Recovery Nation

It's OK to squander a day - take a break, Minerva. Don't be so hard on yourself. Things were in limbo on many sides - you were doing the best you could and that's all any of us can do.

Take care of yourself, my friend.
Nellie

I am doing OK today (7/20/2012). Exhausted by that funny feeling from being so deeply grounded in my values that I can regain my balance no matter what I crash into or what crashes into me.

I thought I was going to spend 3 days keeping my mom & dad company and providing support, love and mild amusement, while my dad recoups from his brain surgery. I was also prepared to have some ME time, away from my husband, and packed my computer, my new text book, my journal, a novel and my guitar. One of my first tasks was to take him to two doctor appointments. Although he seemed more exhausted and out of it than he was a few days before, I was not prepared for doctor #2 to say “I want you back in the hospital tonight”. What was fascinating and encouraging, was to listen to this brain surgeon (yes, literally) explain to wife and daughter “I’m not seeing any specific problem, and xyz looks OK, but when I have to spend more than 3 seconds making a decision … I just don’t like the way you look, you look sick, I want to keep an eye on you overnight.” Talk about listening to your gut!

So I spent 3 days glued to my mom (she’s a smart and tough traditional woman, deeply grounded in her values) taking her on errands, chatting with her, and spending as much time as we could, sitting with my dad. I also coordinated lots of phone calls and texts with my sisters and brother. I came home yesterday, knowing that dad was coming home from the hospital today, the sister who lives nearby (who has been on the front line of this crisis since it all started 2 weeks ago) would bring him home, and the siblings that live very far away would be arriving sometime today.

Although his intention was to be loving and supporting, my husband still somehow was not able to understand/have/offer what I needed despite my continuous efforts to communicate my needs. If I feel like my only options are to pretend that he’s doing what I’ve asked for and what he said he would do OR to tell him that he is not … well … I’ve gotta let him know.

We had the weirdest conversation last Thursday night. He starts out with “I was thinking about my actions and I can understand why that makes you feel …” Well that sounds good, right? Except I don’t know if he is talking about the way he behaved that evening, the day before I left, last week, the last 4+ years since discovery, or his Past Actions (his understated euphemism for his porn habit). So I asked for clarification … “Which actions were you thinking about? Name them.” He paused for so long , and then finally answered one thing from the other day and said that there were others. So again I asked “You just told me you were thinking about your past actions, and you told me one of them, what other past actions were you thinking about?” Well he was thinking so hard in the moment, that I offered this conclusion: You weren’t thinking about your actions … you were thinking about MY reactions to your actions. I told him as plainly as I could that he cannot control or dictate my reactions and he needs to really think about his actions and accept the fact that I will react however I do. I know he understood what I was saying, in the moment.

… My husband took Friday afternoon, off from work, to sit with me and give me a chance to process my stress and turmoil about my parents. He did a really good job and I let him know that, and I will tell him again, and I hope he reads this thread, so that he has multiple opportunities to know how much that helped me. I just needed to talk about how hard it was and how scary it was and to tell him about my observations about my family dynamics, and those qualities in my parents and siblings that I see in myself and those that I deliberately moved away from.

One thing I noticed about my family, now more than ever is this: We are all very deeply grounded in our values and we expect everyone else to be grounded in theirs. We have very strong boundaries for our own behavior, and we expect everyone else to do the same. We (except now I’m different) are VERY reluctant to communicate our boundaries to others (as if doing so would be offensive, rude, embarrassing or some kind of violation of their boundaries ). In my house, in my world, everyone knew what was expected and knew how to behave and then there wouldn’t have to be any difficult or uncomfortable communication. This is actually a great model, unless of course one finds themselves interacting with someone who has different values than you do. I really thought my husband was very much like me and my family … same values same sense of personal boundaries, same respect for other people’s boundaries … no conflict and no conflict resolution … communication was all about “preaching to the choir” ... a strong bond, with an unspoken foundation that is partially based on the joy and relief of not feeling all alone on that moral high ground. I thought my husband was just like me, except even better … because he didn’t harbor such strong judgments towards other people. I was learning from him, how to stick to my values and be more at peace with the rest of the world whose values were not in line with mine … it was so much easier for me to do, because I no longer felt all alone with my values, because I had a partner. I see differently now, of course.

