Thursday's Thought

 

Heartbreak at Any Age

An old weathered heart can still break.

My 17-year-old is nursing a broken heart. After spending much of the summer with a certain young man, she asked him what, exactly, they were doing. In other words, was she his girlfriend? His responses – "I'm too busy for a relationship"; "It's not fair to you because I'm so busy"; "I like you but..." – has made it clear that her desire for more is not his desire. At least not right now.

And so...her heart breaks.
My daughter is kind. She's beautiful. Smart. Funny. She's also achingly open-hearted. Loyal. Guileless. Though there have been a few boys interested in her, none held her attention as anything more than friends. Until this one.
She's had trusted friends suddenly turn on her – some teenage girls can be merciless. Excluded from groups. She was stung by their cruelty. And sad.
But this is different. Perhaps not for her – she seems to be dealing with her heartbreak in healthy ways, seeking out fun with other friends, throwing her energy into school work and extracurriculars.
Nope, this time it's different for me.
Since my daughter confided her heartbreak to me a few days ago, I've felt sick. Food tastes bland. I can't sleep. I have a rock in my stomach that won't budge. I'm having a hard time concentrating on work. My heart aches. There's a weight on my chest. It feels, for all the world, like D-Day all over again.
So I'm putting into practice all the advice I'm forever offering to each of you: I've laced up my sneakers and am trying to walk my way to clarity. I'm trying to eat something – soup, smoothie, anything healthy that goes down easy. I'm meditating to make space for the feelings rather than pushing them away. I'm trusting that these feelings won't sweep me away into an abyss. That they will abate.
Clearly this is triggering in me deep feelings of loss and grief that have nothing to do with this particular boy (who, incidentally, I would like to throttle). I would give anything to spare my daughter this particular pain, one that cuts into our sense of who we are, that challenges our belief in our worth.
I remind her, gently, that she will likely go through this a few more times at least – heartbroken at being rejected or heartbroken at rejecting another. Rejection. It's a cruel word. One that speaks to our sense of feeling alone. Cast aside. Unvalued.
But we can withstand rejection when we don't reject ourselves. I'm reminding my daughter that this boy's inability to place value on her right now is a reflection of him, not her. A diamond unrecognized is still a diamond. 
And I assure her that, no matter what life dishes up, I will, as long as I'm alive, provide her a soft place to fall. But that I hope she'll continue to create such a space for herself. To be gentle with herself. To keep her heart open to all life has to offer, including the really really tough bits.
I'm heartened to see she's instinctively encouraging her own healing. She's spending time with a friend who's going through his own heartbreak – the two are shoring each other up and making each other laugh. She's launched herself into a running campaign with plans to tackle a 5K race in a few weeks. Yesterday, during lunchtime, she sought out the practice room at her school and played piano, texting me that she just thought she "needed to be alone."
In the meantime, my D-Day Revisited continues. So I try, really really try, to follow her lead.

My Heartbreak, My Rules

In a recent comment related to her post, Steam wrote four words that have resonated with so many readers. In her effort to give all betrayed wives the permission to insist upon what they need to heal, she wrote that each of us gets to declare "my heartbreak, my rules." Now she tells us how she came to understand that.

by Steam

So many things we share are universal.

The shredding of our souls.

Our trust. 

The entire life we thought we were living that now feels one big sham.

We don't understand.

We don't feel loved.

We are sad.

We are angry.

We come to know our bed, our pillow, the floor very well.

We become one with the tears and the despair.

We feel helpless.

But of of this there was one other thing that I found.

Resolve.

Although my husband has never in his life uttered an unkind word to me, he did have issues – a drinking problem – and for years I had made false threats (which felt real to me despite me using them repeatedly for seven of our 15-year relationship). 

I was going to kick him out, I had had enough, blah blah blah. BLAH.

But when I found out about his betrayal? Everything changed. No longer were my threats false.

I did not know at the time that I would have "rules". I didn't know I was allowed to have any.

But when I got off the floor after D-Day – and I really was on the floor – I said:

Write her an email NOW, tell her it's over NOW or just fucking GO to her. NOW.

And I meant it.

Thus, my first rule. And I didn't ask anyone permission to have it.

Something PRIMAL just kicked in.

You go to her or give her up NOW. Rule number one. 

