Relationships

I grew up in a religious community that was all about complete fidelity, strengthening family bonds and fighting for marital ties.

Thus when I found myself married at a young age what I felt to be the most important thing was keeping my marriage together. I fought really hard towards that goal and put up with a difficult relationship, an abusive relationship, with the attitude that if we all went to church, prayed together, talked things through, then everything that was wrong could be made right.

There were things that could not be made right no matter how much I tried however. Things that I couldn't see or was too immature to know how to handle.

I'm not sure how people successfully navigated through unsuitable relationships back in the days where girls married at 14 (or younger) and were expected to raise their children to be strong and successful. How did these young girls overcome their own immaturity? Perhaps the societal norms of their days and what was expected of them was simple and they didn't expect much out of life, nor their relationships, it is sad that this is still the state of things in some areas of the world.

We live in a world that expects a lot from life and from our relationships and that leads to discontent.

But discontent was not a motivating factor for me when I was a young mother, I found joy in other things, for me I knew quite early on that I was in over my head and I didn't know how to escape. I made the unenviable choice to work on my relationship as much as possible, but to do things that would allow me the ability to escape if I needed to. In essence, I wasn't in a relationship out of love but out of fear. Certainly I loved my husband, but I hadn't come into the relationship as a fully realized person and I didn't decide to be married based off a mutual understanding of love and trust, I was married because I wanted to do the right thing for my children, I wanted them to have a good home.

So I was locked into this dynamic and yet fighting with all of my being to improve my situation. I went to school, I was lucky because attending school meant that I received grant money which we desperately needed because we were very poor. It was also useful because I was able to get out of the house and have some time to myself, I could escape into an inner world and there find a voice.

My inner voice told me something was wrong, that I needed to find a way out. I tied to talk things through with my husband, there were times I was suspicious of him, he had had an affair when we were first married and I thought that what was wrong was that he didn't really love me, I thought he would be happier without me. I was tired of the many things that I felt he did to keep us poor, spending money unwisely and unwise business practices. I was tired of the deception, always feeling like there was something he was hiding. I thought that I could fix it by trying harder, being more devout, getting us all to go to church, going to therapy and talking until I was blue in the face but nothing seemed to work.

At first I tried to escape by getting into a relationship(ish) with another guy. That was not good, I felt too much guilt and I felt uneasy with the speed with which the other guy wanted to marry me. I broke that off, it lasted a month.

That was trying to escape and I didn't like that way out, it made me weaker as a person.

I reconciled with my husband and went back to trying to break things off in the "right" way.

Then he became more violent, then I found out what he had truly been hiding and that was the last straw.

I packed his things, I put them out for him to take them away and I stood firm as he begged and pleaded with me to take him back, that was one of the most difficult things that I have ever done. Though unfortunately I did not have the resolve at that time to keep him from residing in some form or other in my home for the next few years, I was financially dependent on him and this had all happened right at the down turn in the economy so it was difficult to find work. I hated myself for my weakness, I wasn't protecting myself or my children and that caused me a lot of pain.

I had found a relationship with someone who lived on the other side of the world, he talked me through many things and became a good friend. We were really close and I went to see him (in Australia), we became engaged and then I went home. In this relationship I also felt trapped, and I felt like that was ridiculous because he lived so far away from me. I went to see him again to see if I could work out the dilemma I felt for myself, we had fun together but when I returned home again I felt something was wrong. It felt like the balance of power was out of control, he told me what I should do with my ex-husband and although I agreed I felt weak and unable to do what I knew was right so I felt continually in the wrong. I hated my weakness, I hated feeling out of control and I eventually broke it off.

Ironically I had found someone that loved and supported me over here, I met him at my work place and he was a really kind, though insecure guy. I had broken things off with my long distance relationship and then started up a relationship with this guy, but there was a struggle going on with one guy pleading for me to continue my relationship with him and then the other doing the same and then having the messy dependence on my ex-husband. It was all too much, it made me emotionally and physically sick, so eventually I ended everything with every guy in my life (as much as possible) and though my ex still came around causing me grief I had hardened my heart to his emotional abuse (mostly) and decided to move on.

