From Despair to Contentment

How many times does reality have to slap me in the face to get it? I have zero control over anyone other than myself. I have zero control over my unfaithful’s choices.

And for the time being, my UH chooses to attend lots of meetings and workshops, but does not choose to follow the well proven path toward healing. In this case, our healing.

Oh yeah, he is maintaining his sobriety. He no longer drinks. He no longer sleeps with other women. But he does not attend to his emotional sobriety. And that leaves our relationship in a deep freeze. There is no way for me to feel safety to reengage with him when he does not talk about his process toward emotional sobriety.

Why doesn’t he talk about it? My experience tells me it is because he is not moving toward emotional sobriety. He remains in his shame. He spends his energy beating himself up over how terrible a person he tells himself he is.

See–the problem with that is it leave no energy left to move toward repairing the damage his choices have caused. It keeps it making this mess still and foremost all about him.

He is stewing in shame soup.

And choosing to remain there.

Why?

Because it is so familiar.

His abusive childhood taught him he is not worthy of love. And he continues to reinforce that message inside himself.

Which has the unfortunate result of making it all about him. And it leaves him in the pain he is so adept at denying and sweeping under the rug.

Oh sure, he knows he got the short end of the stick in childhood. He felt abandoned, rejected and a witness to the abuse of his mother. I have huge empathy for little boy him.

I have no empathy for the man who will not heal that little boy and thus inflicts abandonment and rejection upon those around him–me being number one rejected and abandoned. He will not face the damage his choices have caused.

And that brings me to a place of despair….about any ‘us’. Step one of the 12 steps. I am powerless over __________. In this case, I am powerless over his mental health and healing. He has to choose it.

Where does that leave me?

Sink or swim.

I choose to swim.

I choose to focus on the good things in my life.

And mourn the loss of my husband—to his shame and his choice to remain there.

Is this the life I planned and worked every day of my life to be enjoying in retirement? Absolutely not. Is this the dream–the reward for all my investment in him, my home and family? Nope.

That does not mean it can not still be good.

He has no control over my choice to see the beauty in the world and the many blessing I have. And I have many.

I choose life. I choose to be content in the home I am blessed to occupy. I choose to love my dogs, my garden, my books, my writing, my baking, my portrait painting and my friends (even if they live far away and are in quarantine just like me)

This holiday season they will receive a portrait painted by me– of them. They will have something that reflects the beauty and gratitude I see and feel for them, in tangible form. And I will drive across country with my son to see my daughter and granddaughter. I will have the joy of giving them the many toys I have been saving for thirty years for my yet to be born grandchild(ren)– the toys they enjoyed as children and now my granddaughter can enjoy. I will rest in the contentment that I am blessed to live in a time and place that has brought many good things into my life.

I am not the first, nor sadly will I be the last, to lose my spouse. Some lose their’s to death. Some to physical abandonment. Some to emotional abandonment. Way too many of we betrayed lose our spouse to their sick, selfish choices. He deprived me of my human dignity to agency over my own life choices by manipulation of my reality– for many years.

I choose now.

I choose life. I choose to be content.

And in that contentment, perhaps I will find moments of happiness and joy–if I am open to them and not drowning in grief for what I have lost. I choose.

I guess this is what they call forgiveness. I choose to not rent anymore space in my mind or life to his destructive actions. Forgiveness is a gift I give to myself.

Choose to turn toward the light of the good, the positive, the blessings. Choose life.

Drowning In Disappointment

Such a descriptive alleteration: Drowning in Disappointment

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

I am having a challenging day today. My UH wrote a ‘hurt’ letter to me yesterday that he read out loud after dinner (mistake. I was activated and awake until 2 a.m.)

H.U.R.T.

H: Harm. what is or was the harm inflicted?

U: Undserstanding. Express how you think the harm has impacted the life of the betrayed (me) and validate their right to feel the way they do.

