Life, One Day at a Time (22 months)

[PatientMan]

What is the difference between Pity and Empathy?
Does Grace and forgiveness require Empathy?

Interesting points that I haven't ever thought about before.

Empathy - The intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.

Pity - sympathetic or kindly sorrow evoked by the suffering, distress, or misfortune of another, often leading one to give relief or aid or to show mercy.

I don't completely understand.

In my view, empathy = "I feel for you" and pity = "I feel sorry for you." Pity strikes me as condescending and coming from a higher social position.

[adinva]

I'm all counselored out today but I thought I'd record this while it's fresh in my mind. I had IC today and most of it we talked about the subsequent appointment with the substance abuse counselor and S15. It was helpful. In addition to being polarized by my H I have some secret ambivalence about this issue too because of just what 25 said. If I was 15 and someone told me do NOT smoke ANY pot for the next three years, I'd have said, OK sure, and not believed for one minute it was possible to commit to that. And that's just what my IC said, the AA way is to just say I won't do it TODAY. That idea takes a weight off my shoulders. Every day's a new day, and S15 can grow and learn and make mistakes and learn, but he doesn't have to promise something for 900 days that would be a lie. I also do realize that pot is different than it was in my day, and we know things about it that we didn't know then. I do realize that. Anyway, I have to wrestle all the way through this to figure out reasonable demands to place on S. So far I've been faking it by not being too specific, that our expectation is that it will not happen. Guess what, it did anyway. We have consequences in place, and that's how the boy learns, but I still need to sort it out better in my own head before I get caught not having the answers (I'm kidding sort of).

So the other part of IC was that H still hasn't gotten back to me to discuss S in a scheduled conversation as I requested last Saturday. He said Sunday or Monday, then Monday at 8. Monday I sat with him at lax and I'm NOT having those conversations at a lax game. After the game I said we're on for 8 but it's 6:30, want to just talk now and maybe get some food? And he said no let's do it another day. That right there was the problem. I love avoiding conflict as much as the next guy, but I should have said you agreed, it is important, if not today at 8 then when? I did not. And so IC said #1 is to be more strong in holding him to scheduled events, #2 document, #3 when he asks why he didn't know before about S15 sneaking out of the house and also seeing a counselor, refer to #2. I'm not handling this with him via text message.

So then I raced to get S15 and on the way there I told him something that was really important to me. I told him he had 100% amnesty for whatever he said in this appointment. He was NOT in trouble with me, and nothing he said would go to the police, the school, anyone. I said, if you had a brain tumor we'd go to the doctor and he'd need to know what you were experiencing with your head. In this case, the counselor needs to know completely honestly what you're doing, in order to get a good picture of what's going on and what you might need. I said I would be no more mad if you said you did nothing and it's all your friends' stuff as if you said you're a strung out drug addict dealing on the side. (For this meeting that is true. Honesty and reality was the goal here.) I also told him people have told me it usually takes a few meetings for someone to open up and really feel comfortable to share information; I was hoping to ramp that up by reducing his potential fears upfront, since it would be easier if we could just be honest in the first meeting. Then we got lunch, and then we met the counselor.

So, she met with us both, and then with just S15. She had him do a self assessment, and a pee test. I'm glad I didn't know about that in advance. (I believe that is very intrusive and I just don't like the idea of it, but because we're at this point I think it's necessary. I just wish it were not.) It was positive, but I was assuming it would be anyway. Just for pot, not any of the other 10 things they test for.

After spending quite a bit of time with us she said her opinion was that treatment was not necessary at this time, but preventative measures were recommended. He is on the borderline between casual use and abuse. He thinks it's not much but she felt the frequency was more of a problem than he thought. We talked about how some people get addicted quickly and you just don't know which ones. We talked about the 100 or so kids she's seen from our county since she was contracted in November, all of whom have gotten caught by the school and gotten in big trouble. We talked about how the other kids know when you get suspended and have to go to the "alternative school" for 40 days. We talked about things he could cite as reasons for abstaining: his crazy wack-job mother, his asthma, etc. She said that the preventative counselor would be able to give him other coping tools and things to say, and practice saying them, if he's willing to meet with her.

