A Who in Grinchville? Lost in lostville is where I am.

[Acappella]

Major holiday rant...I am feeling crazy and lost.

I am wondering what "better" life I am hoping for?  I feel unmotivated to make an effort towards something I don't believe exists yet I felt just recently there MUST be better than this.  Are there better relationships?  Can I do and be better and so be in a better one?  

I just refused an offer to drive 3 hours to take my n husband to the airport. I had told him last year before the holidays that if he doesn't plan and take me into consideration then I will not participate (even as room mates which is all we have been for a long time.)  I began asking him before Thanksgiving what his plans were for the holidays and he made no arrangements - he kept telling me he would let me know. Finally his sister did it for him. She kept leaving messages asking him to get back to her so she could at least try and get a good deal.  He didn't.  Finally, without having heard back she just purchased a plane ticket for him and left a message.  His mother is leaving the country in a few months - this may be the last time he sees her.  Had he made arrangements even just a week sooner he could have spent 7-8 days with her.  Now it will be 4.  Five minutes before leaving he said if I took him we could talk. He also claimed that he only stalled/procrastinated planning because he thought perhaps I would go with him.  AND HE NEVER EVER ONCE IN THE PAST 2 & 1/2 MONTHS BROUGHT UP THE TOPIC?  OH, AND NEWS FLASH HE HAS ALWAYS DONE THINGS AT THE LAST MINUTE YET ALL OF A SUDDEN HE DOES SO BECAUSE HE CARES ABOUT ME?  ARRRRRG!  I felt the offer to "talk" was a trap and either way I felt too vulnerable and distrustful of him and of myself to be around him so I declined.  I feel like if he dumps on me again I'll yell at him & become a caged animal or I will crumble and cry for hours as he sits in the other room indifferent.  He didn't say "Well, OK i will call you or lets email one another" or "yes I said I'd find an assertiveness group and haven't for 6 months.  I really don't want to or I am scared or/and no wonder you don't trust me...." - NOTHING.  His evasive BS way or no way.  I stayed strong and declined his offer.  Shock! The sad woman with no family didn't crumble as Mr. N with an excellent job and presents for his family and the luxury of having learned the piano as a child and no student loans tossed a crumb her way!  He is now gone for a few days.  I wish it were for longer as I'd thought it would be.  I was so happy when I though he'd be gone for 6 or 7 days.  I felt stronger and more alive.  Three days seems barely enough for me to regain my breath.  I begin to feel good when he is gone and then when he comes home at night I wither again.  I am too tired to look for work.  I barely can do the volunteer work I do a few hours a week.   The worst thing is I don't see better out there in the world.  

I am in contact with my N mom after 20+ years.  She isn't lashing out at me - hasn't since we began speaking again a few months ago.  The first few calls were all about her and nothing about me.  However, in our last conversation she even listened and acknowledged I am having a difficult time in my life.  I just noticed the difference and I don't really care either way anymore which I feel very good about - free.  I know not to hope for presents or "real" conversation - if I say I'd like to go do such and such with her - a movie for example - she will (she did) ignore me completely and said "if you want to come visit with P (her husband) and I you are welcome to.  Not even a "no, I don't want to go to a movie with you."  She only seems to want to see me with him there too.  He is creepy.  One of her boyfriends molested me when I was about 10 and another circled like a vulture when I was 11 and tried to take me on a "vacation" with him when I was 15.  This latest guy was mean to her and aggressive towards others he talked about and aggressive with my husband and I.  I have forgiven her according to all of the definitions in Seeker's "forgiveness" post. What is there to forgive her for really anyway?  She got pregnant and she tried to keep and raise me.  She took good care of me AND she took awful care of me - two equal truths living side by side.  She had words with the guy who molested me and though I didn't live at home much longer I never saw him there again.  

Here is the thing I am wondering...is there a whoville?  Am I a who among grinches?  Is there such thing as a who?  Is there a better place?  Is anyone right?  "you can be right or happy."  Is there a reality?  A shared one that I can partake in anywhere?  What is a better relationship?  I posted a post asking about examples of healthier relationships and got almost no repsonses.  Why not?  I'll go back and look again - was i not clear?  Is that of no interest?  Are there none really?

