Twenty-two General Principles for Dealing with Codependency

FUTURE

At night, when the stars come out, if I'm outside, usually in the car, the first one I see, I always do that little "Star light, star bright" prayer. 

What do I wish for? Always the same thing. "If Chi isn't going to get well, please don't let him come back. I don't want to see him again if he's never going to get well." 

Doesn't mean I don't miss him. I do get so caught up sometimes in all I've learned about codependency and the negative consequences of the behavior that I forget the good stuff.

And there was good stuff. If these guys were absolutely no good for us at all, they'd be easy to forget, right? This guy was so sweet, so sharp, so smart. We understood each other so well. He was so funny. We could talk forever about so many things. Once upon a time, Chi posted a joke on his Facebook that was so brilliant and so funny, it was just the epitome of why I fell in love with him and thought he'd be The One, that long-ago someday before Simon ever got widowed and asked me out. (Only I thought Simon would be The One, too. Odd sensation, that. Just look at our horoscopes ... they think the same things!) I can't post the joke here. I wish I could. It's just emblematic of the mind the man has. 

I have a pretty limited, specialized field of knowledge. I've spent so much time with my nose in a medical book, an astrology book, or a psychology book that I really can't tell you much of anything about classic movies, classic books, classic music. But he can. One reason I think Chi knows so much about everything but his own problems is that his inquisitive, brilliant, far-reaching mind has seized on all these other amazing things the world has to offer as a way to distract himself from thinking or learning about his problems. And, yeah ... so does his natal chart. (Sun conjunct Neptune. Moon square Jupiter.)

It's had the side effect of making him absolutely brilliant. And a kindred spirit I still miss very much. 

It's hard to lose the two loves of your life.

And I wonder why I feel so lackluster in life now. When you've had the best, and then you lose it, life isn't going to feel the same ever again. It just isn't. Maybe I should just quit dumping on myself for feeling bad about that and just accept it. This is life. Oh, well.

So, what happens now?

Well, the astrology for the end of this spring and this summer is pretty darn clear. It would smack any idiot upside the head.

If it doesn't happen, I have to assume Chi is just going to stagnate and never, ever get any better, and I don't need to feel bad about losing him. The consequences of a relationship with a codependent this stuck are so clear to me now that I'll know I've dodged a big, bad, bullet.

If the charts call their shot once again, though ... there's where things will get interesting. Let's put it this way: Just because he shows up again does NOT mean he will eventually turn the corner, put his back into it, and become healthier; but the only way I will see him ever again is if that is a distinct possibility. If he's just going to stagnate, he's going to do that at home, or with someone else just as sick and stuck.

Will I follow my own damn common sense, or relapse and do something DUMB? Will Chi ever engage his own problems and get better?

Tune in next ... (For reasons I can't write here, I'm betting the end of the month.)

To that end, I composed the following:

 

TWENTY-TWO PRINCIPLES FOR DEALING WITH CODEPENDENCY

1.)    The truth always comes out. The truth always comes out. The truth always comes out. The truth always comes out.

2.)    That’s because it is, in fact, the truth, and truth is supreme in the universe.

3.)    The longer the truth takes to show itself, the worse the outcome is, and the greater number of (and the worse) people get hurt.

4.)    For these reasons, any and all relationship must always be grounded in the truth.

5.)    Hiding the truth from anyone, including yourself, in any way or for any reason, is never an acceptable thing to do, even when you’re scared. Even when you think you are trying to be nice or kind. Even when someone might get angry.

6.)    When in doubt about this, start at Number One and repeat.

7.)    If you are thinking or feeling the words, “I have no choice because someone might get upset,” or “Someone will get upset, so I have to ...” it’s codependent posturing, you're just groveling to get approval from other people, and you’re not displaying the real truth to yourself or to other people.

8.)    The truth is that you are a human being like all other human beings, with feelings like any other human being, born to unfold YOUR unique needs, talents, and potential, just like any other human being.

9.)    It doesn’t matter if your parents treated you as if you were not a human being because they needed to continue drinking, using drugs, being mentally ill, or whatever it was that they were doing. Even though you were born to people who shouldn’t have been entrusted with the care of precious, vulnerable, tender young children, the truth is that you are still a human being, with the same worth, feelings, rights, and needs to be yourself as any other human being.