Not so extraordinary right?

Next, I didn't ask for, I demanded the passwords to all of his e-mail accounts, fake and real. And later his bank and Amazon and Paypal accounts.

Part of me felt hopelessly needy for wanting these things. I felt bossy and controlling. 

I demanded them anyway.

That was rule number two. I was making up rules as I went along. I just knew what I needed to have to survive

Later I learned that I did the right thing. I needed that information to build trust again. He might have needed to give it up to stay honest.

Had he refused, he would have been gone.

He knew that this time I was not toying with the idea of kicking him out.

My foot was poised.

I had hit my limit.

My heart had been shattered into a million pieces.

I had my heartbreak.

I could also have rules.

My heartbreak, my rules.

Growing up in a repressed household where "what do you have to be depressed about?" was a family mantra, admitting all these years later that I needed constant reassurance was not easy.

Admitting that I needed some (but not all)  details of his encounter was torture.

Admitting that I felt weak and needed help was excruciating.

But finding out through my therapist that everything I wanted was reasonable was a game changer.

I could have rules!

I could have boundaries.

I could ask him – even demand – that he give something up (the women and the drinking and the deception).

Yes I could! 

To find that out was astounding.

I could say "screw this 'free to be me' bullshit.

If you think you are free to sleep with others – well sure but not while you are with ME.

To find I could ask him for support and reassurance and demand passwords was a revelation.

To find out that I was not completely off the mark was shocking.

To insist on talks, walks, dates, time, time, time, help, talk, reassurance, touch, talk, listening, help – 

NORMAL.

To find out that feeling needy or crazy wasn't unusual, these feelings after betryal are almost  universal.

That needing support wasn't weakness – it was normal.

That wanting proof and the truth was not out of line – it was necessary.

Asking for complete transparency was not being selfish.

To not just find this out but believe it was empowering.

Healthy people, I came to understand, lived by these rules every day. They just  often don't have to spill them or write them down. Healthy people just know!

I often say that had my husband not been remorseful, honest and incredibly sorry I don't know where "we" would be today.

But he was, and we are doing remarkably well and maybe it's because he didn't run and I didn't run.

Instead I immediately put my foot down, firmly in place and firmly grounded, asked if he wanted to work this out, and if he did I proclaimed in my heart and later aloud "my heartbreak, my rules."

Getting Tired of Your Own Bullshit

Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love and the more recent novel The Signature of All Things, as well as survivor of heartbreak if not infidelity) knows plenty about picking herself up and dusting herself off. And then, of course, moving forward. 

She had this to say yesterday on Facebook:

Dear Ones:
Yesterday I wrote on Twitter, "I've never seen any life transformation that didn't begin with the person in question finally getting tired of their own bullshit." 
(My own life transformation MOST DEFINITELY included.)
Can you think of an example of anyone who ever earnestly changed themselves without first doing an honest accounting of their own mess? Or without taking accountability for their own dysfunctional behaviors, their own self-inflicted dramas, their own role in the dreadful storyline, their own lies, their own manipulations, their own willful blindness, their own enabling, their own addiction to being the victim, their own addiction to aggression, to fear, to blame, to never being wrong, or to always being wrong?
I don't mean to say that transformation begins with sitting down and whipping yourself into a hot froth of shame for all your horrible faults. (Addiction to self-abuse is just another garbage storyline — another way of delaying your own transcendence and dragging attention and energy away from your destiny.) 
But I've never seen any sincere transformation that didn't start with somebody sitting down and being soberly, calmly, bravely honest with herself.
...
Don't let your ego or your damage con you into thinking that change is possible for other people, but not for you. 
Don't be seduced by your limitations. They have nothing to offer you but stagnation. 

So often women post on this site about feeling trapped. How their lives have been "ruined". I know those feelings really well. I felt trapped for months, if not years. I felt like my life had been sacrificed for my husband's happiness and that I was helpless to do anything about it. I was so, so angry. And felt so, so powerless.
And then, I smartened up. I realized that if my life was a mess, then it was up to me to clean it up. Not up to my husband (he could either stay and participate in the clean-up or he could take his mess elsewhere), or my parents, or my children. Me. I may not have made it, but I was living in it.
It's the same for all of us.
In the early days following discovery of a spouse's affair, this can seem overwhelming. And sometimes you need to just take the time to breathe. 
But when that moment comes when you're sick of your own bullshit (not to mention HIS!), you know what to do.

