Reactions To Setting Boundaries

You’ll probably will get some push back when you set a boundary.

“You didn’t used to do that.” or “You used to be okay with that.”

Perhaps they will try to manipulate you to go back to the way things were before. Because setting boundaries upsets the balance which creates some disorientation. You are altering the dynamics in the relationship.

“I really liked you better when you XYZ…” OR “Isn’t that a little harsh?”

Maybe they might try to guilt trip you. “You’re pushing me away.” or “You aren’t following your duty as a wife.” Ask yourself if you have done anything outside your value system. If you haven’t you have every right to set the boundary.

They might become hostile. “If you do that I’m going to do this to you…”

This may trigger the need to make a request. “Would you be willing to ____________.” You can never control someone by making a request. They, as an adult, have every right to say ‘no’, ‘okay’ or negotiate a compromise. If you stick strong to your boundary, they will see that aggression / hostility simply does not work.

If you are ghosted by the person you are setting the boundary with, it is the most painful (non)-reaction. It can make you feel like you don’t count.

How can you deal with these reaction?

If you are frozen out/ghosted. Give them space and allow them to do whatever they are going to do. It becomes more complex in a committed relationship. If it is an important relationship to them they will come back to engage with you eventually.

Push back reactions are a hidden opportunity for you to use your internal boundaries. You process their response through your reality. Is it true to you or not? Take something like this as example:

“You know I think you are being really rigid.”

If your internal boundary is working well with this statement disguised as a question, you ask yourself “AM I being rigid?” If not–you do not take it in as your reality. You hear what he/she says, but know it is not true for you. So stick to your talking point. Hear their response but restate the original request. Don’t respond to their accusations. Ignore what they said and restate your request.

“I’m willing to talk to you about that later, but right now we are talking about _______.”

OR you can mirror back their response to you in a way that you do not take on their accusation.

“It sounds like this is bringing up a lot for you.” This can be perceived as compassionate and can defuse them.

Remember: Boundaries are not too punish. They are to protect yourself. If all else fails you can take a time out. You can be respectful and mindful toward the person by letting them know what you are going to do. “I’m feeling uncomfortable about this. I’m going to go do ______ for about _______(time). We can talk more about it when I get back.”

When you have a chronic boundary violator, you may decide you do not want to remain in the relationship. In a marriage, this is really tough to decide and follow through. You will know when you know should this point be reached. Your decision alone.

“Even when I am in deep pain, I can rescue myself by noticing a small beautiful thing. Heaven is all around me, just waiting for me to notice.” – Mary Pipher

A Hungry Heart

“A heart hungry for something to ease the ache of disappointment is especially susceptible to the most dangerous forms of desire. Especially when that heart isn’t being proactive about taking in truth and staying in community with healthy humble people living in the truth.

Remember, dangerous desires birthed inside our unsettled disappointments are nothing but a setup for a take down.” – Lysa Terkeurst

Can I say this is a major understatement? It is also sadly true.

I have been grossly disappointed for years in my UH’s lack of follow through and keeping his promises. It brought me to a place some ten years ago or so, that I felt unmarried. I felt I’d been taken for granted and abused too long. I felt, dare I say it, entitled to a better partner.

Entitlement – the central issues in my UH’s many, many, many betrayals. He admits it himself. He felt entitled. Entitled to more sex, more traveling, more good times, more money, more food. Everything is about more or not enough with him. That and failure to follow through. A million tiny betrayals. Oh–and some ginormous ones too.

I was telling him yesterday that if there is one observation I have seen over the years that points to a true addicts heart, it has been his inability or unwillingness to use his willpower/self control. I remember in younger days when he decided to, say, go on a diet, he was a real stickler. We are both life time Weight Watcher’s members as a result of our tenacity to sticking to the program. Today he isn’t even willing to live up to his own self promises. Example: he promised not to eat after nine p.m. as a beginning in his Overeater Anonymous program. I can’t tell you the number of times I see him eating after nine. It is not for lack of awareness of his so called commitment. He simply does not follow it. His self control muscles seem to have atrophied.

