Who Is Responsible For What?

Present...
 

So right after I hit "send" on what I last sent you, I get a notification from Linked In that someone on a writer's group I joined in there posted a post I found interesting. So I go, "OK, I'll go and look," and while there, I decide to check who's viewed me, too.



I'm going, "He won't be there, it's over, I'll never see him again."



There he is. In just the past four days or so, because I checked last week also. Interesting how every time the horoscopes suggest contact, I get this anonymous browser again.


This coincides with a.) his anniversary, and b.) the last time we ever saw each other two years ago.



I don't remember the exact date anymore--because I didn't realize I'd never see him again until two weeks after the fact--but it was right before his anniversary. Right before he (obviously) moved back home. Most likely it was the 7th. I can't be sure which Mondays the club meetings were that year, but I'll never forget those blue eyes following me around the room. He never let me see him watching me before that. 


And I'm betting he DOES remember the date. That's why I'm sure my anonymous browser has to be him, because I only see this anonymous browser on anniversary dates. The day he broke up with me. Valentine's Day (and I know the anonymous browser was him that time, because Linked In inadvertently fingered him, prompting me several times to connect with him as a person I might know, right when it happened.) The holidays, 2015. And now, the last time we ever saw each other.


Instantly, I felt better. 


Not that I think this means anything will happen (witness all the prior visits nothing did).



The reason has to do with, not just the fact that obviously I'm still special in some way to him, no matter what's going on with Rory right now, and not just the fact that one does have to wonder what IS going on that he's going to look me up right before their anniversary. If all is well at home and husband and wife are back in love, ranks should be sealed tight against The Girlfriend, who should be Public Enemy Number One and certainly NOT to be visited right before one's close-to-forty-year wedding anniversary. (Why would anyone even think to do that? Most benign reason: marriage is perfect, knows he's never coming back, hopes I'm okay for that reason. Least benign reason...?)


The reason I felt better had more to do with the fact that I see that what I would do if the visit led to something more now is much, much different than what I would have done two years ago. I've learned A WHOLE LOT. Sure, it seems a waste to learn so much about this particular situation, and then the situation never happens, and I know all this that I'll never need or use.



But, one of the purposes of our relationship was to learn what it means to truly love another person, and I now know what that is.



It's not to use that person to bolster your flagging self-esteem, nor to trade your "love" and companionship for financial caretaking and security from that person. It's not to use that person as a bulwark against being lonely or feeling aimless in your life.



It doesn't matter if he ever came back into my life or not, because the outcome would be the same. It matters what that outcome would be: That I would haul him right back into therapy and insist on his health and well being, even going so far as never to see Chi again if I didn't see that the needed work was being attended to, because I care about his well being and his future, and I see that neither will be good unless he does this.



So what  if I'm all alone? Next to the devastation to Chi that would ensue if the codependency and the zero self-worth weren't addressed, whether I'm lonely or not dwindles to insignificance in my mind. And that's a big change in me.



I don't know, and probably will never know, what changes, if any, occurred in the other two people. But I made a big step forward, and I know that if he showed up on my doorstep again in a tizzy over his marriage or over me, I would never, and will never, back down on that point; and that's what love is. 


Love cares about the other person's welfare, does everything in its power to ensure that, and never ever does anything that will harm that, no matter what. And if the other person gets well and chooses someone not you, love just has to accept that. It's called, Life.

 

And it's also called, Love. Why would I stomp my baby foot and ask someone to be with me when their heart--their healthy heart--chooses someone else?



The important thing in an affair is that everybody heal. That everybody get well from whatever malaise started the damn thing in the first place. And when that is done, the correct solution for everyone will happen, as naturally as the leaves fall in autumn.



I can't get all the corners in the triangle well...only mine. And, one never knows, the triangle may never reform in the first place.



The other thing that made me happy was, if I turned out to be right about the next two to three weeks, I'd have quite a story to tell. Not a bestselling novel-type story (although that could happen), but a story about how to use various modalities available to us to grow, notice what's truly right for us, and make choices that avoid misery.