10.) It doesn’t matter if you then picked out more relationships in which people treated you the same way your parents did. Principle Eight is STILL true.

11.) While it is true that human beings should not act out aggressively toward other beings or inflict injury to get what they need or want, it is also true that acting, pretending, lying, and turning one’s own feelings and needs down so as not to hurt anyone else is just as deeply painful and hurtful to the self. Refer again to Principle Eight.

12.) If this is hard to understand, start over at Principle One, paying special attention to Principle Eight.

13.) When any person is injured, or when truth is ignored, there are always consequences, and they are usually bad. In pondering this fact, please again review Principles One and Eight.

14.) When we ignore those consequences and repeat the same mistakes, the consequences happen again, and they are usually worse.

15.) When we are codependent, or we have low self-worth, we haven’t acquired a good grasp of the first fourteen principles.

16.) Therefore, the consequences take many years to show themselves, because we are acting, pretending, lying, and fundamentally dishonest in character. So, when the consequences happen, they are exceedingly bad. Life-ruiningly bad, in some cases.

17.) When people have emotional problems, the only thing that will fix those problems is their own determination to do so--their own reading, learning, and study, and their own hard work. Past the teenage years, the time when emotional problems can be altered by treating the sufferer differently is OVER.

18.) For this reason, the best way to help a person with emotional problems is to stand firm and demand that this individual do his own reading, learning, and therapy, and his own hard work. You cannot heal or mature an adult by babying him.

19.) Therefore, the truth is that trying to help an emotionally disturbed person by accommodating yourself to their problems and pain is a solution that never, never works, and this practice must be stopped.

20.) Those who fail to heed these principles will pay a price, usually a very big and very nasty one. It is quite possible to ruin lives by the failure to learn and practice these principles.

21.) The fact that our parents and our early life taught us something other than these principles, or implied that we were bad  or unlovable children if we acted on them when they wanted something else from us, does not make these principles any less true.

22.) Humans are not supposed to spend miserable lives in codependency and low self-worth. We are supposed to work, heal, and get well! So do that. NOW.

THE MISSING PIECE, Part Two

PRESENT

Here’s the point: THE MISSING PIECE.

During my two-and-a-half year study of our charts and transits, Chi always a had a few I wasn’t sure fit. It made me doubt the astrology a bit. Selfishness was portrayed, and, starting right about now, pretty prominently. Volatility. Erratic behavior. Unpredictability. Hurting other people and thinking one deserves to.

These transits, I doubted. “Chi isn’t like that!!”

And NOW I realize THAT THE ASTROLOGY IS DESCRIBING

THESE FIRST TWO  STAGES.

OH

MY

GOD.

What the astrology is describing, is Chi FINALLY, at the age of almost sixty, ENTERING THIS PHASE OF HIS LIFE THAT MOST OF US DID IN OUR TEENS.

Individuation. Self-differentiation. The feeling that IT IS ALL RIGHT TO BECOME OUR OWN PERSON.

And what the astrology is telling me is that, if he does show up again and we aren't careful, he gets stuck here and never matures out of it!

The astrology, in the leg of bad transits where he never does his work and never gets well, is perfectly describing a person who flip-flops back and forth between “shell” and “rebellion” for the rest of his life!!!

PLEASE NOTE: Neither shell nor rebellion is healthy.

(Okay, they may be in childhood, because a kid hasn’t been alive on the planet for very long and has no experience or knowledge of himself to be able to do any better. A kid has to work with the experience he has, and at eight, ten, fifteen, he doesn’t have much.)

At sixty, however…

“I’m no good. Please love me, I feel worthless, I’ll do anything, ANYTHING!” That’s “shell” behavior, and at this age, such rigid and total denial of the self IS NOT HEALTHY.

“Fuck you! I’m sick of your rules and your total disregard of me! I’m going to do what I WANT, and too bad if you don’t like it!” That’s rebel behavior, it’s selfish, and at sixty, it’s not healthy, either.

And his transits in the next two years are telling me, "Look out for this! It's coming!"

I just didn't know til now what I was looking at.

Only the last column (see last week) is healthy. That column reflects moderation, a stance that honors others AS WELL AS the self. Children can't do that. Adults are supposed to mature to this level, and adulthood is a lifelong process of learning that healthy MODERATION between the needs of others, the needs of self, and when it's okay to act for self instead of others or others instead of self.

