more turtles by my side...

[RoRoinMD]

Ro, I'm not sure why you have such a strong reaction to a strong male voice, or why a simple bump of a 2x4 post would set you off do much, but I suspect it has more to do with you than it does with me.

Starsky

Something told me that's what you would say, and I actually examined my feelings about before I posted to make sure that wasn't it.

My grandfather getting up before dawn every morning for 50+ years so he could feed his family was strong.

My mother raising 3 kids on her own was strong.

My grandmother tending to her mother with Alzheimer's by herself on a daily basis was strong.

You almost forcing your opinion on other posters is NOT strong. You CANNOT make people do ANYTHING, and because of that you resort to questioning the kind of person they are or how strong they are. And that, my friend, makes us suspect that has more to do with YOU than the rest of us. I know you saved your M, and that should be celebrated. But what you did won't work for everbody. And it makes you look like the last kid picked for kickball when you fire back on someone who didn't do what you wanted them to do.

Now, I think we've both done enough to derail zig's thread tonight, so I'll call game over and move on.

[needgrace]

hi starsky, i love to read your posts, i learn a lot from them... but i must ask how exactly you think what zig is doing is a bad example? i am truly confused about that.. from what i see, she has worked hard at keeping S out of the situation w/ H... she had H leave the home...she has been friendly but detached.. she is trying to save her M to his F...

I may be a "cheerleader" of zig's, that is true, i adore her... but still i am trying to look at this as objectively as i can and with all due respect, i don't get it. i understand your perspective on boundaries and think you raise very good points on what is so so confusing about the differing advice offered by the coaches..and i know you have found what worked in your sitch and really want to help others help their Ms..

but i don't see how she is doing anything that sets a bad example for her S. and knowing zig, that is the LAST thing she would want to do..so Starsky if you would elaborate we can either agree to all disagree... or maybe some or all of us may change our thoughts.... and it seems a sad way to end what seemed to have begun as such a fruitful discussion.

[labug]

So what I'm getting from this is it's OK for Starsky to challenge others, just not OK for others to challenge Starsky?

And I think we've covered this ground before, so like Ro, I'm out.

(note to Ro sag=sagittarius)

[zig]

Starsky you didn't wait for my response from the last question you asked me. I was going to respond to that, but i am working through a lot of stuff right now and i think i had indicated that quite clearly, before i could formulate an answer for you.


but then instead you quoted shocked one's question - instead.

I am not looking for cheerleaders only. KD, labug, ces, brit and all the others- they challenge me all the time and really make me think about where i am really at.

and what you refer to as cheerleading - isn't that us just simply encouraging each other to stay within a state of PMA as much as we can?

You are right - the affair IS under my nose - and it hurts like hell, no matter how positive i try to stay. and maybe you're right too that my "mentor abandoned me and you feel sorry for me" as you put it, but hot damn starsky, you want to rub my nose in it too?

fine, if that's what you want to do - that's your thing.

there's a big difference between asking me about my sitch and implying that my morals/values or whatever are not up to the mark.

maybe the difference here is that the challenges I see I have to face are the ones within myself - how to become strong, after what I've been through, how to learn to forgive which I never knew how to do before, how to accept gracefully what life has given me right now which I could never do before, how to love even when one gets nothing back, how to give up control when fear always kept me holding on and how to accept that h is another whole individual who has the right to make his own mistakes, lead his own life,


the challenges you see I have to face is how to change the sitch.

So we are coming at it from two different places, right now. Our end goals are the same - you and I would both like to see my marriage reconciled.

The way I see it is that at the least, I have to heal totally before there is even a remote possibility of that, I am trying really hard to focus on that.You are not aware, but I have a long pretty sordid history of sexual abuse, beatings both at boarding school and at home by my grandmother, a lot of public shaming for things I was not responsible for. those are the things that shaped me, shaped my life and shaped my relationships. It is only now, at 46 that I am really really dealing with these issues and they are more than enough to face, let alone realizing how their long-term effects shaped the interactions I had with both my ex and h.

I simply cannot stand here and say, my h is a [censored], I'm calling him on it. yes I wish he was not doing this horrible thing, but he could say the same about me (from his point of what he went through, not mine) in the last 10 yrs.

I'm NOT pointing the finger, and I'm learning not to take all the blame, but I have to work through this at my pace. If you would like to support me in that, I would be honored, but if you feel (and i am not really sure what you think I should do exactly in terms of actions or attitude) that you can only be here if I agree to everything that you say, then we shall be at loggerheads, shan't we?

