# I wish I could hit the fast foward button.



## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

I know, VCR tech talk showing my age.

I'm just pppppppppht at the fact that I have yet to move, yet to file the sexual assault/s paperwork, and there is so much distance between here and where I want to be. At the moment swimming through time is more like walking through mud.

I am focusing on dance class and time with kids and getting settled into school and work/managing finances. I suppose in 6 months I will be here posting that time flies and I can hardly remember sitting here posting about wondering how did I become an underemployed middle-aged person with hardly any assets, 3 kids and filing a restraining order assualt charges against my husband.

The days seems surreal...this week my kids have swim lessons and went fishing as well. I went to the theater to work for a bit and then to dance class. A friend is coming tomorrow for lakeside time at kids swim lessons (en plein air at a beautiful harbor near where I live now and where I have lived in the past off and on since I was about 12...) and to go to an outdoor concert on a green by a community band and then to an art exhibit (with actual art being done onsite) at a beautiful National Park site nearby...

I have a difficult time reconciling the nice things in my life that I truly appreciate, with the sordid reality of what happened to me and/in my marriage. It doesn't really seem to add up...and then every once in a while it just comes crashing down. It reminds me of when my father committed suicide. Some things just seem too disturbing to accept. I think that's why it took me so long to realize about my marriage. I do remember my father's suicide taking some time to sink in, but had attributed it to my age (17). Maybe I was wrong on that. 

Anyways, I will be calling a trauma place to get counseling. I feel odd about it like it's only supposed to be for people who hit rock bottom. I think I must be good at treading water.

Someone who I am not sure is in the know about my situation or not told me today that I am good at handling change. I said, if you only knew. But am I? Sometimes, it doesn't seem like that.

If I didn't live in such a beautiful area and didn't have such nice distractions or pasttimes or mental/physical challenges to keep myself occupied, I wonder how well I would cope. It seems I absolutely cling to the landscape, and am worried about the slight geographical change of moving to this new town even though it's only 20 minutes away. I'll probably try to go out bicycling there, to sort of claim it. Every place has its own beauty, but it seems odd to get used to a new town that is only 20 minutes away from the old town... when we had an ice storm years ago the landscape changed because the trees all snapped off the top. It was really disturbing for sure, but in that case it disturbed everyone, all together. It stinks to be the only one (plus my kids) going through this change.

I don't know if I have a question.
Just that I tool along just fine and then reality hits and I just want to cry a bit. I decided this wasn't scary or overly depressing to cry, it is grieving crying, but not even for marriage, just what happened to me. I don't have family except for my kids, my husband was my family and I guess that was a problem, he knew this and played it to his full advantage. He even took my FOO and acted like they were sane and I was crazy he got away with this until I told his relatives about a murder that happened last year in my FOO and they were shocked. Apparently my darling husband never even mention it to them when he was railroading me. A**.

But, yes, I have grief. But it's not the same as missing husband or missing marriage with him. Just like cr*p I have nothing and am alone and have been here before and I know that while for the most part it is INFINITELY MORE DESIRABLE than being in an abusive or unsatisfactory relationship, it is also most definitely alone without any feeling or expression of intimacy with anyone except my children. That is just not a natural state to be. I accept my vulnerability, but how will I know when I am not vulnerable any more? Probably never, I suppose that is the normal state of being?


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## anx (Nov 30, 2010)

Best of luck and God bless
I agree with you about time. I'm 2 months into a 6 month separation and living day by day. I also am going through srs mental health stuff. Everything else in my wife is great and its surreal to be like this. I don't even believe sometimes that I need to struggle to even cope or not have a panic attack.

I really hope you can work out something for your present and future with yourself and your kids. Women's shelters should have resources to help if you haven't contacted them, but it sounds like your ic might be through that.

The human condition sucks. Vulnerability is a daily thing.


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

Haha anx, that's a good typo/slip of fingers.
You said everything else in your 'wife' is great. 

God has blessed me.
I had a very bad case of undiagnosed anaphylaxis.
So I was in therapy for "psychotic anxiety"  for a couple months before I started to find out about the truth about my husband. I lost my ability to make loads of money being a statistician/data analyst/crackshot relational database programmer which forced me to rally my other skills such as writing and general problem-solving (where people and technology collide, is a stressful place!!!!) and being personable/listening. I spent more down time watching movies and started talking to people about them. I had lost a lot of weight and coordination so needed to take up things like archery and the ballroom dance that have been a lot of fun. Those activities are much more alike than you would think. Both focus on absolutely core stability and centering, depsite the obvious difference of one being still and the other being moving, it is the exact same at the core (literally and figuratively). 