I see no earthly way to feel safe in his decisions, let alone be attracted to a person who doesn’t live up to his promises. How in the world does he expect me to trust him or to regain any form of trust if he doesn’t demonstrate trustworthiness? Day after day he breaks his so called commitment to approach me and talk. That signature on paper isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. He seems to have no care for any promise.

I would have a hungrier heart if I had more energy. This last decade has taken energy out of me. Too many losses, disappointments and betrayals. The wind has left my sails. What wind I can generate on my own is spent in self care and learning to settle for the simple things. My grand plans have vanished. And you know what? I don’t care.

Simple pleasures keep me going.

Do I feel cheated out of a marriage? YEs. But it is what it is. DO I feel cheated out of a grander retirement? Yes. But I really don’t care. I’m resigned to settle for small pleasures. One day at a time. The buck stops with me. The responsibilities of household management falls on my shoulders. It is enough to keep me occupied. I have no reliable partner, so I rely on the simple. And you know what? It is okay. It’s the best I can do with what I have. It is enough. No more hungry heart—well except for love. I wish I had someone to love me. I love to love others. Always have. Oh well…

I Wanna Go Home

I’m reading the book “It’s Not Supposed To Be This Way” by Lisa Terkeurst. It is more religious than I, yet I am finding it deeply meaningful. We are the clay in our higher power’s hands. Even when our life has been shattered into dust, we can trust the potter to mix the pieces and the dust to form something more beautiful than ever imagined. In time. Patience.

Our higher power does not expect us to handle all this pain alone. Let go.

HomeMichael Bublé

Another summer day
Has come and gone away
In Paris and Rome
But I wanna go home, mmm

May be surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone
Just wanna go home
Oh, I miss you, you know

And I’ve been keeping all the letters
That I wrote to you
Each one a line or two
I’m fine baby, how are you?

Well I would send them but I know
That it’s just not enough
My words were cold and flat
And you deserve more than that

Another airplane
Another sunny place
I’m lucky I know
But I wanna go home
Mmm, I got to go homeLet me go home
I’m just too far
From where you are
I wanna come home

And I feel just like
I’m living someone else’s life
It’s like I just stepped outside
When everything was going right

And I know just why you could not
Come along with me
That this was not your dream
But you always believed in me

Another winter day
Has come and gone away
In even Paris and Rome
And I wanna go home
Let me go home

And I’m surrounded by
A million people I
I still feel alone
Oh, let me go home
Oh, I miss you, you know

Let me go home
I’ve had my run
Baby, I’m done
I gotta go home
Let me go home
It’ll all be all right
I’ll be home tonight
I’m coming back home

Resentment of The Work and the Pain

I have a battle with resentment over having this work and pain dumped on me. It is totally unfair and we are indeed victims of another’s choices.

That said, I have read over and over that a person ceases to be a victim the moment they find out about the betrayal or experience the atrocity. From that moment on we have the choices. Our eyes are open and it is now our choice what we do with the unfair act(s). Many leave. Many decide to stay. All have grief to work through for all the many many losses. All must choose what to do with their new unwelcome reality. We have been victims. Now it is our unwelcome, unfair job to fight victim thinking.

What are we who have been fooled. manipulated and lied to for years to do with the resentment? We WERE the victim for years. Where do we put all the grief and the anger? Even if we are no longer victims in the present, oh but there were so many days, weeks, months and years we were. Oh the loss.

When will it ever seem fair—never.

Forgiveness is accepting of suffering for what someone else did.

And that is hard. A long difficult road. No less painful than healing from a physical injury (caused by someone else, as in a crime) We have been victims of a crime–the breaking of legal contractual vows, and of our hearts.

