If this time of quarantine has taught me anything, it is the truth of step one of the twelve steps.
Powerlessness.
We are all powerless over the reality of Covid 19. It is here. It permeates our society. It is invisible and virulent.
It also reminds us that we have the ability to choose to do our best to protect ourselves from infection. We have the power of choice. And when we follow the prescribed methods of keeping ourselves safe, we can choose to relax in the knowledge that we have done everything we can.
So yes, we are powerless over what comes into our lives, but we are not powerless as to our response.
In the case of betrayal, this would include taking good care of ourselves, setting boundaries to allow ourselves to be safe and then relax in the knowledge that ‘this too shall pass.’
What?? I hear you thinking. “I will NEVER forget the pain of this betrayal.”
Those who have lost loved ones to the virus will also never forget. Their hearts and lives are forever altered by something over which they had no control or choice. They too need to care for themselves, be gentle and kind and patient, as their deep wound begins to heal. The scar will always remain. Yet with self care, the work of processing through their new reality and eventually reaching acceptance, they can become a more compassionate stronger version of the person they were before this catastrophe tore a path of destruction through their lives.
Recovery from intimate betrayal takes time. So much time. Even in the best of circumstances–it takes time. Most of us do not have the ‘best of circumstances’. Many of us have a perpetrating partner that is still sick–still learning to heal the wounds that contributed to their devastating choice to betray. Few of them are in the position to provide the compassion and empathy we, the betrayed, so dearly need.
So, not unlike the ravages of a virus, or a terrible accident, storm, financial collapse—we are left to gather and nurture our resources of health and healing. We are left to reach out for help whether that be the strength of a dear friend, a support group, the rich educational resources of the internet and library–we CAN choose to heal.
And be so compassionately, tenderly patient.
We have suffered perhaps the most egregious emotional wound a person can suffer. Perhaps this wound has been inflicted over years and years of betrayal. Perhaps it was the result of a one night stand. Never the less, it has shattered our trust, our reality, the world we counted on to support and love us. The world where we thought our partner had or backs, protected and cherished us. The world we relied upon as having a healthy intact and reliable primary relationship. We have suffered the most devastating attachment wound from the one person we relied upon to be there for us and act in our best interest.
Be gentle, dear betrayed.
Be the most gentle with yourself.
You are the person you can count on to be there for you. You are the only person who has the ultimate control over your response to what life dishes out. My life gets better when I take responsibility for just me. Today I will mind my own business and keep my focus where it belongs–over the only person with whom I DO have control— me.
Let time take its time. Let go and Let my higher power/my higher self…. heal. Sweet healing.
Most of us who have experienced betrayal have, at least for a season, anger as our front seat driver.
So who is riding in the back seat, fueling our angry driver?
Fear? Frustration? Betrayal, Sadness? Loneliness?
Who are your backseat drivers?
Once I uncovered loneliness and injustice as two of my backseat driver emotions, I discovered that loneliness/unjust judgements were part of my childhood– when I struggled to be the ‘good child’ as my parents were trying their best to handle a difficult son, my only sibling.
More damaging than that was my mother’s very human tendency to worry about me. Would I go down the same path as my er-do-well brother? Would I stay out late? Smoke pot? Lie and sneak?
Of course I knew that was not part of my character. Hey—I was the ‘good child’. I earned good grades, flew under the radar of the drug culture of my high school. I was not interested. I found those sort of choices scary, repugnant. I wanted to live a life of no regrets.
Why didn’t my mother know that?
Perhaps, in her heart of hearts, she did. I remember one evening she came after me, already upset, and accused me of planning to do the things my brother did. I went ballistic. So out of character. I NEVER went ballistic. (Good children are seen not heard) I railed, “How could you possibly think that of me?”
I was shattered. How could my mother, the woman who ostensibly knew me best, accuse me of these things I had not only never done, but would never consider? Why didn’t she give me the benefit of the doubt? No…more than that—why didn’t she praise me for all the hard work I actually did—all the ‘right’ choices, all the giving, loving behaviors?
Looking back, I realize she was under tremendous emotional stress with the challenges of parenting my brother. Special classes, principal office and counselor visits, rebelliousness, suspensions. He was in fact all that.
I was not.
My mother was having a melt down that had NOTHING to do with me. Just as my husband’s choices to betray had nothing to do with me. Both of these human choices, the foibles that led to my personal pain and destruction, were about their woundedness.
That incident of my emotional explosion highlights my character defect or sensitivity to unjust criticism. I have a lifelong trigger, if you will, to being accused of intentions I do not have. In my mind, I work too damn hard at being a good responsible person, to be cast in such a negative light. Such aspersions cut me to the core. They break my heart.
And so the revelation of my husband’s years of infidelity–sexual, emotional and financial, quite understandable and naturally sunk a dagger into my invested, responsible, loving, giving, hard working heart. His casting blame on me for not being enough for him–“What did you expect? You didn’t have enough sex with me?” –ripped the thin scab off the wound of ‘not good enoughness’ present from MY family of origin. All the criticism poured over me by a mother who felt that was the road toward molding a good citizen (me), was in a instant, proven ‘right’.
