Wisdom of Mr. Rogers

This might seem like taking a breather from betrayal recovery. It is my belief that gaining strength from others who have lived life well is a powerful form of self care. So here’s some inspiration from Fred Rogers aka “Mr. Rogers:

“All of us, at some time or other, need help. Whether we’re giving or receiving help, each one of us has something valuable to bring to this world. That’s one of the things that connects us as neighbors–in our own way, each one of us is a giver and a receiver.”
“Anyone who does anything to help a child in his life is a hero. “
“As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has- or ever will have- something inside that is unique to all time. It’s our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression.”
“Discovering the truth about ourselves is a lifetime’s work, but it’s worth the effort.”
“Forgiveness is a strange thing. It can sometimes be easier to forgive our enemies than our friends. It can be hardest of all to forgive people we love. Like all of life’s important coping skills, the ability to forgive and the capacity to let go of resentments most likely take root very early in our lives.”
“How many times have you noticed that it’s the little quiet moments in the midst of life that seem to give the rest extra-special meaning?”
“I don’t think anyone can grow unless he’s loved exactly as he is now, appreciated for what he is rather than what he will be.”
“I hope you’re proud of yourself for the times you’ve said “yes,” when all it meant was extra work for you and was seemingly helpful only to someone else.”
“If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.”
“In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.”
“It’s not the honors and the prizes and the fancy outsides of life which ultimately nourish our souls. It’s the knowing that we can be trusted, that we never have to fear the truth, that the bedrock of our very being is good stuff.”
“It’s not the honors and the prizes and the fancy outsides of life that ultimately nourish our souls. It’s the knowing that we can be trusted, that we never have to fear the truth, that the bedrock of our very being is firm.”
“It’s really easy to fall into the trap of believing that what we do is more important than what we are. Of course, it’s the opposite that’s true: What we are ultimately determines what we do!”
“Knowing that we can be loved exactly as we are gives us all the best opportunity for growing into the healthiest of people.”
“Listening is where love begins: listening to ourselves and then to our neighbors.”
“Little by little we human beings are confronted with situations that give us more and more clues that we are not perfect. “
“Love and success, always in that order. It’s that simple AND that difficult.”
“Love is like infinity: You can’t have more or less infinity, and you can’t compare two things to see if they’re ‘equally infinite.’ Infinity just is, and that’s the way I think love is, too.”
“Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.”
“Mutual caring relationships require kindness and patience, tolerance, optimism, joy in the other’s achievements, confidence in oneself, and the ability to give without undue thought of gain.”
“Often out of periods of losing come the greatest strivings toward a new winning streak.”
“Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.”
“Our society is much more interested in information than wonder, in noise rather than silence…And I feel that we need a lot more wonder and a lot more silence in our lives”
“Real strength has to do with helping others.”
“Some days, doing ‘the best we can’ may still fall short of what we would like to be able to do, but life isn’t perfect on any front-and doing what we can with what we have is the most we should expect of ourselves or anyone else.”
“There’s a world of difference between insisting on someone’s doing something and establishing an atmosphere in which that person can grow into wanting to do it.”
“The connections we make in the course of a life–maybe that’s what heaven is.”
“The greatest gift you ever give is your honest self.”
“The kingdom of God is for the broken hearted”
“The media shows the tiniest percentage of what people do. There are millions and millions of people doing wonderful things all over the world, and they’re generally not the ones being touted in the news.”
“The only thing evil can’t stand is forgiveness.”
“The thing I remember best about successful people I’ve met all through the years is their obvious delight in what they’re doing and it seems to have very little to do with worldly success. They just love what they’re doing, and they love it in front of others.”
“The world needs a sense of worth, and it will achieve it only by its people feeling that they are worthwhile.” “Try your best to make goodness attractive. That’s one of the toughest assignments you’ll ever be given.”
“There are three ways to ultimate success: The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind.”
“There are times when explanations, no matter how reasonable, just don’t seem to help.”
“There is no normal life that is free of pain. It’s the very wrestling with our problems that can be the impetus for our growth.”
“There’s a part of all of us that longs to know that even what’s weakest about us is still redeemable and can ultimately count for something good.”
“We all have different gifts, so we all have different ways of saying to the world who we are.”
“We get so wrapped up in numbers in our society. The most important thing is that we are able to be one-to-one, you and I with each other at the moment. If we can be present to the moment with the person that we happen to be with, that’s what’s important.”
“We speak with more than our mouths. We listen with more than our ears.”
“Whatever we choose to imagine can be as private as we want it to be. Nobody knows what you’re thinking or feeling unless you share it.”
“Who you are inside is what helps you make and do everything in life.”
“You can think about things and make believe. All you have to do is think and they’ll grow.”
“You can’t really love someone else unless you really love yourself first.”
“You rarely have time for everything you want in this life, so you need to make choices. And hopefully your choices can come from a deep sense of who you are.”