My mother has two sisters and a brother. One sister is a drink away from death - a late stage alcoholic and drug addict. (oddly enough she was the only one in my mothers family who ever exhibited kindness. sad.) Another sister who is not in contact with the family and who played some sort of role of the perfect child in her teens and twenties - I remember being surprised when I percieved her to be a mess in her 30s - angry and a chain smoker and I think drunk (I was young and it was a brief encounter by accident in an airport). She is not incontact with the family anymore.  No one is in contatct with the brother either. I asked her what she thinks is the cause of the family being so broken apart and so unhappy and she said "we are no different from other families."  She says her childhood was "norman rockwell"  - a painting?  A still life?  I asked if there was abuse in her family and she said there weren't those sorts of things when she was young.  Had she said no, not in her family well ok but that those things didn't exist at all then? BIZARE RIGHT?  

My mother seems miserable to me though she says she is happy now.  I hear in her voice that she isn't actually.  She is despirately tyring and made some comment about not being able to remember much.  Old age? Electro shock side effects?  Medication side effects? Alcoholism side effect?  Perhaps THAT IS HAPPINESS/CONENTMENT - recalling little as possible and focusing on little things like baking cookies even when married to a mean and shallow man who is likely just after her retirement money?  Is this as good as it gets? I see homeless people walking around and see tired people at the laundry mat and wonder if I should do whatever it takes to just keep a washer and dryer and a roof over my head.  Do as my husband says I should.  I can't though.  She makes no mention of meaness yet I and my husband saw it loud and clear in the man the first time we met him.  He is meaner than my husband.  Is that progess?  Is that as far as I can go? Her husband is a huge N and I believe she knows nothing but how to be a martyr to a man and resent women.  So I guess that makes her an inverted N and frankly she is happier than i ever recalling her being and she idolizes her husband....is "madly in love with him."

I just spoke with my husband's sister on the phone - she was asking if my husband had gotten the travel arrangements she made for him to come visit her and his mother.  (She is working 70+ hours a week in poor health and taking care of his mother and her own unemployed husband and making travel arrangements for her brother! She called at least 5 times. Even his mother called pleading that he get back to them. This is the sort of woman my husband wants me to be.) I answered the phone by accident.  I try not to talk with her as I know the facade and do not want to play.  I said I didn't know his plans as he doesn't communicate with me and she said "yeah, that's him".  She and I haven't spoken much at all because my husband and I have been so off and on and because he doesn't call his mother and sister from home - I know he lies to them.  Also, once, early in our relationship I asked her in an email something along the lines of how could someone act so distant as he was acting and she didn't answer the email and he said she was upset by my question. JUST A QUESTION.   She couldn't just write me back and say she was bothered?  So I have stayed clear.  Anyway, she admitted in this call that unless "he feels something he can't understand why someone else is hurt."  Or something like that.  I believe she is talking about empathy.  "He has always been that way."  "It especially hurts my mother."  (Oh but not I, super sister, is the subtext there?) "He has never been with anyone very long before you."  She acknowledged that especially since his father died he was distant.  He has been blaming me lately - complaining about his life since he and I have been together so I really appreciated hearing he had been that way before we met.  He blamed me before too and yet only recently is he articulating it.  Though he says he isn't blaming me.  He wrote a list of all the things he hasn't done since we have been "together" and entitled it "Facts about my Shitty Life" and then said he wasn't blaming me and why didn't I respond to the list.   I said to his sister something along the lines of perhaps if everyone is doing things for him he doesn't experience the pain that would teach him empathy - paraphrasing here. I said pehaps it will be good for him to have had this relationship and then loose it.  She launched into a fake act like her cell phone was cutting out.  Something HE HAS DONE TOO.  I feel like I am in the twilight zone.  (Also I discovered in the call that he had lied and told his mom and sister I was spending time with my MOTHER!  Of all people!)When his sister said..."that's nice you are staying to spend time with your mother."  I said without anger just resignation as I realized he had lied "no I am not spending time with her nor staying to do so."  She just said "oh." and moved on.  She just glazed over it.  He had lied and she just didn't want to know anything more.  This is how it goes with their family.  His mom demands lies and his sister and so does he.  They skim awareness and then just go right on pretending.  My husband remarked after seeing his sister last year that she had gotten very fat.  I suggested recently that perhaps she is eating her anger and suffering from the same family silence that he is.  He grunted.  Hey but at least they are all employed! She is a lawyer and running an office and making a lot of money and my husband is so clearly impressed by that.  I told his sister that I encourage him to be honest and to be who he really feels he is and she acted like I never said a thing.  She didn't even ask "who he really is?"  She said you spend more time with him so you probably know him better than we do.  I think all I detected was a sort of competitive YOU spend MORE time with him than we do - she said nothing about wanting to get to know him or noticing he presents a false front or wanting to understand anything.  

