[amazinglove]

Turning a page  -
link to my last thread: https://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=12151.0

it starts here: https://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=12129.0

Someone wiser than me on here recently pointed in the direction of radical acceptance - accepting the reality of things so that pain doesn't necessarily become suffering. I really love the idea behind that and it's something I've been sitting with for a few days.

I have never accepted things that were difficult without trying to change them. It's my nature.  Job-wise, I was literally a "producer" for some time and that is an apt description of me if there ever was one. It's a character trait that has served me well in a lot of ways - I've achieved things that no one believed I would be able to do because of it. But in this instance, when my H (soon to be exH) is spiraling out of control in this kind of destructive selfish frenzy, I realized that nothing I was doing or saying was influencing the outcome in any way, shape or form - it was just prolonging the excruciating pain of having a front row seat to watch him devolve into someone despicable.

Thus, radically accepting the reality of what's happened and who he now is - how he's betrayed me and continues to let down/damage my kids - and working from that reality upwards. It's funny how people in this forum have been telling me this in one way or another, from DAY ONE - but I guess it does take a while for things to catch up when your ears are still ringing from a bomb drop.

I would love to know from you guys - was there a tipping point for you when you started to, (I would say embrace here, but it's def not an embrace because that implies a willingness, maybe absorb?)  the shock of the new reality and move from there?

[Dragonfly33]

Amazing you are not the only one who had a hard time with acceptance. It took me 2 years while everybody was telling me the reality, I was hoping what I was seeing was just passing or I could change my x by putting pressure on him or being kind to him. Then one day I realized I couldn’t take it anymore. My body and mind were so exhausted from the constant up and down. I had to let go and went NC and only then I started to heal with the help of my therapist. But at least we tried. You can look back and say I did my best.  Hang in there.

[xyzcf]

Like everything else here, acceptance is different for each LBSer. Certainly when there are children involved, there  is more opportunity to see the MLCer and there are pros and cons with that.

Some feel that no contact is the only way to heal and accept what has happened.

Personally, seeing him allowed me to witness the changes that were occurring and granted me confirmation that he was not the same man ........ it was confusing because for a long time, I wanted the old Mr. xyzcf back and acceptance came with the realization that the old Mr. xyzcf was gone.

I struggled with trying to figure out how that could have happened and eventually let go of trying to find the reason....and accepted  the person he had become.

I knew that it was important to me to somehow remain connected as a family...a legal document did not dissolve our family and our daughter was in agreement with me so he has always remained in our lives.

Acceptance was the important key to healing....understanding his crisis, the changes that have occurred but realizing that he remains an important part of my life and always will be brought me to a place of peace and ability to let go of what was and embrace what is.

[Reinventing]

Amazinglove,

Yes, the realization that I could only control me was a watershed moment in my healing. Not to say that I was all in the clear then--I still had pain and work to do--but that realization was key.

It's a hard won lesson and I wish I had learned it at a much younger age. I would have saved a lot of energy for better things than trying to control something that wasn't under my control.

I would add that acknowledging, as painful as it was, that he is an adult human being who has the right to choose where he lives and who he is with was another realization that helped.

[Treasur]

Just as Reinventing said, I found Acceptance is a strange gift that perhaps comes to many of us with a few more years on the planet. I think we just start to have more experience of things that we can’t control or change, much as we wish we might - illnesses, bereavements, things happening around us in the world. There’s a saying I think I remember to the effect that we can’t avoid pain in life, but suffering usually comes along with trying to avoid an unwelcome reality…..bc of course reality keeps showing up regardless of our preferences lol…and suffering is really about that gap between what we want and what we think we have.

It can be a sort of second cousin to despair though…and, having spent a bit of time in the land of despair, I wouldn’t recommend it. And also tbh despair isn’t a very accurate lens either; it skews things, I think. And I found that balancing act came along with figuring out one’s own take on Big Acceptance.  Some way of saying this really is real and it sucks AND this time, and my perspective on it, will pass into something I can’t see yet AND how can I play the cards in my hand as well as I can even if I didn’t pick the cards AND what are the other good things I can see and also accept. Not an easy balance imho and it takes a little while to figure out your own version.