Not stuck at all times in others instead of self, and not stuck at all times in self instead of others. 

It is a place of balance between others and self. Sometimes you, sometimes me, both of us when and if that can be achieved. Balance in the Force! If you will. 

Codependency can be understood as a disease of failing to achieve this adult and healthy moderation. (Of course, it isn't the only one. Look at BPD, NPD, and sociopathy.) 

Fuck, man. Look at Chi’s sun sign. THE SCALES!!!

What I’m seeing reflected in his horoscope is the crossroads. THIS split:

At this time in the life, he either successfully makes this leap from childhood to maturity, and that mature ADULT ability to consider self AS WELL AS others, and of at least equal importance,

OR

He does NOT. Instead of making this crucial, successful leap in maturing this part of the personality, he does NOT make it to that moderate, wise, thoughtful third column, and spends the REST OF HIS LIFE FLIP-FLOPPING BETWEEN COLUMNS ONE AND TWO!!!

And…

And…

And…

IF I DO THE WRONG THING, I CONTRIBUTE TO HIS NOT BEING ABLE TO GET TO COLUMN THREE!

                                                                 ***

Why do I do this?? Why, why do I do this??

BECAUSE I DON’T RECOGNIZE THAT THIS IS A NORMAL STAGE OF HUMAN PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT, HAPPENING FORTY-FIVE YEARS LATER THAN IT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED!

Because I didn’t do my homework! I didn’t find out about this! I don’t recognize what’s happening.

And THAT’S BECAUSE I’M TOO DAMN NEEDY.

And THIS IS WHY our Davison is telling me that the success of the relationship depends on me completing some "internal process," and why I’ve been so damn persistent these last three years!
(Should he even be well enough to hit the rebellion stage again and come back to me right about now, which his chart is telling me he is.)

IN ORDER FOR HIM TO HEAL FROM CODEPENDENCY

I HAVE TO HEAL FROM CODEPENDENCY.

If I’m still codependent, and he comes back: “Oh, I love you, I need you, I’m ready to leave her!” I’m so needy, and I don’t know this, and I fucking believe it!

I don’t realize he hasn’t made it to Column Three! (Hey, he's been in therapy for three fucking years, right?? Who could possibly imagine he hasn't moved an inch! Especially since this therapist has forty years' experience, someone we both trust recommended him, and blah blah blah blah blah.)

But now I KNOW he hasn’t made it to Column Three, because I’ve DONE my motherfucking work, and therefore I see--I can observe--that he hasn’t. 

So I know that this “Chiron return”--if it does happen in the next week or two--is happening because he hasn’t done the work, not because he has. 

(Please note that I did nickname him "Chiron," and that, should things go poorly and he dumps me again, the time this is scheduled to happen is in two years...coinciding with my astrological Chiron Return...cited as a time in the life when many people experience serious heartbreak. Isn't astrology fascinating?)

If he shows up on schedule, it's an improvement, to be sure. At least he's beginning to find and fight for the self. But he needs to recover from codependency in order to do that in a thoughtful, mature way. The horoscope transits keep talking about the need for thought, slowness, reflection, meditation. THIS IS WHY!!!

It's gonna be tough. This whole family is enmeshed, and they don't understand what's happening. All they see is the perfection Chi's acting has shown them for forty years, and they're going to attack him for "destroying" the apparent perfection and "abandoning" "poor Rory." (They don't see that she abandoned him a long time ago!)

And that's why his transits right now are wringing their hands and counseling delay, telling him he needs a closer inspection of the situation. (And, for that matter, so are the tarot cards! How the HECK ya gonna get such strong agreement from every oracle you consult? What are the odds of that? Seriously, people.)

When he starts reverting back to Column One again, because the kids and the relatives all start mudslinging again, and I haven't done my homework, I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know why. I'm codependently whining, "But he said he loved me!" I didn’t expect it. It looked so much like he was better!

To prevent this, my job now is to see that his work and his therapy have been inadequate, redirect him to better resources and DEMAND that he try again, then LOOK TO SEE if Column Three is in view yet. If not, I have to leave him again.

And I can’t do that if I’m still lonely and needy. I have no one else in my life, and if I'm still lonely and needy, I'm heartsick, and afraid I may never see him again if I do that. And I can't handle it.