I told S15 I see this just like I would a medical issue. I care and am concerned, and want to do what is needed to make sure he grows up healthy and safe. He's really not in trouble for the pot right now, but we need to find a way that is effective to get him away from it. The C said she definitely did not see this as an over the top reaction to what I cited was going on in our house. She wished more parents would bring their kids in at this stage.

I was really proud of S15 for how much poise and calm he had through this. I really would not have behaved as well when I was his age. But my IC pointed out that part of his thing is to be nice and charming in his oppositional/defiance; that makes it harder to catch, and I'll have to not be snowed by him. I would have had to be dragged in by the earlobe, and I would have cried and shut down, for sure.

I don't have to decide anything today, and I have more to think about. But I thought it went really, really well.

Tomorrow he gets off groundedness, and has plans to have a friend overnight.

In the car on the way back to school, he surprised me with a question: are we going to be moving to an apartment or something? I said, I didn't plan to do that but how did he feel about it? He said I don't really care. I said #1 financially it's cheaper to live in our house than to get a 2br apartment in our town, #2 we have enough complications in our lives right now I prefer to keep at least our home simple so I'd rather keep us in it, #3 I like our house but would be fine anywhere that the three of us were (5 counting the dogs), it's just a place for our stuff. We talked a little about trailers and people who retire and drive around in RVs, and my long term thought of moving somewhere more vacation-like once my S12 is out of college, and the fact that it takes me a long time to do much of anything. Except drive, he said, you drive way too fast. Hah!

One of the points I wanted S15 to get out of this exercise was that there are people trained to help with problems that come up in life, and there's no shame in seeking them out. I do hope he gets this.

[25yearsmlc]

What is the difference between Pity and Empathy?
Does Grace and forgiveness require Empathy?

Interesting points that I haven't ever thought about before.

Empathy - The intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.

Pity - sympathetic or kindly sorrow evoked by the suffering, distress, or misfortune of another, often leading one to give relief or aid or to show mercy.

I don't completely understand.

I can't recall the author of this quote, but it goes something like "Pity is one step away from contempt."

I think there's something inherently imbalanced between two parties if one pities the other, as if the one to be pitied is lower in some way. Or subordinate or inferior in some way. NOT saying you intend that.

But when i read Val's post which substituted the word empathy for pity I immediately agreed. When you had used the word "pity" for your w, there was almost a visceral response in me that found it off putting.

I could not articulate it, and so I said nothing b/c I agreed with the bulk of your post.

But yes, I think there's a distinction. I know you don't want to hear this but I'll spit it out anyhow b/c I truly don't know another way to say it.

But when you say you pity your w, PART of me gets it. I have pitied my h for the damage he caused his r's with our children.

But part of me still thinks there's a thread of self righteousness coming through, and that piece troubles me.

We can all say, truly, that our WAS's behavior at some point in their MLC or leaving or whatever the heck it is, was selfish or deceitful or worse.

But are they to be defined by this one period?

B/c IF they are defined by it in our eyes, reconciliation is not really on the table anymore, is it?

Just food for thought.

[adinva]

I was thinking about Rock today. I've been here for a pretty long time and I think sometimes we're just not quite ready to see something a certain way yet. When I first arrived someone who sympathized with or even humanized what my H was doing would have gotten my outrage. I know there are a bunch of times I've gotten really mad at Cat or Crazyville or someone else coming at me with a perspective I was not ready to hear yet. Even if it's dead wrong, not applicable, irrelevant to your case, if you feel your blood boiling over it it's not as clearcut as you'd hope to think.

