m1k3

Shell, thanks for holding up the mirror so that I have to see myself. I am working on being mindful about about my life and it was a good point in time to do a checkpoint.

As for being flexible, I can't really say that I am ready for that yet. I have to watch how far I bend because I know codieville is just around the corner. Sometimes I may not bend enough but that's ok as long as I am aware of what is going on and keep an eye on it.

Shellcrusher

Well bud, I didn't want to say more. I believe that codieville can be damaging to oneself but I also believe that it's okay to have and let my emotions do their thing. Anger, humor or whatever is working best for you is a good thing because it's all you.

I'm saying this for multiple reasons but primarily and without quoting you directly, you said you have to be consistent in here. Can you expand on that a bit?

m1k3

Another quote from Stranger In A Strange Land:

Shellcrusher

I'm probably misunderstanding the written word here but I'll bow out now.
Good luck man. I wish you the best.

m1k3

Good question. In here means in the forum and it also means in my head. I am trying to be mindful about my thoughts, words and actions.

I don't want to think, "she's finally getting what she deserves", come on here and say about the compassion I feel and then send her an email that gets her going again. I want what I think, say and do to be in sync. No disconnect, no denial and especially no lying to myself.

That is part of the reason I post here so much. By making it public I can't hide from what I have said and done. And I get other views on how they see my behavior. Again, no place to hide unless I stop coming here. I don't have to agree with their views but posting and responding leads to introspection and awareness that I may be going in a bad direction.

This has been very helpful for me. I can go back and read old threads and see how I have changed and if I like where I was going.

Just like in this thread several people brought up the compassion and empathy points of view. It made me stop, look at what I was posting and was it consistent with what I felt and what I should be feeling. Was I starting to post just to get the laughs or was there something more to this.

I believe that what I have been posting is consistent with where I am right now. I was posting because posting her emails let me put them in the light of day. I made jokes because that is one of the primary ways I deal with things that hurt, and as much I don't like to admit it they did hurt. I am detached to the point that I no longer feel the need to jump in and save her. I know I can't to that. As I said earlier I mock her methods as the quacking we all see they are and it helps me to recognize them as quacking. I do not believe I am mocking her pain and what she is going through, however that is hers and only hers. To me this is like the Quackers and What Normies Don't Know threads. A place to vent and see humor in a bad situation shared among other people who have both felt the pain and seen the humor.


I post because I can come back here in the future and see how much I have changed.

And every bit as important I post here so that others can see what I have posted and maybe find something useful for them in their circumstances.

I also post because I want my friends here to read what I am saying and to disagree if that is how they feel. You all have experiences and viewpoints that I don't and this gives me a chance to learn and grow.

I recognize recovery as a life long journey and I recognize that I need the guidance of others as we make this journey together.

Another reason I post here is friends like you Shell ask hard questions that sometimes you just don't ask of yourself.

Your friend,

m1k3

Could I get a mod to pm me please? I left something in a quote from an email that I missed editing out.

Thanks,

tjp613

Did you hit the 'report post' button? It's the little yield sign-looking-thingy in the lower left corner, under your avatar--that'll get 'em.

m1k3

Thanks, I'll try that tomorrow. I'm about ready to hit the sack now.

catlovermi

Fantastic, rich thread, Mike.

Richness of your perspective, thoughtfulness, relationships with your daughters; richness of wisdom in the support from the SR folks, richness of recovery tools and wisdom and perspectives... this is just a rich thread.

Brings up so many things, for me.

The thing that stands out to me, reading it, is how, in recovery, when we find our center, we have immense strength in our center of gravity - the blows hitting us from outside are not able to bobble us and knock us off our center.

I view recovery, and the PEOPLE in recovery who share experiences and knit together into a support community, as this huge ship ballast we add to ourself in our journey, that we can dip into and hold onto, that when we get hit by the behaviors of the A we are ever so much more stable, due to this ballast. Bouncing our experiences, questions, and perspectives off other recovery folks gives us this incredible ballast, to move forward. I see this illustrated perfectly in this thread - how you have applied recovery, immersed yourself in a recovery support network, broadened recovery throughout your family structure with solidarity with the daughters... all these are WORKING, alive in this thread.

And as a Trekkie (classic Trek) to the very core, the title immediately said it all - images of Scotty and Kirk being tossed around the bridge with the red alert sirens whooping, the helm being bashed, fireworks on the Bridge's big screen (LOL, the ORIGINAL big screen), and Scotty yelling over the fray, "...Aye...the shields are holding steady, Captain!!"

Beautiful thread.

CLMI

m1k3

CLMI ((((hugs)))

Thank you for that post it means a lot to me. I am handling my detachment with the AW pretty well, still some deep seated anger issues but that's to be expected.

What wobbled me the most were several posts questioning my empathy and compassion. I actually got a call from my daughter, because she found them unsettling also. She told me that she felt like her feelings were being invalidated. We talked for a while and she felt better.

I want to take my time and do this right but I want to start a thread about questioning other peoples motives and feelings especially when they are emotionally vulnerable. This is a therapy site and people do come here to vent and that venting can take many forms.... enough for now.

But again thank you so much for the support.

Your friend,

catlovermi

This will be a sort of long response, but I need the length to illustrate my point.

