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Archive for May, 2014

Help me not hurt — NOW

29 May

Doctor K,

I really wish that I could have an appointment every week, but since I can’t I guess I’ll just have to make do with making it in whenever I can.

During our last appointment you asked me about whether or not I had considered starting to date because you agreed with me that if/when I do start dating my soon-to-be-ex will more than likely change his currently cavalier attitude towards some of the things that have been upsetting me will and make a dramatic 180 despite his saying that will not be the case. You also asked what you could do to help me get through this difficulty and deal with these things that are so upsetting for me. In answer to that question help me not to be so bothered and hurt by all of this. Help me to not care about the fact that he is MORE than dating other women, including women that I know. Help me to be able to forget how I felt about him so that every time I am forced to interact with him it doesn’t hurt so much. Essentially — help me to completely shut off my emotions, at least as far as he is concerned, so that the only thing left when it comes to him is my logical self.

I am sure you will say that this will happen gradually as I grieve, mourn and work through all of this, but unfortunately that does me absolutely no go. Eventually, someday, before you know it, in time, tomorrow, and so on and so forth are completely useless to me. I’m not trying to deny or avoid the feelings created by this. In fact I happen to think that on the whole I have handled thing really well, but it still doesn’t do me any good! I can not continue to feel this pain every time I hear his voice, see his face (in person or a picture), have random thoughts pop uncontrollably into my head and everything else that has been happening up to this point. I need to be able to not experience these things right now.

It’s impossible I know. There is no way to bypass, let alone speed up, the mourning process. It has to happen in its own time. This knowledge just makes all of this much more difficult because by the time I do get to a state where things are not so emotionally difficult for me the most important time will have passed. The time during which the divorce is processed, negotiated and finalized.

Do you think that if I had allowed myself to have a complete meltdown early on that I would be farther along the path of mourning right now? Is there something wrong with me that during this time when most people (men and women both) would have reacted far more emotionally most of my reactions have been rather measured? That despite all of the pain that he has and is causing me I still can’t stop myself from worrying about how things are going to affect him before I worry about what is going to be best for me? Does it prove how much I loved him or just how pathetic I am that even now I can not seem to bring myself to hate him? That the most negative emotion, aside from the momentary flashes of anger that never seem to last very long, is resentment? What does that say about me?

I have no interest in dating. None. I do not discount the possibility in the future, but anticipate that IF a time ever comes where that changes it will be years down the road. (I’m sure that by then my soon-to-be-ex’s attitude will legitimately be the attitude that is currently false and untested.) I am NOT asking for help with cutting off all my emotional responses in connection to my soon-to-be-ex because I want to start dating and prove him wrong. I am asking because I don’t know how to do it on my own and since I have no choice but to let go of and accept the murder of my marriage I have to find some way to get past this.

I guess the best way to sum everything up is to say this — help me not to hurt and help to make that happen quickly.

 
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Posted in Letters to Doctor K

 

Help me keep our friendship

25 May

Friends,

I’ve said it before, I’ll most likely say it again, but I am still going to say it again now. I have not, will not and am not going to ask you to pick between me and my, whatever you want to call him. I have no right to ask such a thing and because you are my friends would never want to cause you the kind of pain and unease that such a situation surely creates. That being said I can make a choice. One that is no less difficult or painful, at least for me, than what I am currently experiencing or that you would experience if I asked you to make a choice and take sides. I am choosing to make the choice for you. If we have not seen each other, spoken, texted, emailed or otherwise communicated over the past weeks or months then perhaps there is no need to do so in the future.

Please do not misunderstand what I am saying or why I am saying it. I do NOT want to lose you as a friend but – – –

Ok, maybe this is the way to approach this. Because I have spent so much time thinking about this let me share with you the thoughts, in no particular order, that I’ve been having.

  • For a variety of reasons I am uncomfortable contacting you.
  • I am unsure if you want me to contact you.
  • I don’t know if you are having any contact with my ex.
  • If you are having contact with him I do not know to what extent your contact and/or friendship with him extends.
  • I don’t know if I can trust you to keep anything that I may tell you in confidence just between us. (I generally have trust issues, but they have been magnified a hundred fold by recent events.)
  • I don’t know if you believe me when I tell what it is that has happened and is currently happening.
  • I don’t know if the things that you tell me (such as your opinion on what is going on, how I am dealing with it, what you think I should do and how you feel about me, just to name a few) are true.
  • I am being forced to accept the murder of my old life, a life that I loved with every fiber of my being, and yet there are SO many people and things that keep me tethered to it.
  • These tethers (wanted, unwanted or otherwise) make it almost impossible to even begin to start building a new life, something that I have no choice but to figure out how to do.
  • I want to keep our friendship.
  • I want to be able to be comfortable contacting you.
  • I want you to be able to be comfortable contacting me.
  • I want you to want to be friends with me.
  • I want to know that you want to be friends.
  • I want to know that I can trust you completely if/when I do confide in you.
  • I have forcefully lost so much that I don’t want to lose anymore.

