So, if you come here every week, you know that I've been waiting with baited breath to see if an important astrological prediction comes true right about now the way one did last fall. (If you haven't been reading: A very sad parting with someone I fell in love with three years ago happened when, as the title implies, this person went back to a troubled marriage after declaring himself through with it and moving out. In reading our astrological charts, it was predicted that I'd hear from this person again last October...and I did.
The details are scattered throughout the blog, but, in short, I beat myself up for two and a half years thinking I had stepped in on a marriage that could have been made whole again. Although the astrology indicated difficult personalities who didn't want to work on their own emotional difficulties that had wrecked the marriage, they were in marriage counseling the last time I had seen him, and I assumed they would make progress and be fine.
Last October my old love contacted me again and I got to hear the story of what actually had happened. It sounded a LOT more like the astrology and not at all like what we generally hope happens when we enter therapy to try to save a relationship. Well--I'll amend that. There was a leg of transits that sounded like two people working on their own emotional problems and making progress, and a leg of transits that were exactly the opposite. We got the bad leg.
The aspects that indicated I'd hear from him again were pretty subtle, and one well-known professional even read this and got it wrong. But the indicators that I would see this person again this summer and we would rekindle our relationship (and what would happen if we did that) were NOT subtle at all. They were HUGE.
That left me to figure out: When.
After so many amazing things were reflected in the charts that turned out to be true, I actually started studying astrology myself. As a student astrologer, I have my strong points and my weak points, and one of my weak ones is pinpointing the timing of events. I had settled on the end of May by a process of extrapolation (by which I often get myself into trouble.)
I had figured, the transits that favor getting back together all start over the summer, and how can those happen if you aren't speaking at least just prior? Plus, I knew he was going to be spending a weekend alone, and that would have been prime real estate. (That was when we'd always talked before.)
Again I say, extrapolative reasoning is no substitute for actually learning to read the transits and progressions.
Well, it's Saturday night of the weekend in question, and I haven't heard from this person. Time to pack it in.
Our charts were full of dates with destiny, and up to now he hadn't missed one, from late 2014 to the present. Now he has. If a person stands you up for a date, you aren't going to see him again. I think this applies quadruple when it's a major date in three charts, one that transforms the lives of three people. It's kind of hard to see how the other transits are going to happen when: It is summer, and the person's not even here.
I have a lot of mixed feelings about this. Yeah, sadness and devastation are among them.
You know how, when you meet that special someone, you just know? Johnny Cash, upon meeting June Carter, told her he was going to marry her, even though they were both already married at the time. I felt that way when I met my husband, and when I met Chi. (I met my husband and Chi at the same time; we were at a group meeting together. Weird sensation, that.)
Those have been the only two people I ever felt that way about. And I met my husband and Chi in the waning days of 1998, so that is a VERY long time. I work serving the public and I belong to two hobby groups; it's not like I don't meet other men. I just haven't felt that way about anyone else. And the older I get, the more eccentric I get (and the fatter). Meeting people who might be compatible gets harder and harder the older we get.
I think I may have just finished the last relationship I'm ever going to have.
I'm not saying that as in, "Oh, Chi's gone, I'm never going to have anybody else, boo-hoo!" with the emphasis on having someone, anyone. I don't want some nameless, faceless
Generiguy, just to be with somebody.
I'm saying that because there really has to be something special about a person for me to feel that way. There's a quality of mind my husband and Chi had that other people just don't have. I'm not going to have that response to just anyone, and, having had the connections I've had with these two special, special men, I highly doubt I'm going to have that with anyone ever again. They were the ultimate relationships. No one else is ever going to come up to them.
Generiguy, just to be with somebody.
I'm saying that because there really has to be something special about a person for me to feel that way. There's a quality of mind my husband and Chi had that other people just don't have. I'm not going to have that response to just anyone, and, having had the connections I've had with these two special, special men, I highly doubt I'm going to have that with anyone ever again. They were the ultimate relationships. No one else is ever going to come up to them.