I ‘know’ all this in my head, yet it is still a work in progress for my heart.

It has also been said that the longest distance on the planet is between the head and the heart.

Emotional Bleeding

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I remember the first months and year or two of this hellish reality and feeling like I was bleeding out. My energy, my joy had been taken from me. It was difficult to do even everyday chores and demands. My brain was scrambled eggs and it took enormous energy to force concentration on the present tasks at hand. Hell it was hard to focus on the simplest reality.

Now, nearly four years out from the sexual infidelity disclosure and six and a half years out from the revelation of financial decimation of our retirement money, my bleeding has slowed significantly. I have enough blood left in my body to keep up with daily exercise and chores. I’ve worked my part time care taking job and looked at it as a blessing because it deters me from stewing in the reality of my abandoned marriage. I truly never thought work would be escape. Quite the opposite. Home life used to be my joyous escape.

The trigger of my UH’s presence has diminished though not been extinguished because he is still unwilling to make amends via processing through and taking responsibility for all the damage he has caused. He does not validate me and the costs to me. How can I know he is not still in stinking thinking? What’s to keep him from story telling himself into further betrayals and destruction? Impossible for me to tell.

Equals a true lack of safety. Of course no one can crystal ball the future though its outcome is a lot more likely to be good if the broken has worked through his ‘stuff’. And shared the work-through.

So now I feel like I am just bleeding day in and out at a more moderate rate. Something like a bad menses for those of you reading as women. We who have known difficult monthly periods know it can take the energy out of us and leave our nerves jangled. Yeah–my life is something like that.

Even with all my self help and recovery efforts I am not what I was before this nightmare became known. I am beginning to wonder if I ever will be. What part of it is aging? Maybe a bit, yet I have been a healthy person my adult life long, able to accomplish more than most.

Not anymore. To be fair, a lot of that is intentional. I am allowing myself to slow down. It takes huge effort to recover from trauma, complicated by having no help from the one who inflicted it. On the contrary, he has been an anchor around me more often than not. I know I am the only one, when it comes down to brass tacks, who can heal me. Not fair, but reality. I will have to work at remaining mindfully present in the present and grateful for what is for the rest of my life–to ward off bitterness, depression and victim think. It becomes more natural as time goes on, yet I can not say ‘easy’. Because reality is, I have been used as a wife but not respected as one. And that fact will never change—no one can change the past. This past took up the majority of my adult years–the prime of my life. No denying it.

I am just now coming to accept it. Not burst into tears or have a bleeding twisted heart ever-present in the center of my chest. My meditation practice, exercise and a whole lot of mind control toward the present/gratitude have made this possible. I’ve never worked so hard on anything in my life.

It is like bleeding. Bleeding energy. Bleeding inspiration and hope and joy in the past. Bleeding a future that I wanted to look so very different. It is bleeding grief and sadness and the enormous job of acceptance. It has robbed me of so much life energy. Who knows how that energy might have been so much better spent.

Yet that is not for me to judge or ever know. It is speculation, which is another waste of time and energy.

I wonder when I will completely stop bleeding. Bleeding my life energy into the rat hole that is intimate betrayal. It is not for lack of effort.

Other Women Can Not Compete with YOU

My comment to a betrayed woman who felt she needed to look better, be nicer to win her unfaithful’s attention and love:

“I am so sorry you have been put in a place to feel competitive. None of us should EVER have had to even consider these things because our unfaithful vowed to never allow themselves to stray.

My experience is different. I have never felt compelled to do or be anything like the AP. She was my ex sister in law, a few years older, pleasant looking but not young/athletic. A bit soft and a mother herself. She was single and just broken up with my brother so vulnerable to my UH’s advances (as he knew and planned)

I did not find out about the physical years of their affair until 16 years after that part ended (though they remained emotionally connected – an EA) We had moved four hundred miles away, she remarried.

