Midlife Crisis: Support for Left Behind Spouses
Archives => Archived Topics => Topic started by: marvin4242 on March 13, 2020, 07:58:46 AM
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I know this is talked about a lot, and its a widely observed and advised concept. But today with my wife suddenly resuming near daily contact after 1.5 years it struck me very clearly. I was noticing how much I am no longer at all the person I used to be in some ways. And I credit a lot of that with what I read in various sites, therapy and separating myself and reclaiming a version of “me” that was in no way defined by my relationship with my wife (outside of “us” and our relationship).
I think its vital for us LBSes, after the initial shock and having to realize and stabilize our lives, to immediately start moving in to detachment and acceptance. I don’t mean that it just “happens.” It is hard work, it does take time. But like any journey of a thousand steps it begins and continues one step at a time. I think remaining in denial, not accepting the reality that you relationship is over, that the person you knew no longer exists (and will never exist again), not deluding oneself, or trying to hold on and recapture what is already gone is critical. This also includes grieving, allowing anger to come out, self protection and care, and all the various great advice given here and elsewhere. And this is true whether you are a stander, have decided its over, or anywhere in between.
But maybe its just as important to start accepting that the version of “us” that exists will no longer exist. Ever. We will never be the same. This doesn’t have to be good or bad, and it may actually be mixtures of both. But simply accepting that, just like the MLCers, we are now on a journey of change and trying to hold on to “ourselves” as we were is just as futile as trying to hold on to our spouses and lives as they were. The big difference is we can either go into this change kicking, screaming, holding on, denying knowledge and fact, try to control what is happening (and failing) and hurting ourselves and others along the way. Or we can take charge, accept and start a growth process that everyone wisely suggests as our new separate and hopefully more coherent selves. The analogy that always comes to my mind is like being thrown into a river that is rapidly moving with rocks and trees. We can close our eyes, pretend we are not in it and allow the river to smash us from rock to tree, or we can hop into a raft, open our eyes, and start pedaling so we can CHOOSE which direction we go and whether we will hit the rocks or not.
I just wanted to share what is in a lot of ways obvious, but looking at myself and my wife today while we were talking really hit this home. I know I am not the person I was, I know I am no longer attached or wanting anything from her, and I know that her loss and how it has happened has forever altered me. I believe for healthier and happier in most ways, but in some ways I will always have this scar with me. It just is not raw, nor painful, nor crippling. Just a reminder.
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marvin, I do agree with most that you said.
But I have some comments to make about this:
I think its vital for us LBSes, after the initial shock and having to realize and stabilize our lives, to immediately start moving in to detachment and acceptance. I don%u2019t mean that it just %u201Chappens.%u201D It is hard work, it does take time.
In this comment, there is a sense of "pressure" on the LBSer to make it happen, to forge ahead and "accept" what has happened.
That is good..on paper but due to several factors, not necessarily possible for each of us to do...no matter how much we want to "detach" and"accept", the physiological reactions to PTSD are often beyond our control.
I have observed, that several LBSers seek out "therapy" but in many cases, the therapy isn't addressing PTSD and all the talk therapy in thw world, doesn't resolve what is happening physiologically and emotionally.
I "existed" for 8 years. I did many things in that time to try and regain my equilibrium, to "accept" and "detach"...8 years before I stumbled upon a therapist that helped me.
I was not integrated. The pieces of who I am were circling around my head, I could see them, I could touch them but I could not reintegrate them into my being. Telling myself to move forward just did not work. I went through the actions, travelling, making friends, learning how to golf, getting a dog...but every day I struggled with the end of our marriage and family as something I did not want.
Even now, 10.5 years later (and I believe if you read several other old timer's you will see the same thoughts expressed) there is still a yearning, a longing to be loved, to be with my family. No amount of "acceptance" or "detachment" is going to change what I always believed was right for me.
So, please, do not try and push people into something they cannot attain, even though they are trying to....it's not in everyone's makeup to let go of our lives......we work around it, we build around the "break"..perhaps build a dam to hold back all the sadness we feel.....we do the best we can.