I don't even feel comfortable dating anyone anymore. Any person you date wants to feel like you're there because you like and want them, not because they're a poor substitute for the one who died and the one who never came back. In order to date someone else I'd have to feel like I won't constantly be thinking of Simon and Chi when I'm with them. If I ever should find someone who meets that criterion, okay, but that's a tall order. A VERY tall order.
Chi was very special to me. Everywhere I go, I see his face, and many times a day, I think of him. Maybe one day that will change, but it's been three years so far, and right now he is irreplaceable. No, I don't know anybody to date, no, I don't want to date, and the only thing I'm going to find online is trouble.
So, my first thought about this ending is, I am now retired. My relationship life is over.
And that's okay. At some point in your life, if you don't die first, your relationship life WILL be over. That's just the way life is.
Time to take everything I've learned, sling it in a pack over my shoulder, and walk off down the road alone.
There's some grief involved in this. I love Chi very much. All it would have taken is a reappearance, together with a willingness to work as hard at healing old childhood wounds as I have these past three years, and I would have been there. Forever.
I probably will love him forever. But you can't be with a person who isn't here. All you can do is put it behind you, focus your life on other things, and forget about it.
I had hoped to be right. I had hoped to see him again. I had hoped for the triumph of true love, I had hoped for a better outcome. If he'd just shown up and been willing to work, it could have happened. We had that leg of transits. It was in our Davison, big time.
This, however, is life on Planet Earth. Better outcomes, by and large, aren't to be had here.
Perhaps the best outcome is that I finally learn how to be happy alone. I don't have much choice now. In almost five years since my husband died, I have only found two friends, one of whom I don't see much due to work schedules, and they're not the kind of friendships where you call each other all the time and go over and visit. I have no close familylike relationships at all, and I don't see any showing up. I am ALL alone in my life, and I don't expect this to change.
I would have been so happy if it could have been Chi. But it won't be, and it won't be anyone at all. I think this all happened to me so I could learn how to rely on no one but myself. Because, from now on, that's the only person I'm going to have.
My second thought is terrible sadness that something that could have been wonderful, isn't going to happen. The same kind of thing happened when Simon died. Oh, well. This is Chi's choice. Chi is in charge of what happens, nobody else (even though he keeps trying to blame other people), and I have no control of this whatsoever.
But then, third thought: relief. If he'd shown up and I'd been too desperate and had the affair instead of guiding him back to therapy (with better therapists, please!), there's no question I'd have been DUMPED. There it is, right there in 2021--he goes back to her one more time (it doesn't work any better then), and I am absolutely DEVASTATED.
At least I don't have to go through that. Now I can just get it all over with once and for all.
Of course, I was to get him back again after that. Guess that's not going to happen, either.
In the next two years I have a couple of transits that talk about being all alone and having to cope with a profound and archetypal sense of aloneness. Guess I know now what's going to happen for the next two years. It does help to know that, at least.
Fourth thought: My goal now is to do a better job with the next five years than I did with these five years. My first five years of being widowed, I have been the most horrible basket case. My misery prompted me to do a lot of research, a lot of reading, a lot of learning, and a lot of growing, as misery should. If you are miserable and you aren't doing these things, you are guaranteed to stay miserable, GUARANTEED. Misery is a sign that you're doing something wrong and need to change some very rigid thinking about something you are taking for granted as the truth of the way things are. I learned, yes, but I was lonely all the time and I was miserable, I spent too much, I ate too much, I let the housework go, and I slothed my way through life obsessing about what was gone instead of living in what is.
Now I have no choice. What is, is, and it is final. I can't go to the grocery store and order Chi or Simon back again; I have to cook with what's in the kitchen. If I don't learn to be happy with only what there is, I'm going to be suffering, and I won't be doing a good job with my life. The first five years, I did as well as I could do. Now I know I'm alone from now on, and I have to do better.