What do I feel? Anger that who I thought was a supportive woman of me and my family could do such a thing. I also feel pity for the obviously broken selfish woman she is.

In the years after the physical part of their affair I got into super athletic shape because I was a new empty nester with time to focus on me. My UH was super sexual with me, but that was only because I felt great about myself. He is an SA as he has now realized which has put the past in a more realistic perspective. I see now that is why he was so persistent and demanding all those kid raising years and why he was (uncomfortably) over the top when I was a more relaxed empty nester.

I look back on those super in shape years with a cringe because I now know why his attentions felt a bit objectifying.

And then came d-day when he blasted me with the news. This was post athletic, more normal times. He had decimated our retirement finance and had a stay in the mental hospital from a nervous breakdown self induced by aforementioned. His financial betrayal put me into a tailspin and turned off my libido. As an SA he took that personally. He went deeper into alcoholism and marijuana which led to him vilifying me and dumping d-day on me to hurt me. (In his mind I was withholding sex to hurt him–not because I was traumatized). All very messed up addict thinking.

So no—I never felt in any way drawn to compete with the AP. She is no one I would ever want to be like in any way. I pity her. I pray for her and her new husband and I release her and them to their higher power.

All that said, my UH has never focused on my looks. He has alway accepted me and acted liked he cared about me. In his way, he did. He expressed his affection throughout all the years—non sexual affection. The sex part was the messed up part, if that makes sense. He always said he thought I was pretty and special.

I don’t think I will or can ever totally understand the mind of a sex/adoration addict. I am working on recovering from the feeling of objectification a SA communicates, even subtly. I believe he always felt he loved me, but his addiction messed with his mind and therefore actions. He was and is a sick man. I have been the victim of his ill thinking and choices.

The AP? Also a sick woman with her own issues. Anyone who could do what she did has her own adoration addiction and ‘need’ to feel lusted after. She is sick.

Maybe it is because my UH always communicated his appreciation for me and my heart/giving. It is not in my nature to try to compete with two dimensional woman (porn/photographs, etc) or ‘real women in my UH’s life. Maybe it is because I feel I have always been enough. Always done my best and been an excellent wife and mother. If he couldn’t see or appreciate that, it definitely had nothing to do with any lack on my part. He chose me to marry. There was and always will be younger, prettier woman. There was and always will be older, less attractive women.

I can not and will not try to compete. Marriage is not a competition with other potential mates. That decision and promise was made on our wedding day. Breaking of those vows was not because another woman was prettier. It was because my UH was sick with lust and insane decisions. The AP could have been anyone. She was not, is not, and can never be me–the woman he fell in love with.

There is not another woman on the planet I want to compete with. They are precious in their own right just as I am in mine. They do not have my UH’s heart, our history together, children together. They can not possibly compete with ME.

And none of your UH’s Ap’s can possibly compete with YOU.”

Address the Infidelity FIRST

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A betrayed posted a question in a recovery forum asking if it was just her or was it wrong of her UH to insist on her to work on herself and all her deficits (before he has taken full responsibility for the infidelity, fully processed, grieved, amended and empathy expressed.)

Um..YES!! W-R-O-N-G!!!

It is tantamount to abuse to berate your betrayed spouse, yell at her and demand she fix herself. Not only is that exiting the unfaithful’s circle of control and impinging into the betrayed’s, it is cruel and abusive. How dare an unfaith have the gaul to even bring up anything his betrayed has or has not done in the marriage. This shows a complete lack of responsibility, care and understanding.

Marriage problems do NOT cause infidelity. Poor, selfish choices do.

Plenty of marriages, dare I say ALL, have issues. Because no person is perfect, neither is any marriage. As long as each of we humans are breathing, there is room for improvement. This has ZERO to do with betraying one’s spouse. This demonstrates gross rationalizing and blame sifting BIG TIME.