                                                        ***

Um, did you know that extreme, debilitating, horribly painful loneliness and neediness IS A CLINICAL FEATURE OF CODEPENDENCY? It’s called, PATHOLOGICAL LONELINESS.

Until recently, I didn’t know that, either. My loneliness is...was...a sign I’m still codependent.

I have to get over this shit forthwith, or I’m still codependent when/if he enters rebellion and comes back here again, and I torpedo his chances of recovery.

And, since a severely ill codependent can’t have a healthy relationship, I’ve torpedoed our chances of health as a couple (if in fact that were to ever happen). I'm a good enough astrologer now to be able to go through our composites and see the other aspects that are talking about this. And, I can put it all together and weigh probable outcomes based on what we each might do, because I read books like this one.

THIS IS ALL REFLECTED IN OUR MOTHERFUCKING HOROSCOPES.

And NOW I UNDERSTAND IT ALL.

OH

MY

FUCKING

GOD.

THE MISSING PIECE, Part One

PRESENT

Valentine’s Days are bad.

Whether you’re single, dumped, widowed, or divorced. Valentine’s Days are bad.

I’ve spelled out here how the astrology tells a story. Put Rory’s chart, her transits, my chart, my transits, and Chi’s chart and his transits together, and they make a perfect mosaic, stretching on into the future. They all match up into a perfect story, and the events in one chart are answered perfectly with the mirroring events and feelings in the other two.

The story presents a branching path. It can go this way, or it can go that way.

I picked the path I would like to see, and I’ve worked my ASS off for three years to finish my part in that.

(Incidentally, that part is called, HEALTH. I’m going to need it whether I ever see Chi again or not. Similarly, his happier path is also called, HEALTH. He’s going to need it whether he ever sees me again or not.)

I finished these last few blogs, and it looked like I had come to the end of what I encountered the astrology and all this codependency reading to learn. Already know I, that which I need.

So, it’s Valentine’s Day, and I’m still alone. What happens next?

That’s when you go, I know the horoscopes SAY this, but the only way this could ever take place is if the person who is presented as my putative partner in this journey ACTUALLY COMES BACK and says, “I’m here! I’m ready to go on to the next bit.”

(And, yes, that could, possibly, only mean that he comes back and I kick him in the ass one more time, he applies himself in adequate therapy, and then…he decides that keeping his family intact is really where his heart is—his REAL heart, NOT his codependent one—regardless of whether Rory improves her own emotional health or not. Hard to imagine—you need a spine of steel to live with what he’s living with—but people make these decisions every day and they make their peace with them. They do. And who knows? Maybe she’ll wake up then!)

Either way, if I don’t see him again, it’s because he isn’t ready. After three years and that’s where they still were, there is NO WAY this sad situation changed substantially in three months. We KNOW that’s still the way it is.

According to the astrology (and, I have to add, simple common sense), this is the stage he was supposed to be ready by. He was supposed to be able to look at the past three years and where they’ve ended up, notice that he’s still in terrible pain, and be casting about for some answers, rather than just putting his head down again and going, “Well, I can’t do anything about it.”

If he’s not at that stage now, I won’t see him again.

And not seeing him would be a good thing in that case, because if he’s STILL thinking after forty years of this and a three-year turn through not-quite-adequate-therapy-land, that the right thing to do is keep on trying to swallow the pain and live this act everyone else is prescribing for him--when he’s so depressed by it he can barely see straight--he’s just never going to break through and get better. EVER.

And that’s no partner for me (or for anyone else, for that matter.) I need to RUN from that like it’s a tsunami.

                                                 ***

I had gotten that far. I had looked at that truth, and basically said, Okay.

I’ve been widowed four years, and I haven’t met ONE appropriate person. Not ONE. No soul mate, family-like friends, no potential boyfriend.

At fifty, I am ABSOLUTELY ALL ALONE IN THIS WORLD, and my “partner” in whatever crazy business is forecasted here may just signal, in this crucial span of time of about a month, that he isn’t ready and he isn’t coming.

So be it.

I will just stay all alone in this world. I will give up looking for people (because that’s all I’ve done for four years and it most definitely isn’t working out).