My fifth thought: I was so devastated and so sad today as I kept checking Facebook and I didn't see him. I thought of all the writing I've been trying to do, and I kept feeling like, If only this had happened, I would have been happy, and then I could have breezed through chores, housework, and calorie restriction, and I would have been happy to get my writing done. It wouldn't have felt like such a struggle, always dragged down because someone important was missing.
Isn't that the way life always is? When we have a relationship, even if there's sickness and problems and life isn't perfect, if the relationship is happy enough and most of our needs are met, life is basically good and it powers us through the rest of our life. Simon and I were like that. We gave each other courage to write and to try new things. Even if I wasn't good enough and it never went anywhere, we loved each other and we had a good time writing together, and that was what was important.
And when we don't have a relationship, or it's an absolutely horrible one and we're not happy, it drags us down til we can't do anything. (Um, I'm looking here at Chi and Rory.)
I remember as a kid, seeing scenes on TV where a parent or a close friend was behind a child, saying things like, "We have faith in you. We know you're wonderful and we know you can do it, and we love you!" And feeling like I couldn't do things because no one ever said that to me in my life. I needed the feeling of loving parents who were encouraging. My parents were ready with the belt and the flyswatter if I didn't perform, but there was none of that good stuff on the front end, just threats. "You'd better make all A's or else! You're LAZY!!!" And there were times I really didn't understand the math or whatever, and I cried and just got yelled at. Nobody helped me at all.
I'd see shows on TV where kids got helped and encouraged, even when they made a bad grade, and I'd feel really sad. Like TV was stupid, because everybody knew that wasn't how parents were in real life. And I'd sit over schoolwork and feel like, "I wish someone would encourage me like the moms and the dads on TV." Because if I was too good, someone (like BPD Mom) would act jealous that it was me and not her, or yell at me because I had a swollen head. (Because she did.) And then there's that feeling like maybe I was just singled out by the universe for some reason, not to be good enough for anyone to treat me like they treat kids on TV shows.
I hated living at home.
But today I thought, Why do I feel like that? Why do I feel like I can't be happy without Chi in my life, or that I can't motivate myself to do anything without him or Simon or other friends there to love me and support me and do things with me and care about me and make me feel happy all the time?
Why do I feel like I need someone else's help in order to feel happy and competent enough to put myself into anything?
Because relationships are now OVER. I'm never going to have anyone close, I'm never going to have anyone who loves me, I'm never going to have anyone to encourage me, I'm never going to have anyone to support me, I'm never going to have anyone to be with or to do things with or to laugh with or to talk to, I'm never going to have any help from anyone to do anything, I'm never going to have anyone to come home to, in my life, ever, EVER AGAIN.
There's no one here but ME. Period. If I can't do it by myself, it just isn't going to get done. Just like everything else I've ever had to do my whole life.
(Why do I have to have this life where I never get to have these good things other people get to have?? Not longer than fifteen short years, anyway. Lots of lucky people get these things, the loving support of good, healthy, trustworthy, steadfast, fun people, their whole entire lives. I get one healthy relationship, finally, and the guy dies before our seventh anniversary.)
I guess with my background, I should be glad Simon happened to me at all. And I was! I was so proud that with my background, I finally had a healthy relationship and a real family (of one.)
And that's why I've done so poorly these last five years. I thought that was all life was about, and now I can't function at all.
I guess I just designed a life of rugged individualism, and now I'm here, and it's no fun, and I don't want to do it. I want somebody to be my mommy and daddy and do things to emotionally take care of me...sort of like Chi does.
Tough.
My job is to be just as happy, and still do all those things, whether there's anyone here or not. I'm fifty years old.
Why do I still think I can't be happy and functional without someone else to be with?
So, I have to give up on Chi for good, and those have to be my goals now. I'm going to be alone, and I'm going to do everything all by myself. Forever.
Life's not going to give me any more people, so fuck you, life. I'm giving up on people and I'm done, and I'm doing it all for myself from now on.
