by StillStanding1
Obsession gives you something to do besides having your heart shattered by heart-shattering events.
~Geneen Roth, Women, Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything
Obsession gives you something to do besides having your heart shattered by heart-shattering events.
~Geneen Roth, Women, Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything
Lately, I've been under a lot of stress. Health issues, digging into new challenges with my business and taking on new and scary things are all forcing me to stare my deeply rooted feelings of inadequacy in the face and attempt to dig them out. Before I got here, however, I had been slowly watching my old compulsive behaviors around food begin to spiral out of my control. And it’s been confusing. I thought after weight loss and successfully tracking my food and being “good” about my exercise that I had “figured it out” That I had reached a place where I knew what to do and could do it. Turns out I was not quite right about that.
And the reason that food tracking and weight loss after D-Day was so successful was because it was an all-consuming obsession that took me away from the heartbreaking reality that I was living; that my husband had been having an affair and now was carrying on with it, flagrantly throwing it in my face. It also converged with all the things I had always told myself about what would make me worthy of love and belonging. That if I was thinner, fitter, prettier, if only I lost those relentless last few pounds, then I would be lovable. And since I was in fight or flight mode, I threw all of my energy into this thing I thought would keep me safe. Add in that, for the first time in my life, I did not want to eat. At All. And I lost a lot of weight.
The food tracking kept my mind busy, so I would not have to feel the pain of betrayal, the loss of safety. If I made myself thinner, perfect, it would fix everything. Tracking food gave me a job, so it acted as an escape. It was a way to check out. It was about fixing me in order to make the pain and problem go away. Turns out this was not what I needed to be fixing.
And this is why, as I am discovering, the food tracking and weight loss worked then and why it is not working now. Now I am in deep discomfort of a different kind. I am doing work that forces me to face my feelings of inadequacy (“my work is not good enough, I’m not a REAL artist” etc ad nauseum), forces me to be visible (you can’t get customers if you can’t be seen and if you don’t show up) and being vulnerable (putting your own art work out for judgement is very vulnerable, being available in a new relationship is terrifyingly vulnerable) and my brain and body are screaming “run away! You can’t do it! You are not good enough.” All of which are lies that keep me small and safe.
And so now I am using old compulsive eating behaviors to check out from the discomfort, to numb the pain. And frankly, I just don’t want to do this any more. So I am reading the book by Geneen Roth from where I pulled the quote. It is about sooooo much more than food. Really it is about all the ways we check out from the pain of not loving ourselves. I’m working on loving myself through these feelings of inadequacy and learning to trust my judgement as a creator, designer and human being.
There are so many unexpected ways obsession can let us feel like we are escaping. Obsessing about the OW keeps our mind off the fact that someone we trusted hurt us. Food, even “clean eating” can be numbing or be a fix-ourselves obsession that is about a deep-rooted belief that we are not enough. Same with drinking. Spending. Fixing ourselves, self-help obsessions, detective work. Relentlessly working at a job or career with no rest, sacrificing all our time to our kids, being angry. All these can evolve into obsessions that feel like a fast train out of the vast metropolis of our pain.
Now when the pain comes up, I am trying to make room for it. It’s not so big when you do, when you write it down or say it out loud. When you touch it and let it exist alongside you, you don’t have to become it. You don’t have to be that wounded child again, you just need to give her room to step into the light.
I don’t know where this work is taking me, but it feels right. Not overwhelmingly right and clear, just like the next right step into an unknown land. I feel lighter and brighter. It’s a little scary, but a good scary.
Boy do I understand what you are talking about. I've gained all my weight back plus a few pounds. I started tracking my food but found it didn't interest me. I took up photography and have thrown myself into learning all I could about it. I've gotten pretty good at it too. I also started my little food blog a number of times and it consumed me until I felt the pain from what happen consumed me each time I tried creating it. I changed it 3 or 4 times until I decided to just make a cookbook for my family. It's still public but it's more comforting and enjoyable then consuming.
ReplyDeleteI unfortunately still find myself consumed with the OW .Especially since she has had a baby and never posts pictures of her but post how she is still the victim. I feel that she stole something more from me then just sleeping with my h. I can't really explain what I feel where this is concerned but it is something I struggle with all the time.