R: Remorse. An expression of grief over the harm done. Tell the hurt party how you feel about doing “x” to them. A display of grief over the harm caused to the betrayed (not the personal harm it has caused to the unfaithful). True contrition.

T: Time. No placement of moral imperative on betrayed to forgive, but the expression that the unfaithful hope you can someday forgive them. “I want you to know I will be patient and give you all the time you need to heal and I appreciate you being patient with me while I heal.”

Now doesn’t that sound amazing?

It actually is.

Like all tools, the execution of it depends hugely on the genuine feeling behind it.

My UH said a lot of right words. He even hit upon a reflection of humility and unworthiness to even be extended the grace to still be present in my life.

So why am I struggling?

Because the genuine expression of remorse and grief is still missing. The use of this tool is a wonderful step in the right direction, yet I grieve and continue to drown in disappointment at his inability to truly feel what his choices and actions have cost me. For him to be genuinely grieved.

I have spent years and years in the relationship with him trying to communicate my needs and feelings only to have him fail to work toward meeting them. For example: I keep a list of repair projects that need to be done around the house. He has for years drug his feet to accomplish these basic maintenance tasks. even though he voices that they need doing. Mind you, these are not ‘wouldn’t it be nice’ sort of pipe dreams. I’ve not asked him to build a gazebo or she shed. This is the repair sort of honey do’s he could do with relative ease—ones I would not have the knowledge or technical skill to accomplish.

Nope. He ‘forgets’. He does not take on the responsibility. He puts me in the mom role. Always in the place of having to remind—or do without.

So I make due. I live without. I day after day feel disappointment. Nothing I do or do not do has changed this dynamic. He has been underinvested in adult responsibilities for years. (a common trait of an addict, I have come to learn). My counselor once made the observation: “Seems you have been disappointed in him for a very long time.” Spot on.

Should I be rejoicing in one HURT letter shared? He sure looks to me for cheerleading and confetti. I thanked him for sharing and said it was a good share. I crumbled under the weight of multiple triggers. He left.

And then I continued to think about what he said and how he said it. Too late to reengage–now past bedtime. I was tossing and turning, in spite of all my self soothing practices employed. I just couldn’t get past his lackluster presentation and the triggering of past wounds. I got up. I distracted myself with cute Facebook memes and tried again to sleep. Toss, turn. Activation.

Even though I know he has good intentions and is practicing empathy, it is so stilted and inauthentic. You know how you can just ‘feel’ genuineness or the lack thereof? *sigh* Disappointment my old and unwelcome companion.

If I didn’t have the decades long history of disappointment–being let down much more often than not, the triggering would have probably happened anyways. The compound trigger of the sexual betrayal wound and the ongoing lack of reliability wounding made the night long and dark.

So I self cared myself into a two hour nap this afternoon. He has returned to the usual pretend normal image maintenance good fun guy facade. No concern or interest in how I am doing even when I told him I needed him to share difficult topic in the morning (another long standing request I will have to enforce better–my bad.) It is so unusual for him to approach me with a share, I let my boundary down.

We both live and learn and struggle and walk this messy road forward.

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“Today was a Difficult Day,” said Pooh. There was a pause.

“Do you want to talk about it?” asked Piglet.

“No,” said Pooh after a bit. “No, I don’t think I do.”

“That’s okay,” said Piglet, and he came and sat beside his friend.

“What are you doing?” asked Pooh.

“Nothing, really,” said Piglet. “Only, I know what Difficult Days are like. I quite often don’t feel like talking about it on my Difficult Days either.

“But goodness,” continued Piglet, “Difficult Days are so much easier when you know you’ve got someone there for you. And I’ll always be here for you, Pooh.”

And as Pooh sat there, working through in his head his Difficult Day, while the solid, reliable Piglet sat next to him quietly, swinging his little legs…he thought that his best friend had never been more right.”

A.A. Milne

I wish for you a piglet friend in your life.