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Xyzcf: I wasn’t trying to say they should, or push. I completely agree with you. I actually started trauma therapy 2 months after BD1, and I agree with everything you have said. Its not about pressure at all.
But having said that I think we should encourage LBSers, after the important emergency self care, to start thinking about and trying to do these things. I would almost even say that if someone wants to start the process, but it takes time, maybe the time when they are still struggling is not wasted. Maybe there are foundational changes that are happening slowly. Or maybe even wanting to change but not being able builds up the internal pressures needed to finally get us going.
So I wasn’t implying any timeframe, but more a goal, an outlook. An organizing principle emotionally as it were. Its a little like some yoga poses, they are not there to be mastered, there are there for us to struggle with and work on, and learn from the process of trying.
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I think one of the number one things that helped me was exercise every day and that would include yoga (I am a certified yoga instructor).
I think we do give people good suggestions, but the thing that has only recently been discussed is trauma therapy. Many of us have found that to be very helpful.
I am 65 now, and I feel like I lost many many years of my life...but I know I did all I could to be ok....what I don't want to do is "regret" that so much of my life was damaged by this..so many years that could have been much better...that's all I was trying to get across....don't beat yourself up for how long it takes.
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That is so interesting. After BD I also started doing yoga almost daily, resumed playing Tennis multiple times a week and other exercise. It all helped a great deal. Also the yoga and trauma therapy was/is a great combination to help with PTSD from both the MLC and maybe even from things in our past. So those are all great things to recommend if its an option for LBSes. I understand its not always possible for various reasons.
I for one do not believe in regret. I think we should assess our past correctly (not too harshly nor by denying what has happened), accept that they are a part of our lives and shape us, integrate (as you said) and learn from it. Regret is a trap that will keep us stuck in the past. Anxiety is trap that forces us stuck in the future. I believe when we are in balance we are able to exist in the moment whatever it brings. Even if for a long while after this experience the moment brings sorrow, grieving, loss and pain.
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I am one who believes that was then, this is now. In the past, I lived my life for the "promised" future. When the kids are older, we'll ( fill in the blank). When they graduate, we'll. ....when we get x amount of money we'll. ....when we retire we'll. ....
Well, there was some of that and now there is none of that. Keeping an eye to the future is still fine for me, but I live in the now at this point. My chances of being able to retire, even with my inheritence, is slim. I am unable to physically do many of the things I loved to do. I could be depressed, but I am one who (fortunately) is able to choose differently for myself. I choose to look at what I do have, and make that work in my favor.
Do I miss what I had? A lot of it, and that's ok. It's ok to want and miss what you had or thought you had as long as that doesn't stop you from living your life. So many people have some weird stigma about "needing therapy". My MLC friend needs it in the worst way, but will not go because "someone might find OUT!" I know some LBS with children fear going to a therapist will look bad in the eyes of the court (they might be right). Websites are great for some, not enough for others. And not everyone can even see that they might need therapy.
Perspectives are funny things. I try and figure out if what I am doing is at least trying to make my world or someone else's a better place. But who is to say what I think is "a better place" is what someone else thinks is a better place. My mother appeared content to be a self-centered, cranky person who only wanted things her way. It didn't do a thing for me, though.
I do agree the LBS gets their own journey, but it doesn't always parallel as in being the same or even similar to the MLCer. It is a journey of self discovery for what the LBS will do, is able to do, wants to do when thrown into this particular river, and they may or may not have a handy raft. Everyone's mileage will vary, but doing nothing at all can rarely be helpful. Better to do something, then change directions if needed. JMO.
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I am thinking about the roadblocks to obtaining therapy..the cost is a huge factor. The therapist I went to charged $150 US per hour and I went pretty regularly for 2 1/2 years. Not covered by my medical insurance but worth every penny to me now..not many are as fortune to have the financial resources to do what I did.
People working full time may not be able to get time off work, let alone find the right therapist.
Without that therapy, I doubt that I would be in the place I am today. I could not personally break through without that help. I was fragmented, the pieces just would not come together on my own.
Some LBSers are able to "recover" well on their own...we are all snowflakes...different in so many ways and yet the same in so many others.
