K4D Rising #4

[25yearsmlc]

Leaving judgements aside, do you believe down deep, that that the only realistic way for you to detach from your w and begin moving on, is to have some other woman in your life?

It feels that way sometimes. But then when I truly think about it, I am not sure there is another woman out there that can really bring me happiness. I think the only woman that can really make me happy is the one that I married.

When you have an honest answer to this question, ask yourself one other question--are you willing to do what is needed to be a happy man?

Willing to? I am trying to accomplish this. But yes, you are right, quite often I live in a state of confusion. I question my own decisions to often. At times it prevents me from making the best and right decisions. At other times it is hard to follow through when I make up my mind and move forward. Questions pop up down the process that make me re-evaluate a decision that was made.

Kevin

the inability to be happy on your own, or to think you must have a woman (let alone a particular one) in your life to "Make" you "happy" is THE fundamental problem you have. That is, again, why we've all so urged you to get c for yourself. You don't see it as a problem emotionally or psychologically speaking, but it is a huge one. And it probably has cost you the marriage you had. When you "need" someone else to "make you happy" it means you are a needer, not a giver and you bring only needs/deficits within, to the table...that's a problem. I wish you saw this. AND did something about it
Until you do, I see no hope for your situation to improve. Why would it?
j-

[25yearsmlc]

Leaving judgements aside, do you believe down deep, that that the only realistic way for you to detach from your w and begin moving on, is to have some other woman in your life?

It feels that way sometimes. But then when I truly think about it, I am not sure there is another woman out there that can really bring me happiness. I think the only woman that can really make me happy is the one that I married.

K4D, I think you need to find happiness from within yourself, not from another person (male or female) - just my $.02

exactly

[25yearsmlc]

@K4D: when I truly think about it, I am not sure there is another woman out there that can really bring me happiness. I think the only woman that can really make me happy is the one that I married.

K4D: I haven't posted to your thread before, because you're getting a container ship's worth of input from people infinitely smarter than I, and because there has been a fair amount of faith-centered musing by and to you, and on questions of faith I am the Least-Qualified Man Standing.

This statement of yours, however, simply screams self-loathing and an obstinate refusal to be honest with yourself. Let's look at it backwards and forwards.

Think about how utterly random, how spectacularly unlikely, your coupling was. "Just one person" -- on a planet of 6.7 billion people, that would be pretty unlikely, don't you think? Why assume, for example, that The One is in your city or state or even country? What if that The One you're "supposed" to be with in the karmic sense of the term is in Bangladesh or Belgium or Belarus? If it were the case that there's only The One, it must be case that hundreds of millions of people are married to the wrong person.

So that randomness of event would certainly seem to suggest an equal probability of a similarly random event -- "falling in love" -- with someone else, whether you believe it or not; after all, there was a Day Before you met and fell in love with Mrs. K4D. Did you have no happiness before that moment?

Take me -- I met WAW in September 1987. She was new in the city, new in the office, and supposed to get a departmental orientation from a colleague of mine. He missed his bus and was late. Rather than have her sitting around gaping at people, I volunteered to do the orientation. A week later we dated; a week after that we steamed up the windows of her car; a week after that we "did it;" a week after that we were a couple -- and were, until February 2009. That's a Chaos Theoretician's dream string. How many variables could have taken a different value and rendered the entire Saga of Smiley's Person one of an infinity of Stories Not Told?

Some might say -- indeed, Tennis Partner and Good Christian Man Friend IRL has done so -- that this is evidence of God's Plan for me. No such sequence could possibly have been random, says GCMF. Angels on the head of a pin, etc.

Now I'm a Man of Strict Godlessness (a hell-bound status for which GCMF is remarkably tolerant, bless him) so the argument from Christly authority doesn't do much for me, but I'm perfectly willing to entertain it as a theoretical possibility. And when one does so, one reaches the inescapable conclusion that you, Mr. K4D, are wrong.

Let's say that the seemingly random meeting of K4D and Mrs., (or of me and Ex), was in fact God's Plan, and so in that sense you have happiness not simply because you are fulfilling God's Plan but because it is Mrs. K4D specifically that is enabling that Fulfilling Of.

My understanding of the whole "God's Plan" thing is that we fallible, finite humans can't comprehend it. One can believe in it, as a matter of faith, and in that sense "understand" that there is a plan and trust in God that the events of one's life are proceeding according to plan, but the details themselves? No -- mysterious ways and all that -- Isaiah 55:8-9, yes?

So, I ask GCMF at the precise moment he is about to unleash one of his killer alley serves, if it is possible that my seemingly random meeting with the then-future-ex-Mrs. SP is evidence of my life proceeding according to Plan, then isn't it also possible that it continues to proceed according to Plan, now that she's left me?

No, certainly not, divorce being an abomination, per Corinthians, Deuteronomy, Malachi, and the lot, says GCMF, busting out his New International.

But it's also the case, I say to GCMF, that you tell me your God will give me no burden I cannot carry. If that's true, doesn't that mean that I can carry this burden which must mean, in some sense, that I will prevail over it? And what does it mean to carry unhappiness and prevail if not to stop being unhappy? And since your God wants me to be happy, wouldn't that logically imply that, having been happy once -- according to Plan -- I will be so again?