I’ve got my blog, I’ve finally gotten some rudimentary ideas for how to do a website, and I’ve got these two novels in various stages of work. I’m no professional, but I have ideas, and I’m finally excited about them. I waited all my life to have time to write, and well…that’s the one gift of no people. You have time, and NO distractions.

Let’s see if I can do anything. 

If not, who cares? This happened to me, and I learned from it. Others could, too. If not, life will go on, and the sky will not fall in. It’s an interesting challenge. And I’m nothing if not always and consistently up for an interesting challenge!

No people in my life? FINE.

I’m there.

(Oh, and by the way? THIS is where Chi’s and my Davison says I must be if the relationship were ever to work. So, of course, it’s where the other half of the job doesn’t happen and he goes, Nah, I’m not up to it. Sorry, but bye! I’m going to be miserable and depressed instead, and keep on acting so the people I'm "close" to aren't upset by it.)

                                                         ***

And then…and then…

AND THEN…

I was wandering around the mall and stopped into this pretty jewelry/metaphysical bookstore.

ONE copy of the book, Rebuilding When Your Relationship Ends sat on a shelf, beckoning to me. It was the only copy in the store.

(Get ready for something woo-woo.)

I was thinking more of Chi when I picked it up, because it’s a divorce book, and I’m widowed—but their treatment of loneliness was the best I’ve ever read and the most applicable to me of any I’ve ever seen. In four years. (We’re actually supposed to be alone? We’re actually supposed to be learning how get along without other people? We’re actually supposed to be self-sufficient?)  

Of course, they go on and on about finding friends, but I haven’t found any familylike friends. I’ve found ONE person whom we fit each other as friends, and there are limits to that friendship. Oh, well. Guess I just go on with the self-sufficiency thing anyway!

Even though I just found out I made a horrible mistake on my taxes this year, I owe money to the IRS, and I won’t be able to afford health insurance this year, I bought the book.

Even though I don’t plan on ever being divorced (how can I be? I’m not meeting anybody!), it’s still an interesting read. I leapfrogged here and there about the book…

…and happened on THE MISSING PIECE.

                                                           ***

Allow me to explain.

The authors, Bruce Fisher, Ed.D, and Robert Albright, Ph.D., explain that, when we don’t get good parenting as kids, we have pieces of our personalities that didn’t grow into an adult state of maturity. That at some point in our lives and in our marriages, those parts “wake up” and start trying to grow from that child stage they were arrested at when our parents, for example, started drinking all the time. They cite several examples of areas of the personality where people often “wake up” and start to need to grow, but the one that caught my attention was this area called, INDIVIDUATION.

Or, as the authors explain it, the need to establish ourselves as independent people by rebelling against the rules parents, family, and society made for us.

When you grow up codependent, the message from parents and family is that thinking for yourself and appearing as you really are is WRONG. We’re not supposed to be, think, need, feel, believe, act, or appear in any way other than what parents and family want.

And this isn’t healthy. We’re US. They’re them; we’re US. We were born to be us, and we need to be us.

We can’t be that perfect little automaton that looks to others and says, “What do you want? I’ll be that so you’ll love me!” forever. Little kids are like that. And this is a normal stage of childhood development.

Did you know that? Before this, I didn't! 

I remember being like that. Remember when I wrote that even my mother’s favorite color was my favorite color? I so desperately needed her approval that I became her clone. And she DEMANDED that I be her clone. (And, sheesh, so did my dad before he died! No wonder I was so fucking messed up!) And that was how I ended up in the wrong career, which I will pay for til the day I die.

A lot of authors write about this human need to individuate, but only these people actually break it down into stages, and explain why the stages are and how the stages work. (Well, you see it a lot in books on parenting, but not in books on adulthood!) 

They explain that you start out in what they call the “shell” stage, which is what I’ve just described above. The stage in which you need, need, need your parents. You need their love. You need their approval. You need them to think you’re just swell and to say nice, affirming things to you. You need it so badly you will twist yourself into ALL kinds of pretzels to get it. You’re like a puppy. 

“Lovemelovemelovemelovemeloveme!”

That’s the “shell” stage. They named it that because the person is living out of a shell that's carefully constructed to reflect what close others want, and only what close others want.

Then you enter what the authors call the “rebellion” stage. You’re tired of being told what to do and you want to think your own thoughts. Only…you don’t know who you are yet, so all you can do is resist what others are telling you to do.