Where are the "good" families that talk about things?  Is it a lie that they exist?  Have I just watched too much tv?  I don't belong in my family nor in his and I wonder if I will ever belong anywhere. Am I not "good" enough?  Can multiple truths only coexist disguised from one another and never discussed?

[annabelle]

Acapella,

I'm so sorry for your pain right now.  It's so easy to question yourself when everyone around you is dysfunctional.  You then seem like the one who is strange, thus abnormal.  But you are not.  You've just had the bad luck to have been raised by and married to narcissists.  And you know that by staying close to them, you start to believe what they tell you and start to lose hope in yourself, and anything better out there.  This is what happens.    

I too (finally) questioned whether anyone really had a good relationship, and if mine with my N husband was so bad.  The way I found out that there DEFINITELY ARE good, healthy, "feel-good" relationships out there was by asking people who did appear happy with each other about their marriages.  "Why do you feel happy when you're with him?"  "Do you really like spending a lot of time with her?"  "Why do you like spending time with her?"  "How do you handle differences of opinion and fights?"  "Why did you choose him to be with over other people you dated?"  "Are you still really "in love" with him?"  What does that feel like?"  "How does he make you feel - accepted and strong, or like you're struggling?"  "Why do you think they say marriage is so much work?  What kind of work?"  It's hard to just ask these random, intimate questions of people, especially if you don't want them to suspect how awful your own relationship is.  I was lucky, because I was able to ask my brother and sister and several family friends about their marriages when I finally opened up to them about the awfulness (word?) of my own.  It was sooooooo revealing, helpful, and even insipiring - gave me hope that I someday could have a relationship like they'd described.

Acapella, please don't give up hope of getting out.  I think I remember from your posts that you are planning to leave when you get a job.  Have you thought about stopping volunteering temporarily to devote more energy and time to the job search?  Or, do you need the volunteer work to help keep you sane right now?  Have you tried medication to give you the extra boost and confidence to get out of any depression that you may clinically have?  And, the confidence and boost to get out of the relationship if you really want to?

I was in your shoes and sort of still am, but I did get a job and have moved out, into my own place.  And, told my husband we are separated.  The first night in my own place, I had spaghetti.  This small thing was so big in my book bc he always hated when I ate spaghetti bc I used a spoon to help twirl it with the fork and he bothered me until I stopped using it telling me it was pretentious, and even threw the spaghetti up to the ceiling, bowl and all.  But I digress.  Anyway, the point is, that it's true as so many others have posted about, that when you get out and can breathe again, and live how you want, in big and in the tiniest ways, you feel so strong, and relaxed.  Yes, there is relaxation.  There is freedom.  There are good relationships.  But even before you find another relationship that is good, you can find good feelings being by yourself.

Keep strong.  Congratulations on declining that 3 hour drive.   We've all been there in the same kind of being-used- and- then- tossed- when- we- won't- jump- to- be- used- scenario.  

Keep working towards finding the truth about what else is out there.  Keep up your strength.  You'll have time to rest and revel in happiness once you get out and find yourself.  Then you can find happiness with someone else, because it certainly is out there.

Good luck to you.  And take care of yourself.  You deserve the best, even if you don't have the strength right now to believe it.