I recently had a conversation with a best friend, about poison ivy. At the time, I was nursing half a leg of blisters, remarking about the tenaciousness of the skin ailment. My friend recounted to me that they have had it in the past, got it first on the arm, but that now, when exposed on ANOTHER part of the body, that area of the arm flares up first, worst, and regardless of whether that part of arm skin was actually in contact with the poison ivy this round. The skin on that arm was permanently sensitized, and reacts differently now, and more intensely.

Life, and recovery, are processes. It's like travelling down a road, and what one sees, experiences, is a function of where one is at, at that moment.

Recovery folks responding to threads are just like this. People, in their life and recovery journeys, go through different landscapes, and what they may post while in one landscape may be very different than what they would respond to the same thread in a past or future landscape of theirs.

Recovery is necessary because the conditions are highly toxic that force us into recovery. So folks in recovery are in various stages of healing - some are just in survival mode, some are in depression, anger, contempt, sadness, confusion - lots o' places along most recovery roads. So this ballast I speak of... it is the collective body of support and wisdom, and we have to take the outlyers, as opportunities to stop and reflect on our own positions, and weigh them against the collective wisdom, keeping in mind each individual may be that arm's response to poison ivy, if you will.

For me, and at my stage in recovery, I get a lot of value from observation, and then thinking about a person's milieu. It's an exercise in modulation, moving from perspective to perspective, seeing that any set of circumstances can be viewed from any number of angles, and appear quite different, depending where you are standing.

In the end, the collective wisdom sort of gels, giving us our ballast, and helping us as individuals find OUR center.

Recovery is darned hard work. The reason I chimed in on your thread is that despite the ugly circumstances that force us all into recovery, there is also an incredible beauty exposed when recovery is properly at work, that is hard to rival in other realms of life.

And in this thread, I personally saw and experienced this beauty, and felt compelled to comment on it. Doesn't take away the pain and chaos of your circumstances, but I did want to point out that for how ugly circumstances get, there is equal beauty waiting, in recovery.

CLMI

m1k3

Thank you for a well written and thought out post.

I have to admit that so far this has been an incredible journey.

I have come far and I still have far to go.

Progress not perfection.

Edit:

I think what I am really trying to say here is I appreciate how you can present a point of view different than my own without invalidating what I have posted. This is a skill that many of us need to work on..

Shellcrusher

Well said.
Validation being a key concept.
During some of the hard times and even know while reflecting back, I have a hard time working through moments of being invalidated by my RAW. That's a hurtful emotion. Being present helps.

How are things today, m1k3?

m1k3

Ok, enough of me hijacking my own thread. I started another just to cover this.

So far only one voicemail. She wished me a happy anniversary, asked me to call and told me she expected to see me today.

O'really?

I have the ringer turned off and she is currently at her rehab right now. I am somewhat surprised that I am feeling a little raw today. I thought I might be past that but I guess not.

Progress not perfection.

LaTeeDa

I finally read through this entire thread yesterday. FWIW, I see much compassion in your posts. Although, as you yourself said, it's tough to have empathy when you have never been in the situation your wife is in.

What I see in your posts is someone who has let go. It's a beautiful thing to witness, and cannot really be understood or explained to anyone who has not experienced it.

When I finally reached that point with my AH, there were some people in my life who thought I was cold, uncaring, heartless. "How can you just stop caring about someone you've been married to for 20 years?" they asked me. What they didn't get was that I hadn't stopped caring at all. I had simply let go. I let go of my husband, his behaviors, his choices, his consequences--but most of all I let go of the illusion that I had any power over him and his life. I cannot describe the amazing sense of relief I felt, but I suspect you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Thanks so much for this thread.

L

Shellcrusher

Something I've been working on lately is letting me feel and be aware of my emotions. I'm doing this so it doesn't get tucked away to bite me again.
Yesterday a good amount of the discussion was about how people use humor to work through situations. I know I tend to use my anger to deal with tough times. For me, anger was always a defense mechanism. I could be sad or to use your feeling, "raw" but I'd cover it with anger.
Now that I'm more aware of my emotions, I'm not getting as angry and for me, life is looking a bit brighter.
This morning while walking through the parking lot, I met up with a co-worker. They asked me what I was doing. Meh. Casual conversation. Normally that would irritate me. What do you think I'm doing? I'm walking through the parking lot. This time, though, I stopped myself, looked around, it was bright, I could hear the birds, I knew it would be a heater today but it was just nice. My response was, I'm enjoying the morning. What are you doing?

It was a hell of shift for me.

m1k3

Shell,

This is exactly what I am talking about when I say I am being mindful about my thoughts words and actions.

Edit:
Its easy to slip and just say something without thinking but I find that it is well worth the effort. When I put my attention to being mindful I find that I don't spend near as much time thinking about things I have no control over.

m1k3

I just got a text from her.

What jumped out at me was "I don't know the rules to this game"

Wow, just effing wow.

I think I need a little time to digest this. Shields are still at full power though.

Your friend,

Shellcrusher

m1k3

I just got off the phone with my daughter (the lurker) and the first thing she noticed was the having supper together comment and then she laughed. Hasn't she noticed you moved out over a month ago. Again WOW.

BTW my daughter is to sure what the rules are for being a "lurker". Does she need a trench coat and sunglasses? I told her I would check.

Your friend,