At least that is how it felt.
How could a man who had benefitted from all my care, my support, my huge investment in home, children and him, choose to abandon our marriage? I knew I was more than enough. I knew I was an excellent housekeeper, employee, mother and wife.
Volcanic rage, held in check– to be told I was not.
This rage did not come out immediately. Oh no. Good, responsible Christine had to see to the hearts of her adult children who had just been devastated with the news. (Yes–their father told me of his long term affair in front of them) It took me many weeks of torrential tears, sleeplessness, agony and sadness to get to the underlying rage.
I journaled that rage. Pages and pages. I filled notebooks. In moments of isolation at home, I would verbally rage at the imaginary him. I spent months and months venting this powerful, very human reaction to being betrayed. Oh the injustice of it all!
…Until the energy of that injustice lessened.
The sadness is still there. The pain resurfaces sometimes when I am tired, hungry, lonely. The difference is that now I have allowed myself the time to grieve. Yes grief. The anger of the injustice of being ‘judged and (my character) executed through betrayal has been vented. Revisiting that anger is less and less powerful.
e- motion= energy in motion. It has taken enormous energy to vent.
As an adult, I can find healthy ways of coping with, mitigating and healing my sad loneliness….and my anger. These methods may include, but are not limited to: therapy, support groups, 12 step, safe friends, going to church, prayer, meditation, exercise, gardening, and other fun hobbies such as painting, writing, reading.
This helps me to relieve my loneliness as I heal, mostly alone, and thus disarm it from influencing and ‘driving’ my anger.
These four and a half years have been the hardest, most painful of my life. They have also provided opportunity toward the most personal growth. I have been put in my own driver’s seat toward healing. And I knew I didn’t want that seat to be forever occupied by a raging, bitter woman. I needed to really believe exactly who and what I am, despite other’s beliefs and actions.
This life experience has reinforced the truth. I am a good, invested, giving and loving person who has been misjudged, accused, tried, found guilty and treated as someone guilty of –something I am not—by a person wounded by his own life circumstances projected oh so painfully onto me.
His inability to see my love in no way diminishes the reality of all the years of caring, giving, support—LOVE that I gave. Hey—I AM that loving person who would no more harm, ignore or abandon my family than I would fly to the moon using my arms. I gave all I had to give. I lived my life as a loving person.
That is reality.
And the broken accusations and behavior of another–even if that ‘other’ is my mother… or my husband, can make other’s beliefs and pursuant behaviors just–or based in truth.
Isiaisis the hurricane loved to blow wind and rain. He took great pleasure in watching the trees bend, the grass of the fields sway. Staying out over the ocean can become monotonous even if the waves, the sea are his life and family. Even though the sea supports his life, feeding and caring for him so he has the ability, the energy to visit the shore and all the thrills that await there.
“I can’t wait to caress the shore, dive deep inland and witness my power. It’s so much fun”.
Many have witnessed what happens when the hurricane comes ashore. If that hurricane could decide to come ashore, Isiaisis would be full of glee in anticipation. “Nothing bad will happen. The people onshore know how to take care of themselves. I provide them life giving rain for their plants and drinking. They will be fine on their own.”
Even though it is known far and wide by all the people the potential destruction of a hurricane, Isiaisis denied it would harm anyone or anything. And before the people’s ability to forecast such a storm, they were well and truly blindsided. No warning. No ability to prepare.
No matter how vital and strong the people, they can not protect themselves against most of the destructive power of the storm. They are witness to the dark clouds and rain, but before forecasting, had NO idea what was coming. Thye lived in the (approaching) rain, the inconvenience of the downpours.
But Isiaisis was hell bent on the shore and all the fun there. He knew he had the potential of destruction but he told himself nothing would come of it. His rain would indeed help. So he came ashore dashing one town and one state after another–leaving a path of destruction far and wide. Some of the people lost their roofs, some their homes, some their lives. The newspapers would talk about him for many days, weeks, months and even years to come. He would be the topic of much discussion. Human experts on how to prepare for a hurricane, how to limit damage would careful dissect the harm he caused. They would learn how to better recover and protect.
“Isiaisis” was on the tongue of the people. Recovery was not about Isiaisis, even though the storm was what caused the damage. Recovery of the people, their homes and their lives was not about the storm. It was about tender care, attention to all the details of healing. PRepart=ation and protection learned for the future.
Did anyone miss the storm Isiasis?
“Good riddance”
Did the people still desire the benefits of the rain? The soft caress of a warm summer storm?
YES.
They needed to attend to the damage of the rain and wind gone wild first. The storm’s name was used often. It was the topic. The damage had to be the focus.
And what became of Isiaisis? He blew up the cost, weakened, gained humility when he saw the havoc his ‘fun’ had caused upon the people and the land. And he turned around, regained water and power from the sea. He looked carefully at all the damage and learned what his ‘fun’ had cost. He wept over the pain his choices had caused. He returned to the land in warm summer rains, soft caresses and care for the land and the people. He brought healing and rebuilt trust over many many months with the land and the people because they saw through his loving, helping actions that the storm can protect and care and love.