I did this as a very young child, when I was about five. My dad was a very mathematical, machine-oriented, technical type of person, and he achieved recognition and a career through this. He was determined that I would be him. My mother painted. She was an artistic kind of person who loved animals. This nature felt more like my own, so I sided with Mom and rebelled against Dad.

Unfortunately, in siding with Mom, I wasn’t really being me. She was borderline and felt very badly about herself, and she needed me to be EXACTLY like her to validate herself. So, although I thought it was me…it wasn’t. When I started to figure out it wasn’t, and I started to have likes and dislikes and want to do and think things that weren’t her, she got angry with me. I actually believed for a while that I was a bad person because I might like a different career than the one I said I wanted since I was four!!

AND I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND THAT THIS WAS UNHEALTHY. I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONE WHO WAS BAD. LONG past the age when most people have already figured this out. I once had a professor who tried to point this out to me. I couldn't figure out what he was talking about!

Then I had to move into healthy rebellion against Mom. “That’s you, this is me. I’m different, my own separate person.”

In sick families, we’re told this is bad. And that’s what codependency is.

So those are the “shell” and the “rebellion.” You still don’t know who YOU are yet. “Shell” thinking completely ignores the fact that there is a SELF who is a PERSON, and who IS SUPPOSED to be honored. "Shell" thinking is codependency. The "rebellion" stage...well...

Then the authors describe the last stage, which they call the “love” stage.

That’s when you figure out who YOU really are and what YOU really want, and you move toward those things realizing it’s okay for you to be who you are and that there’s nothing wrong with it. That it’s healthy to be and appear as the healthy you that all people are.

Then you can make choices based on the fact that it really is YOU, and YOU really want to. 

Then you are making choices, when you do things for other people, out of true love for self and others, and you do not do what strains you. You choose what you truly are comfortable with, and can give to others out of fullness, because you're making sure you aren't hurting, and that your tank is full, too. Note the word, too. Not instead, too.

Sometimes two sets of needs can't be met at once. That's when the healthy person takes a hard look at how much pain HE HIMSELF is in, and makes the considered decision: "I can't honor both your needs and wants and my needs and wants. In this case, since you are not a child or a helpless sick or elderly person, and I would be greatly injured if I put your needs above mine, in this case I choose to place my needs above yours, and take care of myself instead of you. And I do this with regret and no intent to hurt you, only to save and protect myself."

Sorry. That was long-winded.

But it’s not the point. It’s background information leading UP to the point.

The authors present these stages with a chart that looks like this. (I’m reprinting it. So sue me.  Although, I did add a few myself, for purposes of clarity.)


SHELL BEHAVIOR

Compliant, obedient                          

Feels obligation                                  

Consistent, predictable                     

“What should I do?”                          

“Take care of me.”                            

“You’re everything to me.”             

“I only want you to be happy!”      

YOU only and never me.   

REBEL BEHAVIOR

Self-centered, selfish            

Blames others 

Unpredictable

“If it weren’t for you!”

“I’ll do it anyway!”    

Chooses an affair-like relationship outside of the marriage to discuss personal issues; doesn't really want to, but may have an affair. 

ME only and never you!

 "LOVE STAGE" BEHAVIOR

Self-enhancing AND respectful of others

Flexible and responsible

Learns from mistakes (BIG one!)

"I’ve considered the alternatives.”

Choices, not obligations.

Works at self-awareness

Works at self-acceptance

Balance of self and others in decisions.            

I CAN choose you, but only if it doesn’t truly damage me to do so.

And now…

                                                     

(The POINT, next week!) 

Avoid the Below-Average Therapist

PAST...

I still remember, and you might, too, the times last summer and fall when I was on here shaking in my size 8 shoes, wondering if Chi would be back when the astrology said he would and if I was just plumb crazy.

I thought, just because I turned out to be right and he DID show up again, that would be the end of my worries. Right?

Wrong.

There turned out to be quite a big difference between what I had expected, through everything I had been reading, and what actually turned out to have happened.

To explain: What was I reading? (And, more to the point, what was I watching? I spent a lot of time on You Tube, watching the fabulous videos put together by Family Tree Life Coaches . Although, I have to say, for codependency, life coach Lisa Romano is quickly becoming a fave.)

