CodeJob

This is such a wise and thoughtful thread. This is the sort of thread that keeps me on SR. Thank you everyone for sharing!

FireSprite

I'm not really sure? She has talked about seeing a therapist in the past but that's YEARS ago & I'm not sure how that came about in the first place.

I keep hearing/seeing from her that this is HIS problem (sound familiar, anyone?) so I'll bet she's not thinking in terms of therapy for herself at all - she isn't the one with the issues, after all.

Great point to bring up to her, thank you!


I keep coming back to this because now I can't un-see it everywhere. You're SO right in that it relates to so much more than just what we do in our relationships.

How much of it do you guys think simply comes back to our internal dialogue?... because I fully agree that

... so does having healthy amount of the right kinds of self-trust, self-respect, self-love, etc. change how we'd handle these same situations?

Isn't that what we see so often in recovery when only one partner is willing to grow & change? ~~That the one doing the Work of Recovery builds up their self-defenses in a healthy way & that allows them to value something as intangible as Their Happiness. It's why you sometimes CAN'T put the pieces back together again - they haven't actually fit for a long time & we just didn't realize it.

I read here the other day (might've been an old, archived post) that 100% of everything in life is driven by either Love or Fear. I'm starting to see how easy it is to allocate these kinds of things in that black & white kind of way.

Thank you ALL!

LexieCat

I'm sorry, I can't hear anyone saying Love/Fear in the same sentence without channeling Donnie Darko.

Wisconsin

honeypig

This would be my slap-in-the-head moment today, thank you very much, FS...!

FireSprite

I'm re-reading this thread today because my friend has continued to try to ignore this issue & just keeps pushing the dysfunction further & further down internally, so now it's starting to come out sideways...... and while it's definitely her monkey/her circus, this time *I* got caught up in the riptide & dragged into some drama I wasn't looking for.

I had to sit her down this weekend & talk all of this through because I know she's not intentionally trying to cause chaos for me but she definitely wasn't seeing the connection between her Unhappiness & her recent behaviors. She tends to prefer to think every thing/person in her life lives in separate compartments, never touching or influencing each other in any way, completely unrelated.... but it's just not true.

Overall, I'm really sad today realizing how much time has passed since my OP on this topic & how she's still standing still, in the same exact place, with no more of an idea how to "fix" things. (and she's been dealing with it for many years before I ever shared about it here)

I don't expect any of you to have magic answers, nor am I searching for one on her behalf. Talking with her this weekend it's pretty clear she realizes that she's not hiding it so well the longer this all goes on but that she's also completely unwilling to do a single thing to change..... she just wants him to wake up & decide to be a different/better person all on his own & in every way that would make her happy - without her having to verbalize or identify what that even means. She definitely isn't interested in the "old" him coming back (controlling, manipulative drunk) & doesn't like who is as a sober, medicated person either. I continue to insist this is unfair because he literally CAN'T be a person that she'll love or respect - she basically wants him to become someone altogether new & passionately WANT to be that person for himself.

I know that if my husband told me that he didn't want me to go back to the person I once was & didn't like me now, but wanted me to become some new, improved version of an idea in his head I'd tell him to take a hike & try to find that person Somewhere Out There in the big, bad world.

She is firmly stuck in the "not having a problem so much as a solution she doesn't like" & she is going to stay there until some event outside of her control forces change.

So in the meantime - more boundaries, more "waiting for more to be revealed"....... Big, Fat Sigh.

dandylion

fireSprite.....I just went back and read through the entire thread. Wow. It does seem that there are multifaceted issues at play. Ones that probably require some therapy and some deep digging and self examination. (and we know how scary THAT can be. for most people).....

I have known of many people who stuck in unhappy marriages for their entire lives...that was not uncommon in previous generations...for a variety of reasons. the list of reasons or potential reasons could go on for a full page....
It DOES sound like her self esteem might be on the floor.

At least she knows that she is unhappy, if she is crying and talking to you about it.....even if she doesn't have insight...At least, that is something.
She sounds like she is still in the childbearing years...if her daughter is that young.
It might be that there are still enough years left for some deciding factor to intervene. Like...maybe the butterfly scenario--one finally leaves when the fear of staying becomes greater than the fear of leaving.
Or...she might be swayed by the "fruits of another"....(that happens)....
Or her child's therapist might confront her on the issue....
etc, etc.....
We have seen many people, on SR, who have stayed as long as 3 or 4 decades before they left a miserable marriage....

I know how really, really hard it is to care about someone who can't/won't see what is so obvious....
I get how frustrating this is to you!!

FireSprite

Yes, I completely agree & have said as much directly to her. She knows this will require a ton of therapy work & does NOT want to do it.

I pointed out to her that when we compare staying vs. leaving - Leaving is actually easy & staying is hard.

And I know that if he packed up & left today, she'd breathe a huge sigh of relief instead of trying to convince him to stay - but none of that is enough for her to be the one to take action.

It IS frustrating but generally manageable because it's not MY life & she typically does a decent job of not letting this get in the way of our friendship/time together...... but like I said, once it spilled over onto me I had to say something.

dandylion

Yeah, I get it, FireSprite.....

Ap052183

This is really excellent. Everything I've ever learned about relationships was all about passion, filling voids, letting someone complete you. Love conquers all. My parents and grandparents had terrible marriages but they always spoke about their s.o being "the one." Their romances moved quickly and became their identity. So I literally had no idea how relationships evolve or progress. I've only every seen codependence. When I was with my ex leaving wasn't even an option because he was "my one" even though that's an absolutely ridiculous idea now.

CaptainM

I just read this entire thread and found it full of amazing posts - wow.