The people will always be wary of the dark clouds and wind. They will need the loving reassurance and actions of the caring Isiasis who has changed his heart to never again lash the shore in ‘fun’. He would never again look upon such actions as ‘fun’. No pleasure would the memories bring. Deep regret and sadness, embarassment and grief now power Isiaisis to tend to all he had destroyed–and for the rest of his days when the people talked about him, he would know it was the fear, the trauma and the damage of which they spoke–not him– the rain and wind when he returned in love and repair.
The land and the people tended far and wide to the destruction his choices caused, but it was not about him, the rain and wind. It was about tending to the pain. The wind and the rain of Isiaisis needed to do their own reflection and change, for the people had zero power over his healing. Isiaisis knew he needed to keep his destructive power, even a whisper or hint of it, far away from the people while they healed. It was not about him and his pain of regret, his difficulty in learning how to rein in his power. It HAD to be about the damage, the loving tending to repair in soft, gentle, understanding reassuring actions of life poured down on all he’d destroyed.
It indeed was not about him. __________________________________
A man and his wife drove along winding roads toward a celebratory dinner for the beautiful new car the wife had bought for him. She’d spent many hours working to pay for the car, but wanted to give it to the husband because it was the model and make of his dreams. She’d lovingly sacrificed to make the car possible.
“Slow down,” the wife request as he sped along the curves. “We want to arrive in one piece.”
But (And) the man thought nothing would happen. He knew this road well. He thought his wife was too careful–a stick in the mud. So he didn’t listen to his wife’s pleas.
Well you know what happened. He drove that car with his wife off the road, down into a deep gorge, rolling over and over.
The man shook his head, took fast inventory of his body, pushed and crawled out the shattered window. A painful gash at his temple stung and his body ached with bruises.
He looked back at the wreckage of his beautiful fun dream.
“Oh shit,” he realized his wife was still inside the wreckage.
He wanted nothing but to run away. How could he ever face her again? He’d ruined what she’d so carefully worked to give him. He’d not listened to the danger he knew his careless driving might cause. He’d willfully and selfishly driven with the wind in his hair, laughing at the power and speed. Should he dare to look at his wife? He didn’t even want to know what his actions had caused. He sat on the side of the hill, aching head in his hands until the ambulance arrived. He watched as the EMT’s extracted the bloodied, broken body of his wife. One of the EMT’s checked him out. He rode in the ambulance with his wife as the EMT’s tended to her, their expression belying the seriousness of her condition. He waited for hours in the waiting room, his head bandaged and aching.
“Oh my poor head. It hurts. I was so stupid to drive so fast. Now I’ll never have that beautiful car. We’ll never enjoy that special celebratory meal at that expensive precious restaurant we’d always dreamed of enjoying together.” Nearly all his thoughts and energy grieved his losses, thought about his pain.
The doctors told him to go home because his wife would be in intensive care for a long time. The man used their suggestion to justify not visiting his wife. In truth he did not want to see her pain, her brokenness, the pain in her eyes he knew his poor choices had caused. He stayed away for month as his wife recovered in a recovery facility. The doctors told him of the process his wife was required to go through, the pain, the long hours of rehabilitation.
“Don’t you want to visit your wife?” a nurse asked.
“I have to go to my traumatic brain injury classes”, he said. “I’ll come see her in the evening while she is sleeping. I don’t want to cause her any more pain in seeing me, who caused this accident.” He made the accident all about him and his pain, his process.
He did visit a few times when his wife was asleep. He could barely look at her. He felt so ashamed and guilty. One time when she woke, she cried.
” I hurt so bad,” she said. “But(AND) I am working hard to recover. I am making progress.”
“That’s good,” he said, filled with self hatred. All he could think about was his shame. He touched his head and winced.. He thought about how he was driving his old clunker again and his beautiful fun new car was in the junkyard. He hated having to go to TBI classes and the headaches he still had. He was so focused on himself he could not really ‘see’ his wife’s pain, let alone tend to her pain.
He made the inevitable consequences of his ‘fun’ driving all about him and his painful consequences. “If she’d just not bugged me about my driving, I wouldn’t have had the accident. I could have kept driving and having speedy fun long after our celebration dinner. I would still be on the winding roads having fun.”
The wife came home. The man brought he meals as she healed more. He continued to go to his TBI classes, did his self care fun and exercises, watched tv–escaped from the reality of his recovering wife. Even when he heard her moan or cry at night, he turned over and went to sleep in his bed. He could no longer sleep next to her–it was too painful for her while her wounds healed.
He held it against her that he had to sleep in the extra room. He blamed her injuries, knew she needed to heal, but still felt deprived of his own bed and his beautiful fun new car.