If he never came back, the ending would change, but the knowledge wouldn't. Maybe what I did these past two years could save someone else's relationship or head off something horrible for another person, because they happened to stumble onto something I wrote. 


That's valid even if he never comes back, but if he did, and I had to go for the gold (see my previous post)--well, there was maybe a one-in-a-million chance of being right about that outcome. It would have made a real miracle that a person could accurately see all that, and that would certainly lend legitimacy to the telling. If I wrote about that, I'd know it was the truth, real, and valuable. I might still end up alone, but I'd have concrete proof that I have real truth to tell, truth other people could use.



And that would supply the only thing left that could make me happy again. One thing my life hasn't really had since Simon died:



Purpose.


Today I realized one thing: If you have no purpose in your life, loved ones--good, healthy people close to you whom you fit and who fit you--make life just as worth living.



And if you don't have people, then purpose, the sure knowledge that who you are and what you know is valuable, and the ability to do something in the world with it that makes a personal difference to someone else, will more than make up for those you lost. It's the internal certainty that your life and the fact that you are here living it has intrinsic worth. That you know something that matters, and when you share it, it matters.



The happiest life is the one with both people and purpose.



But if you have neither one, you really are lost, and you will just drift through life like a feather on the breeze. And that's what I've been doing since Simon died. I have had neither people nor purpose. And life is nothing with neither one. If I'd been right about everything, that would have made purpose with a capital P.



But no one exists on earth to give you Purpose, and really, they'd better not. That would be codependent. Tonight, I log on, and Rory has posted a photo, obviously from their anniversary dinner or party. They are dressed up, looking happy, and smiling. They seem close.



Sad to say you can tell he is getting older. So am I. With any luck, we're all getting better.



Maybe they got better together.


Maybe the picture really is true. So many in the past, I know, were not, but who knows? Two and a half years of therapy, transits that say, "Now is the time to buckle down." Maybe they actually did. Maybe the photo is honestly the triumph it looks like.


Would that really negate anything I've learned? Or make anything I write about relationships, health, and life less true, because the circumstances most heavily favored did not materialize--and it was their decisions that averted them instead of mine?


Because in the end, the only place Purpose really comes from is you. Not someone else.


I know I was special enough to him that he remembered me, two years later, on the anniversary of the last time we ever saw each other, and right before theirs. That, and whatever purpose I create for myself, will have to be enough.


That is my job.

How to Win a Gold Medal

PRESENT

On a post a while back, I put up a link to a Liz Greene article about relationship triangles. Some of it is a bit esoteric and hard to follow, but one thing she says is definitely the truth: Nobody handles them well.

In my previous post I acknowledged the fact that this triangle is likely over, and no matter what the horoscopes say, I would be crazy to believe I will see this guy again in the next three weeks.

However, there is something anyone in a triangle or considering entering one can benefit from considering: What if I DID?

What if I did see this guy ever again?

Two years ago, the answer to that question would have seemed simple and over-the-moon happy: If he came back, it would mean I WON. That I was the better woman, that Chi finally realized that, and that he would now leave mean old Rory to be with me, and we would of course live happily ever after.

Now, after poking around and doing an awful lot of research, not only in the astrology books, but also reading psychology and books about relationships and childhood wounding, AND having just about all of our relationship on my hard drive to reread, I can see one thing very clearly: two years ago I would have been WRONG.

The fascinating thing about astrology, I have found, taken together with all I know about psychology, relationships, and what Chi has already told me about himself and Rory, is that the three sources are all disparate pieces of a mosaic. And, fit together, they form a whole picture. I’ve found that, looking back over the course of my life, this is the case no matter what aspect of it I’m looking at. What Chi has told me provides specifics of their personal histories and those of their relationship—at least, some salient points, which it would not have had I not read enough psychology beforehand to know what to ask him. Astrology contributes some why and when, but is heavier on the when. Psychology provides a glimpse of when, but is heavy on the why. Put together, the three show you a complete picture of three lives, what’s happening in them, why it’s happening, and the purpose of it all. (Why are we even here?) There's the earthly purpose: This happened because we had bad childhoods; and the metaphysical purpose: Why were we put here to have bad childhoods in the first place? It's all there.