I try very hard everyday to just live in the moment. I remember one day a couple of years ago while I was working in retail, a woman came up to me and said " all we have is the now, the past doesn't exist anymore and the future isn't here yet." I had been struggling really bad that day with thoughts of the past and consumed with thoughts about the OW. I remember feeling shock when she said that to me. But it was something that I needed to hear at that moment. So on my really bad days that I still have, I remember what this lady said to me.
rusticthyme, i love photography too. I've done it for over a decade and often people say, "you should do weddings or do this as a business" I never have because it would change joy and artistic expression and turn it into work. I think with so many things like photography or crafting or blogging, we get into it, we want to share it and then we lean into external expectations (that often sound an awful ot like that internal voice of judgement). And it stops being fun and we drop it. But. It's ok to let some of these things go and circle back. I'll go weeks without taking any pictures, then all of a sudden I get a creative burst and do a bunch. I've learned that's just how I roll and it is OK. It keeps it enjoyable, when I do it for me, as you xsay above.
DeleteAs for the OW, why not take the leap and stop following her on social media, block her and make sure she is not showing up in your feeds. it will be an enormous act of self care. I wonder if keeping tabs on her is a way your brain tells you you are safe. As long as you see her out there, you know what she is up to. But that is just not true and it is only hurting you and keeping you tied to her. Have you tried any of the strategies for interrupting thoughts about the OW? It takes time and practice, but you will be happier when you aren't wasting your precious time and energy on her.
And that's a lovely the woman said to you, and very true. xoxo
SS1, I loved this post about obsession and stress. It is so true. Very timely for me. It is easy to fall back into the "old self" when a new unexpected change happens. I thought I was in a pretty good place at this point but I found out that I'm slipping with new unexpected change. Back into therapy yesterday to figure out what is happening. Why am I bitching again? It is a protective mechanism to push my H away before I get hurt again. Once I understand something why it is happening, I can change. SS1 just my opinion but you really seem stuck in "what could have been" mode. You think you lost but you really won. Your H was a real jerk if I remember correctly. Is obsession your armor? Love to you. I really got into this post.
ReplyDeleteLLP thanks for the love. :) - I think we all default to old patterns in times of stress. What is different now is that we are noticing it and therefore giving ourselves the time and opportunity to do something different.
DeleteMy H was a real jerk during his affair, and just selfish, in the way people with addictions are, for a long time before that. So I don't really even think about that he'd be a viable option for my future. I don't think he'd be able to show up, think about my needs etc. I really do get that. And also, if I didn't feel safe in the marriage before, would he be able to step up and make me feel safe after? I sincerely doubt it. Because he can't even make himself feel safe.
So I don't *think* I'm stuck in what could have been? A lot of the examples I gave were to help relate it to infidelity, which I think is more and more in my rear view mirror. But I do have long and deep attachments and I recognize that this is a hindrance to me. Because I stay attached and also feel rejection. Those are my old stories. And those old stories don't just show up here, in the wake of betrayal. They show up in all kinds of aspects of my life and I feel kinda hopeful that I am finally getting somewhere in terms of not letting those stories be in charge or recognizing that they are simply not true.
I'm so glad you enjoyed this post. Its a combo of my thoughts from doing Ali Shapiro's Truce with Food, free program and reading the Geneen Roth book above. Both are about our relationships food but not about that at all, really about our relationship with self. My biggest takeaway so far is that I can, actually, trust myself with food. Good stuff. :)
SS1 - oh how I wish you lived closer ... we would be fast friends for sure.
ReplyDeleteI've always battled with that feeling of not being enough. Childhood scars, broken relationships, unhappiness and I was well over 340 pounds. I managed to lose 200 pounds by tracking and "obsessing" over food in the healthy way. Funny thing - I still didn't feel like I was enough. I wasn't any happier. My husband didn't "love" me more ... desire me more ... in fact he often commented negatively about how much weight I had lost (truth be known ... I was really thin at times!).
I'm still sitting 140 pounds down from highest weight but my obsession with food no longer works for me. The battle of feeling like enough has a new enemy - the words he used against me on DDay - "our sex life was so vanilla", "she and I have so much in common", "she made me feel desired," "I can't cut things off with her because it would destroy her" ...
I started reading Loveable by Kelly Flanagan the other night. I needed a break from life and I was feeling rather "chumpish" so I took off from the house and just sat in our local coffee shop (emotionally eating a muffin ... but you can't win at all things right?). I shouldn't have been reading it in a public place. I had to keep wiping the tears and swallowing the lump.
One thing I have taken away from the 40 pages I've read ... I can't wait for someone or something to "heal" me. I have to be the one who sees me as enough. I don't know if I'll get there sooner rather than later ... but I know I want to be in that place!
Kimberly
Kimberly, hi! Yes I bet we would be friends. :) And what you say about losing the weight and still not feeling like enough is so true because we haven't dealt with the underlying stories and *stuff* that got us there. It doesn't magically fix the uncomfortable feelings. Instead we have to stare those in the face. And yes, you have to be the one who loves yourself fiercely. I do to. And I suspect that is the work of a lifetime. Its not a destination. But it is about cultivating self compassion for the moments when we fall down, or slip into old habits and then we catch ourselves and say, "yeah, that was a rough day, I can start over tomorrow." Just like meditating. When your mind wanders you come back to the breath over and over. Without judgement. xoxo
Delete“Obsessing about the OW keeps our mind off the fact that someone we trusted hurt us.”