Looking back, I think it took me a few years and didn’t really begin for me until my xh remarried so 2-3 years. That was a marker somehow for me, more than I knew. And it began a shift that my former h’s life and mine were completely separated things….that sounds small, but it was a big shift. That my pain, my recovery, my memories, my thoughts and my delights had nothing at all to do with my once much loved husband - and vice versa. That felt a bit sad, maybe another kind of loss, and also rather freeing bc it felt like finally I was in charge of my own ship without the constant buffering of someone else’s storm.

Your desire for the karma bus to show up is very understandable. I bet a bunch of us are nodding along lol. But tbh it’s also about a kind of residual attachment, an instinctive feeling that his karmic outcomes - good or not so good - have anything at all to say about you and your life. Big Acceptance I think comes with more of a feeling that it no longer matters much, that it changes nothing about what has already happened and will make no significant difference to what will happen in your future. Like a stranger on a train. But I’d imagine  that is a slightly more complicated thing when one has children and has to observe the effect of the MLCers behaviour on them.

I did come to believe that the reality of the karma bus - our own and others - is more about living with the reality of who you become through your actions and the natural effects of those actions over time. My former h created a great deal of distress and damage for a lot of people who cared deeply about him, he destroyed a whole bunch of things that had been built and co-created over decades. And nothing was going to be the same after that, not for me and not for him and not for others who valued him as a person. I’ve had to find a way to live with those effects on my own life but it must also be true that he will have had to find his own way to do so too. And with the kind of human being he allowed himself to become through his actions.

I don’t know what that would feel like, and I can see why distraction and denial of the basic facts of it would be appealing bc it’s not a pretty picture usually. So I think that’s where karma shows up for these folks - you either keep denying reality by telling yourself a story that sidesteps what you chose to create and destroy, or you do your own version of Acceptance eventually which is rather hard and painful probably. Perhaps harder even than for us bc you own so much of the destruction in reality…you were the initiating energy of a lot of bad stuff….and I’m not sure how one could ever repair anything if you wanted to, like your relationship with your own children down the line, without calling that karmic spade a spade. A bit like the 12 step principles really. Leaving these folks perhaps karmically caught between a rock and a hard place. Perhaps karma is eventually a really pure version of reaping exactly what you sowed and finding it increasingly tricky to blame what you reap on anyone else?

[amazinglove]

I loved this line Treasur  "reality of the karma bus is more about living with the reality of who you become through your actions"--their karma is that they have to live with themselves and their choices' Thanks for that.  That is really insightful and helpful to me.  .

On another note I would love some of you wise ones to weigh in.  My kids are aware that their dad is choosing not to be here with them. At first he blamed his long overseas absences on caring for his dad but they know he no longer needs my H over there. Rather than let them think that there is something lacking in them that makes him not want to be here, I have expressed things like, 'well daddy, is making bad choices right now,' or 'daddy is missing out on being here because he doesnt have his head on straight right now,' or 'daddy is not doing the right thing but we are going to be great the three of us' or whatever. I am throwing him under the bus because I do not want them to internalize anything negative about themselves - more than they are prob already doing. Is that something that makes sense? He is in reality, running aroudn with a $l()tty and disgusting AP and the fact that I am leaving that out of the explanation is extremely generous of me. as far as I'm concerned and only because it wil hurt my 7 and 11 year old to hear about this at such a young age.
Secondly he has been really remiss in contacting them. like super lazy and lame. And my 11 year old girl who adores her dad is angry at him. I told her if she does not want to reply to him she does not have to - but conversely she can call him any time she wants to speak to him and does not have to wait for him to contact her. She can bring up hard things (she told him the other day, i think you are being selfish right now) or NOT bring up hard things and just have a nice chat, whatever she wants to do at the time. That she can make that call and either choice is ok.
So he's written two days in a row - idiotic things like just saying i love you kiss your brother - no question or any attempt to engage, and she is ignoring him and I'm ok with that. I thought about writng him to say stop being such a $h!te and pay better attention to your kids at least text them daily but at the same time i'm like, it's not my job to moderate this and without my daily check ins REMINDING him that he has children (which i was doing before this whole NC thing started) we are seeing who he is without me helping that along. I considered starting it up again in order to keep him more engaged - for their benefit - but then i was like, no, i can't do that the rest of my life either.
any thoughts?