[guest-acappella]

Thanks annabelle,

yes I am volunteering to keep sane, saner.  Also, I am volunteering in a field I am interested in working in.  My job hunting problems aren't due to time.  

For one thing we have one car and there isn't good public transportation here.  My not looking hard for a job has more to do with me feeling tired and like a failure at life though.  

If you have some time and would share some of the answers you got from your questions I'd appreciate your doing so...as i imagine would others who don't have sane family to ask.  

I tried medication and i was so foggy brained I'd have to get a job flipping burgers (no offense burger flippers and i flipped burgers and bussed tables and waitress and made donuts at 4 am - been there ...done with that and ive got student loans to pay). I didn't feel less depressed I just felt less in general..not even short spurts of motivation.  I could try medication again however it seems an unnatural treatment given I have been told by more than one therapist my depression is exogenic not endogenic (i.e. circumstancial/environmental - not chemical, not that those are mutually exclusive though).  

I feel I need TLC therapy.  Has that been invented yet?   I doubt our HMO offers much of quality though I should look into it ....ARRRRG.  

Thanks for sharing your voice from the otherside.  I know what you mean about simple pleasures as I do feel them often when he isn't home and I know he won't be home for a while I breath a little.  

I feel like any place I would work now would have to be a place where i could be depressed and tired and distracted and that isn't the sort of place I want to work....yeeeeesh. Round and round in circles I go.  

Also I have not worked in 6 months!  I did apply to a couple of jobs when we first got here.  I am intering a field I haven't been in before so that makes it harder too though.  I also cannot put crazy marriage as an explaination in a cover letter as to why I have lost so much time this last year.  

Wishing you many twirling spoons full of spagetti this holiday season!

[annabelle]

Hi Acapella,

I'll definitely follow up on the Q's and A's I found out about normal happy marriages and relationships.  I'll do this in a post soon.

Just responding to the depression/medication thing right now.  I understand your concern and your thoughts about medication.  I had the same ones.  I was diagnosed by my therapist as having minor depression recently.  I was shocked, bc I was happy with everything in my life, had energy, motivation, etc.  No history of depression either.  However, she told me that while the depression was probably environmentally caused - by the continuing stress and psychological trauma of the relationship, this stress could have caused temporary chemical changes in me that lowered my serotonin levels.  I was against taking medication at first - my thoughts:  "Let HIM take prozac!"  But, I did take it, and it has really helped me cope - do not at all feel snowed but more clear and more sure of my feelings and thoughts.  And, while I feel anger and sadness, I do not feel it as heavy and painful on my heart.  It's more like knowing my feelings in my head rather than my heart.  However, it does make me feel less in general - haven't been able to cry for a while with the exception of last week or so when telling my husband how I've felt for the past 8 years, and when he told me he wanted the kids "50-50" when we were separated - my coment to him in response was, "first you ruin this marriage (he'd taken responsibility for this at first) then you take my children away part time."

So, just sharing my experience for you to consider.  I do highly recommend trying medication for short term help, and I'd never thought I'd be taking prozac!  I think Dr. Grossman posted an article, or there was one on the other N site, about how prozac restores brain cells or chemicals or something to the like.

I just finished another bowl of spaghetti, thanks.  Good night and enjoy the time alone to rest.  Good luck with your internship - it's exciting to be working at something new!  I don't know if I'd worry about the not working in 6 months thing.  It can take 6 months or so at least to find a job, especially in this economy, so maybe your potential employers could think you've just been looking, and, as you're interning in something new, making a career change.

LOL - does this mean lots of luck or lots of love?  I see this all the time in posts.  Well, both to you.

[Acappella]

Thank you again annabelle.

Now that the Mr. N is gone and I have forgiven my mom all that is left is me and "the world" - this later relationship must have been shaky or why would I have ventured into N land in the first place? Your kindness, and the kindness of each of us who posts in response to hurt (and joy too) is a reminder to me that "the world" is not as scary as I often envision it.  Ok, that was BS.  IT IS scary and sad and awful AND there is a counterbalance at least.  My mom used to often say "The world isn't fair!" and sometime in my early twenties it dawned on me (at least my intellect) that of course IT isn't fair.  Life is what it is.  Only WE can provide any measure of fairness.  Life isn't always or even often what we make it, in my opinion, HOWEVER fairness is nothing but what we make it.

