I've been doing some online research on that dreaded topic, ENVY. This is what I've come up with so far.
- Envy is related to wanting something you don't have, whereas, jealousy has more to do with taking something that isn't yours or having to give up something.
- Envy is considered a very negative trait and that is why it is hard to openly discuss. People are very uncomfortable admitting feeling envious and those who do face criticism.
- But it is a very common and normal reaction in grief or otherwise.
- In relation to the "Stages of Grief," envy is tied in with anger, which is the second stage (although today, the order of the stages isn't considered as important and it is acknowledged that they can be mixed and matched, and returned to time and time again.)
- A grieving person tends to be envious when they feel they have been wronged through no fault of their own. They also tend to feel powerless in regard to turning their lives around.
- Interesting enough, a person usually is most envious of people they identify with and are similar to (in my case middle-aged, middle-class moms).
- Also, what is usually the object of the person's envy is that which the person holds most dear to them (in my case marriage and a husband/intact family).
- Although I came across numerous references to envy being a part of the grieving process, there were very few recommendations for how to work through the emotion - except strongly worded references saying how bad it is to be envious. Suggestions I did find are related below.
- You can't just tell a person to stop being envious. Doesn't work.
- What does work is for the person to fully experience the emotions behind the envy vs. stuffing the feelings or denying them. That means staying with the feelings when they take over and to try and understand where they are coming from and why.
- Once a person has an idea of why they are feeling envious and about what, ways to manage the envy include diverting your thoughts to another topic (changing the subject). Also, and this one made a lot of sense to me, when the feelings overtake you, to start thinking about your personal strengths, successes, etc.
There is another football game on Friday so I'll see how I feel sitting in the stands with my lonesome. It'll still be hard - I'm not expecting the envy to just go away. But I tell you I will be holding my head up and will not be down on myself for feeling envious for what I long for and so dearly miss and have been missing for many years now, simply because the cancer hands of fate took my husband away from me and my boys.
Showing posts with label different kinds of pain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label different kinds of pain. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Sunday, December 6, 2009
I Had to Heal Myself First
In July, 2008 before hanging up on me, Husband #2 managed to bark out at that he had "refiled" the divorce he had originally filed six months prior. At that moment it was like being sucker punched in the gut when I was already on the ground writhing in pain. It was feeling more unbearable pain on top of all the existing pain. It was agonizing. I physically ached all over. At other points it felt as though someone had wrenched my heart out from my body. Needless to say, I was well aware that I had to get a job but could not imagine myself working in my field as a counselor. I lost about 20-25 pounds in a month or two, wasn't eating and could cry at the drop of a hat. The emotions surging inside me included anger, shame, rage, resentment, fury (and more fury), depression, betrayal, fear, intimidation, insignificance, powerlessness and abandonment/rejection. What is interesting is that the numbness some of us feel in the early grief period that shelters and shields us from the intense pain of a loved one dying gets bypassed when someone is dumped, rejected and/or abandoned. It seems as though the added feelings of anger/devastation keep those suffering from abandonment in this place of unremitting pain. This is all related to the neurotransmitters working inside our brains. But I guess the anger outwits the numbing effect our bodies are trying to give us as a gift.
Despite all those feelings, I had reached a point in my emotional growth where I refused to run after a man whose way of dealing with conflict included completely shutting out his spouse in order to protect his own fragile ego. I concentrated on forgiveness and understanding. I focused on love. I did my best to transcend the hurting of my soul. I also made the very deliberate and conscious decision of letting what was going to be, be. I was willing to see where the road would take me and not try and interfere by begging and pleading to change the situation to my will.
In those early months it was hard to concentrate and look toward the future. At one point, I was seeing my grief therapist a couple times a week - I don't think I could have functioned without those appointments. They were what held me together. I was living in a sort of twilight zone. With no communication from my husband I did not know what was going on and it was hard to plan and figure out what to do. I still hoped for a reconciliation - if we could just talk I'd be able to make it all better. But I refused to try and contact him. His habit of hanging up on me had done its damage and my pride came out. I wanted and needed a man who would have the decency and respect to talk to me. I was hoping he would reach out to me. I was also waiting to see him and talk in mediation.