I have to stop thinking I need other people in order to feel happy and in order to motivate myself to do what I want to do. So, I have no one and it's not easy! I'm supposed to forget people and just do everything anyway.
All I have now is what I want to do. I'll never have anything else but me and my goals ever again.
*******
I suspect that even if Chi were here, he'd be no help anyway. I love him dearly, and no matter what. I know he has problems; we all do, and I don't love him less because of that. I understand what those problems are.
I did wonder, maybe he's not back because somebody turned a new leaf over there. Maybe he decided to be honest and tell her things were so bad he was interested in someone else, and she woke up. Maybe he's not back because they're okay now.
But I went back and reread what we wrote each other the last time we spoke. What I saw there was two people recycling codependency symptoms, and a person resentfully saying, "I made my bed and now I have to lie in it."
A person staying in a situation that was still terrible in order not to upset family. A person trying to wheedle his way back into club meetings just to see me once every two weeks, in order to get a few tiny crumbles of his needs met while he struggled to act like the person his family demands he be. (If I had've said yes then, maybe that's how the affair would have started now.) A person unable to pursue things he once found pleasurable because he was too depressed, and who thought he HAD to stay there anyway. And a wife who sort of slept her way through marriage counseling and hadn't changed much at all from the atrocious behavior that drove him to me in the first place.
What we are looking at, dear friends, is serious, entrenched mutual codependency. 59 and 63 years entrenched.
What are the chances that that situation turned around in the seven months since we last spoke??
And I'm looking at that chart and those transits. That chart demonstrates ability to do much better; and those transits do not describe a family and marriage situation that's getting any better. He can sit there if he wants, but he's going against his whole chart.
He has the right to do that. It's his choice, and no one else can choose anything for him...even if he blames them for his choice to stay unhappy, not get well, not do the work, and not grow. But it sure doesn't look like a happy way to live.
Absent any evidence to the contrary, I have to assume he's still sticking with that choice.
Today I asked the tarot how he was. I got one card: Nine of swords. Google it.
For the past seven months, I have had a "Star light, star bright" wish: Don't send him back if he isn't capable of getting well.
My sixth line of thought about the sadness and the devastating ending of today: Perhaps I got my wish.
****
A Closing Note:
I'm not sure I'll have any more new developments to mull over here. If there's more to report, I will; summer's not over, after all. And it would seem Uranus is going retrograde and going to pass back over Saturn and hit my yod, within three degrees, one more time before finally moving off for good next March. (Interesting: When Chi spoke to me last fall, it was DIRECTLY over Saturn.)
But if there isn't anything else to report, all that will come up here now is any final thoughts I have to work out. (And I DO have some.)
Other than that, I plan to turn my attention now to finishing my novel, posting more on YourTango, and going over all this to make it shorter, more readable, and more accessible to people, and putting the revised version on my website. It's The ThinkingOtherWoman.webs.com.
Come visit me there.
My second thought is terrible sadness that something that could have been wonderful, isn't going to happen. The same kind of thing happened when Simon died. Oh, well. This is Chi's choice. Chi is in charge of what happens, nobody else (even though he keeps trying to blame other people), and I have no control of this whatsoever.
But then, third thought: relief. If he'd shown up and I'd been too desperate and had the affair instead of guiding him back to therapy (with better therapists, please!), there's no question I'd have been DUMPED. There it is, right there in 2021--he goes back to her one more time (it doesn't work any better then), and I am absolutely DEVASTATED.
At least I don't have to go through that. Now I can just get it all over with once and for all.
Of course, I was to get him back again after that. Guess that's not going to happen, either.
In the next two years I have a couple of transits that talk about being all alone and having to cope with a profound and archetypal sense of aloneness. Guess I know now what's going to happen for the next two years. It does help to know that, at least.