She wanted to talk about the car, his driving, the accident. She wanted to understand how the accident happened even though she knew it was his carelessness that lent to it. She needed to know what curve, what blind spot, what speed, what mechanical factors if any had led to this horrible lifechanging crash. She felt she may never be comfortable driving with him again. Surely not unless and until he had dug deep to understand everything that led to the crash. Not until he learned and choose to tend to her, care for her and her recovery, be there for her in the years of painful recovery. The physical pain may never allow her to sleep in the same bed with him. The emotional pain and fear may never allow her to feel comfortable with him driving especially with her in the car. She may never be able to earn enough to buy another new car. He might not either. They’d have to do with the old clunker. Or someday get a better used car, but (and) never the shiny special one.
“Poor me. I’ll never have that fun new car. She will never be able to sleep next to me. She will have pain in her eyes and her body for years, maybe forever. It’s too hard to face her and the consequences of the crash. But (and) I don’t want people to judge me as a bad guy so I will do a little to look like I am helping. But (and) I will escape whenever I can from her and our reality.”
And he made it all about him, his pain, consequences and discomfort in seeing and living with his broken wife.
When she wanted to talk about the accident, to understand, to make sure it would never happen again by hearing his understanding of her pain and the reasons the accident happened–he stayed silent.
He made it all about him and his pain.
“How is this not about me?” He asked when his wife kept on and on about the crash. “I caused the crash.” Oh woah is me. You talk about me and my driving all the time. You talk about all the specifics of what led to the crash. It is all about me and my fuck up.”
“The topic is you and the consequences of your choices. The pain and life changes, yes. You and your choices are the topic”, she said. But (and) the reality is I need to heal, you need to heal and if we are ever going to get along, WE need to heal. That will take a long time and lots of dissection of the why’s the how’s the where’s, the what’s. We MUST understand so this will never happen again and so your driving and attitude will be changed through action. So I can see and experience your change of heart and actions for a LONG time.. So YES, you are the topic. HEALING and CHANGE through reparative action is the focus, the action.
You see this is not about you. It is about healing the pain, the consequences– and understanding, a change in behavior and heart. Repair to me, to you and to us. It is about the critically wounded who will take much longer to heal–ME. And the dead relationship that is traumatized. Your name will be the topic, your behavior will be the topic–the healing will be the focus, the recipient of the care and love and patience.”
Hello darkness, my old friend I’ve come to talk with you again Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains Within the sound of silence
I have lived many months suffering the effects of my Unfaithful’s silence. He has built a stonewall between us to protect himself from feeling the shame and guilt of his betrayals. “This is sadly normal”, I am told again and again by those who make their profession in helping marriages recover from the atrocity of infidelity.
I reached the end of my rope in June. I told my unfaithful that I could not go on living under the same roof with him if he were not to talk to me daily. I need to hear that he is processing. That he is working on recognizing his thinking patterns that led him to betray me, his family and everything he professes to love. “Without this,” I said, “I have no way to rebuild safety. I have no way of knowing if you are unraveling the stories you have told yourself all these years, that have enabled your justification.”
I need this.
There is no moving forward in relationship without.
Beginning the day after communicating this to him, he has daily filled out the tool recommended in “Worthy of Her Trust” by Jason Martinkus and Stephen Arterburn. This tool is wonderful, but any tool requires investment and practice to make profitable to the cause in which it was created.
And my UH stumbled. In spite of all the work we have done in the Retrovaille program with emotions, and his individual counseling, he has trouble stating feelings. He still tends to lean on creating newspaper headlines with no story to follow. He makes statements.
That said, he has kept at it. He is moving ever closer to demonstrating actual feelings. The hard shell of his defenses has some cracks. His voice cracks every now and again as he reads his own words. He still has an easier time empathizing with sad news stories or television commercials, but he is trying.
Why has it taken four years four months for him to do this, even though I have clearly stated it as a need? Fear. He is afraid of facing these feelings–mine and his. He is afraid of plunging into the depths of grief. Actually not an unreasonable fear, yet it has been so overblown in his mind as to become paralyzing.
And paralysis does no one any good.
I think he may actually be seeing this. Through his working the program(s), he is seeing that he does not perish with the acknowledgement of costs and pain. He has slid back down the slippery slope into making it about him and his shame a couple times. But he recognizes it now and is willing to come back and try again.
What caused this change, you ask? I believe it was my willingness to move on alone. And he knew it. I was dead serious.
How sad that it took coming to walking out on a forty three year relationship for him to realize what he was about to lose. Too many addicts have to reach their bottom. Some even go further into the pit than my UH has. They end up in the streets, penniless, sick and broken.
I am still reticent to trust. Reticent to believe this is permanent change toward willingness to communicate. It simply has not been long enough for me to feel safe.
We are beginning a class through Bloom for Women and Path for Men “Rebuilding Trust, Rebuilding Your Relationship”. Online, 12 weeks. So many other attempts have been made at therapy, workshops, groups, classes. So many failures as he was so limited in his investment. Doing the bare minimum is not the stuff of relational healing. Even when both partners are all in, this path is difficult with no guartenees of success for the relationship.
I will heal. I am well on my way to personal healing. Most of my days are good. My self care is top notch. I revel in the joy of my home, garden, dogs, reading, learning, painting, baking. I am me again. More me than I have been in many years of struggling in a relationship without full investment from my ‘partner’. I have struggled too long. I am tired. I will struggle no longer. I want to be me. I like me.
