so I’m taking it slow.

Got in my 10,000 steps and weight lifting.

Looking forward to meditation tonight.

I have told our marriage counselor how lonely I feel. I’ve actually been processing through that statement and find that I am seldom lonely. Perhaps I used the wrong word. I enjoy my own company immensely. What I miss is what has been taken from me. A best friend. Or who I thought was my best friend. When all along my true friends have been my handful of gal pals–all of whom live far away. What I miss is a face to face friend. What I wish I had was a partner who wanted to be transparent, open and deep.

So I think that is not ‘lonely’ so much as disappointed and deprived of love. Face to face love. Agape love. Someone to mirror care, respect, empathy—a good listener as I would love to be for them.

Looking in the eyes, the heart of another human being who cares for me and I for them.

All that being as it is–I am still so very very grateful for all I do have. I am my own best friend and company–which is a good thing. I am blessed in that. I have physical comforts and loyal dogs. So much for which to be grateful.

Another Saturday Night and I ain’t got nobody… but me and the dogs. Hey, not bad at all.

To Stay or Go

Some months back I told my UH that if I didn’t see significant progress, I would have to ask him to move out. After three and a half years of little to no forward movement, I felt at the end of my rope—and boundaries. I’d already asked for an in house separation. Over the months I’ve detached (in love) from the recovery activities we were doing as a couple because he was not investing in them and I needed to work on healing myself.

I told him that if he invests, I will consider investing too. Until such a time, I am working on me. Trying to regain the strength that was obliterated by his betrayals and his behavior since is a full time job. His abuse, anger and bullying used to be bad enough for me to ask him to leave and sleep at a friend’s house.

That said, he has come a long way from those days when he was so very emotionally abusive and physically scary.

He has yet to convey validation or proactive concern for how his choices have impacted me. Nor has he expressed empathy or remorse . No amends other than a couple brief cursory “I’m sorry for all I did”‘s. I’ve told him I need to know and hear specific ‘what’s’ and why’s. What specific action or event are you sorry for and why? This is not to be a task master or to watch him squirm. This is bare fook’in minimum necessary for me to even begin to feel he is owning what he’s done and taken the time to process through it enough to realize the costs…to himself and others, especially me.

I don’t want to be in relationship with a man who won’t own what he’s done and take responsibility for repairing it. Nor do I feel safe to be in close relationship with a man who has not processed through each and every one of his bad choices. It has been my experience that no processing equals relapse–not ‘if’, but ‘when’.

So–weighing these factors, I can not say I feel so unsafe as to have to ask him to leave. We are not in a financial position to support two separate households, even minimal ones, on our fixed retirement incomes and part time supplemental work. I will not degrade my frugal standard of living even further unless I am pushed to have to do so through his regressive behavior(s).

I do not see our in house separation ending any time soon. It would take a whole lot of consistency on displaying the aforementioned ownership and expressions/demonstrations of concern for me to entertain reengagement of a relationship that includes such close physical proximity–even if that does not include sex. We do not have an intimate emotional connection. Without that I would not consider sleeping with any man. With our now tainted history of abusiveness, any sharing of quarters is still simply too triggering. He has not demonstrated himself to be safe and remorseful, so I do not feel safe to reconnect emotionally or physically.

I choose to protect myself through detachment. No ill wishes toward him. Infact, many good wishes and prayers.

Even though I have explained this many times in numerous ways to him, using metaphors and kind tones, he still seems to think this reconciliation will somehow magically occur. Further demonstration of an inability to process reality.

So while I do not intend to ask him to move out if things remain stable and continue to move in the right direction, neither do I foresee reconciliation on the horizon. I DO foresee continued self care topping my personal list and further exploration of what things I might like to do with my time to help myself and others. I pray for the ability and good fortune to find another friend or two that live locally so I might have some women with whom to share.

I am not certain that I will continue writing daily blogs after my four year d-day (Saturday Feb 29–yeah he dropped the bomb on Leap year day four years ago) As long as I have something to share, I will write. It is part of my self care and helps fill my need to feel useful to others. My life is so enriched when I can help others. I promised myself, self–committed to me, to write daily for one year.

I look forward to reaching a growing circle of individuals and invite any of you to leave comments, either here in the comment section for all to read, or contact me privately on the contact page. We all need each other in this journey called life. Especially when life deals us a knock down blow, such as intimate betrayal.

To Healing.

Directed Thinking

The 12 step guru who facilitates our workshop teaches ‘Directed thinking’ form of meditation. It is a way of accomplishing a daily tenth step to keep things from compounding into resentments or bitterness.