You have no idea what lengths I have gone to in terms of my behavior and acting as if with my s so he would be protected from this info. You are not the one who has had to sit in front of the computer while h and s skyped while h was visiting her and watched your h go into such an high anxiety state that he could not function and his behavior got so bizarre that s was freaking out.. you are not the one who watched their s freaking out at seeing his dad like that , and you are not the one who stepped in and sat there and calmed them both down and reassured them both - in spite of the fact that he was in her house at that time. and i will say that he was going to great lengths not to let s know about that.

so for you to ask me that question - aah all it shows me is that you know nothing of my life and where i'm at, and you know nothing of my efforts


You want the details - you can have them:


my efforts at DB'ing go beyond trying to fix my marriage. I cannot fix it until I am fixed. The car accidents were a trigger for me to shut down first physically and then mentally (from the concussion) and then finally emotionally (from the post-concussion).

h and s lived for 5 yrs with someone who literally wasn't there. I was here physically but I had no emotional connection with anything or anyone (one of the wonderful symptoms of post concussion syndrome). I was in such sensory overload that everyone had to whisper around me. s couldn't play exuberantly, we didn't have any music in the house, i wore ear plugs all day long and if anyone so much as dropped a book on the floor it would send me into vicious spasms - it was 5 yrs of zig's [censored] to deal with exclusively. towards the last 2 years i became so fearful of everything that i became really clingy with h. h and s were utterly lost in it, constantly overwhelmed by my high anxiety state caused by the movement disorder. We had no support from the doctors, we lost the trial and all we were left with was a huge pile of medical bills, still unpaid, and me in the house with no sign of any hope whatsoever.

so when i say, i'm going to give him a break, this is why. i'm not saying he did everything right or was justified in leaving the way he did because things were tough. i am saying that my huge crisis (and believe me when i say that until you've lived with someone who has a movement disorder, you don't know what horror is, not just for the person themselves but also for the people who love them) caused him to go into one.

i have discussed the effects of what s and h went through with 4 therapists and they all agree that what i describe could very well be some sort of PTSD reaction. (he suffered more than i did emotionally - and he couldn't handle it. there is nothing worse than watching someones brain go haywire and send every muscle in their body into jerking spasms, including their eyelids so they are functionally blind. all he could do was to get me into a safe position so i wouldn't get hurt while the episode lasted. he got to feel so helpless that it overwhelmed him completely. and when i say sensory - you can guess what that included and what effect that had on him. i do believe the whole thing seriously traumatized not just h and s but both families. i spent most of that time contorted into different positions by the spasms and looked like i was 85. i saw the look in their eyes

(so now you guys know why i really get so delighted about how good i look now - grin)

i worked f*cking hard for 3 years to get over all that stuff, and i am still dealing with the leftovers.

so there you have it star sky - for the last few days, i've been hesitant to write this stuff- not wanting to justify myself or h in this. the additional fact is that we already had problems in our r before the accident and that the effects of the accident just made everything really really bad. (what people don't know in general is that neurological conditions are always accompanied by psychological ones, and also that people with movement disorders - their spouses leave them within 2-4 yrs because of the trauma or not being able to handle it) h refuses to acknowledge that anything that happened in the last 5 yrs before he left had anything to do with his decision. he only refers to the first 5, which the therapists thought was significant in his shutting down

he's just another person star sky - with strong points and weak ones, just like the rest of us. and in spite of him acting like a complete alien, i still know he has very very deep feelings for me - as i do for him. i know that he may never come back and i think in the end i will understand. i've wondered a lot why we got the deal we got and i have felt very bitter about it as h as. but we didn't get to choose, you know. and if this is part of the result, then we both have to live with it. not just me, h too.

as one of the marriage counselors said - yes you had problems in the first yrs just like any other couple - but there's no way to tell what may have happened if you hadn't had the accidents.

well there's no way to tell still - maybe that's the whole point - nothing more, nothing less

so lets not "fight" - star sky - i've had more than enough challenges to last me a very long time - and i just want to be able to approach this with as much love and kindness as i can possibly muster - that's all i want to be good at for now

(( ))
zig

[zig]

thanks everyone - for your amazing support , as always...

you are all so close in my heart tonight. i don't think i've ever had so many supporting me when they didn't even quite know what they were supporting me for

i'm closing this thread now - and ending this part of the discussion

see you at the next one.....

or should i say - at the picnic

i have a lot of love for all of you

zig

[ShockedOne]

Zig, it is clear you do not want me on your sitch, so I will leave.