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ethical responsibility

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lynn:
Hi all,

Anyone have thoughts on ethical responsibility?

I left my N husband several weeks ago.  Actually, he moved out of the house and into an apartment closer to his employment.  I am in our home with our daughter (age16).  

He is stuggling emotionally.  He is sad, angry, he feels disrespected and mistreated. I suppose that these emotions he is experiencing are fairly normal during a divorce transition.

For the many years we were married, I came to know that he is an emotionally needy, maybe even emotionally unstable person.  (His family has a history of mental illness) He struggles with life in so many ways.... He perceives many of his interactions with people as a threatening... things that people say.... in particular things I said, were perceived by N to be an attack.  He has panic attacts at night.  He twists his perception of life so much that he frequently misses reality by a wide margin. He feels as though he must work and work and work to be successful.  He feels that people do not respect him.

My role in our marriage was to prop him up, talk him down, calm him. I steadied him when he was emotionally shakey.  I calmed him when he had a panic attact at night.  I encouraged him and helped him find reality when he got lost in his mind.

Because of his many other N characteristics, we had few friends.  He had difficult relationship with his family.  They are all cool, distant, N-like people who are far more concerned with telling you their latest, greatest accomplishment, than listening to how you might feel.

I was his sole connection.  I am the one who did the calming, steadying... and right now he is falling apart.  On one hand, I am releaved to be out of the situation.  Our relationship was damaging to me.  With the change, I feel freedom, hope, a beginning sense of happiness.  I do not miss him.  I have not once longed to be back together.

On the other hand, I am concerned about N.  I was his "caretaker" for so many years that I continue to feel the responsibility.  If he really is mentally ill.  If his emotional and mental problems continue to grow after our divorce... if he hurts himself.  If he falls apart.  What is my ethical and moral responsibility to this man that I cared for for so many years?  In this world of disconnected, self-serving people... what responsibility do we have to the people we marry?  To the people in our lives who are incredibly difficult and destructive, but who have tremendous needs of their own?  Where is the line?  

struggling with my heart,
lynn

Portia:
You could try: “N, I continue to be worried and concerned about you. What are your biggest problems at the moment? Can I help you with them? Can anyone else help you?”

Then listen.

Decide whether only you can help him, or whether someone else could. Then decide if you are willing and able to help him. It’s impossible to decide anything about what is good for someone else, without involving them. And you may not want to do that!

Very difficult question. And my answers are rotten, sorry. But please don’t beat yourself up by imagining what he’s going through: it may be different to what you think, and what he tells you. Best, P

write:
what responsibility do we have to the people we marry? To the people in our lives who are incredibly difficult and destructive, but who have tremendous needs of their own? Where is the line?


Hi Lynn

its difficult isn't it.
Especially when you have children in common and you still want them to have a functioning Dad.

You can't take responsibility for him: he can only change himself.

My husband fell apart when I said he needed to move out. It was very difficult for me not to capitulate. I just kept saying he had to sort himself out and we couldn't live like this any more.

Now he is taking ad s and seeing a psychiatrist, and doing pretty well compared to before.

Do you still talk with your husband? You could suggest these things, without taking responsibility for organising/ participating?

Take care of yourself.

Gingerpeach:
Dear Lynn,

I hear your pain and concern, and want to say, "Of course, you are right, we must help these poor people that we have loved."  But, you know, all of those years that you did help him, prop him up, etc. didn't really help in a way that helped him be a healthy husband for you.  This is not criticism, it was an impossibility.

It may have helped him not fall apart, but in the process it allowed you to be damaged.  It's all part of the N feeding off the non-N.  And the Ns choose us for exactly that reason....because they know somehow that we will permit it.  It's a perfect little symbiosis for some time, until we wake up and realize that it is at the expense of OUR health, OUR sanity and OUR souls.

You HAVE been responsible, done the caretaking for what appears to be many years.  I don't think that that responsibility entails sacrificing your entire life.  Your NH is an adult and at some point must take responsibility for himself, whatever the outcome.

It is precisely because you were such a good Nwife, that you are worrying about this.  We mistakenly assume the responsibility for the N's happiness and health.  You are still doing this.  And it is not, never has been, and never will be your responsibility.  No one can really ever "make" another person happy or better.  This is why he is still the way he is.  

Suggest therapy for him.  He may choose to try and help himself or he may choose to fall apart.  But this is HIS choice.  Please, for YOUR health, make it clear that he is in control of his own health and happiness.  

Ethically, don't you think that you have a responsibility to yourself?  And to your children? It doesn't appear to be possible to be ethically responsible for everyone.  Without completely sacrificing yourself that is. And if you're a mess, where does that leave the kids?  I think that the whole martyr thing is extremely over-rated.  

I am glad for you that you have chosen life over the slow blood-sucking death that is living with an N.

el123:
Lynn, What a difficult situation!  I know that feelling of not knowing what your responsibility is.    Feeling badly that there is someone who you love hurting and not doing anything about it yet knowing that there truly IS nothing that you alone can do.  It is, truly, his own path that he must walk.   You do seem to care deeply and that is a great quality.  The flip side of it is that it probably makes you hyper-compassionate towards your N which makes it extra hard to totally cut it off.  Especially when you see him/know he is hurting so badly.    I agree 100% with what Jacmac wrote:

 "sometimes the best "help" you can give another is to not help them at all, and to allow them to help themselves. In fact, sometimes "helping" is in fact, enabling."

It's so hard to truly "get" this (at least it is for me!!).  I too am struggling with this with both my N mother and N MIL.  Take care, -El

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