ReplyDeleteYep. 100% guilty. I know I’ve mentioned many times that this has been an ongoing problem for me. I know what I need to do and I go for periods of time where I’m successful at not thinking about her. But almost like a security blanket, when it gets hard I reach for that one think that keeps me safe. Except it really doesn’t. It keeps me tied to an ugly part of my story.
For a long time i wanted revenge on her on the worst way. I would envision scenarios in which I could hurt her and damage her image and I would walk away magically healed. Now it’s so much different. The anger is gone. The comparisons are gone. I see her for what she is. I don’t feel sad for her because she’s made her own choices. So what’s left? Exactly what SS1 said. I’m now left with that fact that hurts. He hurt me. I trusted him and he hurt me. He promised me he wouldn’t be like previous boyfriends and then he did worse. He made me question why I ever trusted him in the first place.
And right now there’s a sadness that comes with just accepting that. There’s no answer that makes it feel better. There’s no justification for what he did.
I think it was Hopeful that said somewhere on this blog that her husband let her down, but he also let himself down. My husband lives with that now too.
I think this sadness I’m sitting with now is just one more part of the healing. Maybe it’s part of the acceptance. The next step for me is trying to let it go so I can see him for who he is now and not who he was when he hurt me.
Dandelion,
DeleteYour post touched my heart deeply. My husband's only "affair" was a two time event 40 years ago with a secretary and he cut it off. Knowing he slept with her one night while drunk was one thing but he confessed to a second time for a blow job. That told me a lot about him and his character or lack of it. All the rest of his dalliances were with paid prostitutes or massage parlors. I find that over the past almost four years since D-day I find myself occasionally "obsession about prostitutes, brothels and Asian massage parlors" and looking online to see how close they are to where we happen to be at the time. Your post really clarified this for me. It is that underlying hurt that he is the one who hurt me deeply with his choices. I trusted him unconditionally and even though on a conscious level I am doing 200% better than a year or two ago, this deep hurt is still there but masquerades as something else. I never put the two together until now. I sometimes wondered why I felt compelled to look online for that information and perhaps it is related to how I am feeling at the moment yet not recognizing that feeling for what it truly is. Deep hurt that does not easily reveal itself yet still lurks underneath all that I see and do in my waking hours.
Beach Girl,
DeleteI’m grateful that what I wrote helped a bit. I have to credit SS1 for helping me to see it. Like you, I’ve come a long way. There’s not much anger left, the tears come less frequently, and I do have lots of times where I’m incredibly happy, almost like my old self. But when triggered, I revert to what, in my mind, keeps me “safe”. And there is that lingering sadness. I do think it’s all part of the healing because I never thought I would get to where I am now.
Hugs! ❤️
Dandelion, Yes its tough to just sit with the sadness. That's when we fall back into old ways to check out. And there's grief and sadness that things didn't turn out as promised. It is part of the healing, the accepting what is. That's an incredible insight. xoxo
ReplyDeleteIt's so hard to break the obsession. The hyper vigilance is a way to make me feel like I am not going to miss something like I did before - too many times the internet became a place where I could find more answers than what my husband (at the time) was giving me. I know that now, obsessively checking her (and the other OW) social media accounts only hurts me. My husband could be sitting next to me and I could be looking at her social media. Why do I do that?! If he is sitting next to me, he's not with her! Our relationship is so different now. He is doing everything in his power to be better man and husband. and i believe him. yet i can't stop. ugh. it's so frustrating. I want to stop. I'm going to stop.
ReplyDeleteMG,
DeleteYou're not alone in this hyper-vigilance. It's a pretty common response and is part of the post-trauma of infidelity. The world feels unsafe and so we try to pre-empt being blindsided by "needing" to know everything we can. But it harming us. And, as we all know, all the vigilance in the world isn't going to stop someone from cheating on us.
So...we treat the post-trauma. I did something called EMDR, which is highly effective for post-trauma. I only needed a few sessions. Others do CBT. Are you in therapy?