The cliche ‘put the cart before the horse” resonates. The priority, post-disclosure, is to heal individually. The UH, if he or she is to become a safe mature adult, must do their work of figuring out why they crossed the line. He/she owes his betrayed recompense. If one is ethical and humane, one does not hit and run. No matter how the unfaithful sees his spouse and their marriage, it is his/her responsibility to tend to the damage they have caused.

Whether or not the marriage begins anew is reliant on what the unfaithful does to heal themselves and the massive damage he/she has caused. And yes, it may also depend on how the betrayed heals. Will he/she ever be able to move past such an atrocity? Will the betrayed eventually be able to get to addressing any personal deficits within the former relationship, or are they so damaged they can not ever see themselves with their unfaithful?

There is NOTHING a spouse can do or not do to deserve having their spouse step outside the marriage. That would be called divorce. Legal and binding without lies, secrets, manipulation and abusive control of the betrayed’s life. If the unfaithful is so unhappy and so spineless as to give up on their spouse–then do it up front and legally. For better or for worse dictates otherwise–to work on the relationship and each partner on themself. Cheating and pretending there is still a marriage is cowardly, abusive and wrong.

My experience is that the UH wants the marriage and their sexual infidelity too. They want it all no matter who they are controlling and abusing to get what they want. They don’t want a divorce or they’d get one. They enjoy and benefit immensely from their faithful spouse’s fidelity, love and support. Selfish, self centered cake and eat it too.

And then the unfaithful have the gaul to complain? It makes my blood boil.

Speak up and work on your issues like an adult. Respect your spouse and uphold your vows.

The Blessing of Attitude

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.

—Melody Beattie

How similar is the classic Paryer of St Francis:

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.

I’m Tired

Tired of hoping. Tired of trying to be patient. Tired of grieving. Tired of feeling sad. Tired of having this reality of being expendable collateral damage as the first thing I think about when I wake and the last thing I think about before I drift off to sleep.

I’m tired of this being my reality–forever. I’m tired of no longer feeling loved. I’m tired of being alone. I’m tired of recovery blogs and articles. Of interminable learning about this thing they call betrayal trauma.

I’m tired of being traumatized. I’m tired of working so damn hard to be grateful. I’m tired of mindfulness and meditation and self help and reflection and a long list of self care ‘shoulds’ and things I’m too tired to try or do.

I’m tired of being this new me–whoever that is. I liked the old me. You know–the one who died the day she found out she was not loved by her husband. Yeah–I’ve heard it said over and over and over again that many or most unfaithful actually do love their spouse. I simply have not been able to feel that. No matter how I look at it. No matter how much compassion for his childhood trauma and his poor squashed psyche from family issues. It simply is not enough to excuse the massive betrayal–the abandonment of our marriage. I’m tired of trying to look at him from every angle to gain and maintain the belief that he really did love me through it all.

I don’t believe it. I don’t feel it. I can’t twist or turn over the reality of his choices and find love anywhere.

What I’m NOT tired of is allowing myself to care for me. I’m not tired of soaking in the unconditional love of my dogs. I’m not tired of sleeping alone, reading alone, listening to music, walking, eating good healthy food I did not prepare, or that I did. I’m not tired of giving myself permission to slow down and grow into this new status of being older. Yeah…me on medicare. This day never seemed real, but then neither did having a false one-sided marriage. No matter how I look at it, I was divorced without being told. I was manipulated and used for all the good I could provide–and abandoned because he didn’t think what I provided was enough.

I’m tired of feeling judged by others for staying, for not being over it, for not being terminally cheerful day in and out. I tired of having to muster the energy to once again look on the bright side when I was promised exclusivity and support, but instead got betrayal. I’m tired of seeing his face in my mind, smiling and laughing with me when I now know he was smiling and laughing at his good fortune to have his cake and eat it too.

I’m tired of feeling like bargain goods, used and thrown away. I’m tired of no emotional connection. I’m tired of waiting for him to change, not knowing if that will ever be enough. I’m tired of knowing I will never be the same.