But you can only see it when you can see it. I sympathize with the newbies who come here and get told how bad they were and what they need to work on, when they're nursing the biggest hurt feelings imaginable and feeling very badly treated. I learned pretty early on that wallowing in that wasn't going to get me anywhere. I also couldn't stick around the MLC forum, for all the good I can clearly see it does people, for me the idea that there was an alien inhabiting my H, or that he acted like all WAS, and was to be pitied and barely tolerated until and unless he snapped out of it, that did me no good either.

I feel like I have no control over much, and I just kind of have to keep living right through what happens, because feeling like I could have controlled it was an illusion anyway. I know for sure I have the power to make things worse, but I definitely don't have the power to make things better in my R.

To me, my H is doing a 100% wrong, wasteful, harmful and needless thing. But to him that is just as convinceably not true. And no matter whether all the world said I was right I'd just be right, and in good company, and divorced. And the fact of the matter is, while his faults are more visible and easier to judge, mine were there too. I like to thing that they're absolved because I've worked on them, but sometimes it's too late even if you worked on them.

I like to stick with what's productive, and for me I have lots to work on learning to coparent with my H, learning to meet people (like my kids) more where they're at than where I'd like to pretend they are, and working harder to understand what's really important in life. I am SO not there yet. If my h doesn't come back for 10 years I have plenty to be busy with to let him sort out his own demons.

Anyway, Rock I think I've been harsh with you and I do understand how raw and new this all is to you. Sometimes it feels tempting to think we know better where you need to get and want you to hurry up and get there. It just doesn't happen on anyone's schedule.

[cat04]

I was thinking about Rock today.

I too have been thinking about Rock.

The pity vs empathy thing.

Personally, I believe pity is a negative emotion. I don't necessarily equate it with feeling sorry FOR them. An example, I pity a woman I know who lived a very abusive childhood. The results of that are her living an adult life filled with running behaviors, extreme alcoholism, and some paranoid thought. She chooses to stay in this life style and it has ruined her relationships with her children, grandchildren, and others. I pity her because she makes the choice to stay where she is instead of doing something about it.

Empathy allows me to have compassion for her situation. For the things that happened that caused her to come to where she is now. No one should have to go through the things that she did. It allows me to forgive the things that she has done that have caused hurt to myself and others. It allows me to see her as human and separate from her actions.

I've been here for a pretty long time and I think sometimes we're just not quite ready to see something a certain way yet. When I first arrived someone who sympathized with or even humanized what my H was doing would have gotten my outrage. I know there are a bunch of times I've gotten really mad at Cat or Crazyville or someone else coming at me with a perspective I was not ready to hear yet.

Yes you have gotten angry. We all have. It's ok.

I also couldn't stick around the MLC forum, for all the good I can clearly see it does people, for me the idea that there was an alien inhabiting my H, or that he acted like all WAS, and was to be pitied and barely tolerated until and unless he snapped out of it, that did me no good either.

I think you misunderstood the MLC forum.

The alien reference is simply a way to explain the behavior that is so opposite from what the person you knew was.

It allows people the ability to find empathy because it allows us to separate the behavior from the person.

The MLCer isn't to be pitied or barely tolerated. I am sorry that you got that feeling.

Their behavior and lack of coping tools and their inability to look for the tools that could help them, is what is to be pitied. The horrible journey they are taking is what is to be pitied.

However, seeing them as human, seeing them as people who are going through something that is difficult to imagine without living it, creates room for empathy to occur. It creates a situation where they can be forgiven, whether or not they come out of the tunnel. It creates a situation where reconciliation CAN possibly happen successfully because they will not be judged for what happened.

I feel like I have no control over much, and I just kind of have to keep living right through what happens, because feeling like I could have controlled it was an illusion anyway. I know for sure I have the power to make things worse, but I definitely don't have the power to make things better in my R.

This is incorrect thinking.

You don't have the power to force reconciliation.

You DO have the power to make things better in your R with your H. Whether that R looks like a M, a good coparenting partnership, a friendship, or simply casual acquaintences that don't want to rip each others heads off, you DO have the power to affect that.

