Monday, January 27, 2020

Is it time to quit?

There was little that my husband's father considered more loathsome than quitting. And so my husband played sports he no longer enjoyed, stayed at a school he hated, at jobs that were toxic.
To this day, my husband, who is more than a half-century old, can be crippled by the words "What are ya, a quitter?"
And, yes, sometimes quitting is lazy. Sometimes, it's a way of avoiding hard but rewarding work.
But sometimes, many times in fact, quitting is the smartest thing we can do.
Sometimes quitting is about knowing what's right for us...and what's wrong. It's about respecting ourselves, honoring our time and energy. Sometimes, it can open us up to the possibility that things can be different rather than keeping us stuck in the mud, spinning our wheels and getting absolutely nowhere.
It took me a long time to consider that quitting could be a good thing. As the child of an addict, we are groomed to try harder, do better, give one more chance, believe that this time – this time! – things will be different.
And, to some extent, it worked. After a decade, my mother got sober. After a few tries, she stayed sober. Concluding that my patience and stick-to-it-iveness worked (experts in addiction call this "magical thinking"), I doubled down on my "I'm not a quitter and will therefore be rewarded" attitude out in to the world.
Nobody was beyond redemption, every situation was tolerable, as long as I could believe things would get better.
Not surprisingly, I stayed in friendships that were toxic, and then a seven-year relationship that everybody but me could see was never going to get better. Volunteer opportunities in which I didn't want to let people down. Jobs that underpaid me. 
Yeah. I know. But only in hindsight.
Still, that first lesson – that someone I loved could change if only I stuck with them long enough – was etched on my heart, carved deep into my brain. 
Thing is, my mom got sober because she wanted to get sober. It had nothing to do with my patience or my loyalty.
She changed because she wanted to. 
Unfortunately lots of people don't.
And all our waiting and wishing and magical thinking isn't going to make them change. 
Consider this:
You're having the same fight for the 1000th time and you don't feel an inch closer to understanding each other.
He's insisting that his anger is your fault.
He belittles you, dismisses you, treats you like a liability not as asset.
He refuses to get help because "I'm not the one with the problem."
When someone won't be accountable for their behaviour; when he won't seek help despite others pointing out he needs it; when he wants you to "move past this" without actually working through the reckoning; when he wants things to go back the way they were because he benefited from that while you didn't...
Then, my friends, perhaps (probably!) it's time to quit. 
Your presence in another's life should be earned, not taken for granted.
And though I am a fierce believer in people's ability to change, to transform, to reinvent themselves, to learn from their mistakes, we cannot allow the potential for that to blind us to a reality in which they are not.
The only person you should never give up on is yourself. 

8 comments:

  1. So much yes to this. It's not quitting to walk away from a situation or person that is bad for you. It is actively choosing yourself. It feels crazy at first, putting our own wants and needs and well-being ahead of others' and those others will often attempt to make us feel crazier for doing so. They want us back where they are comfortable with us. Walking away or quitting can sometimes be the bravest thing you do.

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    1. So true. Those of us who were taught to put our needs behind others particularly struggle with this. Who am I to want more than I have? Who am I to think I deserve better? Who we are are people who need to begin to treat themselves as if we matter, because we do. We matter as much as anyone else.

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  2. I am there right now. My husband cheated with a woman for 4 years. Because of his profession, when I found out, he lost his job. We eventually separated because he was "in love" with the woman and we eventually separated. We are now living together and in counseling. I've held him as he cried about how hurt she must be now that they are broken up but never once have I seen him cry over the pain he caused me over that four years. We are 60 so I wonder if he's trying to hold onto me or just the life we built because it would be so hard to start over and he would have to deny every moral he ever professed to believe. I must admit, I'm terrified that I'm going to find out he's still seeing her or seeing her again. We've been married almost 40 years and I thought we were happy. He even told me he was when I asked him. So I'm wondering if I lived my whole life with someone who didn't love me. I want true love. I deserve to have it. So I'm biding my time, going through the counseling and praying that God will breathe new life into our relationship.

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    1. Anonymous,
      I'm so sorry. Your pain is palpable in the words you wrote.
      I'm curious...why do you comfort him when he's crying about another woman? I'm wondering if you've spent years caretaking for him while he wreaks havoc on your life. Where's the comfort for you? I think you're going to have to change the dynamic in your relationship if you want him to wake up and realize what he has. Sounds like he takes you for granted and you're right, you deserve so much better than that.

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    2. Thank you Elle. I am really seeing that our relationship has been one sided. Even he will admit that now. Our counselor said that it concerned him that he was still having worries about the other woman's feelings. He corrected my husband very strongly on that point but told me that after being in a relationship with her for 4 years, he does have feelings for her so it will take time for him to get over her and the guilt he feels because he not only was involved with her but was a father figure to her daughter too. I have been his caretaker while he did very little caretaking of me emotionally. When I found out about this, I was so upset that I had to quit my job. Since then, I have been re-discovering myself, the things I like to do and thinking about what I want to do with what life I have left. It may or may not include him. LIke I said, I am just biding my time and waiting to see what happens with the counseling. We are pretty early into all of this.

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    3. AtypicalPW,
      I'm really glad to hear that you're getting to know (and like!) yourself again. That is going to serve you really well as you move forward, with or without him. And yes, makes sense that your husband will have conflicted feelings about this OW but that he expects YOU to comfort him shows a complete ignorance of healthy boundaries and a total lack of empathy for you. His feelings about this OW should be as invisible as possible to you. And YOUR pain, your confusion, your grief should be prioritized right now.

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  3. Thank you for this affirmation. My husband and I have been married for 7 1/2 years and together totally for 10. I experienced the 1st affair during our 1st year of marriage. I had just had our son who will be 7 I'm a few weeks and I was also taking care of his other 5 children from his 1st marriage. He lied repeatedly about the affair and what transpired. And one day the other woman called me and told me everything. And I felt like my world was shattered. He begged me to stay, promisee it would never happen again, and he would get counseling (which only lasted for a month). 6 years later we're reliving another discretion. This one worst than the 1st one.
    This time not only did he have an affair, but he contracted an STD and gave it to me. To add insult to injury, he didn't even tell me he had an STD. The doctors office called me looking for him because they couldn't contact him and I was his next of kin. He went to the doctor and got himself treated and didn't even tell me. He just allowed me to walk around clueless. And when I confronted him about the entire thing he denied it and tried to blame it on me. Not the other woman but me! He won't talk about what happened, he won't talk to me, and he has made very little effort to accept accountability for his actions. I know I need to let go, but it is a hard pill to swallow. No one deserves the amount of disrespect he has given me, not even a dog. And the sad part is he sees no wrong in this behavior, he blames me for the affair. I know I need to move on with my life and let this marriage go because I deserve so much better. But again, very hard to do.

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    1. Hard, I know. But as you note, nobody deserves this lack of respect, this total disregard for your health, for your sanity, for your role as mother of his child. This man is seriously disturbed and you cannot fix him. That's an inside job and one that he seems to be refusing to take on.
      You can, however, save yourself and do everything you can to give your son a stable, healthy environment. It will be incredibly hard. But the right thing to do is often not the easy thing to do. You will find a strength that you might not have known you had. You are fighting for yourself and your son. And a mother's fight is fierce.
      I am so sorry for what you're going through. I'm stunned by his treatment of you. But heartened by your refusal to tolerate it any longer. Lawyer up. Make sure you are protected financially. And please know that you have an army of women here who are rooting for you. You will heal from this. You will move on. He will be left with himself and, undoubtedly, any number of unhealthy partners willing to put up with his casual cruelty.

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