I’m tired of feeling old and used up when I know—I KNOW I could have, would have had so much vitality and energy to do wonderful things without this trauma inflicted in my life. Guess Pia Mellody’s definition of resentment as victim anger comes a little too close to true too often. And I’m tired and angry that I should ever have been put in this place of being resentful, or a victim, or traumatized. I’m tired of the injustice. I’m just plain tired.

“So where’s the upbeat ending to your blog, Christine?” Yup–tired of having to muster ‘upbeat’.

And you know what? That is okay. It’s okay to be tired and discouraged, despairing, disillusioned. It’s okay to be sad, grieving and blue. It’s okay because I believe the wisdom of the world that tells me that there will be an end to the grief. Never an end to the disappointment, but an end to the gut wrenching, hot tears, the tight chest, the skipped heartbeats, the nausea, the shithole that is knowing the person you married, loved and supported through the years, didn’t care enough about you to do the same. I’m tired of that reality. I hate that reality. I don’t deserve a minute of it. None of we betrayed deserve a minute of it. I’m tired of being one of the many who drew the short stick in forever love.

It is okay to be me. I have no choice but to be me. I know and love the me that lived in authencity and love. I love the me that tired of emotional disconnection to the point of being attracted to other men when I’d never had any other wish or dream than to be married forever. I hate his brokenness for breaking me down to that level of lonely. Did I say I am tired of romantic loneliness. I’m not personally lonely because I have always and still do enjoy my own company. But I signed on the marriage certificate to have a partner, a best friend, someone to live every day of life with and for. I signed up for us. I’m tired of feeling like he sees me as an adversary and not worth investing emotionally in. Not any more. He let that get lost somewhere along the way.

I’m tired of being seen by the world, our culture as married, when I feel violated and thrown away. Married is something earned by two. It’s not a one person endeavor. By definition, it takes two. I’m tired of living with the unchangeable reality that he unilaterally opted out, but expected me to stay all in. I’m tired of being taken for a chump, even though he tells me he never saw me as a chump. How could he not when the thrill of infidelity is in the deception and breaking the rules? Who was a required chump in that equation? ME.

I’m tired, but I will get up tomorrow and try again to see the good and the bright and the warmth and the beauty and the love still very present in this world. I’ll keep working at being grateful because without gratitude I know I will drown.

I will drown.

Recovery? Not at all certain I will. I will always carry the scars. Makes me tired just acknowledging that reality. I’m tired of the reality I will always be damaged.

But I get to see my granddaughter in mid March.

I am grateful.

I Must Learn to Live With Reality

That reality is that I will not be loved as a wife is and should be. Not in this life. I have lived the majority of my life believing I was that honored and cherished wife. Reality is–I was not. I was expendable. I was one of two. I was used and manipulated into remaining faithful.

And my ‘picker’ is broken. I picked a man who doesn’t love me like a wife, like I deserved. Whether it is because he can’t or won’t doesn’t much matter. The reality is that he didn’t and still doesn’t. I am not precious or important enough to him. And I can’t make him love me. No one can make another person love them. Not sure I want him to anymore. That relationship is dead.

Thing is, I feel too old and worn out to even think about moving on to another man. I cringe at the thought. I also cringe at the thought of being sexual with my faux husband. Nothing wrong with just being ex’s in name. Being old acquaintances.

I must learn to live with the reality that my sex life is over. That I will never know the true love of a man and a woman. That I drew the short stick in love relationship. My picker was broken. I did not choose a man who has the capacity to love me. And now I’m past that season.

Part of me feels relief. I’ve fought long and hard to be loved. I have to accept failure in this area of my life and lean into all the other marvelous things of which to be grateful. There is so very much loveliness in the world. So many things, places and people to enjoy. I’m in a position not unlike that of a widow or a divorcee. It’s all in the attitude. And acceptance.

Life is still good.