Hi Brooke,
I was recently lucky enough to be coached by you about the love of my life’s ex-wife (a woman on the same planet as me who is doing the best she can, or “WOTSPAM”). I have been working hard on making sure my “C” line is neutral and not really a “T” in disguise, and it has been working wonders.
Now for part II of the Reality Shit Show (I say that jokingly, I know life is supposed to be a shit show sometimes). Last August, I discovered that he had been lying to me for over a year that his divorce was progressing and that he was taking all kinds of action to move it forward. In fact,other than that he had filed for divorce and moved out, none of it had been true, up through that previous March. After March, he began doing what he was telling me he was doing all along–I just didn’t know the difference. After coming up from the deep after uncovering such a major betrayal, we went to a therapist. There, I learned that he had been so abused by WOTSPAM for so long that he was suffering from tremendous PTSD and had been terrified to stand up to her. Every time he would try, he would lose his courage and resolve in the face of the screams and threats and, in some cases, physical abuse. BUT he did not want to tell me the truth because he was also terrified of losing me. So I was with him for well over a year wondering why this divorce was taking so long, why is the universe doing this, why can’t we be together, what the f@*& is going on here? And I finally discovered why–it was all a lie.
Fast forward to the present. I now have complete open access to his phone, his email, his communications app for volatile co-parents, everything. He is an open book. He has done everything humanly possible to get me to trust him again, and I do. I have come to a place where I can understand why he did what he did and sometimes I can even empathize. The problem I’m having is that I am absolutely stuck in self-pity for what he did to me and blaming him for why I’m still paying for it (i.e., still dealing with the fall out of a divorce that should have been long over by now if he’d been telling the truth and taken action when he said he was).
I am over myself. I’ve started on the thought work about not being a victim to WOTSPAM. But damn, I want to blame him for all the things keeping me from the life that I dreamed of. So, I’ve kinda sorta forgiven him, but not really. And so I sabotage our relationship to make him hurt as much as I do, to punish him, to try to get him to fix the unfixable C lines. And, of course, the result I’m creating is that I am still miserable and no matter how much I spin and fight, that damn C line is still the same. Here’s a sample of one of the models I did this morning:
C: I am temporarily ordered to not be around his children and he has them full time while WOTSPAM recovers from surgery, so we cannot see each other as often as we’re used to.
T: If he loved me, he would never have lied to me and this would be over by now
F: Abandoned, self-pity
A: Lash out, withdraw, withhold love
R: I relive the past and it is never over
C: I am temporarily ordered to not be around his children and he has them full time while WOTSPAM recovers from surgery, so we cannot see each other as often as we’re used to
T: Everything is happening exactly as it’s supposed to for me to learn what I need to learn
There’s where I’m stuck. I don’t believe it. How can I start believing it? If I did, I believe it would look like this:
F: Acceptance
A: use the extra time to work on myself
R: I learn and evolve into the person I’m meant to be using all of these resilience building circumstances that keep coming my way as tools.
But how? When I try on a new thought it feels wrong. Like I’m addicted to the self-pity. I’m ready for massive action on this one.
Much love and appreciation for your help!
Natalie