Seeing all that, I can see that some of my attitudes from two years ago were very, very dangerous. It is absolutely true that, in love triangles, there is a lot of jealousy, a lot of demands that one’s own needs be satisfied, a lot of self-aggrandizement, a lot of unrealistic dreaming, and a lot of possessiveness. It stands to reason just from that that of course, no one handles them well.

But I can see now that, if this ever did happen to me again, the fact is that I’d have three sick people on my hands, and that jealousy, demanding my own way, self-aggrandizement, unrealistic dreaming, and possessiveness could really, really hurt all three people. I don’t need to be doing that. I need to be handling this well.

If this ever happened again, I REFUSE to handle this poorly. 

I intend to win a gold medal.

WTF does handling your attraction to someone else WELL, when you are already in a relationship, or attracted to someone already in a relationship, look like? How do you know if you are doing a good job or a poor job?

Basically, the fact that there is mutual attraction outside the existing relationship shows that something within the relationship isn’t being handled well. And we all know that you never meet the guilty party in a divorce. So, understanding EVERYTHING that’s going on becomes crucial.

For instance, me, Chi, and Rory. What I saw in the beginning stages of that relationship told me without a doubt that part of the problem was a desperately ill adult child of an alcoholic, with inhumanly low self-esteem. And something was wrong with Rory, I wasn’t sure what. There’s two pieces of the mosaic. Then part of my piece came into focus: Raised in the twin toxins of critically low confidence in my ability to handle life’s responsibilities, and the idea that if I just love someone hard enough and in the right way, I can be God and make them heal, I was stepping in thinking that I could “save” someone else, and that doing so made me a good enough person to earn what I thought I couldn’t do for myself.

My problems I can fix. I now know that I don’t need help taking care of myself. These past two years, I have been able to afford all of my needs and some pretty expensive wants, with money left over. I’ve been able to do a lot of things I believed I couldn’t do. And I have seen that no person can step over the line into someone else’s head and mature their childhood problems for them. No person can own progress he himself didn’t make. Chi can either progress enough to be himself in relationships or he can’t, and if he can’t, he’s radioactive. No relationship can work when one person refuses to show up the way he really is, and this fault in a person is the worst one you can have. All other difficulties rear their ugly heads where they can be SEEN. With Chi, everything looks fine for DECADES…until you find out that he’s been quietly falling apart inside the entire time, told you nothing, and now nothing about your life together is real and he’s having an affair.

Pernicious, pernicious, pernicious, pernicious.

The one wild card was Rory. And now I think I know enough about her, too. Keeping in mind that I COULD be wrong about some of it, she has four major problems, and possibly a fifth, that are making her toxic to be around, and she needs to fix all of them. If she doesn’t, she is simply going to murder Chi, and it really will be like slaughtering a lamb, because he thinks so poorly of himself he never even questions what she does. “I’m a jerk…it’s all me.” I know what the problems are, and how she got to be the way she is.

Now that I am in receipt of that information, I can see the right way to win a gold medal. (Your situation may be different.)

1.)    Hating Rory is out of court. It may have made sense when I believed she was just using him, but now I see Rory has problems of her own. Sad to say, the only thing she’s really done is the same goddamned thing Chi and I did: Be born to the wrong parents. It’s in everyone’s best interest (except possibly for mine) that she solve her problems. I need to feel compassion for her, and if she demonstrates ability to solve those problems, the only place for me is spelled, GONE. No matter how much I miss Chi or how sad I am.

2.)    Chi needs to recognize he is only half of their problems, and her half is especially pernicious and destructive. He needs to recognize that he does NOT deserve her half, and he does not cause her ugly behavior (no matter what she says). If she does not demonstrate ability to resolve or at least substantially improve  ALL of her half, there is only one place for him: GONE. And that instance is the one and only instance in which I have any business here at all.

