Re: Our marriage is crumbling into devastation ----- From: mzet - Date: 10 Nov 1997

hi, and remember that these are my guesses. i'll ramble, but since you rambled too, i won't feel too badly..... :)

when i look back at the past 18 months, with all of its brutal pain and despair, it keeps amazing me how everything does fit together, how it makes sense, how it has really turned for the better, and what an incredible leap in the quality of my life it produced. i say this to you because that outcome is possible and in fact very probable. it's just that when one is in the middle of the mess, there seems to be no way out. but there is, it's just that that way is so clear, so obvious, so bright that it blinds us. but i can't guide you, your wife can't guide you, and you can't guide yourself because you are blinded by the light.

one of the things that i noted in your posting and that in retrospect i noted on my recovery process is that one has a tendency to be very rational about affairs. one tries to figure everything out: why, how it could have been prevented, where does it lead, what's the best approach to healing, how do we reestablish a relationship, etc., etc. so we read, almost with obsession, we try to find hope and cling to it, we spy, etc. in a very real sense, we try to control: ourselves, our partner and our relationship.

the hardest thing for me to realize, and what took the longest time, is that I WAS NOT IN CONTROL. you need to get that into your head: you are not in control. that is why you need to let go, not because we tell you, or because that's the way to fix the marriage, but because letting go is the way to come to terms with the issue of control. think of the parable of the good samaritan: the victim, who was jewish, is laying there, half dead. help came from an unexpected person (the samaritan, an outcast hated by the jewish people of the time) but the victim had no control over the situation. letting go, for me, entailed becoming half dead, recognizing i was not in control of my life any longer. the affair, therefore, began to lose its immediate significance, it was no longer about my wife but about me, it was not something she did to me, but something that i received, as a gift, so that i could let go.

letting go also means letting go of trying to figure your wife out, trying to help her when she is not open to receiving that help, trying to fix her, etc. sometimes i feel all of my efforts to do that were really a waste of my time because that could have been time i could have invested in me rather than her. but at other times, i feel that that was a necessary stage in my recovery process. i can only tell you that my love for my wife (i don't even know how to call her, wife, ex-wife, etc. :) ) was really confused with a lot of unhealthy and immature attachments, particularly emotional, that in retrospect, were chains that slowed me down on the path of recovery. those chains are heavy, and the elation of letting go of that weight is incredible. it is only now that i can truly say that i love my exwife without any expectation of anything in return.

you say you "adore" your wife, that everything in your life, in a sense, depends on being loved by her and your loving her. i think that reveals a lot about you and about an understanding of love that in my experience is limiting. is adoration really love? what is love? getting loved back? possessing the object of your love? or is there a different dimension of love? one that while centered on the self, goes beyond the self?

what's happening to you is an incredible opportunity, a gift, to explore these and other questions. without this mess, you would have never asked those questions, let alone find the answers.

you mention hoping for a miracle. i don't hope for any miracles because the miracle really happened already. that is part of letting go. remember that help comes from unexpected quarters. and the gifts we most value are not the ones we want but the ones we least expect.

let me emphasize again that this about YOU. let go of the relationship, don't try to fix it or her. FIX YOURSELF FIRST!!! this is not a selfish move. is is the most unselfish move because it requires an incredible amount of humility, of recognizing that you are not in control, that you are a passive victim (not of the affair, etc.) but of that which will heal you.

a sign that you have made that crucial step in that direction is when you stop trying to figure your wife out, expecting answers from her, expecting her to communicate her feelings with you, expecting courage from her, expecting rationality from her, expecting her to use the freedom you give her in the ways you WANT her to use that freedom or expecting the outcomes you want from that freedom. another sing will be when you stop being afraid of losing her. i sense that you are holding back because you are afraid of making her distance herself from you even more. i know that dread all too well...but again, it did reveal something about myrself and the nature of my relationship with my wife that i think was not healthy.

it's ok to feel you need to reject her today, and than "adore" her the next. i go through those ups and downs every week, it seems. i think those are mechanisms we unconsiously use to "survive". i think what's important is to make sure you don't reject her in ways that hurt. i have made many rejecting steps in my relationship: i moved out, i petitioned for the divorce, etc. but i think that i never did it out of anger. i always withdrew with love and have been very clear that though i need to get on with my life, including dating other women and eventually, perhaps, marrying somebody else, that the possibility of building a relationship from scratch with my ex is there, however improbable.

bernd says that it is your inner peace that which will eventually open for her a yearning to experience that peace. to me that is the most loving gift you can give to your wife, ragrdless of whether she choses to come back to you or not. i truly belive that he is right and that that is the way to love. i sense it in that it is a way that tends to produce even more peace within me and as a corollary, has led me to belive that the reward of love is love, not the person we love.

let me talk a little bit about the children. one of the most crucial steps in my healing process was when i realized that i needed to change because my state of despair was really affecting the way in which i related to me four kids. i said: fuck it, i can't and i am not going to let my wife screw up the quality of my time with my kids. i was angry. but that anger gave me the stregth to begin to fix myself, somehow. you will not be able to fake it with your kids. they will sense the despair immediately. so kids were a big encouragement. they can be to you too. they are not the answer, you can't really get love from them instead of your wife and you can't give them much love if you are screwed up yourself, but they will create an incredible opportunity to share the healthy love you will find within you once you are in the process of recovering.

one more word about kids: it is my belief that they are innocent victims of our selfishness. don't make it worse by speaking negatively about your spouse and vice-versa. i encourage you to ask your wife to go to a therapist, together, to specifically address the issue of how to deal with the kids. they deserve the best and the moral and emotional development of their lives depends on how well you and your wife deal with each other. they must be at the center of both of your hearts.

Finally, let me talk about spirituality. first of all, you need to know that these thoughts are coming from a former atheist. i am absolutely convinced that i would not have been able to get to where i am were it not for having surrendered control of my life. this life is not primarely about faith, about buying into a set of beliefs, nor about grace, about god acting upon you. this life goes beyond that. it is about a relationship, a personal and unbrokered relationship with a god that is within us and among us here and now and who reveals herself in the most unexpected dark nights with such brightness that he blinds us. it takes humility to hold her hand in that dark night of light, but once you take hold of it, everything makes sense, rationally and emotionally, but at a different and unexpected level.

i happen to have been a catholic, so i basically went back to my roots, but other religious traditions have their ways, all valid. i emphasize a tradition because there is a level of wisdom through the thousands of years that many of these religions have been in existance that is, in my opinion, unparalled in the off the shelf typical new age stuff.

jesus talks about the kingdom of god being like a mustard seed. it is a very small seed and, ironically and, more importantly, it is a weed, a pest that nobody wanted in their fields during jesus' time because once it takes root it is difficult to eradicate. on top of that, it attracts birds, which compound the problems for the farmer.

the domain of god, then, is paradoxical, like a weed nobody wants.

take care.

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