I'm sorry your friend is still "stuck" ... I can only image that she maybe wishes she had taken action a couple of years ago...

One point that was made in this post that really hit me was about inertia. Before I separated from stbxah I resisted because it was going to be "too hard" - where will I live? what about my dog? what about xyz? how will I find a lawyer? omg divorce?! But I knew deep down that I wanted a better, HAPPIER life but it just seemed soooo hard to get to.

But one step at a time, one day at a time and reaching out to trusted family and friends for help has helped tremendously (and SR of course ) Soon I will be doing more "hard" stuff that could have made me stuck before, but I know I don't need all of the answers today and that one step at a time is OK.

velma929

Your first post, Wisconsin, covered a lot of real estate.
As for this one, I'll repeat something my Dad said. My sister and I were joking about Cher's eight day marriage to one of the Allman brothers, and one of us said, "Nothing like giving it the old college try," or something to that effect. Dad overheard us and said, "There's nothing wrong in admitting you've made a mistake and correcting it as soon as you can."

SaveYourHeart

For me, it's the fear of the unknown, fear of change, fear of starting over. The fear is crippling. I'm "comfortable" in my misery, or so I tell myself.

It's also the desperate desire to be loved. My husband hasn't told me that I'm attractive or that he loves me without being coerced in a really long time. I literally cannot remember the last time he said it first. But I keep on trucking because "I love him and he loves me".

Worry is also something that stops me from leaving, not for me but for him. What will he do? How will he pay the mortgage? Which animals do I leave him? Will he become unhinged? Will he drink himself to death? Will he hurt himself? Will he be alone forever?

I know I should leave, I want to leave, but yet I stay.

NewRomanMan

While I can't say because I have no idea about any specifics, happiness isn't everything in life. It's just not. Real relationships take work, and there are rough patches is marriages or any relationship. There were many times in my own marriage that I wasn't happy. In fact, times where I was very unhappy. But that didn't mean that I didn't love my spouse and didn't think that our relationship wasn't worth fighting for. This may be a totally different situation, tho, so to each their own.

Maudcat

There has been so much wisdom expressed on this thread. Clearly, the subject resonates with many of us.
Kudos to all for your honest reflections. I know that for some, it's confronting some painful truths about the lives we have fashioned.
I don't have much to add. So much has been said and said well.
My own feeling is that deciding to leave a marriage or relationship is never easy. More so when children are part of the equation. People who do decide that staying in a marriage where they just aren't happy are, in my opinion, incredibly brave.

FireSprite

We'll have to agree to disagree - I'm of the opinion that Happiness is sometimes the ONLY thing worth striving for. I do agree that relationships go through struggles, but we aren't talking about a temporary rough patch here. This has been ongoing & worsening for about 9 years..... far from some temporary difference of lifestyles or opinions.

And I DO understand having other reasons for staying, like financial dependence or overall fear of change, etc. She would like more children but not with him (& he's completely opposed to the idea anyway) so she also realizes on some level that she's stopping herself from having things that she wants in life. She doesn't rely on him financially, but she likes to THINK she needs his income (I debunked that myth by having her run a budget on her income/expenses alone). She tells herself that it's important that they stay together for their kid but ignores when she struggles as a result of their dysfunction. (dandy brought up a great point about their DD getting therapy but that's not even on their radar, she avoids opening cans so she doesn't have to deal with the worms spilling out, in this area especially....)

When the pressure becomes too heavy she keeps herself busy & finds ways to get even busier, often double booking her activities on the same days in her haste.

And when she feels cheated out of something or feels that empty sting inside she lashes out emotionally, blaming him 100% for "making" her do all of this, for "making" her settle for less than she wants... but in reality, she's abdicating all of her decisions & then blaming him for what she doesn't agree with.

And for the record - I'm NO fan of her husband. We have a long, rocky history of not seeing eye-to-eye but I can still see that he seems to be the one who is upfront & honest about who he is & what he's willing to do in life - she's the one holding out for some movie-plot miracle.

Thanks to all for your ongoing contributions to this thread!

FireSprite

Thinking about this statement - this may be the crux of it all - the difference for many of us may simply come down to how we individually value Happiness as a Life Commodity.

For my friend, it's not worth more than the unknown - while I feel the exact opposite.

dandylion

To be free to be happy was the main reason that I divorced my first husband (my children's father).
To just exist...to never be "seen"...to never be "heard"....to never feel that I really mattered....or that my feelings or thoughts had value.....A lifetime of that felt like it would be a living death on Earth.

So, yeah, the right to happiness was my number one commodity!

honeypig

And I wonder if some of the difference of opinion in this really thought-provoking thread about the importance of happiness is based on different definitions of what happiness is.

Some folks may see it as a relatively trivial emotion, something that we feel when things are going our way and all seems right in our corner of the world. And yeah, if that kind of Happiness is missing, maybe it IS something that can be cured by waiting thru a "bad patch"or working on what's blocking the flow of Happiness.

But what dandy has described here is far beyond that--it is a lack of validation, of being valued, by the person we are supposedly closer to than any other. It is the ultimate Hardware Store/Bread situation, and it isn't going to change unless one or the other of the partners becomes a totally new person, which is kind of an unrealistic and unreasonable request to make of another human being. If that kind of Happiness is missing, I don't think there is any amount of patience or "working on it" that is going to change that.

SaveYourHeart

There was a passage we read in al-anon that said something to the effect of, "the source of my unhappiness was not knowing what I really wanted" I don't know if I connected to that idea or not.

I find my unhappiness stems from KNOWING what I DON'T want and failing to do anything about it.