This is just a brief list of the things that are going through my head as I wrestle with the decision that lies before me regarding our friendships. The unlisted thoughts/concerns are unlisted because I do not feel that I know how to express them and I do not want to start rambling. I really don’t want to lose anyone else that I care about, but I can’t initiate or do the work on maintaining my friendships with you right now. It’s not that I don’t want to, but I am barely holding myself together (hell there are even times when I don’t have the ability to do that), so I need you to do some of it and help me do the rest, or I’ll have to assume that our friendship is over. Just remember how you failed or were unwilling to help when I needed you to the next time you want or need something from me. I’ve lost my love, please help me to keep our friendship.

 
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Posted in Letters to Friends/Family

 

I will miss you

23 May

My beautiful boy,

We are standing at the threshold of another unpleasant milestone in this life change that has been forced on us by your father. I am, of course, referring to the implementation of your visitation schedule with your father. This is something that I have been dreading for some time now and even if I had a lifetime to prepare for it would never be ready for.

I know that I have not talked to you about this much. Maybe that was a mistake and if it was then I am most sincerely sorry. There are a variety of reasons that I wasn’t sure how to talk to you about it, chiefly I wasn’t sure you would understand (I know that you are a very smart little boy, but this is kind of complicated situation that sometimes even I do not understand), I wasn’t sure how to explain what everything meant and because every time I would think about this impending date I would get nervous, anxious, emotional, and angry and I did not want to those emotions to inform your impression of this particular portion of our new routine anymore than it probably already did.

Despite what I have very little doubt your father will accuse me of, especially if this first visit does not go smoothly, when I have spoken to you about your upcoming visit with your father I have tried not to make it sound like a bad thing. I have NOT told you how much I hate the idea of you going to stay with your father. That I do NOT trust him to be able to take care of you. How I have not trusted his ability to take care of you properly since you were only a week or so old when he would yell at you to shut the fuck up when you would be crying in the middle of the night and be difficult to soothe. I have not told you how much I resent and am angry with your father for these visitations. That I do not believe that he deserves to be your father let alone have a visitation schedule. (Hell, from the time I was pregnant until you were about 2 and a half years old every time your father would get angry with me about something he would tell me how he didn’t believe that you were his son and that he had no doubt that I was trying to trick him into raising another man’s child, so how can I feel like he deserves to be your father and in your life?) How I hope that you give him absolute hell and make the visitation experience so difficult and frustrating for him that he not only calls to ask me to pick you up early, but also so that he essentially loses interest in having a visitation schedule at all. I have not told you these things because despite the fact that ever letter is completely and 100% true I do not have the right to say those things to you. Again I have essentially no doubt that  your father will accuse me of telling you things like that, especially if your visit with him does not go as smoothly as he is wanting and/or expecting it to go. I will actually be shocked to the point of being speechless if your visitation concludes and no such accusation has been levied.

Your visit with your father will hopefully pass quickly, but in that time I will miss you more than I seem to have the ability to express. I will be anxious, nervous, on edge, stressed and unable to focus until you are returned home to me. Until I can see that you are healthy and safe and until I can hold you in my arms. Your visit with your father hasn’t started yet and I already miss you like crazy. I just want you to know that I will always love you, no matter what, and that even when we are not together I am always here for you. You are now the only thing in my life that matters and I will miss you. You are my everything and (right now) my only happiness.

 
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Posted in Letters to Son

 

Hard time trusting

17 May

Friends,

You’ve probably heard me say this before and you are going to hear me say it again — If you are friends with both my ex and myself I do not ever want to make you feel like you have to choose between us or take sides. If I ever make you feel like I am putting you in such a position I hope that you will please tell me because more than likely I have no idea that is what has happened. If I don’t contact you it’s not because I no longer want to be friends with you, but because I do not want my attempts at contact to be misinterpreted as putting you in the middle I am hesitant to do so. I want to talk to you, but I want to know that you want to talk to me too. I know that contacting me may feel awkward and I totally get it, but please don’t let that stop you from contacting me and I will try not to let my awkwardness not to prevent me from contacting you.