So I did, I moved on. I dated several people and eventually found someone I admired and loved. We started a relationship, I moved my little family to his condo and we got married, BUT I was in school and wasn't really fully available because of that. There was a constant group text going with my MBA group and when I got off of work, I went to school, when I got done with school I came home and studied. I tired as much as I could to talk to my husband and get to know him but he was very private and paranoid. The situation really wasn't ideal for resolving misunderstandings because of the heavy pressure and exhaustion I felt so eventually we cracked. He cracked by accusing me of cheating, I felt that was so ironic because I had no inclination to cheat on him, I loved him, plus I had no time whatsoever to cheat. But nothing I did or said could convince him otherwise and our marriage ended.

It's been about a year now since he packed everything up and left, about 7 months since the divorce was finalized. I was devastated, I felt so empty inside, heartbroken and numb. I gathered up my pride and my things and did what I could to stave off the pain, unwisely I started dating again hoping to stem the loneliness. A mechanic friend helped me find an old beater car that has served me pretty well this past year, I lucked into a good deal on a condo that I was just able to afford, so I packed up my family and we left what had become a home full of ghosts for me.

There was one man who stepped into this painful and lonely world and did things for me that I could not, who brightened my day and helped me establish my home as it is now. He was not entirely truthful with me at the beginning however which has made me a bit uneasy and uncertain. I am happier because of his kindness but undecided about the long term.

I have never had the amount of stability that I have now, financially and emotionally. Yet I know that I need to be able to make the decisions in my relationships rather than be forced into them by circumstance or else I will never feel easy with myself or my situation, that is what I have learned. I need time to myself to think, I need time with my children to establish bonds that have been weak, I need enough money in the bank that I am not afraid of losing my home or of being dependent on someone else. I never want to make the mistake of not making a firm decision before moving on to a new relationship again though, that has never been good.

This is my understanding from the relationships that I have had and the life I have lived.

SG

Writing challenge: If you were given the opportunity to appear in a talent show what would you perform?

If I were to appear in a talent show what would I perform... I suppose I am re-writing that sentence because I don't really have something off the top of my head that I would like to perform at a talent show. A lot of my talents are the specialized, organize and order things type of talents though I do also enjoy singing, writing and painting. 

To go back a step here let me just state that I have a goal to write more often and the way that I identified to get myself to write more is to use writing prompts. I have a list of them and I try to pull them out and work on the prompts on Mondays and Wednesdays. So with that cleared up I will continue on with this attempt.

If I seriously had to perform something I would really learn a song well... or a piece of poetry, that's always fun.

I especially like the works that Anne of Green Gables so famously read in the book. "The Lady of Shallot," or "The Highway Man." Anything with a bit of drama and pathos, or as Anne would say "Don’t you just love poetry that gives you a crinkly feeling up and down your back?"

As for songs, I really sing church songs well... but I don't often share that talent, I like to sing some of the Carpenter's songs, or jam out to The Manhattan Transfer's "Cool Cool Kitty." But I really haven't practiced just singing a song well, perhaps I need to do that. Just in case I am randomly called to perform in a talent show.

SG

Coming to grips with mistakes

Accepting mistakes without becoming defensive is one thing I have struggled with my whole life. I hate to have the lens of attention shining down on me, revealing things that I may or may not know about. I'm very introspective so I often have discovered many things that I want to fix, areas where I could improve. When someone points these areas out it feels like an intrusion on my personal battle for perfection.

Because that is what it is, a battle to rid myself of all incompetency, to make myself the paragon of cleverness and intelligence that I've always wanted to be. Mistakes are like daggers that pierce that perception and when pointed out they pierce deeper and I become defensive.

Defensiveness is a shield that I hold up when I feel the sting of shame. I am ashamed when it is obvious that I have failed, I am ashamed when I make mistakes because mistakes feel like failure.

When I was young mistakes were signs of incompetence, of stupidity. There used to be harsh criticism for failure in my early home. There were times I spent frantically cleaning my room in the hope that the angry voice of rejection wouldn't turn towards me, it was a child's reaction to the unknown.

As an adult I can see that it was a story that I told myself to explain what was going on in my home. I can see the broader picture now because I have more life experience. The residual and innate responses remain, however as the author of my own story I now have the power to edit and re-frame what happened to me in the past. I can give the character of ME a new direction to take, I no longer have to follow the old script.

Mistakes are still painful at times, I am learning how to deal with the pain instead of holding up a defensive shield. I can accept the mistake and view it as the learning tool that it should be, giving me the opportunity to improve and giving me a chance to build a better relationship with others.

