Maybell XXXII

[claire7]

Maybell, my doll, do you see it? We gots some work to do. We've both been schooled, bonked on the head and told we are stuck.

I could use a growth partner. Would love for you to be mine if you are willing. Hold me accountable to staying focused on me. (And perhaps I could do the same for you )

What do you think?

[Maybell]

Claire, yep. Not sure how to implement, though, do you have a plan?

Betsey, thank you, I do appreciate your perspective and I'm going to stew on your words for a while.

This is NOT a but. This is processing. Maybe clarifying.

I don't think I'm that bitter when he's not around. I don't talk about him much unless I'm asked or if there is some past event I'm trying to put in its proper place as part of my processing process. What was real? What wasn't? Where did I go wrong? What is his?

RIGHT NOW, I still feel the same response to him that I always felt. Meaning, that I feel the same connection to him that I felt when I very first knew him. That he and I are... I don't know... sympatico? I don't know. But I feel a physical sensation of belonging together.

Now I'm trying to really let go of him. But when I SEE him, I want to say casual connecting things like "Hey, did you see Walking Dead this week?" But I DON'T want to say that -- because what's happened between us was so destructive and I don't want to gloss over it and I know that's how he'd take it. So I overstate the coldness just to keep myself from reaching out to him again and making a fool of myself some more.

He doesn't want me. OK. I HEAR that. I am living it. I'm trying to live it gracefully. It is really, really hard to let go of him when my instinct is to connect, and I can see that he's standing there waiting for it.

(is it worth saying that my instinct with people generally is to connect? and that this is part of that?)

He doesn't want the marriage back. He just wants us to be friends. Because I'm his best friend but he wants passion. I can't live with that. At least, not for a long time. Not till my life has been lived for a while without him and all the detritus of this destruction has been left behind.

I'm not contradicting what you're saying and I promise to reread your posts more carefully and really take your message to heart. For what it's worth, I am a very different person from who I was even only three years ago, and a lot of that is due to the kindess of people weighing in here. I do take a little pride in that.

[Maybell]

When I got stuck in my angry, hopeless feelings, I changed my prayers to read, "Please change what's in my heart. Your will be done." THAT's when things changed for me.

This is the part I needed to hear. Thanks for following up with that. I will do this.

[Underdog]

Claire, goodness, you are such a good egg. I had a few women here (who are still people I call friends IRL) who were my change compadres. It was such a worthwhile group effort that it would have been difficult not to choose growth and discomfort through it all.

RIGHT NOW, I still feel the same response to him that I always felt. Meaning, that I feel the same connection to him that I felt when I very first knew him. That he and I are... I don't know... sympatico? I don't know. But I feel a physical sensation of belonging together.

So are you saying you have 2 speeds? Off and on? All or nothing? My personal choice is to connect to the other person (we are not just talking sexual partners or former spouses) where they are, within my healthy boundaries as well. This belonging together is a something that you've stuck in this equation. Why? You belong together. You hate what he's done and he disgusts you. You still want to connect. Yet you want to kill him and can't even ask about Walking Dead? Woman, this is completely nuts.

Now I'm trying to really let go of him. But when I SEE him, I want to say casual connecting things like "Hey, did you see Walking Dead this week?" But I DON'T want to say that -- because what's happened between us was so destructive and I don't want to gloss over it and I know that's how he'd take it.

Good grief, MB. This is a pure ego instinct. You'd be asking him about a TV show, for crying out loud! Not a meaningful sexual experience or a sharing of raw emotion. This is small talk you'd have with an acquaintance at your D11's school who you knew watched the show.

So I overstate the coldness just to keep myself from reaching out to him again and making a fool of myself some more.

EGO, EGO, EGO. Somewhere between spilling your guts all over the floor and outright refusal of any small talk is a blissful medium, MB. It's ok to talk about Walking Dead. It's okay to judge Tiger Mom's sh!tty cupcakes at the science fair. It's okay to discuss how gas prices have been bipolar. It's okay to complain about the remodeling at the grocery store. It's okay. IT'S OKAY! It's okay to connect as 2 human beings who converse. I realize that your R with him is a work in process. I also realize that you're butt hurt that he rejected you and pulled the trigger on your marriage, dishonorably as he did that. But I hate to tell you that the milk spilled on the floor and it's not going back in that glass.