By the time I was in a more stable place emotionally, the Recession had hit full force and I experienced extreme difficulty finding work. Face it. I was for all practical purposes a stay-at-home soccer mom who had not worked in her field for five years because she was caring for a dying spouse, child diagnosed with a serious medical condition and then her aged and ill parents. I felt incompetent, old, out-of date, and lost in the new world of finding jobs online. It did not help that the divorce wrecked havoc with my already fragile ego. I felt like a miserable failure too. How could I be a good counselor to others when I could barely handle my own life successfully?
Those feelings of failure and abandonment have been the most difficult to get through the past year and a half. That is also the piece that I have found to differ in the grieving process from being a widow compared to that of a divorcee. Having lived through both, my divorce was far more of a challenge for me to overcome than the death of my husband. Of course, it would seem as though a death is more significant. But those added feelings of being rejected have just fed and led to more feelings of being unworthy, tainted, a bad person, and so on.
Every loss we experience reactivates older losses, some of which occurred in our childhood and are not even remembered. Some of us have suffered more losses than others throughout our lives and therefore our grief process is more complicated. There is no time limit for working through grief. People get impatient when they consider someone's grief prolonged. It is a profoundly different experience for everyone. There are actual physical changes that go on in one's body during bereavement. I just read a fascinating explanation of how the chemicals react in one's body causing a person to either overeat or not eat. At times, both reactions are going on and fighting as to which will win out! Isn't that almost unbelievable? To feel famished but not want to eat at the same time? I take that back - nothing seems unbelievable in bereavement, right?
I just have such profound respect for everyone navigating this bereavement road. I am thinking about in particular all of us who have had to face the critics telling us to snap out of it and get on with our lives. It takes such courage to face those who don't know, realize they are wrong and then keep going with what has to be done, what is right for us. I felt such outrage at the divorce mediator who told me because I was such an "old hand" at grief I should be able to move past my sorrow over my divorce quickly, after all I'd had so much practice at it. This unknowing comment ate at me until I ended up calling my divorce attorney to complain and explain how her colleague's comment had impacted me. She agreed to talk to him about the matter when they next met. In the area of bereavement, practice does not make perfect. I have just found that added grief is a great burden and ends up hurting more. Or maybe it is that you are dealing with a lot of grief so that is what makes it feel like the pain is more.
I took the job at the big box store pretty convinced that I could not work in my field, at least for the time being. I wanted a job totally outside my caring/helping profession. As a counselor we are skilled at listening to our clients and then offering compassion, as well as suggestions and insights for healing/growth. It has always amazed me that Husband #2 could hurt me to my inner core by refusing to talk with me. As a counselor, communication is what is most vital to us. To have it ripped out of your system is unthinkable. As long as I have been able to communicate, I have been able to have a hold on my life and its outcome. Even when my first husband was in a coma, I was still able to speak the feelings from my heart. But Husband #2 took that away from me.
As I was driving home from a very wearying shift at the big box store last night the thought came out of my head that "I deserve to be loved." Today along that same theme, I have been thinking that I do not want to suffer anymore from all that transpired with Husband #2. I think all of this focus on Husband #2 has come from the emotions swirling around due to our move with Sam (GF). My youngest is being critical of me for not looking harder for a job. He wants me to try and tough it out here. All the feelings of self-loathing and beating myself down (which began in childhood) come flaring out. I try to ease the criticism by remembering those months of weight loss, fear, physical pain and utter torment. Yeah, right I say to myself. I was in good shape for job hunting. I was a complete mess. It is one thing to drag yourself to a job you've already had, quite another to have to look for a new one when you're suffering in the depths of grief. And then to have to hold the hands of your clients when you're in such bad shape yourself.
For what it is worth here is another idea. The way grief impacts us also has to do with our constitutional and emotional makeups. Some of us are better equipped to deal with adversity. Some of us can get through hardship on our own more easily, versus those of us who need a steadying presence to lean on. It is all so mixed up and confusing! Not to mention the constant ups and downs of going forward a bit and then backward a lot!