All that being said — I don’t know if I can trust you. I want to, but if you are still friends with and in contact with my ex I don’t know if I can. How do I know that the things I tell you in confidence will stay between us and that you won’t got telling him everything that I have said the next time that you talk to or communicate with him? The truth is that unless you tell me that you are no longer friends with him, you unfriend him on FB and generally stop having anything to do with him I don’t. I know that sounds horrible for me to say, but it is the truth. The recent, conscious realization of this fact is very saddening and upsetting for me. I am very aware of the fact that for those of you reading this it is more than likely coming across in the exact way I just said that I didn’t want to make you feel — that I am asking or making you choose sides. I assure you that I am not. I am merely trying to (poorly) express how I feel. I WANT to talk to you, at times (maybe more frequently than I should) I want to confide in you after you ask how I am doing. I have lost so much lately that I do not want to lose my friendships to, but if you are going to be my friend I need you to be a true friend. Maybe I should be able to trust you when you tell me that you are still my friend, but the truth is that I need some major reassurance these days. I would hope that you can understand why.

If, for some reason that I may never be able to understand, you decide that you no longer want to be my friend then do me the curtsy of telling me. It will hurt, I’ll be confused and caught off guard, but the least you can do is be honest and tell me. If you do not want to be my friend then I hope that you will also tell me why you have come to this decision. I sincerely hope that none of you will have come to this decision, but you are each your own person, as such you are all welcome to your own opinions and to make decisions on this opinions and I will miss having you as my friend.

If I have any friends left after this entry thank you for being there for me. It means more to me then I will ever be able to express, but please don’t take it personally if I still have a hard time trusting you.

 
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Posted in Letters to Friends/Family

 

Forgetting isn’t an option

02 May

Self,

Here we are again. Feeling compelled to write something, but having nothing specific putting itself in the forefront to be focused on. It was a rough week and one that while I am not sorry to see end will surely repeat itself far too frequently in the coming months.

It is now May which means that Mother’s Day and my birthday are fast approaching. Neither of which I am looking forward to. This will only be my third Mother’s Day and sadly despite everything that is going on in my life right now this will probably be the best Mother’s Day I have had so far, which only makes it more depressing to think about. I don’t even get to spend the day with my son. Instead I have to work and will only get the evening with him. It helps to know that he will not be with his father that day, but not enough to even make a dent. The truth is that even if I didn’t have to work that day my son and I probably wouldn’t be doing anything super exciting, but that would suit me just fine since I have never wanted, needed or expected much.

I seriously doubt that Mother’s Day will even cross Ex’s mind and I don’t know what I’ll do, think of feel if I turn out to be wrong and he does remember.  It’s not something that I have spent a lot of time thinking about, but since Mother’s Day does come before Father’s Day I have been thinking that however Ex does or does not handle Mother’s Day is how I should approach Father’s Day. On the flip side of that I wonder if I should approach Father’s Day the way that I want him to approach Mother’s Day. — So many pros and cons and no clear winner between the two. I am just sick and tired of always being the one that always takes the high road and treats him the way that I would want to be treated. He NEVER responds in kind and either can’t or won’t see and acknowledge  that. This is, of course, nothing new, but it doesn’t make it any easier, especially with what he is putting me through right now.

I should hate him. I should probably be trying harder to make things difficult for him, not worrying about my intentionally not doing something for Father’s Day, his birthday, Christmas, etc would be horrible and unacceptable. I won’t be giving him anything personally, rather I would be helping my son to get him something for each of those occasions, but if I don’t does that mean that I really am the petty person that he has repeatedly told me that I am? If I do decide to help my son get him a card, gift, etc for these occasions I feel like it’s going to make it just that much harder to even try to move on. (Not that I’m doing a particularly bang up job of that as it is, but — how am I supposed to able to start coming to terms with the forced loss of the man who I love when I still have to remember to get him something special for his birthday, Christmas, Father’s Day and so on?!?) I’ll never look at any of these occasions the same way again, but I guess that is to be expected. But would someone please tell me how I am supposed to be expected to let go of my old life when it was really ripped from my grasp while still remaining tethered (in more ways than one)?

He asked me once if I could just go out and do something to forget him, but how am I supposed to “forget” when every minute of every day is full of reminders and forgetting isn’t an option?

 
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Posted in Letters to Self