I choose to enjoy my life regardless of how this class or our relationship turns out. I hope we can be friends. I hope we can grow close. I hope he turns over a new leaf of proactiveness, responsibility and reliability. I am not holding my breath or counting on it. Not anymore.
I will be okay on my own. I am okay on my own. *Pat myself on the back* Well done Christine.
“Fools, ” said I, “You do not know Silence, like a cancer, grows Hear my words that I might teach you Take my arms that I might reach you” But my words, like silent raindrops fell And echoed in the wells, of silence
I woke up in the middle of a dream this morning. It was not an abrupt awakening. Rather it was luxuriant, drawn out and pleasant. Tears dampened my cheeks even in my half wakeful world. My heart ached.
“What are these tears about?” I asked my still foggy mind. Snippets of images from my dream flashed before me. Images of reality and truth from my own past with my children. Joyous moments.
When my son, my daughter were little, they were like so many innocents in this age. Without any pain of the past, no loss, no worries, they were perfect presence. Their smiling eyes were clear–devoid of judgement. Their grins and laughter genuine. No masks did they don. They had no image they wished or needed to maintain or protect. They were pure curiosity, vulnerability and love.
“I am youth. I am joy. I am freedom!” said Peter Pan.” ― J.M. Barrie
When my son was about two or three, he used to run through the house after his bath with a hooded towel on his head flapping like a cape–giggly in mischief and joy. When my daughter was of similar age, she’d bounce into my bedroom while I was still in bed, cruise along the edge with an impish grin and pound her little hands against the mattress in invitation to join her for the beginning of another day of discovery.
Other similar memories cast themselves across the screen of my mind. Most of them included a running toddler in unabashed bliss and invitation. They were filled with pure love of life, thirsty to drink it all in. Yet they also paused, took as much time as they needed to explore even the most ordinary wonder in a moment of discovery.
My daughter is in this time of life now with her child, my three year old granddaughter.
I experienced some moments of deja vu on a recent visit when my granddaughter and I tumbled about the early morning mattress with giggles and joy. Time stood still then, those thirty years ago as it did those few months back. Young children can accomplish this, indeed live in this ever present presence, discovery and wonder. If we are lucky enough to join them– a miracle ensues.
When you are blessed enough to be invited along into their world, it is a kind of magic impossible to experience quite any other way. If you pause and set aside your adult cares long enough to join them, really be present with them and through them, it is the stuff of purity and light. Knocking on heaven’s door.
I am so grateful for these memories and my ability to make them with my own children. It is sad that so many of us get wrapped up in our adult world and worries that we find it difficult to join the very young in their perfect presence.
The tears this morning upon awakening from such memories and dreams were bittersweet ones of joy for the gift of having lived those moments…and sadness in knowing they are fleeting–so very precious and transitory. Sadness that my long days of living with a young child are behind me. So happy my daughter is blessed with this time and place with her daughter.
And I am healed enough from the trauma of my husband’s betrayals that I can feel deep sadness and compassion for him as he lived through those same years wrapped up in counterfeit pursuits and distracted by image management, career and false time investments. Oh the tragedy of missing out on those fleeting moments of magic. Those precious moments of pure love.
I am so grateful. I was and am blessed for having had them. Blessed to live my truth, clear eyed, steeped in love.
________________________________________
The greatest poem ever known Is one all poets have outgrown: The poetry, innate, untold, Of being only four years old.
Still young enough to be a part Of Nature’s great impulsive heart, Born comrade of bird, beast, and tree And unselfconscious as the bee—
And yet with lovely reason skilled Each day new paradise to build; Elate explorer of each sense, Without dismay, without pretense!
In your unstained transparent eyes There is no conscience, no surprise: Life’s queer conundrums you accept, Your strange divinity still kept.
And Life, that sets all things in rhyme, may make you poet, too, in time— But there were days, O tender elf, When you were Poetry itself!
The definition of significant rings familiar. However, in the study of statistics ‘Significant’ has a color of meaning that I find.. well, significant.
significant
adjective
Important; of consequence. Having or expressing a meaning.
Statistics – of or relating to observations that are unlikely to occur by chance and that therefore indicate a systematic cause.
The significance of the choice to have an affair can not be understated. Until and unless the unfaithful recognizes what led them to make those choices, they are at risk of a repeat performance. Humans must dig deep to understand themselves. Self reflection is vital to self management and self control.
When a person’s thinking blossoms into stories they tell themselves that are not cross checked with reality; when a person assumes, he or she crosses into the land of minimization, justification, villianization of others and generally what 12 step programs refer to as “stink’in think’in”. The unfaithful often have placed significance into their own thought processes without benefit of adjusting their lens to reflect 20/20 reality. In short, they fool themselves–self delusion.
“unlikely to occur by chance and that therefore indicate a systematic cause.”
Their choices did not occur ‘by chance’. They have a systematic cause that must be unearthed to recognize it, clarify and adjust it to defend against its repetition.