(And what of happiness? Doesn't this chap Gary Thomas promote the notion that the Christian God doesn't even want you to be happy in marriage? This I personally find preposterous, but perhaps you don't....)

At this point GCMF shuts me up by running my sorry butt from one side of the court to the other, from baseline to net and back again, before smiting me a mighty Roger Federer-like blow, and I stop jabbering long enough to wheeze my way out of a looming heart-attack.

So to you, K4D, I pose the following proposition: Isn't it at least within the realm of possibility that you could be as happy -- or even more happy -- with another woman? That, in fact, there is a silver lining in your dark cloud, as there is in all of our dark clouds? And that by refusing to acknowledge this -- as willful an act of refusal and self-abnegation as one is likely to encounter hereabouts -- you're simply perpetuating your own misery because you want to perpetuate it, because you take Pride in your denial of possibility? That this sadness is, in some sense, a monstrous demonstration of Ego, of Self, of Hubris? And so by denying the possibility of happiness-after, you're thumbing your nose at what might be The Plan?

And even if you don't want to go all the way down that metaphysical road, isn't possible that by indulging your sadness to the point of self-denial of hope that you're really just showing off? I will never be happy, so there! Believe me, dude -- I was there.

News flash -- WAW doesn't care. She's gone, Jack! So who are you demonstrating this for? If it's your God, presumably He knows you're unhappy; if it's you, then you're really just engaging in a massive act of emotional masturbation, spilling the Tears of Onan if you will.

While I may disagree on questions of faith and many of your conclusions, this is among the most articulate & intellectually provocative posts I've read here in years...Well done.
j-

[K4D]

And it probably has cost you the marriage you had.

Hopefully not. But not for me to say. I have plenty to give, but I have no way of giving anything to my W at this time. Until she wants something to do with me again, I can't give what isn't wanted.

Kevin

[smith18]

You have plenty you can give your W now. Give her space. Give her your happiness that you create for yourself.

Did you ever look into taking pilot training?

[K4D]

KerryK,

I am giving her the space she has requested. And she is making the most of it. I am happy and cheerful around her which is not very often that I am around her.

I did look into pilot training. To much money right now.

Kevin

[K4D]

This is an email from my BIL when I asked why should I hold off on filing after he talked to my W.

"The reason I think you should wait beyond the obvious, your priests advice, and my hope for your marriage to be reconciled is simply that W didn't say anything positive about getting back together, but didn't say anything negative. Why would you want to be the person to pull the trigger. There is a reason she has not filed. I also think you have given her reasons to not want to reconcile even after all she's done. I don't think you showing open frustration and anger every few weeks because she hasn't change her mind is going to work. It is going to take a year or two of love and kindness no matter what she does to convince her that you are different. Are you willing to wait that long and are you willing to have the strength and control to do that? Shocking her back to reality will not work. In the mean time, yes, who knows what things she might do. Have you ever read the book of Hosea? Think about how God felt when his chosen people time and time again turned away from him and basically broke the covenant that God made with them. You're in the same situation. Also, try finding a biography of St. Rita. Probably some pretty interesting similarities between her and her husband except in her case she was a saint and her husband was a great sinner.

The ball is in your court and I think if you could love her unconditionally, she would come back."

Kevin

[Puppy Dog Tails]

Any time I read "love unconditionally," I am suspect as to the other person's concept of HEALTHY unconditional love. Especially as it relates to boundaries.

It would be interesting if you would ask your BIL "I do love her unconditionally, but I also need to do what's healthiest for me. If I'm showing "frustration" and "anger," that's not my intention. I am TRYING to set mutually healthy BOUNDARIES.

Let me ask you, BIL, what boundaries do you think are fair for someone in my situation, while I love unconditionally? Jesus forgave the adulteress, but He also said to "go and sin no more." That was a boundary, expressed even while He was demonstrating His unconditional love for this woman."

Puppy

[K4D]

If I'm showing "frustration" and "anger," that's not my intention. I am TRYING to set mutually healthy BOUNDARIES.

There have been some times when I have gone beyond setting a boundary when I let my frusturations get the best of me to where I just flat out wasn't nice and I said it like I saw it.

I think that is what he is referring to.

I don't think he has any issues with boundaries.

Kevin

[Puppy Dog Tails]

If I'm showing "frustration" and "anger," that's not my intention. I am TRYING to set mutually healthy BOUNDARIES.

There have been some times when I have gone beyond setting a boundary when I let my frusturations get the best of me to where I just flat out wasn't nice and I said it like I saw it.

I think that is what he is referring to.

I don't think he has any issues with boundaries.

Kevin

He said:

I don't think you showing open frustration and anger every few weeks because she hasn't change her mind is going to work. It is going to take a year or two of love and kindness no matter what she does to convince her that you are different.

What is he referring to? I'm sorry, and I could certainly be wrong, but when I see "it's going to take a year or two of love and kindness no matter what she does," that smacks to me like UN-BOUNDARIED CAKE-EATING that he wants you to put up with.

In fact, "no matter what she does" is pretty much the DEFINITION of enabling boundary-hopping, isn't it?

Puppy