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My High School Reunion: Facing a Friend Who Betrayed Me

I recently attended my 30th high school reunion. I was nervous. So nervous, in fact, that I had decided not to go. High school wasn't a laugh-riot for me though I wasn't bullied. My marks were good. I had friends. 
Sadly though, one of those friends betrayed me. After two years of being with the first boy I'd said I loved, the first boy I had sex with, we broke up when I went to school in another city. Days after we broke up and just days before I left, I went to a party. There, on a couch sitting on my now-ex's lap, was my friend.
You could say that what she did was fine -- after all, he and I had broken up. We weren't technically going out. That's essentially what she said.
But I know better.
Friends don't do that to other friends. There are enough guys in the world that, unless you're convinced this one is your soulmate and you're willing to sacrifice your friendship for that, you can obey the law of the sisterhood. She and he broke up a month or two later when she started dating another guy. 
It took me years to get over my anger. Her name made my blood boil. The thought of her having any measure of happiness in life seemed like a bad karmic joke. Eventually I got past it, though I've nursed a simmering resentment for the decades since.
So when she was one of the first to RSVP to the reunion, I decided to just stay home.
At the last minute, however, I changed my mind. 
I'd had a mind-shift. I remembered back to what I knew of her before she dated my ex. She craved attention from men. She was self-absorbed. Almost childish at times. With what I know now, it's easy for me to recognize that she desperately needed validation from others (men!) that she was worthy. She's now on husband #3 so apparently she's still looking.
But I was able to recognize that her dating my ex wasn't about trying to hurt me. It wasn't about me at all. Surely she knew that my still-aching heart would be a casualty of her choice. But obviously I didn't matter more than her need to have someone pick her.
I decided that I would attend the reunion and that I would let go of 30 years of bitterness. That I would note the fact that all of us had undoubtedly changed in three decades, including me. 
So I did. 

She sought me out. Not to apologize – I doubt that even dawned on her – but simply to catch up. In the course of our conversation she made note of another event, when she'd suddenly quit a job that I'd got for her. A good job. I had thought it was because I'd been promoted and she was jealous. Turns out she quit because when she asked for an upcoming night off to attend a school dance the supervisor said she could have it off...if she gave him a blow job.

I was stunned. I'd had no idea.

I realized how often we make assumptions about others' actions based on a piece of information, not the whole story. I asked why she'd never told me what happened. "Because I thought I'd done something wrong," she said. Instead, without the maturity or perspective that comes with age and confidence, she quit.

What my friend did to me still sucks. It's still something that I hope my daughter never does to a friend. But the bitterness has, for the most part, evaporated. I feel sorry for her. For her unquenchable need to be adored. For her own inability to admit her shortcomings. For her continued quest to fill from the outside what can only be filled from within.

She recently had a health scare and she told me that when her third husband came into the hospital where she'd been taken that the look on his face – total panic – made her finally realize how much she mattered to him. In that instant, she said, she realized that this was truly the man for her. Her marriage, she said, changed. It became a priority. 

I was glad to hear. Finally. 

Face Your Pain? A Radical Therapy for a Broken Heart

We're a society that hates pain, of any kind. We reach for Tylenol, or a glass of wine, or a shopping expedition...anything to make our uncomfortable feelings go away, even for just a short time.
When your heart has been shattered through betrayal, those same escapes beckon...but rarely work. Or certainly don't work for long.
What does work?
The answer is as surprising as it is simple. Feel your feelings. That's right. Stop wishing things were different. Or distracting yourself with food, alcohol, men or any other poison of choice.
Accept that this is excruciating. But know that it won't cripple you. You are stronger than this. You will survive. It will take time. But that time can be dramatically shortened by going through the pain, rather than trying to get around it.
Consider all those actions that always seemed too flakey (or was that just me?): meditation, silence, journaling... Anything that encourages you to face your feelings. They're just feelings, as one wise soul (okay, she's my therapist) often reminds me, not facts. And feelings are neither right or wrong, they just are.

If you're going through heartbreak, what are you doing for yourself?
If you've survived betrayal, what helped you through?