For now, kindness is the best medicine I have and I thank you again for the dose you provided.  Look ma! No side effects!  

[Guest - CC]

Hi Acappella,

Just a quick note today, but wanted to acknowledge your post.  I heard so much pain and frustration in your post, and I really feel for you.  We all are there at different points in this journey.  Don't be discouraged dear, your pain is only a healthy part of the process.  

I know I've felt depressed and hopeless like you do, and the next day is always better.  There is hope, and there are good people and good relationships.  

I have a good, solid, fairly healthy relationship with my husband - but admittedly it is not what I would put in a textbook of "fullfilling and voiceful exchanges".  We struggle sometimes, and though overall my husband is thoughtful, supportive and understanding - he is also impatient, psychologically unaware (which perhaps is not such a bad thing! sometimes I envy this) and does the typical male "well if there's a problem we'll just fix it" kind of response sometimes when I come to him with something I want to just discuss (sorry guys, no offense).  But the important thing is, his attitude is such that he is always willing to work harder and for us to be better together.  We've been together happily "working" at this for almost ten years, and still attracted to each other like the first day we met.  Neither of us were very healthy when we met.. but with therapy, book reading and communication.. every year we are better!  In my opinion, this is all you can ask for.

I think to be hopeful of better and healthier relationships is the way to go.. but on the side of caution... no one is perfect, and so if you are seeking real life examples of what an ideal healthy relationship should be I think you may be setting your sights on a false reality.  We all have to work toward it, but even if the "healthiest" person out there says they have a perfect relationship, I think they are lying!

It is good to have high expectations Acappella, and you should. You should definitely lose a full blown narcissist if they are holding you back in life.  But perhaps before we can find those new relationships, we need to focus on ourselves and our outlook and our day to day activities and what we can change.  The rest will come automatically.

Try to find some kind of support group in your area to start - or if you don't like structure, make a couple of new friends..  It sounds like you are surrounded with a lot of unhealthy people.. maybe you just need a little more balance to keep your perspective.  I believe that you have been working so hard you will naturally be more drawn to healthier girlfriends. And if you meet someone new that has red flags, you will recognize it very quickly and remove yourself.  That new job that you are thinking about may provide some opportunities.

Many of the "caregivers" in my life (my massage therapist, my PHD, and my kinesiologist) belong to a non denominational church (not the same one, just by coincidence in different communities).  This is a place that I think a lot of people like us have chosen to go to network for new people in their lives (people in recovery from their dysfunctional pasts).

If you didn't like medication to give you that jump start.. you might explore that kinesiology that I have mentioned before - all natural and no side effects but raises your seratonin.  Works for me.

Keep the faith, sister!

Things will get better soon - take care , CC

[Acappella]

Hi CC,

thank you.  

Neither of us were very healthy when we met.. but with therapy, book reading and communication.. every year we are better! In my opinion, this is all you can ask for.

 That is all i'd hoped and worked for - growing while being in the relationship.  

no one is perfect, and so if you are seeking real life examples of what an ideal healthy relationship should be I think you may be setting your sights on a false reality

 I don't think I am asking for ideal.  Was it something I said?  Just better than the ones that we are seeking refuge from here...the one I am seeking refuge from here.....

All I see are red flags.  That is the problem.  A couple of guys have chatted with me at a cafe I go to and no way am I interested no matter how excellent they may seem to me AND I notice red flags.  Same with potential female friends - except I'd like female friends...I mean the same with those darned flags.  Besides my messed up life will likely be a red flag to others so.....arrrrg. I notice red flags all over the place...nothing but.  I am seeking examples of green flags.    We write here so much about sucky relations to get clear so why not about better (better not ideal) ones too?

I wrote more specifics in the "gift of voicefull relations" post.  

I do like structure (yet if I were an alcoholic the AA sort of structure I've heard about would seem so rigid to me.  I have been looking for support groups.

Anyway, thanks for sharing about you and your husband.