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Xyzcf
Your post meant so much to me . Maybe one of the most important things I have read . I have some more "thinking" to do about it ...but I feel some important in your words .
I will be honest, take some risks here. Had a little boo hoo yesterday and really felt sooo very lost . Why is this taking so long ? Why can I not feel better, do better, be better? Whats wrong with me ? I really do wonder what others ( with the dark purple icons) have found that I cannot. I feel the lump in my throat right now . It hurts me that I am in this "stuck" for so long. My icon/book has been light purple for years ( not that I am stuck on colours, but I think you know my meaning) ...I am not remotely thinking "purple". WTF? . I can still have days that divorce seems my best option and that I am one of those people that cannot recover from this betrayal. I just cannot... I have a resistance that I cannot explain.
the physiological reactions to PTSD are often beyond our control.
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I can still utterly loose my mind in horror , reactivity and a deep sense of shock that this ever happened. I just spent a week in a hotel room with my husband and I struggled with new triggers, new thoughts, new questions, new "knowings". At times, we came from the beach and he would watch TV . I bet , while in a hotel room with his OW..the TV never came on. Honestly , that thought entered my mind several times. It hurts still . Why does that happened... it a cruel way to be tormented involuntarily . When he does something as simple and normal as tuck his shirt in and do up his belt... it hurts me . I attach ( in my brain) his affair. Boom...just like that , I feel adrenaline . It changes how I am...who I am and who he "thinks" I am. The lady sitting on the plane beside him ( likely a lovely lady with a teenage daughter ) was chatty and was at the same resort . Twice she came and asked him for "help". ( she lost the key for her suitcase etc etc ) . My old life this would be so harmless and "nothing" ...but when I watched him walk away with her ...it was insanity in my brain. . I could go on ...its relentless. And thru all this ..I was "silent" because I want to be "happy", to not live in the past, to NOT regurgitate over and over and over . If it all stacks up emotionally and mentally ( and I suffer physically...hot surges , sweating ...trust me ) I can explode in rage and hatred ...bottomless. He has NO triggers apparently. INJUSTICE . And then I would ruin the entire vacation. I struggle . I am never going to be purple. Recently my therapist has talking about "pieces and parts and integration etc etc ". ...and more EMDR . It alls takes forever ..this journey of healing . All the while ( for me ) 5 adult daughters watching me . Who did I want to be for them ? How do I want them to see me ? It creates endless shame and confusion for me . I will stop now...but thanks ( Marvin) for the subject and XY ( for the wisdom ). I keep soldiering forward.
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Roughly 5 years of therapy every other week for me. 80 minute drive each direction for a 50 minute appointment. My therapist charges $155 per hour. My insurance requires that I pay a $1250 per year deductible plus $30 per visit plus I spend about $20 per trip for gas.
I'm fortunate that my schedule and my finances have made it possible for me to do this. I've finally reached the point where I'm starting to feel like a whole person again. My wife hasn't had a single therapy session. I don't know what her status is but she still seems pretty lost.
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Such thoughtful and interesting responses and I agree with all of them to some extent.
I read someone describe 'detachment' as turning into more like 'attachment' to ones self. That sounds about right.
I agree with much of what Marvin said initially, including the belief that neither MLCer or LBS are left as the same people after this kind of life experience. It seems to be one of the 'tenets' of MLC that some others hold I think, the idea of a 'lost' person who might reappear as opposed to a fundamentally changed one. I happen not to believe that but I accept that others might. Perhaps it is a function of the scale of destruction for both MLCer and LBS? Idk.
But perhaps it isn't so black and white as it isn't for the LBS either?
Much as Barbie and xyzcf described, i found that PTSD threw all the pieces of me in the air and for a long time, even if I intellectually knew they were there, I couldn't grasp them either. I don't think I would have been able to do so without the right kind of trauma therapy. Which cost courage, money and time. And involved a bit of luck in finding the right therapist too tbh. I am grateful for it but it wasn't an easy or simple process. Recently I had problems with my drains here....tried to fix it myself, got an expert in who cleared my drains....chatted to a neighbour who called the water board and it turns out there was a blockage further down the road which they cleared (holiday renters putting diapers down the toilet apparently ::) ) For me, dealing with my own damage was a bit like that....plodded along trying to survive the best I could, finally got an expert so MY drains were clear, found out some bits of the problem that weren't about my drains or how I was living at all (with the help of a friend.) Tackling PTSD was just like that as a process :)
None of which negates the wisdom of what Marvin describes as a direction to turn our head towards. I agree with that. I agree with dealing with the reality you see in front of you right now as opposed to hanging your hat on future unknowns.