I was reading a bunch of stuff by therapists, about all these relevant issues. And the thing is, it's usually the BEST therapists who get books published and put free videos out online. So I was sort of living in a dream world where, wherever Chi and Rory went, they would be getting that caliber help.

It doesn't sound like it, to put it mildly.

I was reading books like Should I Stay or Should I Go? How a Controlled Separation Can Save Your Marriage 

and

The White Knight Syndrome: Rescuing Yourself from the Need to Rescue Others

and

Facing Love Addiction: Giving Yourself the Power to Change the Way You Love

That last one really mislead me, in a way. Not that I didn't see a whole lot of truth in it about me, Chi, and Rory, but from what I was reading there, I at least expected Chi and Rory to reconnect. In that book, the pattern described is: the love addict moves out, and when that person gives up and tries to end the relationship, the love avoidant turns around and tries to pursue the love addict, and for a while things look good. The love addict is happy to be wanted, the love avoidant is happy to have the love addict back again, and they're close again for a while until things get too close for the love avoidant again and the love addict gets too clingy and needy again and well...

...it all falls apart.

I was also, of course, reading the astrology.

Rory certainly had the transits where she could have knuckled down and done some hard work on herself to save her marriage. I saw when they were, and looking up at the above, thinking they were getting that caliber of help, and seeing only what I could see on their Facebooks, it certainly looked like it.

I expected either that they would be fine, or, if they weren't and he came back, it would be because they had a moment of reconnection and relapsed. I thought if he showed up again, it would be my relationship with Chi vs. Rory's relationship with Chi, not my relationship with Chi vs. a total nonstarter and the opinions of family and friends.

Then Chi actually showed up again, and I got the report of what really HAD happened.

Good grief.

Imagine my surprise and dismay when I heard what their therapy experiences had really been like. Imagine my surprise and dismay when I heard that Rory, after attacking Chi with the news that ALL the problems were his fault and she was angry he didn't even want to go to marriage counseling, sort of sleepwalked through it and acted like she really didn't want to be there herself. I thought when Chi left our club meetings and didn't come back, it was because they reconnected and he moved back home.

Well...he'd moved back home, all right. The reconnection bit...not so much. He lived in the father-in-law suite for several months and is in the process of halfway moving back in there again.

Jesus.

I thought I would be peeking back in on a situation in which the participants had done at least SOME work and made at least SOME progress. Not so!

Rory is just as cold and self-centered and emotionally vague and constipated as ever. Chi, instead of working on his own codependency and low self worth--which were the things I talked to him about that day, lo, THREE FUCKING YEARS AGO when I convinced him to go for help, went right back to focusing on other people and other people's problems, and through a combination of family issues, health issues, and therapists I believe were downright incompetent, pretty much hasn't moved an INCH since I last spoke to him.

This is bad. Really bad.

For those reading this, there are a lot of bad therapists out there. If you go to therapy for a marital issue, especially a midlife one, what you need to be seeing and hearing when you start is some assessment of your childhood home and family environment. This is because most marital issues start in childhood, and we all bring any wounding done to us by parents and family on into the present unless and until we sit ourselves down and do some very serious WORK on it.

If your therapist isn't requiring that you do this, you may be spending your money on a rather expensive Band-Aid. Go check out the videos I mention and you will see the kind of approach I mean.

I spent my childhood watching a stuck parent not take advantage of therapeutic materials around her and continue ruining her own and everyone else's life.

I hate to say it, but it kind of looks like I am watching it again.

And that's sad, because what if Chi ever did leave Rory? He's still as sick as a goddamn dog. Now I inherit the problems, and this person has shown little motivation to work on them. Let any family member anywhere in the northern hemisphere wave one of their own problems at him, and...oh...whoops! There he goes...up...up...and AWAY to solve all their problems for them, and then complain three years later how he's taking care of all these other people again.

That's codependency.

And I could kick, I really could kick, this therapist of his all over town for putting him in group therapy only after a measly eight weeks, and not insisting on ATTACKING THE CODEPENDENCY AND LOW SELF ESTEEM. Head on. With serious intensive work. BEFORE marital therapy!

Look how much work I've done in three years and look how sad this situation is.

Ai, ai, ai.

Anyway, don't end up like this. Check those links out, and avoid the below-average therapist.