When I focus on setting aside all of what I think I know about my past, myself, my spiritual path and my Higher Power in order to have a new experience and learn about myself, my brokenness, my spiritual path and especially my higher power, it puts me in the right frame of mind to learn more about my Higher Power. What does He want for me and my life?

So I take one aspect of what has been giving me difficulty. Example: How can I continue to detach from my spouse without so much pain and discomfort? And then I listen. Not for an audible voice, but for that sort of wee small whisper inside me.

How do I know if whatever I ‘hear’ is my ego or my Higher Power? I don’t know. I am a work in progress on this directed thinking. I image any advise or suggestion I sense would be less likely to be me and my ego if it is actually helpful in moving me forward.

I’ve been doing this for a number of months and have a tough time continuing to be patient waiting for some results. In the meantime, I find it a soothing, quiet time that allows me to gain serenity for that period of time–say ten minutes. It also stays with me…I remain calm for some time into the future.

As science has proven, meditation has all sorts of physiological and mental health benefits, so I really have nothing to lose. I think it might be beneficial to try doing it early in the day, as I have taken to meditation right before bed. Or do it early and late. It is a great way to calm your mind before retiring. I imagine it would help with clarity for the day ahead if done in the morning.

So off I go to ‘show up’ for my meditation practice. I’m only responsible for trying and showing up—not for the results. Guess that is why they call it a ‘practice’, lol.

I invite anyone who has undertaken directed thinking and/or meditation to tell us about your experience…

Spiritual Poverty

“The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty — it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality.”

Just as we are wired for attachment, to be part of a community, so too are we in need of sustenance to feed our soul. I believe that is as Mother Theresa has explained it. We crave love.

And if God is love, then so we can connect the dots to a hunger for God. In the case of Mother Theresa, that would be the catholic perspective of God. In the 12 step perspective it would be much more inclusive. The God of their reference is the unknowable, indescribable “Higher Power”. What is it in the universe that seems to transcend all knowing? What is the force that glues us together if not love?

I’m not referencing the gooey romantic love of film and books. That is more a feeling engendered by the object of our enamourment that allows us to bask in the glow of how they make us feel. That and powerful hormones.

I speak of a love, an agape love, a love that chooses others above self. Selfless love.

As limited beings with bodies that require replenishment and the perimeters of time; our ability to express agape love is also limited.

The kind of love I have tried, Lord so hard, to give day in and out. I have tried.

This betrayal has changed me. That woman of Agape love used to be me. Now I have turned that love onto myself. To heal. To make it through a day. All that energy and power of agape love is eaten up in an attempt to breathe and love and struggle toward the light of change and growth…and love.

It is I who now need agape love. I who have been impoverished by betrayal and the loss of the relationship that gave me a soft place to fall—someone to rely on if the world were to explode.

Well it did explode. And it was precisely that person who had his hand on the detonator. He who purchased the explosives. Not the person to turn to after the explosion. Not safe.

I who have had enough reserve to give to others in spiritual poverty my whole life long, am now depleted and bankrupt. I, the only one who can recover—alone. Feed my own soul, body and heart. Scrape whatever strength I can glean from nature, art, music, animals, and time. Slow. So slow. I struggle toward the light.

It’s not simple to say
That most days I don’t recognize me
That these shoes and this apron
That place and its patrons
Have taken more than I gave them
It’s not easy to know
I’m not anything like I used be, although it’s true
I was never attention’s sweet center
I still remember that girl
She’s imperfect, but she tries
She is good, but she lies
She is hard on herself
She is broken and won’t ask for help
She is messy, but she’s kind
She is lonely most of the time
She is all of this mixed up and baked in a beautiful pie
She is gone, but she used to be mine
It’s not what I asked for
Sometimes life just slips in through a back door
And carves out a person and makes you believe it’s all true
And now I’ve got you
And you’re not what I asked for
If I’m honest, I know I would give it all back
For a chance to start over and rewrite an ending or two
For the girl that I knew
Who’ll be reckless, just enough
Who’ll get hurt, but who learns how to toughen up
When she’s bruised and gets used by a man who can’t love
And then she’ll get stuck
And be scared of the life that’s inside her
Growing stronger each day ’til it finally reminds her
To fight just a little, to bring back the fire in her eyes
That’s been gone, but used to be mine
Used to be mine
She is messy, but she’s kind
She is lonely most of the time
She is all of this mixed up and baked in a beautiful pie
She is gone, but she used to be mine