[Treasur]

This is a tricky one for me as a non parent, so I hope others will turn up to share their experience.

What I hear you asking is essentially two questions. What should I tell my children about what is happening to their family life and why it is happening? And should I intervene to try to improve the communication from their father to them?

Seems to me it’s a really normal instinct to want to protect your children and it must be excruciating to deal with situations when you fear you can’t. What are you trying to protect them from? I hear some concern that they will think that daddy left bc of them in some way? Or perhaps that they weren’t a good enough reason for him to stay? Anything else? Bc imho it helps usually to be as clear-eyed as we can be about what we are trying to achieve before we try to come up with a good way of achieving it.

Here’s the bit where my non parenting take, and my own pov, might skew my lens a bit so take it for what it’s worth. Which might be nothing lol.

I think - probably inadvertently - you are editorialising a bit with the ‘daddy’s lost his mind’ take. That it is more about Why than What. You may be right, but it’s a particular path with a particular vista if you are 9 or 11. And of course, likely to be at odds with his PoV. And tbh I think most of us here go round the houses on our own assessment of that…the bad vs mad thing, MLC or character chickens coming home to roost. How we see it can change, and the extent to which we see it as an excuse or useful explanation or even a prediction of own experience can change. I don’t think there is probably a single LBS here who did not first show up with some version of the ‘is my spouse nuts, am I and what can I do to make this go away?’ question, right? It’s normal. But I think I’d want to tread carefully with sharing my interpretation if it is something I think but can’t 110% know for sure, even if it is what I honestly think. There’s a sort of healthy sane accuracy imho about reaching a point where we can more comfortably separate out what we think from what we know, and it’s a common bit of the LBS process.

Given my own experience of how very damaging gaslighting can be to one’s sense of internal safety and confidence, nowadays I’m a bit of a fan of telling the factual truth with minimal editorial and letting others, even small others, figure out what they need to deal with that as well as they can. More What than Why. And that’s it’s ok to say sometimes ‘I don’t know’ when you actually don’t/can’t know for sure.

So, what do you kids think is actually factually happening right now?
And what do they know about what is factually likely to happen next?
And how do you know those things? What are they saying/doing that tells you something about how they see it currently?

Which probably raises the question in your own mind of what YOU think has factually happened/is happening/will happen next probably? Do you know? If you had to use really simple language of What and How without getting too much into the Why or What It Means - as if you were talking to someone for whom English is a third language say - what would you say?

Bc often I think in life when we are not sure what to say it’s possible that we are not entirely clear in our own minds yet. And in this kind of situation that’s normal and understandable, but perhaps not always helpful.

Years ago, I used to coach young leaders. Many struggled with making presentations or how to communicate big change proposals. And tbh often that was bc they were not yet entirely clear in their own minds, when the (usually many lol) words got in the way of the essence of what they were trying to say and to achieve by saying it. And imho there are lots of life situations when that happens, aren’t there?

My advice then, and now, is a couple of simple things…..start at the end and work backwards, so focus on what you want people to do or see differently as a result of your communication vs where they are now as a starting place. Probably a max of 3 big messages, an absolute max of 5 at most bc humans struggle to process more than that.  Then take out everything that doesn’t obviously serve that goal, all the embroidery. (You can always have that in your back pocket if people ask about it, of course).

And my second bit of advice was to draw it on a single page, like a baby flow diagram….to check it works both forwards and backwards…and bc it helps you see gaps and ‘sprinkling of fairy dust here’ assumptions in your own thinking. Or indeed stuff you feel strongly about which might not be as relevant to the core message as you think. A kind of simple version of Relevant Facts I See, What I Think Those Facts Mean, What I Propose You/We Should Do and a Here’s Where We Could Start as.a First Step. (Or in biz language, Findings, conclusions and recommendations with a clean line from Findings forward and Revimmendations backward) And then give folks a bit of time to think and chew on it lol. Bc the questions people ask - including small people - tells you better than anything else what they are looking for at that moment. STFU and listen is a much underrated bit of communication lol.