The death of my husband and the divorce that came so soon afterward cannot be erased from my life much as I'd sometimes like for that to be. It is a hard burden to carry those losses around with me everyday. But somehow, someway I am moving to a place where I want to stop hurting so much. That will be up to me to keep working toward. It can be a struggle on some days. For the first time, I am actively contemplating to work back in my counseling field again. And that appeared an impossibility a few years ago. And let me lay to rest the myth that a new relationship or marriage can erase the demons of grief/loss from within us. It doesn't work like that. Even if I soon remarry, the losses of two husband's cannot just magically cease to exist. I just hope that from now on into the future, the pain of these losses will lessen because more attention will be devoted to the present and future. I am the person I am today because of these losses but no longer want my future to be so defined by them.
Despite all those feelings, I had reached a point in my emotional growth where I refused to run after a man whose way of dealing with conflict included completely shutting out his spouse in order to protect his own fragile ego. I concentrated on forgiveness and understanding. I focused on love. I did my best to transcend the hurting of my soul. I also made the very deliberate and conscious decision of letting what was going to be, be. I was willing to see where the road would take me and not try and interfere by begging and pleading to change the situation to my will.
In those early months it was hard to concentrate and look toward the future. At one point, I was seeing my grief therapist a couple times a week - I don't think I could have functioned without those appointments. They were what held me together. I was living in a sort of twilight zone. With no communication from my husband I did not know what was going on and it was hard to plan and figure out what to do. I still hoped for a reconciliation - if we could just talk I'd be able to make it all better. But I refused to try and contact him. His habit of hanging up on me had done its damage and my pride came out. I wanted and needed a man who would have the decency and respect to talk to me. I was hoping he would reach out to me. I was also waiting to see him and talk in mediation.
By the time I was in a more stable place emotionally, the Recession had hit full force and I experienced extreme difficulty finding work. Face it. I was for all practical purposes a stay-at-home soccer mom who had not worked in her field for five years because she was caring for a dying spouse, child diagnosed with a serious medical condition and then her aged and ill parents. I felt incompetent, old, out-of date, and lost in the new world of finding jobs online. It did not help that the divorce wrecked havoc with my already fragile ego. I felt like a miserable failure too. How could I be a good counselor to others when I could barely handle my own life successfully?
Those feelings of failure and abandonment have been the most difficult to get through the past year and a half. That is also the piece that I have found to differ in the grieving process from being a widow compared to that of a divorcee. Having lived through both, my divorce was far more of a challenge for me to overcome than the death of my husband. Of course, it would seem as though a death is more significant. But those added feelings of being rejected have just fed and led to more feelings of being unworthy, tainted, a bad person, and so on.
Every loss we experience reactivates older losses, some of which occurred in our childhood and are not even remembered. Some of us have suffered more losses than others throughout our lives and therefore our grief process is more complicated. There is no time limit for working through grief. People get impatient when they consider someone's grief prolonged. It is a profoundly different experience for everyone. There are actual physical changes that go on in one's body during bereavement. I just read a fascinating explanation of how the chemicals react in one's body causing a person to either overeat or not eat. At times, both reactions are going on and fighting as to which will win out! Isn't that almost unbelievable? To feel famished but not want to eat at the same time? I take that back - nothing seems unbelievable in bereavement, right?
I just have such profound respect for everyone navigating this bereavement road. I am thinking about in particular all of us who have had to face the critics telling us to snap out of it and get on with our lives. It takes such courage to face those who don't know, realize they are wrong and then keep going with what has to be done, what is right for us. I felt such outrage at the divorce mediator who told me because I was such an "old hand" at grief I should be able to move past my sorrow over my divorce quickly, after all I'd had so much practice at it. This unknowing comment ate at me until I ended up calling my divorce attorney to complain and explain how her colleague's comment had impacted me. She agreed to talk to him about the matter when they next met. In the area of bereavement, practice does not make perfect. I have just found that added grief is a great burden and ends up hurting more. Or maybe it is that you are dealing with a lot of grief so that is what makes it feel like the pain is more.