Defensiveness is distancing, it is putting a space between yourself and others to avoid hearing the painful thing that they are saying. So learning how to accept things without internalizing them is what I am learning to do, at work and at home.

Some may not have the same battle to fight, maybe this battle is less important an issue to others than it is to me, but I do feel grateful that I have had the time to come to this point in my life. That is all for now.

SG

Thoughts For My Children

Again I find my head full of things I wish I could say to my kids but I don't feel that it is the right time. It never seems to be the right time and they never seem to be in the right state of mind. I would rather not speak than to sound preachy which is something I tend to do when I talk to them.

I'm going through the process of defining my strengths and adopting a more positive attitude towards work and life. It is really easy to slip into negativity, especially when you don't feel good or you've had a hard day. Also it is easy to feel resentment towards other people at work if you feel like you have been passed by for a promotion or recognition. I've been in that frustrating mindset too often, it is a continual battle to be positive in the day to day grind, it is very easy for me to slip into a passive mode where I feel like I just need to put in my time and go home.

I want my kids to know that boredom with life is something to fight. Finding little bits of time to work on things that you like to do is important. It gives some meaning to life that you are developing your talents and enjoying life but that cannot be all there is to life, there is much more.

There is something in my character that abhors the wanton waste of things; of time, of talent, of people. I dislike mean spirited conversation, though sometimes I've caught myself in the middle of such. I feel like we are better off discussing things in an open and taciturn way, but not in a mocking or griping way, there is a balance and it is hard to achieve.

I believe in using the things we are given and not asking for more, coveting if you will, what we don't have.

I listened to a TED talk today by Emily Esfahani Smith titled, "There's More To Life Than Being Happy." She describes some things that we should seek beyond happiness, to seek meaning vs. happiness.

That there are 4 Pillars of a meaningful life:

1 Belonging - which comes from being in relationships where you are valued for who you are intrinsically and where you value others as well. Leading with love creates a bond that lifts each of you up.

2 Purpose - using your strengths to serve others. Purpose gives you something to live for, some why that drives you forward.

3 Transcendence - states where you are lifted above the hustle and bustle of daily life. Your sense of self fades away and you are connected to a higher reality.

4 Story telling, the story you tell yourself about yourself. We are the authors of our stories and can change the way we are telling them. Your life is not just a list of events, you can edit, interpret and retell your story even as you are constrained by the facts. People leading meaningful lives tend to tell stories about their lives defined by redemption, growth and love. You can change your story by reflecting on your life thoughtfully. How your defining experiences shaped you, what you lost, what you gained. Changing your story won't happen over night it can take years and be painful. Embracing those painful memories can lead to new insights and wisdom, to find that 'good' that sustains you.

Emily then goes on to describe how her life was filled with the 4 pillars of meaning as a child through her parents practice of Sufism which "is the selfless experiencing and actualization of the Truth. The practice of Sufism is the intention to go towards the Truth, by means of love and devotion. This is called the tarigat, the spiritual path or way towards God. The sufi is one who is a lover of Truth, who by means of love and devotion moves towards the Truth, towards the perfection which all are truly seeking."

This is a practice that I am unfamiliar with as an organization but which sounds like something I want to know more about since I love learning about different ideas.

Emily's talk rang very true to me. I used to look up at the darkening sky and find the first star. Then my wish was always to be happy. I felt like it was a goal, a state of being that I could achieve if only I incorporated the right ingredients into my life. And yes it was an elusive goal that left me feeling more depressed as it seemed so unattainable.

It is better to make peace with life, to admit that you have limitations but to seek to use what you do have to achieve the greatest effect. I dislike the idea of searching for "meaning" as an endless quest to find out "why things are as they are," but rather I find that the idea of searching for meaning is to seek to do meaningful things, to be involved and engaged with the people around you, which can take great effort.

As an introvert, being involved and engaged can take a lot of energy. So I acknowledge that limitation in myself, and am forthright in letting other people know that I need time to recharge. It means engaging when I can and being as positive as I can in my engagement with others. Because really, there is so little time and so much to gain from learning about others and being thoughtful towards them.

Well this has about wiped me out for the night. I've stayed up too late again and disengaged a bit to spend this time writing my thoughts down. Someday I hope that I can share my thoughts with my children. If I never find the time to speak them out loud to them, then may they find my words later on and find wisdom in them.

SG