3.)    I need to recognize that the faults I have uncovered in myself are only half of Chi’s and my problems, and I CANNOT SOLVE CHI’S HALF. His half is especially pernicious and destructive to me. If he does not demonstrate ability to resolve ALL of his half, there is only one place for me: GONE. No matter how much I miss Chi or how sad I am.

4.)    Not being able to get oneself out of a marriage in which one is being treated very, very poorly is a basic symptom that Chi isn’t resolving his problems. If I grab one arm and pull him out of there anyway, I will be inheriting serious unresolved problems and helping them remain unresolved. And I will get just what I deserve: those symptoms, acted out on myself instead of Rory.

5.)    Tolerating any poor behavior towards me, any dishonesty with me or any therapist, or any apparent mishandling of the situation by any therapist, and saying nothing, is not allowed.

The only way to win a gold medal, therefore, is, if I see him again, first to check to see that what I’ve surmised here is correct. If it isn’t, sharing any of this could do more harm than good. If, in my judgement, Rory is acting much better and Chi is still showing me problems, stealing her husband from her is not gold medal behavior, even if I find that I can. If she isn’t doing better and Chi is back because she’s slowly tearing him apart (again), then it’s time to share this, and gently put Chi back into therapy and back into the marriage, unless and until he can muster the self-esteem to get himself out. If he can get himself out (and I mean divorced, not just moved out of the home), I may resume my relationship with him, with the understanding of what codependency symptoms are, and that I need to run for my life if I’m still seeing them, he won’t work on them, or they aren’t improving.

This is how to win a gold medal in my situation. How could you win a gold medal in yours?

WHY the Right Answers Are the Right Answers, Book One

PRESENT

At the height of my torment over being DUMPED by my married man, I spent some time on a website and chat room for people struggling to get over a breakup.

I found it singularly UNhelpful.

For one thing, those people don’t like it if you’re too upset. You find the place because you are upset, for fuck’s sake. Some people there were comfortable talking to someone as upset as I was, and that helped. But then I couldn’t talk to them, because people who were UNcomfortable , banned me.

Gee, that was helpful. One day on here I will put up a post on how to help someone who is upset. Really, really upset.

The other thing they do there is impose rules. You were supposed to just cut off all thoughts of the person and move on. There was an actual support group for doing that.

There’s one thing wrong with that. YOU DON’T LEARN ANYTHING.

I have discovered that it really is the truth: when we encounter pain in our lives, WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE FUCKING LEARNING SOMETHING FROM IT. When life is hard, when life is painful, when life is disappointing, when life is miserable, when you feel that you have been singled out by the heavens to be treated truly horribly and unmercifully—so there must be something wrong with you to warrant the punishment—when life fees so unbearably, so desperately, desperately painful that you just want to give the fuck up and DIE…

You can bet real money there is something important you are supposed to be learning, and you just haven’t figured it out yet.

I’m going to post (or repost) a few things I wrote last year. Bear these in mind, and then I’m going to show you how they are true. Compare these to the blogs that are coming, and see for yourself whether they’re not. But first…I wish to stipulate two things.

1.)    Yup, what’s happened to me most of my life has been horrible. Horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible. And most of my life it felt like it was because of me. Why would people treat me this way unless I just wasn’t good enough? And if you’re reading this and you feel this way, I want you to know that from the vantage point I have now, I am grateful for every single thing, because I FIGURED IT THE FUCK OUT. I now know WHAT I WAS SUPPOSED TO LEARN, and I know that I could not have learned it without every single thing that’s happened. And now I’m going to share these things with you.

2.)    Over the past month, I have of course been forced to recognize that the time forecasted by the horoscopes (which have so very accurately forecasted everything else I’ve been through) is just about here. The Reappearance Of Chi. And I’ve had to honestly ask myself, What if this time the horoscopes are wrong? September comes, September goes…October comes, October goes…and he’s still gone. 

