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Hi All,
I am posting this because it may be helpful to others in sharing my journey.
Over the past few weeks I have started to feel alone and lost. I feel this hole in my heart. There is a void per say, something missing. It would be easy to fill this whole with another relationship and pretend it’s not there. But what is this hole that heart break and sadness that I feel?
What I have discovered is that over time I have tried to fill this hole with relationships. I, just like most women, needed to feel wanted and loved by someone else. As a society and as a whole we feel our sense of self and our value as women, based on whether or not someone else loves us. On whether or not we have a relationship. We can say, oh I don’t need a man in my life to be happy, I said those things. But deep down I did not feel valid, did not feel accepted. Felt something was wrong with me. However I am looking to the outside for validation from others, rather inside.
The hole is still there. But I am working on trying to fill it with love and life for me and my kids. This is something new in that I am seeking happiness from my own life instead of from others. I now have to try to plan to get out of the house, to meet new people, to make friends. I need to be happy for the little things…first being alive. Don’t laugh.
I watched an oprah show yesterday. It was about a mother who came home and her ex husband had come to her house while she was out jogging, and shot all four of her kids and himself, All dead. She had three teens and a four year old. Much similar to me. I could not imagine anything worse happening in my life. The woman soldiered on, however friends watched her constantly to make sure she would not commit suicide. I watched this who took it all in. did not think it really affected me much in anyway. But the main message was to focus on a little thing in your life and it will grow, even if it’s as little as you are alive. You will rise.
As I said I have been having a tough time. Sadness in my heart. Is it the time change, is it all that is going on? I don’t know. But when I woke up this morning I said today is another day, and at least you are alive and at least your kids are alive. Suddenly all my “problems” are not so big. If she can make it through what she made it through, I can make it through this.
If we can rise up from the ashes and do something with this tragedy in our lives all of it will be for something. If this event just makes me take more notice to my kids and enjoy them and my life more? This disaster has accomplished great things. I was/always am here for my kids; but I was not really here. Do you know what I mean?? Like in the room, but not present. I was skating through my life, numb from all that has happened to me.
I also feel that I maybe have never really been loved by anyone; except my dogs. I have a lot in my life and my past to heal. My childhood was crap, my two marriages crap. But now it’s time to change all that. I learned this from the prisoners who raised pups for the handicap, trained them to be working dogs. A dog loves you totally and unconditionally. Nothing is stronger than the love I feel from my dogs. Oprah says to go and adopt a dog today, however I already have two, and am very grateful for them, and that I can have dogs.
So I am going to post on the back of my door in my bedroom so I can see it when I go to bed and when I wake, a list of things I am grateful for. Number 1 – is that I am alive, 2 my kids, 3 dogs, 4 my job, 5 my house, and on and on.
Love and hugs to all.
FloraYES!
Oh, Flora I know how it feels to stand on the edge of that hole and wonder. And I know how it feels to realize there’s been a lot of pain and wasted years, but I am still alive. There were days when I was just barely alive, but I was alive.We are the ones who choose what words will interpret our lives. In the Hebrew-Christian tradition (Bible) we are told that we stand before two paths, life and death. We are urged to choose life. Choosing life means letting that word interpret the ups and downs, even when it’s a slow journey. My wasted years become compost where life can grow unexpectedly. Yes, sisters, the shit is useful for something, but only when we are intentional about it! And there are always things to be grateful for in life. Event he smallest thing like the bird on the branch who sings, the sunset that is so wonderful, the music on the radio that touches you, the person who smiles and says hello. There is always something
You know, sometimes on this site a sister will say I’m wise or something like that. This just floors me. But if it is true, that wisdom comes from choosing life, and watching the shit turn to compost, and planting hope there (not for my marriage, but for my life).You are wise, Flora. It’s an everyday thing to choose life. A list of things to be grateful for will help that dailiness. And it gets our heads out of our asses about these men whose lives we can’t control, no matter how much we loved them. My husband was the only man in any room for me, but it doesn’t matter now. He can’t let go of his need to keep a secret life even in recovery. He can’t let go of his need to believe he’s better than me. He can’t let go of his need to choose his mother over me. He can’t choose life. He just can’t do it.
Having hope doesn’t begin with having hope in a marriage. It begins by having hope in your own life, in its own value, its own responsibilities, its own integrity, its own call to participate in life, its own abundance. If your partner does that too, then maybe you can hope in your marriage. But most of them can’t. So it is up to us to do what Flora describes, what the woman did who came home to find her children murdered, we have to choose life. And it begins by choosing our own life.
Love you Flora. Thank you for choosing life.
D.Thank you Flora, and thank you Diane. This forum could not have come at a better time. WOW. And I almost didn’t long onto SOS this morning. So I’m starting this moment by being grateful that I did.
Love you both and all of my sisters!
JulieI have had to choose everyday to survive my husband and his SA. Some days I choose only for the full life my children are being provided with, the money. Other days I choose forgiveness because I see he got something for real finally. Sometimes I choose love because I have hope.
My goal is to choose for me and the kids everyday what is best for us and that is happy safe and love. I need to stop letting my husbands SA make that choice for me based on the day he is having and his struggles with his addiction. That is the goal I have for me for now.
Yes, I am learning that I must wake and first think “what can I do today to make a difference”, instead of “what did he do while I was asleep? who will he text today?”
I have absolutely no control over those things and my heart and mind need to be able to cultivate and grow, not wither and die. Thank you ladies.
Things I have done since the first disclosure, for ME!
joined SOS
played piano
started exercising daily (again)
started journaling
invited a woman friend to play tennis (still trying to schedule that)
hugged my children, more than just goodnight
exploring ways to continue my education
starting to gather art for an SA awareness exhibit
told my H I will not check up on him anymore, he’s an adultHi Lynn,
I need to do the hugging thing more with the kids too. that on my list.
what is the art for SA awareness?? What would that art look like, as i giggle. It must be x-rated. Or a bunch of implied photos? Okay cracking myself up.Flora
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