Now it is time to really work this insight on a practical level. Tomorrow I am going back to my parents house, where my 2 sisters and my brother and I will have “The Talk” with my parents, regarding whether or not they have planned for their old age and the reality of not being able to fully take care of themselves and be self sufficient … even if they make it through the current crisis, they are not going to be able to take care of that big house or even make it up and down the stairs all by themselves, for an eternity. They need to stop pretending that everything is fine, and stop being so secretive about their personal business, so that their support structure (family and friends) can help them. I know my sisters are really looking to me, to be direct and to the point and to stop playing let’s pretend we know what each other is thinking and what each other needs.

I’m getting tired of personal growth … can I go outside and play now???? Actually, I’m going to go hang out with my daughters, then go to yoga, and then have ice cream for dinner. I hope to have a healthy and meaningful conversation about anything, with my husband tonight.

And I'm still doing OK today ... I just need to do more work, to reclaim my vision of myself as a Vibrant and Happy Woman

Great post, Minerva - will talk to you later in more depth. Enjoy your beautiful daughters, yoga, ice cream and a meaningful conversation. Sending you my own version of Mumbo Jumbo via a great high plains sunset - picture an orange and purple sky with numerous bright rainbows touching down onto the horizon and the air smelling so clean. It's breath-taking.

Nellie

My dad is OK (relatively speaking). The family meeting was productive, but not nearly as extensive as I would have liked it to be. We addressed our concerns that our parents are socially isolating themselves, by not letting their friends who care about them know what’s going on. My dad is afraid that if he tells anybody “where will it end?” He is also highly averse to burdening others with the worry. I heard myself telling him, “Well then you need to clearly communicate your boundaries. Let your friends know that you don’t want others to know your business. But you both really need the support of friends who care. And they already feel the burden of worry because they know something is terribly wrong, and they don’t know how to help.” My dad thinks that he and my mom can provide to each other all of the emotional support they need. My mom is quick to agree with them, but I know in my heart that my mom could really use some “little girls her age to play with”. She needs feminine support, and her daughters can only provide so much. She needs Wise-Woman-compassionate peers. My sister who lives very far away, is staying with them until she is satisfied that other arrangements for appropriate support, care, etc. are in place.

The best part, though was for the first time in nearly an eternity, my mom and dad enjoyed the company of all 4 of their children (age 51 – 59), without all of the distractions of weddings, bar mitzvahs and other large gatherings and fanfare. We all went out to dinner and it was great.

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I spoke to my dad again yesterday. He sounds like he is balancing his strength, determination and independence with recognition of limitations. He is considering which of his friends with whom he will open up.

Also, yesterday, I spent a wonderful afternoon with my daughters … on our “mommy & me champagne flotilla play date”. They are absolutely brilliant in their insight, compassion, and respect.

Last night, my husband and I had a very good conversation, while we sat & watched a lightening storm. Two of the most important things I expressed was the difference between Self Control and Boundaries and the difference between “there’s room for improvement” and the need to make “corrections”.

To me the difference between Self Control and Boundaries is that when you rely on Self Control to keep your behavior in check, you are experiencing an inner conflict, where you really want one thing, but for various reasons you force yourself to behave in another way. When you truly have Boundaries in place that are based on your True Values, it becomes a no-brainer to live in accordance with them.

Regarding the “room for improvement”, I have noted how irritated I become, when he uses this expression in regards to his pursuit of health, recovery and maturity. To me, “improvement” implies that you are at a good level, but it can be better, whereas “correction” acknowledges that there are things that are NOT good, that must be changed at a fundamental level. My assertion is that when he is suffering from “feelings of inadequacy” then he would do well to find an alternative to the extremes of beating himself up or accepting his flaws and apologizing for their impact on others. I assert that the healthiest response to a feeling of inadequacy is to make Desirable Change. I am trying to steer him away from the “I am trying to look at things from your perspective” to “I am looking at this from the perspective of a Mature, Loving, Respectful Husband”.

My husband was very open to this discussion, and expressed a desire to grow in this direction. What will be interesting to see, is whether or not when he journals, or posts about this he presents it as if he figured this out for himself and therefore has already made progress in this direction. What I would like (but do not yet expect) is for him to write this in the context of “my wife explained this to me, and to the level I understand, I agree …)

Well now it is time to prepare for my weekend retreat at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health. This is a gift to myself that I have been looking forward to for a few months. I’ll be packing my yoga mat, journal, guitar and the Goddess and Crone books by Jean Shinoda Bolen (the featured speaker for the weekend). I am prepared for an Enlightening, Relaxing, Invigorating and most of all Transformational experience.

Basically, you want him to be honest. Whether he agrees with your or not, you want him to honestlly express himself - not to please you, but to honestly says what HE THINKS.