I took the job at the big box store pretty convinced that I could not work in my field, at least for the time being. I wanted a job totally outside my caring/helping profession. As a counselor we are skilled at listening to our clients and then offering compassion, as well as suggestions and insights for healing/growth. It has always amazed me that Husband #2 could hurt me to my inner core by refusing to talk with me. As a counselor, communication is what is most vital to us. To have it ripped out of your system is unthinkable. As long as I have been able to communicate, I have been able to have a hold on my life and its outcome. Even when my first husband was in a coma, I was still able to speak the feelings from my heart. But Husband #2 took that away from me.
As I was driving home from a very wearying shift at the big box store last night the thought came out of my head that "I deserve to be loved." Today along that same theme, I have been thinking that I do not want to suffer anymore from all that transpired with Husband #2. I think all of this focus on Husband #2 has come from the emotions swirling around due to our move with Sam (GF). My youngest is being critical of me for not looking harder for a job. He wants me to try and tough it out here. All the feelings of self-loathing and beating myself down (which began in childhood) come flaring out. I try to ease the criticism by remembering those months of weight loss, fear, physical pain and utter torment. Yeah, right I say to myself. I was in good shape for job hunting. I was a complete mess. It is one thing to drag yourself to a job you've already had, quite another to have to look for a new one when you're suffering in the depths of grief. And then to have to hold the hands of your clients when you're in such bad shape yourself.
For what it is worth here is another idea. The way grief impacts us also has to do with our constitutional and emotional makeups. Some of us are better equipped to deal with adversity. Some of us can get through hardship on our own more easily, versus those of us who need a steadying presence to lean on. It is all so mixed up and confusing! Not to mention the constant ups and downs of going forward a bit and then backward a lot!
The death of my husband and the divorce that came so soon afterward cannot be erased from my life much as I'd sometimes like for that to be. It is a hard burden to carry those losses around with me everyday. But somehow, someway I am moving to a place where I want to stop hurting so much. That will be up to me to keep working toward. It can be a struggle on some days. For the first time, I am actively contemplating to work back in my counseling field again. And that appeared an impossibility a few years ago. And let me lay to rest the myth that a new relationship or marriage can erase the demons of grief/loss from within us. It doesn't work like that. Even if I soon remarry, the losses of two husband's cannot just magically cease to exist. I just hope that from now on into the future, the pain of these losses will lessen because more attention will be devoted to the present and future. I am the person I am today because of these losses but no longer want my future to be so defined by them.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Dinner Around the Kitchen Table
I am feeling utterly drained. I don't think I've restored myself from helping Guyfriend (GF) move last weekend. Going to school four days a week is more tiring than I expected. There is homework and tests to study for, as well as reading. I am finding that my mind works more slowly than it did some years ago - or maybe the fatigue has a contibuting factor.
The drive to school is about an hour each way - lots of time to think and reflect. Especially on the situation of moving and marriage. I am wondering if all that reflection is also adding to my feelings of exhaustion. Everything is coming down at once! GF has been at his new job training in Detroit this week. I asked him what are some of the things he has been learning and he mentioned open and closed communication which is pretty funny because we also talked about that in my classes this week too! GF told me that he listed me as his emergency contact with the title of fiance. I laughed about that because he has never formally asked me to marry him. Rather, he has said that we will get married in December if I move. I don't doubt his feelings for me or his honorable intentions in the least. He is the real deal - genuine, honest and true to his word. Probably a good guy to have around when the going gets tough.
One thought has kept coming back to me over and over this week. My mind reviews the movie in my head titled, "The Widowhood Years" and what makes me most sad out of everything is that in these years, my sons and I have rarely eaten together as a family around a table. The last year of my husband's life, we got into this habit of eating dinner in the van on the way to see him in the hospital (to save time, convenience, etc.). After his death, we started eating in front of the t.v., or I'd make and serve dinner at odd hours because of sports, or we'd eat at the location of the sporting event we were at. Later, when my parents became so ill, we sometimes ate with my mom or I ate on my own and the boys ate beforehand. Just a mishmosh of throwing together meals, a lot of times on the fly.
I guess I equate the dinners the four of us used to share around a table, like a normal family with what is normal and should be for children to experience growing up. After my husband's death there was no normal. I know there are lots of ways to parent, lots of ways to live, lots of way to do things. There are probably a fair number of intact families out there eating around the t.v. most nights. But that was not what I ever expected would happen to us. Certainly not from a dedicated mom with her master's in psych. - of all moms, I knew better.