Fourth thought: My goal now is to do a better job with the next five years than I did with these five years. My first five years of being widowed, I have been the most horrible basket case. My misery prompted me to do a lot of research, a lot of reading, a lot of learning, and a lot of growing, as misery should. If you are miserable and you aren't doing these things, you are guaranteed to stay miserable, GUARANTEED. Misery is a sign that you're doing something wrong and need to change some very rigid thinking about something you are taking for granted as the truth of the way things are. I learned, yes, but I was lonely all the time and I was miserable, I spent too much, I ate too much, I let the housework go, and I slothed my way through life obsessing about what was gone instead of living in what is.
Now I have no choice. What is, is, and it is final. I can't go to the grocery store and order Chi or Simon back again; I have to cook with what's in the kitchen. If I don't learn to be happy with only what there is, I'm going to be suffering, and I won't be doing a good job with my life. The first five years, I did as well as I could do. Now I know I'm alone from now on, and I have to do better.
My fifth thought: I was so devastated and so sad today as I kept checking Facebook and I didn't see him. I thought of all the writing I've been trying to do, and I kept feeling like, If only this had happened, I would have been happy, and then I could have breezed through chores, housework, and calorie restriction, and I would have been happy to get my writing done. It wouldn't have felt like such a struggle, always dragged down because someone important was missing.
Isn't that the way life always is? When we have a relationship, even if there's sickness and problems and life isn't perfect, if the relationship is happy enough and most of our needs are met, life is basically good and it powers us through the rest of our life. Simon and I were like that. We gave each other courage to write and to try new things. Even if I wasn't good enough and it never went anywhere, we loved each other and we had a good time writing together, and that was what was important.
And when we don't have a relationship, or it's an absolutely horrible one and we're not happy, it drags us down til we can't do anything. (Um, I'm looking here at Chi and Rory.)
I remember as a kid, seeing scenes on TV where a parent or a close friend was behind a child, saying things like, "We have faith in you. We know you're wonderful and we know you can do it, and we love you!" And feeling like I couldn't do things because no one ever said that to me in my life. I needed the feeling of loving parents who were encouraging. My parents were ready with the belt and the flyswatter if I didn't perform, but there was none of that good stuff on the front end, just threats. "You'd better make all A's or else! You're LAZY!!!" And there were times I really didn't understand the math or whatever, and I cried and just got yelled at. Nobody helped me at all.
I'd see shows on TV where kids got helped and encouraged, even when they made a bad grade, and I'd feel really sad. Like TV was stupid, because everybody knew that wasn't how parents were in real life. And I'd sit over schoolwork and feel like, "I wish someone would encourage me like the moms and the dads on TV." Because if I was too good, someone (like BPD Mom) would act jealous that it was me and not her, or yell at me because I had a swollen head. (Because she did.) And then there's that feeling like maybe I was just singled out by the universe for some reason, not to be good enough for anyone to treat me like they treat kids on TV shows.
I hated living at home.
But today I thought, Why do I feel like that? Why do I feel like I can't be happy without Chi in my life, or that I can't motivate myself to do anything without him or Simon or other friends there to love me and support me and do things with me and care about me and make me feel happy all the time?
Why do I feel like I need someone else's help in order to feel happy and competent enough to put myself into anything?
Because relationships are now OVER. I'm never going to have anyone close, I'm never going to have anyone who loves me, I'm never going to have anyone to encourage me, I'm never going to have anyone to support me, I'm never going to have anyone to be with or to do things with or to laugh with or to talk to, I'm never going to have any help from anyone to do anything, I'm never going to have anyone to come home to, in my life, ever, EVER AGAIN.
There's no one here but ME. Period. If I can't do it by myself, it just isn't going to get done. Just like everything else I've ever had to do my whole life.
(Why do I have to have this life where I never get to have these good things other people get to have?? Not longer than fifteen short years, anyway. Lots of lucky people get these things, the loving support of good, healthy, trustworthy, steadfast, fun people, their whole entire lives. I get one healthy relationship, finally, and the guy dies before our seventh anniversary.)