A man I know, had a D that was not amicable. For a few years, all exchanges regarding kids and other stuff was via email and they weren't pretty.

Slowly, that started to change. Not because he changed, but because he kept showing his X the person he is. Exchanges became a little friendlier. Changed from email to text to eventual speaking.

Change does happen. It doesn't always look like what we wanted. Sometimes though it turns out to be the best thing for us.

God has a plan for each of us. We don't know what that plan is and sometimes we just have to have faith. The light at the end of the tunnel, is there. It may be different than what we expected, but it is there.

To me, my H is doing a 100% wrong, wasteful, harmful and needless thing. But to him that is just as convinceably not true. And no matter whether all the world said I was right I'd just be right, and in good company, and divorced. And the fact of the matter is, while his faults are more visible and easier to judge, mine were there too. I like to thing that they're absolved because I've worked on them, but sometimes it's too late even if you worked on them.

One more thing AD, it's never too late. If working on your faults makes you a better person, better able to communicate, better able to envision your own happiness, then it wasn't too late.

An exercise for you...

Sit back. See who YOU were pre bomb. How you handled things. What you imagined your future to look like. Did you have dreams or were you going through the motions?

And then look at who you are NOW. How you handle things. What you imagine is possible for your future. What your dreams are now.

Then tell me it was too late.

[adinva]

Those are good thoughts! I wasn't as complete in that post as I would have liked on second thought, and you picked up on many missing things.

I think one of the big things that happened to me in this is my mind was opened to be able to acknowledge the coexistence of different perceptions of reality.

Prebomb I handled a lot of things in a way that reflected my strong sense of rightness. After years of ineffective attempts to get H to meet my needs I had settled into reactivity, short temper, passive aggressiveness, and I did not see how to make things better because I was not looking at ME I was looking at what was wrong with HIM.

"Too Late" was a bad paragraph. I was thinking "too late for the marriage" because that's what we all come here thinking. If I change x and y and go to counseling we can fix this. Sometimes we can't fix the marriage by doing these things. But it's never too late to be a better person, to build bridges toward your spouse or ex, to learn where your joy really comes from and tap into it. It just may be "too late" to be able to turn around this marital relationship before divorce.

In my case, that's a good thing. I came here willing to do ANYTHING to stay married to my H, willing to accept almost ANYTHING from him if he would just not leave, confident that I could single handedly turn us into a better functioning couple that would stay together, "eyes on the prize." Right now I actually stand a better chance of that happening than I did in 2011, because I've learned to understand and let go of a lot of anger I was holding, I've learned not to shoot myself in the foot so much with my communication style, I've taken a lot more responsibility for who I am and what I want to be. I feel pretty sure if H changed his mind before any of that happened, we might have stayed miserably married for possibly a short time before it blew up again.

Oh yeah, I was going through the motions. I was only happy when I was escaping, if I'm completely honest with myself.

[needgrace]

thank you adinva, cat and 25 for inspiring and thoughtful posts. my anger was welling up this morning, my self-righteous superior victimhood about what was done to me.... and your posts caused me not only to see my faulty thinking but also to realize my power... to change me. as you alluded to, adinva, i could have stayed blind and fumbled through life unaware and unhappy, but my stich has woken me up.

and, 25, i agree with your thoughts about the difference between empathy and pity. i do think it is a slippery slope to feeling superior and one i struggle with at times. it is something for me to work on still. my W felt it during the M and your post helped me put a framework around why.... i was lacking true empathy and i was too concerned about being right.

thank you for the inspiration this morning.

[needgrace]

p.s. and adinva, i love how you handled the situation with your son. i think that you showed care and concern, set boundaries and provided support without being reactive and helped him to start thinking about his choices in a logical and healthy way (ie what are the consequences.) thank you for sharing this.

[RockJC]

It is so sad that you have to deal with your teenagers problems on top of your R problems. My oldest is 13, so my parenting problems are still pretty small. At least:

"Just for pot, not any of the other 10 things they test for"

had to be some encouraging news. Keep strong.