Conflict Avoidance, The Death of a Marriage

Relationship experts Dr. John & Julie Gottman and Dr. Shirley Glass have done extensive scientific research on the “whys” behind infidelity.

They found that while neglect often leads to marital dissatisfaction, affairs usually result from avoidance. Avoidance of conflict and avoidance of self-disclosure. Essentially, unhappiness and disconnection are driven by a force of destructive, negative thinking that has no outlet.

Thoughts like “Why am I even in this marriage? Why isn’t my partner more loving or interested in me? Why can’t she laugh at my jokes? Why doesn’t he take me out more? Can take over the positives in your marriage. The path to infidelity looks like this:

Conflict avoidance creates misunderstanding and resentment

At first, you may have thought you were keeping the peace. Yet, conflict avoidance can quickly lead to lost opportunities to connect, work things out as a team, and reach mutually satisfying agreements. The process of healthy conflict, communication, and compromise is deeply unifying.

Avoiding self-disclosure creates distance

When you stop sharing negative feelings & needs, you start developing a habit of living with secrets. Soon, those secrets come between you. You drift apart, start making negative comparisons, and look to others to fulfill your relationship needs.

Dr. John Gottman explains it this way

Factors increasing risks for infidelity are:

Negative comparisons between your spouse and other, idealized people
Consistently turning away or avoiding chances to connect with your partner
Refusing to acknowledge or talk about feelings with your partner regarding your unhappiness.

Couples that confide unhappiness about the relationship to someone else instead of with each other are on a downward spiral toward infidelity.

In other words, not creating adequate boundaries around the relationship for sharing deeper feelings and needs (including marital unhappiness) can push partners closer to other individuals. As a result, they will use secrecy and deception to hide their unfaithful involvement.

How can you keep an affair from happening?

It’s vital that you and your partner understand what it takes to protect your marriage practically. The goal is to never get to a place where you stop sharing with each other. Never stop sharing what is working, what you appreciate, and what you would like to see change.

-Iditi Sharoni, MFT
https://iditsharoni.com/why-did-my-partner-have-an-affair/

It Worked Out Well In The End

The Kansas City Chiefs just won the Super Bowl. Their coach, rightfully proud, said “It worked out well in the end.” He referred to the turning up of the heat his team executed after being down by a couple of scores.

I’ve heard many a sports metaphor in relation to recovery. No different for trauma recovery as in intimate betrayal.

“Have faith until the last second.”

Yup. Words of encouragement and wisdom often relate to a sports game as they do in life.

We as the betrayed. Those who are the unfaithful. We all wish ardently to recover. We all hope to go on to live a fulfilling life. We all hope to regain joy and happiness.

Sometimes it seems illusive. Sometimes it feels impossible. But you know what? No matter the outcome of your marriage, you can go on to have a fulfilling life. It is within your grasp. It is a feature of mind, heart and choice. Choice to focus on the good still left in life. Every life. There are ALWAYS people, places and things for which to be grateful.

You need do no more than step outside. We live in amazing times in a natural world full of miraculous beauty. Allow yourself to be. Just be part of our wonderful amazing earth. You are an integral part of the universe. No matter how small, insignificant or broken you feel, you are still alive, present and worthwhile. You belong to this time and place. You belong.

And it will all work out well in the end.

Arrogance and Entitlement

Are mind-blowing and baffling.

Maybe you betrayed feel as I do.

For our unfaithful to have one iota of resentment, expectation or entitlement to any marital benefits after THEY have chosen to break the marriage vows and de facto abandon the marriage is the stuff of crazy making insanity.

In my case, my UH told himself he was entitled to more sex during a dry spell when our kids were 2 and 5 years old. ENTITLED!! If that was not baffling enough, he actively worked to coerce and shame me into sexual performance WITHOUT emotional investment on his part AND while he was actively sexually betraying our marriage.

I’ve used this example before: We went to a Catholic marriage retreat for a number of years each spring. It was similar to marriage encounter. We were given questions to write about and then share. He abandoned no opportunity to write about his ardent wishes for me to be more ‘intimate’ (in his mind, and much of our cultures minds, that meant sex) He would often ask me why I wasn’t, to which I responded “I truly do not know. I am just not feeling it”.

Well duh…..no wonder I wasn’t feeling it. He had abandoned our marriage emotionally and sexually. I couldn’t get him to engage. No one can force another to engage. I could only request. Requests that fell on deaf ears…as he probably felt his requests for more sex did. Thing is most women, myself included, have to feel emotionally connected to a man before entrusting him with their body. Me too.