But as we all know, life doesn't go according to plan and we end up doing the best we can with the situation we face. And that leaves me today, a tired, depleted, middle-aged mom with a chance again at love struggling with balancing my own needs against what is best for my boys. In any case, for me the toughest grief I have had to face has not been the death of my husband but everything that came afterward as a result of his death. Like the lost routine of eating around the kitchen table.
The drive to school is about an hour each way - lots of time to think and reflect. Especially on the situation of moving and marriage. I am wondering if all that reflection is also adding to my feelings of exhaustion. Everything is coming down at once! GF has been at his new job training in Detroit this week. I asked him what are some of the things he has been learning and he mentioned open and closed communication which is pretty funny because we also talked about that in my classes this week too! GF told me that he listed me as his emergency contact with the title of fiance. I laughed about that because he has never formally asked me to marry him. Rather, he has said that we will get married in December if I move. I don't doubt his feelings for me or his honorable intentions in the least. He is the real deal - genuine, honest and true to his word. Probably a good guy to have around when the going gets tough.
One thought has kept coming back to me over and over this week. My mind reviews the movie in my head titled, "The Widowhood Years" and what makes me most sad out of everything is that in these years, my sons and I have rarely eaten together as a family around a table. The last year of my husband's life, we got into this habit of eating dinner in the van on the way to see him in the hospital (to save time, convenience, etc.). After his death, we started eating in front of the t.v., or I'd make and serve dinner at odd hours because of sports, or we'd eat at the location of the sporting event we were at. Later, when my parents became so ill, we sometimes ate with my mom or I ate on my own and the boys ate beforehand. Just a mishmosh of throwing together meals, a lot of times on the fly.
I guess I equate the dinners the four of us used to share around a table, like a normal family with what is normal and should be for children to experience growing up. After my husband's death there was no normal. I know there are lots of ways to parent, lots of ways to live, lots of way to do things. There are probably a fair number of intact families out there eating around the t.v. most nights. But that was not what I ever expected would happen to us. Certainly not from a dedicated mom with her master's in psych. - of all moms, I knew better.
But as we all know, life doesn't go according to plan and we end up doing the best we can with the situation we face. And that leaves me today, a tired, depleted, middle-aged mom with a chance again at love struggling with balancing my own needs against what is best for my boys. In any case, for me the toughest grief I have had to face has not been the death of my husband but everything that came afterward as a result of his death. Like the lost routine of eating around the kitchen table.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Feeling the Pain
Over the past two weeks I have gone from feeling gut retching pain and sobbing numerous times daily to what I feel now, which is a dull constant ache that is always just under the surface. I think the deep seeded pain had a lot to do with grief over the loss of husband #1. Hard to believe that even five years later there would still be significant pain - for all those folks who think you get over the grief with time I just want to say that is not how it works. Now I believe that the pain I am experiencing has much to do with the anxiety of not knowing what is going on with the divorce/mediation/settlement as well as the loss and sadness accompanying the divorce.
There is such a feeling of loss and rejection surrounding the breakup of my second marriage. It is like I am stuck and cannot get past the fact that the boys and I were treated so cruelly. Husband #2 whom I would like to refer to as the schmuck, the scoundrel or the cad (or some combination of all three) in July had just spent five days with me (making love, buying me gifts, sitting through a pedicure for me, attending a Fourth of July party with friends) when less than 24 hours later he informed me over the phone that he had filed for divorce and hung up on me. To better put this in perspective, this is two weeks before the boys and I are planning to move out of state to join him. After that point we had virtually no contact until our first divorce hearing which was on October 30. The cad knew I had no money and no job. He left us financially destitute and I later learned (on Oct. 30) that he had spent his summer months going on two vacations and checking out car dealerships so he could replace his Lexus and get a Toyota Highlander SUV.
The fact that there was no communication from him in saying goodbye to me or the boys hurts beyond imagination. That the scoundrel did not care enough about the institution of marriage or me to act in a respectful and mature manner in which he could tell me his feelings/intentions face-to-face rather than the cop out way he took over the phone and long distance.