I feel like I hijacked your thread, so I created a new one "Pity vs Empathy" I would post a link, but I don't know how. When I get a chance, I will respond to all the comments there. It is a lot to think about. Thank you for taking the time to read my comments and thinking about me. Figuring out how to frame my feelings about my W is one of the things I really need help with.

One last thing - about "Bro Showers". Regardless of what is actually happening, I can't see anything positive that would require "Bro showering". This seems like a good issue to take the Nancy Reagan "Just say no" approach. It is behavior that should just stop - no questions asked.

[25yearsmlc]

Adinva,

I'll post in more detail elsewhere when I get a chance b/c there is so much in your posts to respond to!!

Let me just say this about the meeting yesterday...

How could it realistically, have gone better?
Minus the pee test (which I am not ready to totally devalue) the answer was that "yes your son has a problem (so he cannot blow it off as nothing or a phase)

but NO he's not an abuser yet"....sort of the perfect place to be IF you want him to take it seriously but without him being too far gone.

As for the urinanalysis, he's going to have to take them sometime in real life...and even more so if he ever gets caught or has a record.
So maybe there was a thread of value in it already that can get thru to him. Plus, you were united in outrage, right? Yay, you're on the same team!

As for the moving question, WOW that was an interesting one...he does worry doesn't he? And yet he wants to reassure YOU that HE will be alright...truly, I'm touched. I particularly LOVED your amnesty speech!!

My mc told me way back when, that if we were to divorce, I should minimize the number of changes the kids would have to deal with. He told me to stress the things that would NOT change, like not having to move, having the same friends, same neighborhood, same school etc.

It is ironic that in your son's situation, if HE gets caught w/pot or turns up positive, he could be forced to make those^^ very changes & it'd be b/c of HIS choices...not yours or h's.


Finally, one point about the bro showers I want to make. Regardless of whether it's to do drugs, experiment with sex, or urinate on each other (yet another sarcastic urban definition I found),
I noticed the mere suggestion that your son might be engaging in sexual behavior with boys, triggered several other posts.

All of those posts were resistant to the possibility. I think they ALL said they thought it was probably just drugs…as if doing drugs was FAR preferable. Far less frightening. Almost as if they were reassuring you that he's not GAY.. Well maybe he is & maybe he isn't.
May I remind folks that that we have gay posters here? Some of them have posted on this thread.

Also I have a gay/bisexual child. (btw, she's not the one who said "bro showers" are usually gay).

So one can argue that I'm overly sensitive to this, OR that I'm projecting. And you can do that if you like. I'd say it's the former, not the latter. I think I am sensitive to it more now for sure.
But I've come a long way in how I've handled this.

her coming out to me was a BIG deal to me and I had to handle it mostly alone. I cried & , I blamed h for not providing a good enough model for marriage, (and I still struggle with that belief). I also got some help and went to some PFLAG meetings.
Bottom line, I had/have dreams for each of my children, that may need serious adjustments, or releasing....but then, won't we all? Haven't we been facing that same adjustment to or loss of dreams, with our marriages?

But I mostly struggle w/my fears about her being hurt by people who think she's immoral or sick and needs to be fixed. Think of Matthew Shepard...it terrifies me that someone would hurt her.

I recall feeling embarrassed about her sexual preference. I wanted to hide it from family members (still do if they're hateful about it). I recall thinking it reflected poorly on ME that she might be gay.

Then one day when I picked her up at her volunteer job w/autistic children, I realized just what a beautiful compassionate young woman she is. I felt proud of her. And the thought of HER dealing with her own shame as she struggled with this, and all the turmoil she felt & the depression...

At that moment, all of my previous embarrassment, shamed ME...

I hope whatever your son is struggling with Adinva, and it's probably a lot of rejection from your h, I hope that he knows as we do, that he can count on your unyielding love.

((( )))