What can we say about significance when it relates to the thinking and actions of the betrayed? So many of us are blindsided by our partner’s betrayal. Rightly so. Not many people expect the most beloved and presumably trustworthy person in their life to destroy the contract, the agreement to support, honor and cherish.
What I am about to say may tweak you the wrong way, make you mad or, at first blush– just seem w-r-o-n-g.
I found my identity in the wrong things.
WHAT???
I hear you thinking: “Is it wrong to be committed to my spouse, family, home and career?
Whoa. I did not say anything about commitment. I said ‘identity’. My significance.
identity
the sense of self, providing sameness and continuity in personality over time and sometimes disturbed in mental illnesses.
Many of us have such a huge commitment to our spouse, family and home that it becomes our identity. We feel a-fronted should someone criticize how we are parenting or judge our housekeeping or our marital relationship. We take on an inordinate share of our worthiness and place it outside our healthy circle of control. At the end of the day we have zero control over other person’s choices–even our children and spouse. Truth be told, we have little control over anything or anyone other than ourself.
For those of us who find our sense of worth in the success of our marriage, our children, our career, the state of our house—we are bound to be disappointed. We may, in fact, live in a nearly chronic state of low level disappointment.
There is no such thing as perfection. No such thing as reliable control (and therefore responsibility) for other person’s behaviors. It is not realistic to think that we do. “Mental illness?”, though? Perhaps if taken too extreme. We risk slipping into codependence at best.
Out of love we misplace our value, our identity, sometimes our very significance on the perceived health of our spouse, children, home, and/or career. We put the golden eggs of our self esteem and value in other people, places and things. We exert unenforceable rules and demands, whether stated or imagined, onto imperfect, limited person’s and things. We set ourselves up for disappointment.
When we judge our day, our week or our life on how well others outside our circle of control are behaving, and place the value of our happiness upon them, we will eventually, inevitably be disappointed, ney, devastated should they betray us.
I misplaced so very much of my identity, my value, my worth on how well I was doing in my primary relationships; how successful those relationship were in the lens of my upbringing and cultural influences. Did my life measure up to what I deserved because I gave so much and tried so hard to be a great mom, wife and employee? Surely everyone else who professed to love me– owed me the same. They would act in love toward me, support me, value me and feed into my identity of good mom, wife and employee.
Nuts.
It just doesn’t work that way. What any given person invests in is seldom returned in full. Even when there are occasions of happiness, of support and investment of love toward us, it is imperfect and limited–as everyone and all situations are. If my identity is as a valued, respected and loved wife, mother and employee, I WILL be bruised and disappointed when not treated as such.
In the case of infidelity, I will be devastated. My perceived value as that great wife, mother, employee is going down the drain when the plug is pulled. When the rug of my expectations is yanked from beneath me the ‘unfairness’ of my expectation of faithfulness and love–shattered, I am in peril of being shot down. I feel devalued if not worthless. All my love and work and giving did not yield what I told myself I deserved, earned. And why didn’t I see it coming? Is there something wrong with me that this atrocity should have been cast upon me? My perfect world is shattered. My expectation of growing old with the spouse I loved always and forever at my side in loving support—obliterated. “Plan A” into which I invested all my golden eggs has proven to be untrustworthy, flawed and… *gasp* uncontrollable.
I am now in the land of destroyed plan A–hoisted into a plan B I neither planned for, expected or deserved. Where do I go from here? The rubble of plan A is all around me and my outlook on life has taken a severe beating. From where do I find my strength, my value?
For those of faith, a higher power is the one reliable answer. From a secular perspective, another safety net must be constructed or drawn upon. If we have put all our worth and identity in our marriage, we are starting from ground zero. For those of us who have spread our identity out to include a broad spectrum of persons, places, accomplishments, our task will have some support so vital to heal. Grief needs to be witnessed. Many of our unfaithful are too deep in shame or ‘the fog’ to help us. If our very identity, our significance has been placed in them, we are up that cliche creek without a paddle.
What we all desire is to be loved. When someone we love lets us down in the most profound way and we do not have a strong relationship with our personal value apart from persons and things, we are bound to flounder. The first step of the 12 step recovery programs reminds us that we are powerless over _______________. Fill in the blank. Whether it be alcohol, overeating, drugs or other people the truth of it rings loud and clear.
God
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change—
The courage to change the things I can (myself, my attitude, my personal circle of control–ME!)
When a person is betrayed by their spouse or significant other their life is forever altered. The past that contained the hidden second life has to be rewritten in the mind of the betrayed to now include the truth. The person they believed their spouse to be is not the person he or she really is. Although the unfaithful may have feelings for their betrayed and in fact enjoyed/benefited from their role within the allegedly committed relationship, they allowed a false self, a second self to exist and be fed. They chose to be and remain duplicitous.
To ‘move on’ suggests that one is capable of putting such an emotional/physical atrocity behind them and somehow ‘forget’. That, in my experience, is impossible. Any traumatic life event is never forgotten. It can, and indeed needs to be rewoven into the fabric of personal and relational history, incorporating the reality of what actually happened. To expect there to be some sort of willed amnesia is just not realistic…or possible.
