my journey bikefan: I've been reading on Ojar for several months; it has been enormously helpful in a life journey I have been on for the last year. I am beginning to see opportunities where I may have advice or insight to offer people who are suffering. Before I do that, I thought I should tell my story. Mine is a bit different as now I seem to be on a road to reconciliation - though it did not always look that way. In fact, when times were darker is when I gained a lot of strength from Ojar, just seeing how not unique I really was. It is tempting to turn away now that I seem to no longer be in need, but hopefully I can give back.
My wife and I have been together for 11 years, since she was 18 and me 20, married six. For 12 years - longer than we've been together - I was a daily pot smoker. Funtional, accessible, 'cool guy' but with a cost. The cost basically being an inability and unwillingness to grow, because growth would mean confronting my addiction.
Over a year ago, May 04, things came to a head and it became clear that I would have to choose one priority or the other (because my habits had become my priority). I made the smart choice and chose my wife, life and reality in general. It took several months and wasn't easy, but I pretty much was able to emerge (though I am still growing every day). Things seemed (to me) to be going well, until my wife broke down in tears, serious doubts about herself, me, our relationship, in October 04.
This got us into counseling, of the 'cognative therapy' bent. We went a couple of times, and then started also seeing individual therapists. We were stuck in outdated patterns built both when we were young and through my years as a smoker, and were having a hard time seeing that, or that there could be anything else.
At least, that's where we thought the issues were.
I don't think I ever really thought the relationship was truly threatened. I was basically trying to bargain with her to make her happy - look, I quit smoking; look, I am not grumpy in the morning anymore; etc; be happy! But still she wasn't happy.
So in April 05 (yes, after _months_ of couple and individual therapy) she drops the bomb: I don't know if I want to be married anymore, I love you but am not in love, I need space ('space' had actually been a topic all along), you can't provide what I need.
Thus we embarked on the darkest and most bitter part of our journey (so far). I was devastated. In tears, crying for the first time since I was 14. I spent a lot of time bargianing for the relationship, trying to defend it, doing everything but begging (okay, there was probably some begging).
She moved out of our bedroom into a guest bedroom. She would have been in an apartment probably, but we couldn't afford the rent plus mortgage - we'd have to sell our condo first. And we did talk about selling. It was all but over.
I realized, with the help of my therapist, that I was going to have to own this. One aspect was that I had quit smoking for her- but I didn't want to start again if she left. I had to learn that I really quit smoking for me, and own that. I had to stop hanging on to the relationship, drop the rope in the tug of war (polarization) and talk frankly about the feelings I had - positive and negative both - about the relationship and myself. I started keeping a journal of my thoughts, which helped me see how much she had power over me, how much I had given that to her, and how she really could never live up to what I wanted her to do. Which was: make me feel happy, whole, complete. I had to do that myself. It also helped me step back and observe my thoughts, and not 'be' my thoughts.
So I stopped fighting.
I stated my position - I want to stay married and make this work - but let her go. She could leave if she wanted. I (struggled to) learn how to own my own feelings. I started to look at apartments for myself, go out and socialize with coworkers, notice that women noticed me on the train, etc. I realized there would be a life after separation. A different road, but a good road nonetheless. My confidence started to return.
She and I got into a strange space. We were on the road out, but were talking every day. We were finally being honest with each other. About fears, doubts, hopes, finally and for the first time in a long time being really and truly intimate. Yet still talking about 'who gets the dog' and other crazy, incongrous stuff.
It looked like it was really going to happen. I started to talk - generally in the couples therapist's office, where it was safer - about when the next shoe would drop. When do we get separate bank accounts, prepare the condo for sale, etc.
(cont.)
Re: my journey bikefan: (continued)
And then the first funny thing happened.
She asked me to stop trying to put a trajectory on everything. Stop trying to figure things out. Just let be what was, even if it was uncomfortable. This was a new thing for me - I always wanted to know what was around the next corner, how I would feel tomorrow (which is why I smoked pot daily for so long: I'd always know how I'd feel that night).
A couple of weeks later, the next funny thing happened: she broke down again. Her resolve crumbled. When I stopped resisting her, and her insistence on blaming our relationship for her lack of happiness, and let it be, it collapsed. My resistence was propping it up. She (with the help of her therapist) started to look inward for the source of her unhappiness. At her perfectionism, at her self-critical nature, at her difficulty in hearing compliments, praise.
At her inability to love herself. If she couldn't love herself, how could I love her? I must be crazy, or a liar...
We started to talk then at that level. Not about how our relationship was holding us back, but about my issues, and her issues, and how they were related, and not related, and who owned what, and where they all came from.
After two months in the other bedroom, one night she came back, and stayed for two nights. We did not place a 'trajectory' on that - it just was. Then the next week she came back again, and stayed.
Two months later, we are in a different place. We have become a lot more aware and able to watch our emotions and reactions as they happen, and deal with them and talk about them, rather than just act them out; to know what our relationship can provide, and what it can't; have patience with each other. I won't say we're out of the woods, but now we can see the trees and maybe the forest too.
I don't think any of this would have happened if we did not go to counseling and therapy. I think, on the front end, we would have limped along longer and not reached our crisis for another year, but just gone along unhappily unfulfilled and trying to get the other person to do something to help us feel better. On the back end, I don't think we would have been able to separate ourselves from the relationship to see what we bring and what the relationship brings. We would have assigned all of our problems to our relationship (her) or to her stubbornness and injustice (me). We would have separated, divorced, and then found a couple of other people to try to force to complete us, and again be disappointed.
Reading Ojar, and seeing everyone's journey, gave me the strength to know I was not alone, that I could do this, that life would go on.
Thanks.
Re: my journey Lumpy: Wow bikefan. Great story. Thanks for sharing.
Re: my journey whatnext: Wonderful message. Hopeful. Thank you for sharing it here.
Re: my journey another1: What a great story thanks for the inspiration.
It's good to hear that therapy can bring people
together. Congradulations and I wish you
all the best on your journey.
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