I did not feel emotionally connected and therefore not emotionally VALUED. I could not perform like a trained circus animal. I needed connection.

Pice de resistance? He stood up with all the other retreat couples, as part of the vow renewal at retreat’s end—held my hands and looked me in the eyes while repeating wedding vows—knowing he was actively sexual with his affair partner. Arrogance? Entitlement? Manipulation? Lies? Insanity.

For him or any unfaithful to EXPECT sex with their betrayed spouse is ludicrous and in fact requiring them to have sex UNINFORMED (non consensually) is a crime. In other circumstances many would define non consensual or uninformed sex as rape.

No wonder I was shut down most of the time. I did not have the ingredients of emotional engagement, trust and support that I needed to feel sexual.

And he EXPECTED me to be sexual. Not only that, he resented me for not being more sexual. Resented and blamed. He blamed me for purposely withholding sex and abandoning HIM.

Sick, sick, sick destructive and unfair thinking.

But isn’t that the hallmark of an addict?

Yes.

Completely baffling to a healthier person.

The arrogance and the entitlement are baffling and in fact the very cause of the reduced libido of the betrayed. That and the NORMAL exhaustion of an over burdened with responsibility young mother AND/OR a woman going through peri-menopausal hell. Normal seasons of life that a healthy man would undertake to help mitigate through emotional and physical support garnished with a huge serving of compassion, empathy and understanding.

But my UH was not healthy. He was arrogant and entitled. Arrogant, entitled and a consummate liar.

I hate addiction. I hate being used, duped and controlled for years. I hate being judged as somehow defective or vengeful through intentional sexual control. I hate being misjudged and betrayed because of it. I hate being in this non-marriage place. This place where a marriage contract sits in the legal vaults, yet I have not been honored as a wife. I hate it.

First Night Back and Parable of the Starfish

I’m sitting on my couch watching the first Lakers basketball game post passing of Kobe Bryant. It reminds me of the impact one individual can have on so many lives. That said, most of us do not have a platform to touch that many lives.

As the old parable of the starfish goes, “It mattered to that one.”

A man walked along his favorite stretch of beach one morning. The night before a great many starfish had washed up upon the beach and were strewn for as far as the eye could see. The man saw a young boy ahead, picking up one starfish at a time. He tossed each into the sea, one by one.

The man approached the boy. “Son. That’s kind of you, but there must be thousands of starfish here on the beach. You can’t save them all. So it doesn’t matter.”

The boy turned to the man, starfish in hand. He tossed it into the sea. “It matters to this one.”

Never for a moment think you have not impacted the world in your own positive way. Even if you have touched one life. It matters to that one.

You matter.

Don’t ask. Do.

The Gottman Marriage Minute post today touched a raw spot in me and I was wondering how others handle it.

Often in recovery with hopes of reconciliation, it is suggested that the former unfaithful ask his/her betrayed partner “Is there anything I can do (for you)?”

I know when I am hurting, I have no earthly idea what might help.(“If you need help, you don’t always have the bandwidth to request it in the form of specific actions.”) When I am not actively hurting, daily engagement voicing empathy, concern, acknowledgement, gratitude is the recipe.

I have to agree with Gottman– doing something is so much better than doing nothing and expecting a positive reaction or gratitude in return from the hurting will sometimes be disappointing. As they say, expectations are a set up for resentment.

It is inadvisable to do a good turn with expectation of kudos in return.

How can the US do this without expectation/ becoming resentment fodder?

What do you think? Or as the post asks– “What ways do you genuinely enjoy helping? What do you have to offer that is special and joyful to you?”

Here is the post:

Chances are, with the best intentions, you’ve asked someone, “Is there anything I can do?”

People have probably asked you this question, too. But how often have you assigned them a task in return?

If you need help, you don’t always have the bandwidth to request it in the form of specific actions.

It might even surprise the person who asked if you told them, “Yes, actually, could you take my garbage out right now?”

A better way to show up for someone who is grieving, busy, in pain, or overwhelmed is to offer something specific and authentic to you. Ask yourself, “What can I give?”

In There Is No Good Card for This, Kelsey Crowe, Ph.D. and Emily McDowell write, “If you care, doing something is important. But doing something you like to do, and not something you would normally resist doing, is invaluable.”

“Would you like to go for a walk?”
“Do you want to talk about it? Or we can watch The Bachelor and put it out of your mind for a little while.”
“Here, I made you my famous mac and cheese.”

They might say no, and that’s okay.

What ways do you genuinely enjoy helping people? What do you have to offer that is special and joyful to you?

What I Crave

As a betrayed, as a human being, I crave hearing understanding words. It is that which I have requested, even begged my UH to give.