Hello there, I'm in a strange place at the moment and struggling once more with the enormity of all my husbands actions, porn, money spent, lies, deception, emotional affairs, kisses with ex girlfriend, repeated incidents after repair (in 2017 going to lunch 'as friends' with women) even though he knew how wrong it was after everything. That's one key thing I might be able to forgive a slip or a bad patch but to hurt me again once he knew - so hard. But he then went to counselling to try to figure things out. So he's willing. But the problem is he is STILL doing things that are so thoughtless. I recently went back to work after 18 years minding the kids. Just before I asked him to take a few days off as an extended Easter holiday. I told him how important it was to me. It was also our wedding anniversary. But then he felt sorry for a (male) colleague whose mother had died and agreed to invade his holiday and our wedding anniversary by taking a meeting at work when he was meant to be off. He thought it would only take a couple of hours but it went on for most of the day, created lots of triggers, reminding me of all the years he put work first and work interuppted previous holidays, left me stuck at home and eventually not being able to contact him (his phone died) to see when he'd eventually get back etc. I also really needed him with me on that anniversary day because I felt (which he knew) that it was almost a day of grieving for a marriage now invaded by his emotional affair women etc rather than a day of celebration. The ironic thing is that I'm now working in the town where he went round holding hands and having walk, lunches and coffees with the OW and planning their lives together. In a way we've said that I've reclaimed the place but its bringing up a lot of anger as now I'm working I can see how privileged he was to work in such a scenic place, to have me at home making sure the kids were okay so he didn't have to worry, yet he felt entitled to go around with this woman and villify me. Now with this wedding anniversary incident (which he's discussing with his counsellor but not really doing much to make up for) I just feel why stick with this selfish man who instead of trying to be a kind loving husband after eveything he has done has once again ignored me when I asked for something important and had no sensitivity about the anniversary. He claims he cares but puts others first. I had sympathy for the man whose mother died but the meeting could have been postponed, my husband just can't say no to others but has not stopped taking me for granted even after all he has done. I feel he has killed any possibility of feeling between us. At a time when I'm finally seeing myself as a person in 3D again I'm wondering why I'm sticking around with this guy who might be a good friend and helpful father but has not done much to repair the emotional and romantic wound between us, make me feel that a romantic/loving relationship is possible. Any thoughts?
ReplyDeleteFOH,
DeleteHe clearly has ZERO boundaries when it comes to other people but has absolutely no trouble disappointing you. This is likely a dynamic that has existed for a long time. You're the "safe" person to disappoint -- he can, to some extent, handle your disappointment, because you have always remained. It's time to absolutely shift that dynamic. That can be done in a number of ways, including by separating. I think it comes down to, how long are you going let him continue to do this? You've given him AMPLE opportunity to do better. And here, when it's a really important day to you, you've stated clearly to him that you need him there and he just shrugs and then grabs at the first escape? Nope. Not okay. Absolutely nothing wrong with telling this other guy, "I'm really sorry but I can't meet with you today. Let's set another date." Or whatever. He chose to disappoint you over disappointing this other person. And what you are saying is that you no longer want to live like that.
So...now it's on you to figure out what you're going to do about it. You've got a wide range from setting a deadline re. therapy (ie. if I don't see a change in you in 8 weeks, then I'm going to xyz) to separating. But what I'm hearing is that, now that you're working and dealing with those triggers and it's hitting you AGAIN just how much you sacrificed while he gallivanted around, it's time to focus on you and what you need. And that's a really good thing. This is you setting boundaries. This is you refusing to settle for crumbs. This is you realizing that there's life beyond infidelity -- that you want a marriage beyond infidelity.
Elle nailed it! oh heck yes, what are YOU going to do, now? it's far from easy for you to make tough choices, but it's about making solid/sound decisions...I was my wasband's safety net for 15 years of marriage....I just didn't know it...on D-Day I kicked him out, he was not allowed back in the house...we have been separated two years...I found out more and more of his secret life over these past two years, it's been a nightmare of discovery for me...but I refused to be be his safety net after D-Day and he didn't fight for me or our marriage, nope, nothing...so please take care, decide what will make you feel safe/happy/loved/cared for and seek kindness...if your guy can't step up to the plate, well, is that the kind of life you want? it doesn't sound like it....so fight for your life, this one precious life...even if it means flying solo...big hugs...
DeleteThanks Elle, you've made some very astute comments there. Its been the same process with my husband and my eldest son. Both have been very good at pretending that I am giving them a hard time or have some character deficit when they wants to avoid taking responsibility for bad choices, both have found it easier to play up on someone (me) who has been (probably overly) helpful and kind rather than to stand up to or draw boundaries with others or behave how they should. I'm very much clearer than I was able to be before on calling out this kind of behaviour and not standing for it. I called out my husband on the fact that he claimed to be sorry for the anniversary fiasco but his actions showed none of that sorrow. In the past week or two he has showed up to being kind, thoughtful, remorseful etc and I'm seeing how he needs to keep laying down the patterns for that if he is to change his old habits. So it will benefit him as well. Otherwise I've told him, I have a deadline (in my own head) that I won't go beyond.
ReplyDelete