The real goal of this is for YOU to get even more clear on WHAT you want to say and HOW you want to say it in order to achieve what END POINT. What are FACTS and which FACTS are most relevant for them. (So as an example the ‘daddy has a girlfriend which is not ok in a marriage’ route might be more relevant if you think that your kids are going to get introduced to ow….maybe in a long distance situation, that’s less relevant, idk) And of course WHEN you think the best time is for them to be able to most hear what you are trying to say.

[Treasur]

On the second issue of intervening, or chivvying or coaching your h into being a more active and empathic parent?
I suspect you know your own answer to this.
But let me break it down in case it helps you or anyone else.

First, what can you honestly control and what can you not? And at what cost?

Secondly, please be very kind to yourself about your desire to protect your children from things in the real world that might hurt or damage them. How healthy and normal is that, right? And how upsetting when you see the limitations of what you can do, whether it’s a mean kid at school, serious life events in the family like an illness, the death of a pet maybe or that moment when they loose the innocence of believing Santa is real. (Sorry for any LBS here if that comes as an unwelcome shock. My mother told me it was a big deal for me when I was about 8 lol)

Thirdly, please recognise that it is part of the LBS process of seeing the wood for the trees to believe that if we can find just the right words, other people will see things differently and behave differently. Experience tells us slowly that this is rarely true imho. More often, it isn’t that people don’t SEE, it’s that they DON’T AGREE or DON’T CARE about it in the same way. Unless your h is cognitively challenged, there’s no way he does not know what he is doing (or not doing) and that this will affect his children and his relationship with them to some degree. For adults, including disordered adults, insight doesn’t usually seem to come from others’ words - if it ever comes - but from our own experience of effects that we don’t like much. We change bc staying the same becomes untenable for US, probably long after we’ve been told it’s untenable for others lol.  And if we keep doing something, it usually means that it’s ok enough with/for US to keep doing it, regardless of what others think or say or feel. It is unlikely that you could find the right perfect magic words to change that, even if you are as smart and good with words as you are.

Finally, and jmo, I think your real goal may be less about changing his behaviour and more about helping your kids to adjust to a presenting reality in a way that works best for them and is not self-damaging. And tbh that’s a pretty important life skill, isn’t it? To develop a clear eye about what belongs to us and what does not and how to develop our own comfortable boundaries with people who don’t treat us the way we’d like them to treat us. Particularly for girls imho bc there is still a lot of implied social pressure on females to do everyone else’s emotional management and to be ‘nice’. Although to be fair, your daughter sounds like she had good instincts!

So, as a non parent with a million caveats accordingly, I’d refocus your eye away from doing anything to get your h to be a different kind of father and towards how you can help your kids do the best they can with the reality of the kind of father they have right now. And that they are allowed to feel what they feel about that, and to pick the bits they will say Yes or No to, regardless of his opinion. (As are you of course!)

[forthetrees]

Along with the radical acceptance is that you cannot take away the hurt your kids are and will feel about being ignored. While you cannot change the source of the hurt, you CAN reassure them that YOU are not going anywhere, that you will be there for them. They have already likely have made the calculation that Daddy has abandoned them and though wishful thinking will be with them for a long time, they also have to face reality- Daddy is not in the US but Mommy is. I would do way less of anything that puts down Daddy to them (vent away elsewhere) and focus on the reassurance. As far as explaining the whys of Daddy´s absence you can go the religious route and show them wedding vows and say he did not keep his promise, show them the 10 Commandments and explain adultery, tell them that Daddy is taking a time-out because he´s having trouble following the rules of the house but with a caution that this time out is not going to end with Daddy coming back to live with all of you. You could ask them what they would like to see in a custody/visitation situation. They do know that divorce is coming, yes? For sure I would have them go see a counselor. That way they can express things that they have been holding back in order to protect you. In regards to communication, I think having established time windows for calls and the use of text or emails is fine. Hopefully your kids don´t have their phones at night. It is your husband who will have to deal with time changes. You might need a boundary of no texts before school because that could alter their whole day either in expecting one and not getting one or in getting one that is somehow off-putting. But it is not your responsibility to make sure they communicate only that you do not block it. Do not allow yourself to be the agent of change that alters their relationship with their Dad- let any change lie at his feet.