In your case, someone cleaned up the mess and you're still staring at it saying, "I can't believe you spilled the milk!" This is the insanity I had to point out. It doesn't mean it wasn't an colossal mess. It means that you do your level best to live right now. Quit looking in that rear mirror.

If you did that, and he walked through the door to pick up or drop off the kids and you had those blinders on, could you say, "What did you think about Walking Dead this week?" He'd tell you. Or not. Then you could say, "Well, thanks, but it's time to get the kids started on homework/chores/whatever. See you Wednesday." Tell me what kind of foolish that would make you for connecting in such a fashion?

He doesn't want the marriage back. He just wants us to be friends. Because I'm his best friend but he wants passion. I can't live with that. At least, not for a long time. Not till my life has been lived for a while without him and all the detritus of this destruction has been left behind.

Ok, so you don't want this. At least not right now. So don't be his best friend. Be the kind of person who can have a conversation with another parent. He just happens to be the parent of your kids, but you don't have to make it that personal even. Neither one of you is ready to be friends the way you both would define it. So do what you need to do to be happy TODAY. Just today. Tomorrow will take care of itself.

I don't think I'm that bitter when he's not around. I don't talk about him much unless...

Well, he's not around when you blog so I'll challenge you on that. I get venting, MB. I'm not advising you to not do that. If you think bitter with him or without him, it's affecting you. It's getting in your way of being close to others because you're still butt hurt but letting it come out as anger.

or if there is some past event I'm trying to put in its proper place as part of my processing process. What was real? What wasn't?

I'll answer this. Yes, you both did wrong in your marriage. It was real. End of story.

Where did I go wrong?

This, too, is a work in progress. Haven't you been doing this all along? What grand conclusions have you reached? Will they help you today? Or tomorrow? What kind of feelings are associated with this processing? How are you processing them? By processing, I mean literally replaying and then leaving the past in the past. It's helpful to have a game review if it helps you come up with a plan from this day forward. But if you want to review the breakdown of the 2014 Superbowl (I'd rather not, BTW), what value is in it for you? If the value is to assign blame or wield the hammer of judgement, MOVE ON.

What is his?

Not your place, and it certainly won't be of help processing.

Now, let me have a bite of our lunch dessert. 'Cause I need to ask you a really personal question. Is the reason you do this because you feel judged by others so much that you have to judge him and also to have him know you have weighed in on the judgement? I'm handing the fork back to you to mull over.

For what it's worth, I am a very different person from who I was even only three years ago, and a lot of that is due to the kindness of people weighing in here. I do take a little pride in that.

I believe it. Hopefully, we all get some wisdom along the way. But every single one of us is a work in process, you know? When you quit growing, you die.

[Underdog]

And p.s.: Thank you for being gracious with a post I really would have not penned. I appreciate your willingness to hear what I had to say.

[Wonka]

Maybell,

It seems to me that Bets et al are all trying to say this in not so many words:

You have not yet arrived at the indifference stage.

When you experience hate which is the opposite of love, it is still feeling something that suggests you're not completely detached.

Indifferent, no? Nope.

Trust me, you'll get there....EVENTUALLY.

[claire7]

Maybell,

Not totally sure, but perhaps we could agree to check in on each others threads regularly and give gentle quick reminders or ask questions that will prompt us to focus on the right things. ..?

Like I said, I am clearly BRAND - NEW at this kind of thing, so flying a bit blind but willing to give it a go!

[Maybell]

Betsey, Wonka:

Nope, I am not in the indifference stage. And I do actually really want to be there. And also, I'm really terrified of being there. Does it mean he and I are really, truly over if I actually get indifferent? Maybe that's it. But I really, truly do WANT to be indifferent.

Also, my housing situation is completely up in the air at the moment and that always brings out the crazy in me. It could be awesome or it could be awful, and I have no way of knowing which way the chips are going to fall. Before I'd get worked up about housing but I tempered it because someone had my back (you should have seen how zen I was when I moved into this house!). But now, I don't know for sure what I can afford, I don't know if the kids are going to have to move twice, I don't know how all these options are going to play out once the settlement is written and I am SCARED of it all. So that's a big part of all this emotion too.