“Can’t you just move on?” Nope.
While we are living we all move on in time. The sun continues to rise, people around us get in their cars and drive off to work or shopping. Children play and laugh. The dogs need to be fed and walked, the garden weeded and watered. Life does not stop. The earth continues to spin in space and we, each of us, grow a day older between sunset and sunset.
All of us move on in time.
If it is indeed impossible to move forward (toward health and growth) without doing the painful, deep work of processing our new reality, then why would a person choose to deny it as they move on in time?
For the betrayed it is often a factor of the stages of grief she or he must go through to get to the other side of acceptance–hopefully also finding meaning. I think we have all experienced someone who is a shell of their former self as they remain stuck in loops of grief, resentment and denial. While there is no rushing grief, there is great personal and the possibility of relational healing, when commitment to examining oneself and our place in the world is included. And then sharing it with the significant other so understanding, empathy and acceptance can ensue.
Self reflection.
The unfaithful are often resistant to self reflect. They doom themselves to moving on in time, but not forward in growth, in their denial of the vital need to examine their life and what led them to make such devastating choices. They doom their relationship to the death of living in a shallow, pretend co-existence with their betrayed, should they remain under the same roof together. They move on in time, but they do not, they can not move forward in personal or relational growth and healing.
So the original contention of the title of this blog is a misnomer. We all move on (in time). Time can not and does not stop. What is required for health and healing is commitment and choice to self examine for personal growth/healing and empathy, honesty and transparency for any hope of relational healing in order to move forward in personal and/or relational health.
The betrayed will NEVER forget. While they can move forward into personal health, they can not move forward into a healthy relationship without the active commitment of their unfaithful to re-earn their trust and respect. Healthy ‘real’ relationship take two healthy relational people. Active repair work on the part of the unfaithful MUST happen. Although the couple may continue to live under the same roof, the relationship will be a dead, shallow shell–as much a ruse as it was under the manipulation and control of information that existed during active betrayal. Living a lie will continue only this time the lie is faux to no intimacy. If there is none, there is not a ‘real’ (healthy) relationship.
The marriage is dead, two hurting people in its wake. Both can heal if they choose to do the work of self reflection and growth. The relationship, not unless both are committed to truth and behaving in love; the best interest of the other, paramount.
Consider well what you are forfeiting in continuing to live in a hollow lie.
A man who would betray his wife is the ‘bad guy’, right?
“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?” Scrooge trembled more and more. “Or would you know,” pursued the Ghost, “the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it since. It is a ponderous chain!”
A guy who works hard at a lucrative career affording his family the niceties of life and a great vacation each year—goes to church on Sunday and votes in every election. Good guy—right?
You may have just been caught up in the same sort of black and white shallow judgementalism that pervades most addicts thinking. And the thought patterns that lead to destructive choices, such as betrayal.
No one is born ‘bad’, as most of culture defines it. We are molded through our upbringing mostly by people who have likewise been molded–to have strengths and weaknesses, good and bad qualities. And you know what? Most of this modeling has no nefarious intent. It is the result of the unexamined life. The failure of generation after generation to do the difficult work of realization, responsibility and change.
It takes courage and fortitude to break old patterns that are ingrained from childhood. Old, rusty, ponderous chains. Often these patterns were survival mechanisms that allowed us to adapt to scary or difficult situations when we were powerless youngsters. Coping mechanisms that did the job as kids, but when carried on into adulthood reek havoc with selfhood and relationships.
A little boy who is sent to military school run by nuns, ostensibly to gain a foothold on the path to college by parents who struggled to pay for this schooling, but could not see their way to making any other choice when overwhelmed by multiple siblings, one of whom was deaf, and an alcoholic dad. Bad people? Hey, they sent their seven year old to boarding school where his tender heart was terrified by a system meant to mold young boys into men. There he learned to hide and lie and cheat to survive. Fly under the radar. Don’t get caught or reprimanded. Bad kid?
No matter the good intent of the parents. No matter the innocent child turned to manipulative survival skills. No matter. The intent to pass on destructive life coping skills was not there, yet it happened…worked like a charm.
“The best laid plans of mice and men.”
Where was the introspection of the parents when they made those decisions, convincing themselves that discipline and structure would be to their eldest son’s advantage? Where? When Dr Spock was touting ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’– and ‘let them cry it out’? Where was the language of the heart that could have looked into the innocent eyes of the eldest of four and seen a young boy who needed his family so much more than a structured college bound education in isolation? How else could that tender heart have taken it, but to feel rejected and punished. A human doing, not a human being any longer. Straighten up and fly right, boy.
We are not born to lie and cheat, steal and break vows. We are carefully taught –mostly by people who are justifying their choices by convincing themselves they are doing what’s best. Until and unless they figure otherwise, the legacy goes on. From grandfather to father to son the story continues. Until and unless someone can look deeply into self and reality to say ‘no more’.
How do you break the cycle of learned self-deception?
Why? via the opposite. Truth. Vulnerability. Hard conversations. Courage like one has never before had to muster.