Draw a bunch of angry black squiggles on either side of a blank piece of paper and then draw a straight line down the middle. That line represents, “Health.” The angry squiggles represent everything that is not healthy. On one side of the line is my side of the relationship, and on the other side of the line is Chi’s. I have come to recognize that all I have control of is my side of the line. On my side of the line, I can work like a GODDAMNED DOG to get MY toes ON. THAT. LINE. 

And I cannot do one thing more. I can make myself and my side of that line as healthy and as UNsquiggly as I possibly can, and that’s MY half of a healthy relationship. The other person also has his half, to which I cannot cross over, over which I possess no power, and which I cannot affect, no matter how crafty or manipulative I might be or how hard I might try. (Or, for the record, how hard I might think I NEED to for whatever reason.) 

In any relationship, the person on the other side of that line is the only one responsible, and the ONLY ONE ABLE, to get his own toes onto the Line Of Health. If the other person cannot or will not do this, there will be no relationship (or if there is, it will be some permutation of your worst nightmare.) What we’re about to see is whether Chi is capable of making another run at getting his toes on that line or not, and which relationship he will do it in. (The horoscopes are laying heavy odds, but that is all they are…odds.) If he can’t get his toes on the line, or Rory accomplished this feat in their relationship and now he is, too, I won’t see him again (or I will, but he’s going to be acting erratically and irresponsibly), and there is NOT A DAMN THING I CAN DO ABOUT IT.

And that, friends, is called life. 

Robin Williams once said that the worst thing in life wasn’t being all alone; it was being with people who make you feel all alone. We would all do well to remember that as we struggle in relationships with the married.

Now, here’s a flash from the past, and then we’ll continue.

 

RECOVERY: At Some Point, Ya Gotta Do It.

PRESENT

Most people consider the word, “Recovery” to mean that a person has moved on from their breakup, in that they no longer think about this person who is no longer in their life. Sort of like the boyfriend before Simon. (I NEVER think about that guy, unless I am assessing my behavior in relationships and therefore I have to go back to what happened pre-Simon.)

By that reckoning, I’m not “recovered” from Chi unless and until I’m just so busy and happy in my life that I. Just. Never. Think. Of. Him. At. All.

Um…not there yet.

If you don’t think you will ever see the guy again, you might as well Just Go There. (What is the goddam point??)

I tried it. I looked at all this horoscope stuff, and I went, “Well, here’s a possibility that this is wrong, and here’s a possibility that this is wrong over here…” 

I didn’t order Rory’s 2017 and 2018 yearly transits (which I have to do, because as a student of astrology I can’t yet interpret very well. I can look up what’s happening when, but when it comes to figuring out what “Pluto opp progressed Venus” actually means, I’m going to have to let Liz Greene help me out for a while longer yet. She’s never wrong about my life. And this is with just a computer picking prewritten transits to tell me about!) 

I didn’t order those for Rory because I wasn’t sure I had rectified her chart correctly (guessing the time of birth from events in the person’s life.) Although, timing it by when Chi moved out was shockingly easy to do.

I’d read that if you don’t know a birth time, but you do have the place, all you are likely to be off by is the moon and the ascending, or the rising sign. But Rory’s moon is right in the middle of the sign and house I put it in, so I can be off by quite a few hours and still have the moon correct. Her moon ended up in House 12. All I had to do was look up accounts of “Moon in House 12” online, and that made me VERY sure I have rectified her moon correctly.

So, I was finally brave enough to go ahead and buy her 2017 and 2018 transits. I was trying to talk myself out of all this, as in, “Certainly I’m going to find a bunch of transits indicating she’s doing very well, and if she does well, so will Chi, and so will their relationship. He doesn’t want to hurt her or leave her. He doesn’t want to break up their family. He wants to stay.”

(I mean, who would believe the shit I’ve been forecasting anyway?? Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, when the guy leaves, he’s GONE. Right??)