I guess with my background, I should be glad Simon happened to me at all. And I was! I was so proud that with my background, I finally had a healthy relationship and a real family (of one.)
And that's why I've done so poorly these last five years. I thought that was all life was about, and now I can't function at all.
I guess I just designed a life of rugged individualism, and now I'm here, and it's no fun, and I don't want to do it. I want somebody to be my mommy and daddy and do things to emotionally take care of me...sort of like Chi does.
Tough.
My job is to be just as happy, and still do all those things, whether there's anyone here or not. I'm fifty years old.
Why do I still think I can't be happy and functional without someone else to be with?
So, I have to give up on Chi for good, and those have to be my goals now. I'm going to be alone, and I'm going to do everything all by myself. Forever.
Life's not going to give me any more people, so fuck you, life. I'm giving up on people and I'm done, and I'm doing it all for myself from now on.
I have to stop thinking I need other people in order to feel happy and in order to motivate myself to do what I want to do. So, I have no one and it's not easy! I'm supposed to forget people and just do everything anyway.
All I have now is what I want to do. I'll never have anything else but me and my goals ever again.
*******
I suspect that even if Chi were here, he'd be no help anyway. I love him dearly, and no matter what. I know he has problems; we all do, and I don't love him less because of that. I understand what those problems are.
I did wonder, maybe he's not back because somebody turned a new leaf over there. Maybe he decided to be honest and tell her things were so bad he was interested in someone else, and she woke up. Maybe he's not back because they're okay now.
But I went back and reread what we wrote each other the last time we spoke. What I saw there was two people recycling codependency symptoms, and a person resentfully saying, "I made my bed and now I have to lie in it."
A person staying in a situation that was still terrible in order not to upset family. A person trying to wheedle his way back into club meetings just to see me once every two weeks, in order to get a few tiny crumbles of his needs met while he struggled to act like the person his family demands he be. (If I had've said yes then, maybe that's how the affair would have started now.) A person unable to pursue things he once found pleasurable because he was too depressed, and who thought he HAD to stay there anyway. And a wife who sort of slept her way through marriage counseling and hadn't changed much at all from the atrocious behavior that drove him to me in the first place.
What we are looking at, dear friends, is serious, entrenched mutual codependency. 59 and 63 years entrenched.
What are the chances that that situation turned around in the seven months since we last spoke??
And I'm looking at that chart and those transits. That chart demonstrates ability to do much better; and those transits do not describe a family and marriage situation that's getting any better. He can sit there if he wants, but he's going against his whole chart.
He has the right to do that. It's his choice, and no one else can choose anything for him...even if he blames them for his choice to stay unhappy, not get well, not do the work, and not grow. But it sure doesn't look like a happy way to live.
Absent any evidence to the contrary, I have to assume he's still sticking with that choice.
Today I asked the tarot how he was. I got one card: Nine of swords. Google it.
For the past seven months, I have had a "Star light, star bright" wish: Don't send him back if he isn't capable of getting well.
My sixth line of thought about the sadness and the devastating ending of today: Perhaps I got my wish.
****
A Closing Note:
I'm not sure I'll have any more new developments to mull over here. If there's more to report, I will; summer's not over, after all. And it would seem Uranus is going retrograde and going to pass back over Saturn and hit my yod, within three degrees, one more time before finally moving off for good next March. (Interesting: When Chi spoke to me last fall, it was DIRECTLY over Saturn.)
But if there isn't anything else to report, all that will come up here now is any final thoughts I have to work out. (And I DO have some.)
Other than that, I plan to turn my attention now to finishing my novel, posting more on YourTango, and going over all this to make it shorter, more readable, and more accessible to people, and putting the revised version on my website. It's The ThinkingOtherWoman.webs.com.
Come visit me there.
And thanks for reading.
It's been a tough three years. I needed the company.
It's been a tough three years. I needed the company.
No comments:
Post a Comment