(I'm just back at looking at a rental house that is kind of far from my home, that is tiny and FILTHY but not in a scary neighborhood... and at the moment my life feels like two steps forward, three steps back.)

Betsey, you are completely right to call BS on me. I appreciate how nice you are about it, too.

At the risk of navel-gazing. You ask about my two speeds. You have to understand that in the last several years most of our conversations were about movies and television. He stopped reading during the years we were happy together and he never wanted to hear about the books I was reading. Then he decided to make it a personal goal to read 100 books in a year. Do you know how focused you have to be to read 100 books in a year? But he did it. But if I ever asked him about any of the books he was reading -- if I'd enjoy them, what he liked about them, what he found thought-provoking, whatever, he'd get mad and say his brain didn't work like that and why did I have to keep pestering him? The deepest conversations we had were about characterization on shows like Walking Dead and it was mostly just him holding forth about the White Hat/Black Hat thing. So reaching out to him on a playground level is too much for him... and yet he lingers in the house and won't leave. I mean it like playground conversation. But he wouldn't see it that way because for the most part playground conversation was as deep as he went. And I need him to just go but then again I guess not saying "Please go now" is a way of holding on to a tiny crumb.

In your case, someone cleaned up the mess and you're still staring at it saying, "I can't believe you spilled the milk!" This is the insanity I had to point out. It doesn't mean it wasn't an colossal mess. It means that you do your level best to live right now. Quit looking in that rear mirror.

This is completely 100% accurate. Point taken. Thank you for phrasing it in a way that could get into my head.

I don't want to be angry for long, but I think till the move and things are settled (hopefully in the next few weeks) I'll be pretty raw. When we moved here barely two years ago. I had full expectation that a lot of the material factors that were causing us to be distant to one another would be resolved with this move here and then I found out that instead of caring about me I'd been dumped that way. I'm cleaning up stuff that was half-unpacked when I found out about the affair and since it was just one grenade after another I've only really been functional since October or so -- and I started a full-time job in November. So I never really got properly unpacked and I keep stumbling over things that ratchet the tension back up again. I'm trying, Betsey, I really am. I don't want to be stuck. This isn't a pretty place to be.

Now, let me have a bite of our lunch dessert. 'Cause I need to ask you a really personal question. Is the reason you do this because you feel judged by others so much that you have to judge him and also to have him know you have weighed in on the judgement? I'm handing the fork back to you to mull over.

Yes. I feel very judged. Mostly by my parents. In the past whenever I needed help from them it wasn't long before my mother would mock me for needing them. I am kind of holding my breath for the day when she says something like "You couldn't even keep your marriage together" in a contemptuous tone of voice. She will. She has before.

I also feel judged by him. Weighed and found wanting. I am still trying to convince myself this isn't all my fault. I'm being defensive.

And I'm scared he's the best I could do and it's all downhill from here. Or that I'll find someone to love and it will be so complicated and messy blending our families that it won't work.

I did want to apologize to him last night but I don't know how to find the right balance with him without it getting too personal for either one of us.

Claire, that sounds good. Shall we set up a priority list for things to be mindful of?

[Old Dog]

Still at the hate stage over here too.

I wake up in the middle of the night and curse her.

When will eventually happen? Perhaps I can mark it on my calendar.

[Maybell]

Well, one of my boys has lice. I guess that's my karmic justice for nurturing my bad attitude lately.

Anyway, I sent STBX an email saying I wasn't proud of my behavior and asking if we could find a way to work things out so that they were easier between us. He agreed and said he hoped for the same thing too. (it was much longer than that but I just discovered the lice and now I'm looking at a huge treatment activity rather than crawling into my pajamas and heading off to bed... the bed my boys sleep in with me half the time... sigh...)

I did also ask him to leave more promptly and he agreed to that too.

It sticks in my craw a little to extend that olive branch. It is for the kids. Nurturing a grudge helps no one and is the sort of thing my mother would do. I'll try to be the bigger person.

BTW, Betsey, yes, I would be nicer to the lady who accidentally let her shopping cart hit my car. I'd be very gracious, if she were apologetic. But if she did it on purpose because I drive a minivan rather than a sports car, then no, I'd speak out. To me, that is the difference.