Imagine my shock when, buried in the middle of Rory’s 2018—and the computer didn’t pick this to show me in ANY of the other transit reports I’ve bought under her birthdate, time, and place, because of the dates I asked for—I discovered a great, big ol’ Pluto opp progressed Venus. Over the SAME EXACT DATES—2016-2023—that I have a transit telling me that something is going on that’s going to start my life over, that it’s very slow and I’m terribly unsure what’s going to happen, and warning me not to bully a person in response, because I’m scared and trying to control the outcome. Over the same time period, Chi’s is telling him he’s trying to make needed changes in his life, and needs to slow down and take a chill pill, because he’s being too impulsive and doing it in a way that’s very hurtful to other people.

These three charts are linked. No shit, NO doubt about it.

Oh, and what does Pluto opp progressed Venus mean, you ask? Someone is undergoing a very bad time in their personal life. In all probability a relationship will break up, and this person is struggling to hang on, stay in control, and is behaving very badly in the process. Liz Greene’s interpretation is actually admonishing the person about their behavior. (Which I have often longed to do, and wished I could clonk Rory over the head. And that was before Chi and I realized we were in love!)

Even the online fucking TAROT cards are saying the same thing!

(I’m afraid to ask the runes. Seriously.)

And all this is supposed to make an appearance around the middle of September.

Yes, this really DOES have something to do with making a recovery, being less upset, and getting over it.

AND THAT IS:

Either the events so heavily favored above WILL happen, 

Or they WILL NOT.

Either they will happen, or they will not.

Now, if they happen, *ahem!* WHAT am I being warned NOT to do? Bully and control, trying to keep the person.

If they don’t happen, what do I need to do? Understand that if it’s much past September 15, 2017, and I don’t see this guy again, something happened, and none of this occurs. I’m all alone.

What’s the common denominator here?

NEEDINESS.

I AM STILL, 

REALLY, REALLY, 

                REALLY, REALLY,  

                                   REALLY, REALLY

NEEDY.

And, either way, it isn’t good.

If I get the relationship back again, or any relationship, I’m going to be grabbing at it like a life preserver, and that is terribly destructive.

And if I don’t get one, I’m just going to hang my head, cry, and be absolutely miserable.
Which is what I’ve done for almost the last three years.

It’s no way to live.

If Chi shows back up, he’s still having huge codependency problems. He’s going to need someone who can slow things down and minimize some of the hell and mayhem. But if I’m desperately needy and lonely, I’m going to pour fuel on the fire by sleeping with him, carrying on an online romance with him, and whatever other things are going to drive Rory absolutely crazy, confuse Chi, make him dump on himself even more, and possibly drag things out over the WHOLE ALMOST EIGHT YEARS. 

There ARE other transits describing this long-term triangle. “Eternal triangle” is the phrase that’s used. And triangles are very, very painful. It’s very difficult for anyone to “win “ in these situations. (See the article I posted in the last blog.)

Can you think of anything worse? I can do way better than that. 

IF I’M NOT SO DESPERATELY NEEDY AND LONELY THAT I THINK I CAN’T BE HAPPY WITHOUT THE RELATIONSHIP. And I have other transits warning me about just this problem.

I have this strong sense, and this isn’t really corroborated by anything else but me, that how well the woman Chi is with is doing is going to greatly influence the progress he makes. 

I mean, think about it. If Rory is doing well emotionally, and able to work well in the marriage, then they’re going to be okay, and there’s no need to go, is there? (Their Davison does mention this. Oh, but it is only a mention, compared with all the paragraphs of stuff about radical transformation, the need to break up, and it being harder and harder the longer they hang on.)  

If he’s with me, and I’m terribly needy and lonely—like I was the first time around!—look what’s going to happen. Moon opp Neptune, baby! And trust me, nobody wants “Moon opp Neptune.” (Just peek around here at some previous blogs, and you will see what I mean.)

But if I can be mature, be flexible, be happy alone, not be needy!—and just step back and insist on good behavior while Chi works out his business maturely in the real world, not in some dream world where his wedding ring just magically disappears into thin air—we might actually see behavior that his kids, his wife, his friends and family, and me, don’t hate him for, even if something shocking and sad has to take place. 

And he might acquire the skills he’s going to need in order for any relationship he may have in the future to both work and last.

Either way, I’ve got a job to do, and my ass better get moving.