I thought about it and had a lightbulb moment.
You can ONLY be strong by being vulnerable.
This is because you can only know an opponent or a threatening force or danger fully by exposing your vulnerability fully in order to elicit what scares you. You can only conquer something by learning to 'dance' with it (accepting it without losing your balance) by having full knowledge of it.

Maybe this is why good therapy works. I know I am adaptable because by all counts my childhood should have left me mentally and emotionally crippled. Even back then I knew what was what and 'danced' with it. I was pretty good at taking care of myself. I went to the library, the town playground (it was supervised) and pool, during holiday weeks I'd look in the newspaper and find out where the kid activities were and I'd walk downtown and go to them (absentee parents) to get out of the house. I had a lot of away-sleepovers and went to youth group at a local church. I had jobs babysitting and tutoring and when I was old enough I got a job and found out how to get my work permit...when it was time to learn how to drive my mom was living in a rented room in a house with a state trooper. Him and his girlfriend were super nice to me. I got my license the exact day I turned 16! 

Instead of being GOOD at change, I think I am good at NOT AVOIDING change, sensing it, and accepting it. I don't question it like why, what if...I just look at where I am and what side I'm being pushed from, and adjust. 

I learned a lot about the adrenal system from my anaphylaxis and decided that while anger is an okay and useful emotion, it's better to meet it halfway and then accept and buffer it so that the physical effects aren't debilitating. 

I think I'm going to do some research on vulnerability.
Maybe this is one reason why yoga is so beneficial.
A lot of those positions are physically positions of vulnerability.
Opening your heart in the wrong environment could be fatal!
But in yoga class we do it in a room full of strangers.
And we are relaxed!
I've not been able to get to yoga for several weeks since school let out for my kids...but am able to go next week so will make the time to go.


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## meson (May 19, 2011)

I can't give you any advice. You are walking where I haven't been. But I do know that you reply to many people in this forum and your advice has helped me. You are spreading good karma and it will come back to you in some way sooner or later. It's not a fast forward button but hopfully it will be a disk changer while you are upgrading from the VCR.


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

Meson, thank you so much. I think one of the benefits of being vulnerable and open is that the boundaries of individual suffering blur. No suffering is unique, as universal as joy.

BUT, a lot of my favorite movies are on VCR. And the VCR is not something I am taking with me to my new place. I'm hoping I can get one on Freecycle as I have shared a lot there. As you say, karma is a full cycle.


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## Acorn (Dec 16, 2010)

Homemaker - I love your post about vulnerability. You have posted on my situation a couple times, and you put into words why I feel like dealing with my situation is so much better than running and hiding from it.

I really think you are on to something and here's to hoping only good things to come!


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

Acorn said:


> I really think you are on to something and here's to hoping only good things to come!


I hope so too.
Logically, I should not date while still married or so soon after deciding to call it quits with this so-called marriage. But truthfully, the entire marriage and relationship before that was based on H's one-sided manipulative knowledge of the situation. He's been gone for a year and except for the clincher he delivered in April while he was on home leave, I've had limited contact with him for quite a while now. It's like someone took a great big eraser and removed the last 5 years of my life. I mean, I remember them, but the interactions with my H are memorable only for the growing feeling of deceipt, manipulation, control and abuse... I've already done a year of therapy and am discharged on Monday (would have been last month but I asked for one more appt and there was a scheduling issue due to backlog...so the last appt is definitely a favor to me.) I think I strived so much for what I am living now, that when the barrier of abuse was lifted, I felt more free to express myself, like having practiced pullups with 5 pound weights on your feet, and then taking them off after you master 10. Suddenly you can do 30! People have definitely noticed. I have a woman friend I've known for 15 years and she noticed and commented on it. I am okay with my beliefs. They work really well for me and are as valid (or more so) than my H's since mine are not based on deception and malice. I don't have to play second fiddle to his tune or anyone else's unless I'm in synch and like the music.

One thing I've noticed is that being happy and well-adjusted is not just for the coupled or familied. It is very much dependent on an individual and his or her relationship to the people around him/her and also to him/herself.


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