[Trustandlove]

Hi, amazinglove,

A counselor suggested the following when I was where you are (10 year olds in my case):

Something along the lines of:  when people are unhappy they can choose either to work out how to be happy where they are, or they can choose to leave.  Daddy chose to leave. 

I constantly emphasised that it wasn't to do with them, and also did say that while I wasn't perfect that it wasn't even so much to do with me (near the beginning I had one child cry that I needed to "apologise and get Dad back").   They did feel for a long time, however, that it was because they were naughty, or that they had done something wrong.  That has taken its toll, I'm afraid. 

My constant saying was "I wish I could wave my magic wand and make this all better, but I can't"  so we have to deal with this.  (they now laugh when I say that about anything crappy)

As they grew I adjusted what I said to be age-appropriate; there did come a point where I had to say that no, it wasn't right to have a girlfriend while married to someone else. 

At the beginning I also said that I didn't really understand what was happening, but that we had to deal with things as best we could.  That was true -- I didn't understand.  At the beginning I did say that I was sure that he loved them, but that he wasn't happy right now and was working on it.  (That is what he had said to them once).  I think I stopped saying "I'm sure he loves you" after 3 or 4 years, though. 

But it didn't help that when my daughter, when visiting him, asked him why he wasn't at home he replied that he had a new life now.  That hurt her a lot, not to mention hurt me. 

As they grew I did tell them that they could tell him how they felt the same way that they told me if they liked or didn't like something.  I think you're telling them that they don't have to reply, but of course can contact him whenever they like is good.  It's so hard for them to navigate this.

My children were afraid to say how they felt; they were scared that he would distance himself further.  They felt punished. 

There were definitely times when I told him exactly how hard this was for them, that may not have been a good idea, but it certainly happened.  I definitely didn't handle everything perfectly, but I handled it the best I could at any one time. 

What I don't necessarily agree with is that very young children are suddenly expected to navigate horrible situations by themselves -- so the first years I did speak to my then H to say what the children did and didn't want to do.  I didn't call him to say things necessarily, but I did, for example, relay the message that they wanted to see him on his own, rather than with an OW (he went through many).  As they grew they then did this for themselves. 

My approach may or may not have been right, but I could only do the best I could do, as is true for us all. 

What I didn't do was text him to ask him to contact them, though.  Not that I didn't contact him, I did (probably far too much in the early years), but if I had something to say I would wait until he came to pick them up or something. 

amazinglove, this really sucks, and however hurt we ourselves are seeing what it does to our kids is a million times worse.  I think it is OK for you to say that you are hurt and confused as well, but that no matter what, you will be there.  That I found was most important for them -- for quite a number of years after he left they wouldn't let me out of their sight, they absolutely needed to know where I was every single moment, if I was seeing a friend they needed to know who and where.  I don't think you can reassure them too much about that.  And of course always be there when you say you will be. 

My kids caught me crying sometimes (I tried to keep that out of their sight); all I said was that things sometimes got  hard for me, but (and this I think is crucial), it wasn't to do with them. 

I think you are doing brilliantly; I took years to sort myself out.  I'm sure I made many mistakes with my children as well, but what I found always helped was to say so if I did something wrong, and constantly reassure them that I loved them and that I was there. 

The one thing I never did was say anything along the lines of this being a joint decision.  None of this "mummy and daddy don't want to be together any more", which I understand many divorcing couples say.  I tried very hard never to "bash" him, but I didn't say that we had agreed this.  I did sometimes have to say that this is what it had to be because he had left, though. 

Looking back on what I have written it sounds so glib; I bet if someone dug through my old threads they would find much more of the complete mess that I was.

But what I can say years later is that my relationship with my now adult children is very strong, and my former H doesn't have one with them.  My children tell me that they think I handled things well, from what they can remember.

Just keep going -- one foot in front of the other. 

xx