You once said that he says things to elicit a positive reaction from you - does he get that he does this? Just throwing it out there.

A transformational experience...would love to have that one myself. Love the love and care you show for your parents as you had the TALK.
You are a good daughter, Minverva. Hugs to you.

Nellie

My weekend retreat was very transformative indeed. My clarity from the weekend includes that I do not wish to let go of what I have.

A few months ago, I did let my husband know that he adds definitive value to my life … but most of that value is regarding material needs and comforts and our family structure. He does not provide much in the way of emotional value. As his former therapist said quite awhile back “You take up a lot of emotional space but don’t deliver much emotional content”. Whether it’s because he can’t or because deep down he is afraid or somehow doesn’t want to, doesn’t change the fact that if I allow it, he can be very emotionally depleting. This is not what my vision of marriage has been. But it’s what I’ve got. I could leave, to go search for what I want in an emotional relationship but I am now very certain that I am not willing to pay the price to do so. Too many of my OTHER VALUES would be destabilized.

I want to love my husband in a way that I simply cannot. I can only love him for who he is, not who I want him to be and not who he says he wants to be. I cannot love him when he depletes me. One thing that Jean Shinoda Bolen said was this: “You cannot heal someone just by loving them”. Her further comments easily translate into – either he will do the work or he won’t.

Another important theme she focused on was the concept of allowing Grief and Gratitude to live side by side. A few years ago, in this thread I wrote about teaching my resentment and gratitude to live sided by side. I still have not yet transformed my resentment into grief. And the losses caused by betrayal have not been replenished or replaced with enough to kindle much gratitude.

I am Grateful for these things in my life that came from my husband: the children, the environment we gave them, all material needs met. I am Grateful for all of the love I was able to give. And I must grieve for it having been squandered.

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I have found that I do not crave Solitude and that when I do want it, I do not need to escape from where I am or who I am with. I can simply turn Inward. In the last few days I have found Joy, Peace and Quiet Energy in my Solitude, on my deck, observing the birds at the bird feeder, listening to and moving to Music that touches my soul. I am broadening my Musical Self to include Sacred Chants that evoke the Feminine Divine. In my ever evolving Vision of my life, I see myself Singing in a Circle of Women, blending our Voices, creating Rhythms and Harmonies, expressing our Souls in such away that the more we Give of Ourselves, the less depleted we feel.

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I continue to experience great Joy and Emotional, Intellectual and Spiritual connection and fulfillment through my interactions and thoughts of my Daughters.

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I have reconnected to my family of origin – parents and siblings – as a direct result of my father’s health crisis. We are sharing Love and Strength amongst ourselves with more transparency than we have in the past. My dad is recovering well from the trauma of brain surgery and understands that his prognosis is a couple of weeks, a couple of months or if he continues to enjoy miracles a couple of years. He starts radiation treatments next week. It is unclear whether this will extend or shorten his life and whether it will enhance or destroy the quality of his remaining days. As we concluded an hour long phone chat the other day, he concluded with this: “I’m going to go put on my superman cape, climb up onto the roof and take a leap.” I asked him if he said “leap” or “leak” and it was good to end the conversation with laughter and love.

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Jean Shinoda Bolen also said this, at the workshop: “Show up, Pay Attention, Speak your Truth, Speak Truth to Power. Don’t be attached to the outcome. It just does not work. But Pray for the Best Possible Outcome ... If someone you love has an addiction and you choose to stay with them and they enter into a recovery program – pray for the best possible outcome”

The name of the workshop was Your One Wild and Precious Life. Each woman there was drawn to the workshop, because it was targeting “women who have found themselves sitting with Hecate – the Goddess of the Crossroads”.

The question each of us were reminded to ask ourselves: What will I do with what remains of my One Wild and Precious Life?

Whatever Assignment we choose, should meet these 3 criteria:
* Is it Meaningful?
* Is it Fun? (Hard is OK, but it must also be fun!)
* Is it Motivated by Love?

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I am going outside to play now, with some of the little girls my age in my neighborhood. Unlike my previous post, I don't even have to ask permission!

Thank you my good friend. Transformation and more. I want to be part of your your Singing Circle of Women -

"Allowing grief and gratitude" to live side-by-side" - this has given words to what I think I am trying to do. The reality for me is that I do grieve the loss of elements that were key to my relationship - some of them very simple and some pretty big such as an emotional connection that we did enjoy at one time and I thought would be there if we both healed. It isn't. I, too, am working on gratitude for what we do have. So glad you gave this words - your gift to many of us here on RN.

I am happy for you, Minerva.

Nellie