Breaking the code of silence.
Breaking the chains of addiction’s mandate. Secrets and silence.
Breaking away from passive, looking the other way existence.
Unabashedly sharing one’s heart and the pain overflowing from all the mistaken choices made and enforced in one’s own childhood. Grieving innocence lost. All those years missed in the loving bosom of an imperfect, but caring family. The message internalized: ‘I am not worth loving.’
And so the same story, different scenery and timeframe, but the same broken story is repeated again and again.
A fellow betrayed wife asked me in the comments section of my blog on affair recovery dot com. My response:
“We are in house separated. There was no ‘light switch’ turning point. My path has been more like a dimmer switch –the light brightening as I lean into my choice to move forward. My attendance at Alanon has supported the need to ‘detach in love’ as I have worked at rebuilding my life. At some point, as in any grief (especially the loss of a loved one to death. This is a kind of death), you have to decide to live again—to find the reasons that surround all of us, to go on.
We can not afford two households. I am not willing to sacrifice any more than I already have. I want to continue to be able to afford not only basic living expenses, but to be able to see my daughter and granddaughter living on the other side of the country. I choose every day to look for (and find) all the good, all the beauty. Life goes on all around me and I choose to jump back into the stream. Life is not what I planned, nor imagined, but it is still good.”
I am sad for him. He chooses to remain in his surface world, refusing to dig deep and recover. The very nature of his stonewalling is emotionally abusive because it leaves me still abandoned to my own recovery. Over time I am able to empathize with his brokenness and not take it so personally. He may think he is choosing his comfort. That comes at a high price— rejecting living a full emotionally, spiritually and physically healthy life.
I am sad for him.
“People are who they are and they don’t change just because we need them too.” – David Kessler, “Finding Meaning”
March 17, 2018 by The Boundaries Books Team Dr Townsend and Cloud
I (Dr. Cloud) was talking to a young man one day about his girlfriend. He was thinking about getting married, and he had questions about their relationship. Several times during the conversation, he said that something she did or something about the relationship did not “make him happy.” It was clear that this was a theme for him. She was not “making him happy.” When I asked, he said that she wanted him to deal with some things in the relationship. He needed to do some work that took effort. It was not a “happy” time. When he had to work on the relationship, he no longer liked it. At first, I was trying to understand what the difficulties were, but the more I listened, the more I saw that he was the difficulty. His attitude was, “If I’m not happy, something bad must be happening.” And his immediate conclusion was always that the “bad” was in someone else, not him. From his perspective, he was not part of any problem, much less part of the solution. Finally, I had heard about as much as I could take of his self-centered ramblings. “I think I know what you should do,” I said. “What?” he asked. “I think you should get a goldfish,” I replied. Looking at me as if I were a little crazy, he asked, “What are you talking about? Why do you say that?” “It sounds to me like that is about the highest level of relationship you are ready for. Forget the marriage thing.” “What do you mean by ‘the highest level of relationship’?” “Well, even a dog makes demands on you. A dog has to be let out to go to the bathroom. You have to clean up after it. Other times, it requires time from you when you don’t want to give it. A dog might interfere with your happiness. Better get a goldfish. A goldfish doesn’t ask for much. But a woman is completely out of the question.” Now we had something to talk about. This person’s greatest value was his own happiness and his own immediate comfort. And I can’t think of a worse value in life, especially a life that includes marriage. Why? Is this a killjoy attitude? Hardly. I am not advocating misery. I hate pain. But I do know this: People who always want to be happy and pursue it above all else are some of the most miserable people in the world. The reason is that happiness is a result. It is sometimes the result of having good things happen. But usually it is the result of our being in a good place inside ourselves and our having done the character work we need to do so that we are content and joyful in whatever circumstance we find ourselves. Happiness is a fruit of a lot of hard work in relationships, career, spiritual growth, or a host of other arenas of life. But nowhere is this as true as in marriage. Marriage is a lot of work, period. I don’t know anyone who has been married very long who does not attest to that. When couples do the right kind of work—character work—they find that they can gain more happiness in their marriage than they thought possible. But it always comes as a result of going through some difficult moments. Conflicts, fears, and old traumas. Big and small rejections, arguments, and hurt feelings. The disillusionment of someone being different than was imagined. The difficult task of accepting imperfections and immaturity that are larger than one thinks they should be. All of these things are normal, and all of these things are workable. And if people work through them, they reach happiness again, usually a happiness of a deeper and better sort. But if they hit these inevitable walls and have the attitude that this problem is “interfering with my happiness,” they are in real trouble. They will be angry with the “inconvenience” of their happiness being interrupted and will refuse to solve the issues or will just leave the relationship. If happiness is our guide and it goes away momentarily, we will assume that something is wrong. The truth is (and this is why happiness is such a horrible goal) that when we are not happy, something good may be happening. You may have been brought to that moment of crisis because of a need for growth, and that crisis may be the solution to much of what is wrong with your life. If you could grasp whatever it is that this situation is asking you to learn, it could change your entire life.
Christine Renewed 