[Acappella]

Annabelle,  so sorry about your stuggle with being with your (and his?) children.  

Sounds like my husband in that he takes some responsibility about sabotaging the relationship and then amnesia sets in.  Two steps forward and then ten back.  

It is so good that you are providing a safer harbor for your children, even part time if he gets/has custody of some kind.

Take Care

[Acappella]

Thank you Rob.  Yup, finding the strength...enough consistent strength I agree that is the challenge.  

I appreciate the whoishness evident in caring responses here.  Thank you.

[Acappella]

CC, I'll look into that non denominational church idea.  No disrespect for those that do as there is value and beauty in it that I miss out on - a resevoir of strength etc. AND still I just don't connect with the guy nailed to the cross focus nor a specific view of heaven with rules about who gets in and who doesn't. Perhaps non denominational churches don't focus on such particulars? I guess I see stuff like the 10 commandments as just plain ole healthy social ecology no matter what happens after we die they are a quality of life in the moment issue not a judgement day sort of thing.  What is the one you go to like?  What do they/you do there?

If you reply about what the non denominational church is like would you do so in the voicefull relationships thread?  

P.S. Hows the mommy thing goin?  Where there is smoke is there morning sickness?

[Anonymous]

Hi Acappella,



I guess it was the hopelessness and frustration I heard in your recent post that led me to believe you may have been seeking the ideal. Sorry if I misinterpreted it,

Where are the "good" families that talk about things? Is it a lie that they exist? Have I just watched too much tv? I don't belong in my family nor in his and I wonder if I will ever belong anywhere.

Another thought to follow up with my earlier response was that sometimes that when we are in the throes of healing, others' weaknesses are magnified because we are seeing the world through new eyes.  I would assimilate it to one who has recently gone through the twelve step program in AA and is completely intolerant of having anything to do with anyone that drinks a beer after work on a Friday night - even if they may be a very healthy person who is fully capable of responsible, social drinking.  Perhaps this is why you are naturally seeing only red flags when you look around you at the moment - every social drinker looks like a raging alchoholic - and anyone that talks about themselves for a minute has the horns of narcissism growing out of their head    

To be human is to be with flaws and weaknesses, and that may include some narcissistic behavior. True healthy relationships mean accepting the person for whom they are, including these weaknesses.  The question then becomes... am I strong enough to accept a level of "normal" narcissism, and further: what is a "normal" level and who that I come in contact with exhibits this?  Unfortunately, this may not be obvious in a few brief meetings. There may be risk taking involved - you may not really know the answer to the question about a new person you meet until you have become involved in their life to a degree.  

Perhaps finding that middle-ground type of relationship building in group therapy or other structured groups before getting more into an new intimate relationship (with friends or even romantically) will be helpful with your new-found frame of mind.  I think this is probably why they exist.. to prepare us for socialization in a new mindset.

I cannot speak from personal experience here in terms of groups.  In fact, this board is as close as I have ever gotten to group therapy.  I went to an ACOA meeting once and found it to not be for me at all.  But for most people, I am told it works well for this very purpose we are discussing.

Again, I must claim ignorance in the area of the non-denominational church as well, I only know what I know from the people whom I associate with that are involved in it - and they all tend to be very enthusiastic when questioned but without procilitizing (I never cared much for the forcefulness of certain evangelistic testimony as I believe that spirituality is a VERY personal thing).   I don't know enough about it to to say for sure, but I believe that it is loosely-Christian based, and even if it were, the indication of "non-denominational" would lead me to believe that your visions of Jesus nailed to the cross at the altar and having to say fifteen hail marys is probably not the idea   .  In any event, I'm sure it would be worth exploring.  I have entertained the idea myself and have not pursued it, I guess only because I am a baptized Episcopalian (though admittedly not very practicing, maybe a few times a year).

I don't know if this was helpful at all, just spewing out some more random thoughts.

[CC]

I am really having trouble staying logged on lately.  I have to log in two and three times in a row and it still kicks me out.  Anyway that was me above

and P.S. Acappella, baby thing is doing better.. a lot of morning (all day) sickness but at least things have calmed down with Nmom.  thanks for asking - CC