I did not contact him after being told about the divorce because this was not the first time he had acted in this way. He originally filed for divorce in January, 2008 and also cut off all communication with me, etc. In fact, at that time he did not even tell me he had filed - I eventually found out by calling the courthouse. During the three week period that January before we reconciled, the schmuck refused to answer my calls, did not respond to my letter, hung up on me when I did get him on the phone and failed to call me as he had said he would so we could discuss the situation. He was controlling in telling me that he would only give me five minutes to talk (that was one time). And I hate to admit it but this same thing also happened in July, 07 when my mom was on her death bed. We were actually supposed to have moved July, 07 but my mom was hospitalized with colon cancer from June 15 until she died on August 15. She and I were extremely close and the move out of state got put on hold as I attended to her final days and then the memorial arrangements.
That time, the fing schmuck, scoundrel, cad just failed to show up over the Fourth of July weekend after we had made plans to do so. Then after not showing nor telling me that he was not coming, he refused to talk to me so I had no idea what was going on. He hung up on me or did not answer the phone. I was a basket case at this time - I knew my mom was dying and that situation was hard enough - but to top it off with a husband acting like an immature, selfish ass really took the cake! I needed him with me at that time for support, encouragement and love. Eventually, in desperation I had a girlfriend of mine who had become close to him call and after a two hour conversation he ended up coming for the weekend a day late. I suppose I dismissed his behavior because I was so caught up with the situation involving my mom. But only two months later in Sept. he did it again when I had to clean out/clear out my parent's home with only two weeks advance notice. I'll spare you the details of how stressful that was and to top it off asshole scoundrel, schmuck, cad made it far more painful by griping about not being able to go out to dinner, or that I was not paying enough attention to him. I patiently explained that the last weekend of clearing out the large four bedroom home was only that, a weekend and begged for his sympathy/support. In the end, he could not provide that and sat at the dining room table reading a news magazine with a scowl on his brow as I packed boxes and loaded the car.
So you can see with a history of similar behavior that in July, 08 I said enough is enough and would not put myself in a position to be controlled and put down by the fing asshole, scoundrel, schmuck. cad. Basically, as I feel it, this guy used and abused all three of us and in the end flushed us down the commode as a used piece of bath tissue. That is really how I feel. And describing yourself as a used piece of bath tissue wiped by someone's filthy asshole is not a good thing. To feel that way about yourself is pretty much the lowest of low feelings. That is where I am right now praying that the divorce will become finalized so I can stop having to think about the fing asshole, schmuck, scoundrel, cad ("FASSC")!
Per the advice of my attorney I submitted a mediation settlement proposal in the hopes we could finalize things without mediation and the additional strain, cost, stress. I have not heard back from my attorney as to the outcome of that (it has been well over a week and I have already left two messages with the paralegal). The settlement would have to be finalized 10 days before mediation on 2/19 so I think at this point it is too late to expect not having to mediate. I do hope to hear some kind of status today because I am getting to the point where I cannot concentrate on everyday matters and I have not been eating healthy.
So today I am going to make more of an effort to focus on staying strong and away from the junk food because the FASSC is so not worth my even gaining a pound or a pimple! At least writing this all down has given me some clarification as to what an non-supportive, selfish, immature, demanding, controlling, non-communicative, narcissistic man I married. Oh, did I mention that he also suffers from Retarded Ejaculation but with him it was a pretty severe case as he had never had an orgasm with a woman ever - not through manual, oral, anal or vaginal stimulation. It was very difficult for him to orgasm even on his own and he typically had to view porn to be able to do so. And I might add that he could only come standing up which I always found interesting because when I come I become weak in the knees so I can't imagine only being able to stand. He just couldn't come with a woman present. We did have a sexual relationship together including intercourse - everything but his ability to orgasm. Which did make me sad at times because it didn't seem complete and I so wanted him to experience what he is supposed to in the way that is natural.