But it isn't an easy path or even a 'one size fits all' path imho. Lots of bumps in the road, depending on individual circumstances. Everything from the energy taken by clinging boomerangs to hideous MLC divorces to limited financial and emotional resources spread achingly thin. And time perhaps. I think every poster on this thread is perhaps a few years out? (Sorry, Marvin, can't recall when your BD was but my sense is idk, two or three years ago at least?)
One of the biggest personal barriers for me was knowing that, in order to reclaim a new appropriate Me and to deal with the reality of things, I had to also let go of not just my old life but parts of the old Me. And i had lost so much and so many people that I just couldn't bear doing that too. I knew it was necessary; just couldn't do it. And I resented that i had to do it bc I liked her as she was pretty much. So, for a while, I was stuck in the waiting room between the old Me and the new Me. And I had no idea at all which bits would carry forward or if I would even like the new Me half as much. And as the pieces of me started dropping back into place, I wasn't always sure if they would stick or what to do with them. Still a work in progress here :)
Just my experience, but it was a very different kind of experience from some kind of more positive 'go girl' process of 'reclaiming' who i used to be before I met my h. Very different. Much messier. Not very 'rah rah' at all, not much fun, quite a lot of loss and grief for that old Me too. And tremendously hard work tbh. But if I can do it, anyone can...also true lol.
So, again, without denying that what Marvin describes is imho the right direction to turn in.....my days, it was difficult and it took a staggeringly long time with lots of falling over and lots of confusion. Feels right and fair to encourage others to head that way but also accept that it is perhaps far from easy or quick sometimes for some LBS here.
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Hmmm... I would like to weigh in on this topic before reading other responses.
We met as teenagers and our journey seemed as one for 30 years. We married, had and raised kids together, lived in the same houses, went on the same vacations, holidays, even ate the same meals and slept at the same times.
Then at some point he decided to keep secrets and live a double life.
Once he left we went through a divorce at the same time but it was very different for each of us. He ran and hid, I didn’t want to let go. I craved for his attention, he didn’t even want to look at me.
Once our paths separated, I don’t feel like we have had parallel journeys. But how would I know? He’s out of my life.
I have changed a lot since 2013. Way more independent, confident, too many experiences to list. I have shed dozens of relationships that used to be connected with him. Mostly in-laws, who I thought of as family are now only distant memories. I have many new relationships, coworkers from other states, some I feel like they are family, we keep in close touch. My career has sky-rocketed more than I could have ever imagined, something that would have been impossible with him. I have spent countless hours over the years trying to make sense of everything that has happened, learning about human behavior, trying to figure out why he (and others) decided to betray me. Was it all about them? In the process, I learned many things about myself.
Could he possibly be traveling a parallel journey of self discovery? Working to make himself a better man? I guess it’s possible but the only way his journey still has any impact on my life is his connections to our children. We will always have that connection.
My mother and son spend a lot of time together. She said the other day my son said his father and that whole side of the family has “mental issues”.
I feel at this point if our paths ever cross again, I’ll be the one running the other way as fast as I can
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Treasur: I am 3 years out from initial BD, but I would say I had many advantages compared to so many that allowed me to minimize the damage. So in no way am I being naive or saying that people should just pick themselves up and go (which btw I know is not what you were thinking). Sadly I realize that some LBSes (just like MLCers) may take so much damage and face so many obstacles, maybe even compounded by their earlier traumas, that recovery may never happen. This is not said in any hopeless or negative sense, but unfortunately it is a reality.