Understanding of the many betrayals, of the misjudgments, of the unkindness. Recognition and therefore the claiming of responsibility for the actions that have destroyed our marriage and my heart.

Last week he claimed responsibility for wrongly judging me and snidely saying ‘Well what did you expect?” in reference to his infidelity. He said it was always wrong. He never should have said it, never should have thought it and never should have acted upon it. It was unfair and untrue. He owned it. He demonstrated understanding of the harm and the wrongness.

Yes.

My shattered heart craves the balm of validation of my feelings as well as the understanding and compassion deserved from my former spouse. Even if we are to never reconcile in the sense of a marital relationship, it is simply the right thing to do. To make claim of the harm caused, the damage involked and a deep understanding of the error in thinking and judgement that led to such actions.

No self reflective apology equals no safety. No safety equals no rightful ability to regain any level of healthy relationship–even if only as acquaintances. It is the bare minimum needed to look another person in the face day after day. The bare minimum to interact on any legitimate level. The bare minimum demonstration of respect.

I asked him if he felt better after admitting the error and the harm in his former statement? He said, “Yes, when you recognized it.”

“Do I need to recognize or validate your claim of responsibility and remorse for it to continue? Isn’t it done because it is the right thing to do? Maybe demonstrating some level of care for me as a person and my feelings?”

“Yes. But I didn’t mean it that way. It was not my intention (to come across as needing praise and validation)”

“Well that is the way it came across and that is the stuff of the old you. The guy who needs praise to act.”

He didn’t like that. He said he didn’t mean that.

Yeah, well…uh huh.

Pride? Sure feels that way. Why is it so hard for him or any person who has inflicted harm, to admit it, claim full responsibility and understanding of the harm and apologize? In my experience it is pride.

And so the dance continues. And so I continue to do self care. And so I remain in self imposed isolation from relationship with him. And so I remain bolstering up my world, my gratitude, finding and executing the things that bring me calm and joy. I’m getting better at it. I am even enjoying some of the journey. I am seeing the value in it. I am growing.

I am moving in the direction of healing. My healing.

K-O-B-E

K- for kind. So many have said the man, the legend was indeed kind, even when no one was looking.

O- is for original. Yeah–he won an Oscar for his short animated feature inspiring kids to hang in there and give it their all.

B – Best. He gave it his best. His work ethic was known widely to be amazing. Talent plus hard work.

E – Enough. No matter how hard he worked, no matter how hard anyone works, it will be seen as not enough in those times of inevitable failure. Make that last hoop and you’re the best player ever. Miss it, lose the game, you are the villain. The let down. A mistake. Or a poor choice. I hope grace and redemption are available for us all. YOU are enough. Whether betrayed or unfaithful. Always have been. Always will be.

We can learn a lot from Kobe. A man who fell. A man who went on to achieve. We who are struggling with being betrayed by the one person who swore to uphold us in love. We unfaithful who are fighting to become men and women of integrity after our own fall.

K- for kind. If there is one lesson anyone can learn, to profit themselves and others, it is to be kind. Or as Fred Rogers said: “There are three ways to ultimate success: The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind.” May we who have been devastated remember how important it is to keep living by this golden rule….even when no one else seems to be following it.

O- for original. Each of us is one of a kind in all the history of the world. Each of us have a unique gift to give the world. Don’t allow someone else’s devastating choices to keep you from giving that gift to the world. Don’t allow your own failures and bad choices to dictate the rest of your life or your value.

B- for the best. This recovery journey will require the best of you. But then you have probably had lots of practice giving your best to your spouse, and your family. You are no stranger to the ‘best’. Don’t let your unfaithful’s choices change that about you. Give your best gift with kindness intact.

E- Enough. You always have been. You in your perfect imperfection have given and loved to the best of your ability. You and your original gifts and talents are the best ‘you’ there has ever been or will be. You are precious, unique and soooo much ‘enough’.

SO…you kind, original, best, enough soul- hang in there one day at a time. Keep climbing that mountain of recovery. Keep caring for special precious, kind, original, best and enough you.

Kobe knew it. He fell and got back up. Kobe gave it. One day, one workout, one basket, one game at a time.

Kind original best enough him.

Kind original best enough you.

Addendum: It is my intent to focus on all the good the man did on the day of his death. But more, I wanted to uplift those of us who are struggling. I do regret that the post has brought up some hurt in others. None of us know the truth of all of his life and (infidelity?), but like you, I ardently hope our unfaithful spouses will heal themselves and their marriage (as it seems Kobe did) to go on in their lives to do good. I hope all unfaithful are neither judged or feel they must wear the yoke of failures/ poor choices for the rest of their lives–and afterwards, as we remember them. I choose gratitude and focusing on redemption.