Part of my anger or should I say rage over this divorce was that I made a huge sacrifice in marrying him but did so because I did love and accept him despite the sexual dysfunction. I was willing to live with it but of course hoped that once we were actually living together that it would improve or that we could seek sex therapy together. Anyway, the meanness of his personality is far more detrimental to me than the lack of his sexual response. I do not believe that he is gay but I do know that he does not feel a need to be in a relationship evidenced by going five years between relationships and sex and having had very few relationships even in high school and college. I have since found some research describing men with this condition as also suffering from Attachment Disorder and it would appear that there is a correlation between the two with the FASSC - his inability to be empathic and supportive; his lack of communication skills and abilities; and the sexual issues.
I should be grateful that we didn't move and the relationship ended when it did. But this still all hurts and I feel as though part of me has died inside. It is not the kind of thing you can discuss with anyone other than close friends - "Oh yeah, one of the reasons my marriage failed is that my husband suffered from Retarded Ejaculation and Attachment Disorder." The other crummy thing about all this is that the FASSC in an effort to save face has made me into a monster to divert the attention and responsibility away from him and I don't like to be thought of as someone I'm not by his friends, family and coworkers - and I think even himself. In order to disengage from the marriage he needed to make me this way - what a fing asshole, schmuck, scoundrel, cad!
I hope that since this has all been put down in this way that I can feel some release and freedom from the intense pain that has been gripping me the past months. That in the next few weeks I can experience greater hope and optimism.
Today I am grateful:
1. That we had a weather warmup and most of the snow is gone!
2. That the milk carton has an expiration of 2/21 which is two days after the scheduled mediation - so that is evidence that there will be some kind of resolution in the near future.
3. That I would never conduct myself in the manner the FASSC has and that I have raised my boys to be more loving and kind than the FASSC ever will be.
There is such a feeling of loss and rejection surrounding the breakup of my second marriage. It is like I am stuck and cannot get past the fact that the boys and I were treated so cruelly. Husband #2 whom I would like to refer to as the schmuck, the scoundrel or the cad (or some combination of all three) in July had just spent five days with me (making love, buying me gifts, sitting through a pedicure for me, attending a Fourth of July party with friends) when less than 24 hours later he informed me over the phone that he had filed for divorce and hung up on me. To better put this in perspective, this is two weeks before the boys and I are planning to move out of state to join him. After that point we had virtually no contact until our first divorce hearing which was on October 30. The cad knew I had no money and no job. He left us financially destitute and I later learned (on Oct. 30) that he had spent his summer months going on two vacations and checking out car dealerships so he could replace his Lexus and get a Toyota Highlander SUV.
The fact that there was no communication from him in saying goodbye to me or the boys hurts beyond imagination. That the scoundrel did not care enough about the institution of marriage or me to act in a respectful and mature manner in which he could tell me his feelings/intentions face-to-face rather than the cop out way he took over the phone and long distance.
I did not contact him after being told about the divorce because this was not the first time he had acted in this way. He originally filed for divorce in January, 2008 and also cut off all communication with me, etc. In fact, at that time he did not even tell me he had filed - I eventually found out by calling the courthouse. During the three week period that January before we reconciled, the schmuck refused to answer my calls, did not respond to my letter, hung up on me when I did get him on the phone and failed to call me as he had said he would so we could discuss the situation. He was controlling in telling me that he would only give me five minutes to talk (that was one time). And I hate to admit it but this same thing also happened in July, 07 when my mom was on her death bed. We were actually supposed to have moved July, 07 but my mom was hospitalized with colon cancer from June 15 until she died on August 15. She and I were extremely close and the move out of state got put on hold as I attended to her final days and then the memorial arrangements.
That time, the fing schmuck, scoundrel, cad just failed to show up over the Fourth of July weekend after we had made plans to do so. Then after not showing nor telling me that he was not coming, he refused to talk to me so I had no idea what was going on. He hung up on me or did not answer the phone. I was a basket case at this time - I knew my mom was dying and that situation was hard enough - but to top it off with a husband acting like an immature, selfish ass really took the cake! I needed him with me at that time for support, encouragement and love. Eventually, in desperation I had a girlfriend of mine who had become close to him call and after a two hour conversation he ended up coming for the weekend a day late. I suppose I dismissed his behavior because I was so caught up with the situation involving my mom. But only two months later in Sept. he did it again when I had to clean out/clear out my parent's home with only two weeks advance notice. I'll spare you the details of how stressful that was and to top it off asshole scoundrel, schmuck, cad made it far more painful by griping about not being able to go out to dinner, or that I was not paying enough attention to him. I patiently explained that the last weekend of clearing out the large four bedroom home was only that, a weekend and begged for his sympathy/support. In the end, he could not provide that and sat at the dining room table reading a news magazine with a scowl on his brow as I packed boxes and loaded the car.