But there is a lot of truth in the psychological tenant that how we frame our experience will have a very large impact on it. To clarify what I was saying is that if we can start framing correctly where we find ourselves, that as you said we are also no longer the same person, that as hard as it is the past is gone and we have to start moving, at any rate at all, towards our new selves, it will mitigate the damage of the experience. This is not denial of the truth, the pain, the loss, the grieving, and the day to day challenges. Its more about what we can do to lessen the pain. In my opinion even if turning our head in the right direction only helps 5% then it is 5% better than nothing.
I think in the longer term the consistent framing has more of a positive impact that may be visible in the day to day. I know in my experience for all the bad days, of feeling shattered, sad, lost, the underlying trauma work and constant framing away from the past did create a foundation that kicked in at some point. I didn’t see the bits and pieces as they were shifting.
I also should have used a clearer word than “parallel.” I didn’t mean to imply any similarities or movement alongside each other. I was more trying to say that we also are kicked off on a path to finding a different version of ourselves. Because the old version no longer exists, not just because we lose a relationship, but as has been observed so often we lose some basic beliefs and feeling of safety and maybe even externalizing our own well being that we will (and maybe should) never do again.
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In my opinion even if turning our head in the right direction only helps 5% then it is 5% better than nothing
I agree completely, Marvin. In a way, it is an act of faith isn't it? Finding a different frame. And imho faith spanks the bottom of hope :) And your comment about not seeing the pieces as they were shifting? That was my experience too. A long time of sludge and then a kind of momentum that kicked in.
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You know all those threads/posts that ask what is the purpose of this forum? Threads like this are the answer.
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I also should have used a clearer word than “parallel.” I didn’t mean to imply any similarities or movement alongside each other. I was more trying to say that we also are kicked off on a path to finding a different version of ourselves. Because the old version no longer exists, not just because we lose a relationship, but as has been observed so often we lose some basic beliefs and feeling of safety and maybe even externalizing our own well being that we will (and maybe should) never do again.
Thank you, Marvin. That makes more sense to me. Choosing anything going forward rather than clinging to the past also makes sense to me because the past is the past. You can stand and still look forward. Choose therapy and still look forward, even while resolving the past. Choose a different relationship and still look forward. Choose no relationship and still look forward. Mix and match any of those and still look forward. Because our lives go forward to the future, even if we are turned around looking backwards. The difference is that if someone is focused on the past, they might miss something ahead of them that would be something they could enjoy. It's possible that something could be the spouse or ex spouse as they become in the future, but it's still ahead of you, not behind you.
In the beginning of all this, it's so hard to see further ahead than the next day. Some people get the added benefit of PTSD from previous experiences in their lives. If I could recommend anything to anyone, it would be akin to the old adage "put on your own oxygen mask first". The truth is you have to find what your oxygen mask looks like and where to find it before it can help you. That is the individual experience, the one there is no formula for. So I'd modify my recommendation to "Identify, locate and deploy your oxygen mask first". For those who are not good with idioms, Identify what will help you in this situation that you have any control to access, locate who/what/where this help can be found, head that direction as soon as you are able.
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If I could recommend anything to anyone, it would be akin to the old adage "put on your own oxygen mask first". The truth is you have to find what your oxygen mask looks like and where to find it before it can help you. That is the individual experience, the one there is no formula for.
This ^^^^^
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This link talks about 're-narrating our own story'.....which seems to me to be where the light in the recovery tunnel and looking forward seems to start, much as others describe https://www.counseling.org/resources/library/vistas/2008-V-Print-complete-PDFs-for-ACA/Abernathy_Article_19.pdf
I also think that a deep acceptance that you and your ex/spouse are now on completely separate paths and storylines is a prerequisite for that. And often an unwelcome one that we fight against for a while.
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This link talks about 're-narrating our own story'.....which seems to me to be where the light in the recovery tunnel and looking forward seems to start, much as others describe https://www.counseling.org/resources/library/vistas/2008-V-Print-complete-PDFs-for-ACA/Abernathy_Article_19.pdf
I also think that a deep acceptance that you and your ex/spouse are now on completely separate paths and storylines is a prerequisite for that. And often an unwelcome one that we fight against for a while.
Thank you for an excellent link!