So you can see with a history of similar behavior that in July, 08 I said enough is enough and would not put myself in a position to be controlled and put down by the fing asshole, scoundrel, schmuck. cad. Basically, as I feel it, this guy used and abused all three of us and in the end flushed us down the commode as a used piece of bath tissue. That is really how I feel. And describing yourself as a used piece of bath tissue wiped by someone's filthy asshole is not a good thing. To feel that way about yourself is pretty much the lowest of low feelings. That is where I am right now praying that the divorce will become finalized so I can stop having to think about the fing asshole, schmuck, scoundrel, cad ("FASSC")!
Per the advice of my attorney I submitted a mediation settlement proposal in the hopes we could finalize things without mediation and the additional strain, cost, stress. I have not heard back from my attorney as to the outcome of that (it has been well over a week and I have already left two messages with the paralegal). The settlement would have to be finalized 10 days before mediation on 2/19 so I think at this point it is too late to expect not having to mediate. I do hope to hear some kind of status today because I am getting to the point where I cannot concentrate on everyday matters and I have not been eating healthy.
So today I am going to make more of an effort to focus on staying strong and away from the junk food because the FASSC is so not worth my even gaining a pound or a pimple! At least writing this all down has given me some clarification as to what an non-supportive, selfish, immature, demanding, controlling, non-communicative, narcissistic man I married. Oh, did I mention that he also suffers from Retarded Ejaculation but with him it was a pretty severe case as he had never had an orgasm with a woman ever - not through manual, oral, anal or vaginal stimulation. It was very difficult for him to orgasm even on his own and he typically had to view porn to be able to do so. And I might add that he could only come standing up which I always found interesting because when I come I become weak in the knees so I can't imagine only being able to stand. He just couldn't come with a woman present. We did have a sexual relationship together including intercourse - everything but his ability to orgasm. Which did make me sad at times because it didn't seem complete and I so wanted him to experience what he is supposed to in the way that is natural.
Part of my anger or should I say rage over this divorce was that I made a huge sacrifice in marrying him but did so because I did love and accept him despite the sexual dysfunction. I was willing to live with it but of course hoped that once we were actually living together that it would improve or that we could seek sex therapy together. Anyway, the meanness of his personality is far more detrimental to me than the lack of his sexual response. I do not believe that he is gay but I do know that he does not feel a need to be in a relationship evidenced by going five years between relationships and sex and having had very few relationships even in high school and college. I have since found some research describing men with this condition as also suffering from Attachment Disorder and it would appear that there is a correlation between the two with the FASSC - his inability to be empathic and supportive; his lack of communication skills and abilities; and the sexual issues.
I should be grateful that we didn't move and the relationship ended when it did. But this still all hurts and I feel as though part of me has died inside. It is not the kind of thing you can discuss with anyone other than close friends - "Oh yeah, one of the reasons my marriage failed is that my husband suffered from Retarded Ejaculation and Attachment Disorder." The other crummy thing about all this is that the FASSC in an effort to save face has made me into a monster to divert the attention and responsibility away from him and I don't like to be thought of as someone I'm not by his friends, family and coworkers - and I think even himself. In order to disengage from the marriage he needed to make me this way - what a fing asshole, schmuck, scoundrel, cad!
I hope that since this has all been put down in this way that I can feel some release and freedom from the intense pain that has been gripping me the past months. That in the next few weeks I can experience greater hope and optimism.
Today I am grateful:
1. That we had a weather warmup and most of the snow is gone!
2. That the milk carton has an expiration of 2/21 which is two days after the scheduled mediation - so that is evidence that there will be some kind of resolution in the near future.
3. That I would never conduct myself in the manner the FASSC has and that I have raised my boys to be more loving and kind than the FASSC ever will be.
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