Stepping out of the Ring

In therapy it was explained to me that how she sees us working towards a positive resolution in our relationship, "depends on how much he is prepared to change his ways". My immediate response was to note that this is highly unlikely - after all I do know something about this man after two decades joined at the hip. When he left to go to his individual session, for what he said would be the last time, and I wished him well and hoped that it would be constructive - he turned to me and said that "there is very little she and I can do to change you. You are set on your path and have decided where you are going, so there is very little we can do. I think it is a waste of time unless you choose to change." I suggested he just start with that statement and hear what she advises, and see what can be done. He left with no response.

Let me Qualify...

In a quiet moment, my husband felt the need to, what he termed; "pour his heart out to me and tell me how he felt". I was silent and listened for a while - there was nothing new said, but he was obviously in a mood of reasoning, honesty, and what I hoped was a new perspective, and looking at the whole situation with a bit more clarity. I was not planning on reacting or passing any comment - just the opposite, wanting to be silent and listen. I was passionless, and would not be drawn in - the memory of him retracting any niceties just recently has made me unemotional and not 'hooked' by his words - I will not be swayed by too much hope in his words.

Bending our Own Reality

I caught myself blanking out negative events which I were not enjoyable or constructive, but which had really taken place and either upset me or went against what I wanted my reality to be. Thankfully, and this is how I discovered how good I was at not storing unpleasant memories, I had written the incidents down the same day. Days later I had a niggling feeling something had happened that would be helpful to take into consideration when dealing with the present situation - I pulled out my notes, and had to read them a couple of times, so that I could finally put myself back in the story and really remember what I had felt during this unpleasant incident.

The Awakening

There comes a time every so often, when one needs to feed one's soul and re-read the THE AWAKENING by Sonny Carroll:

A time comes in your life when you finally get it ... When in the midst of all your fears and insanity you stop dead in your tracks and somewhere, the voice inside your head cries out - ENOUGH! Enough fighting and crying, or struggling to hold on. And you begin to look at the world through new eyes.  This is your awakening ... 
You realize that it's time to stop hoping and waiting for something to change, or for happiness, safety and security to come galloping over the next horizon. You come to terms with the fact that there aren't always fairy tale endings (or beginnings for that matter) and that any guarantee of 'happily ever after' must begin with you and in the process, a sense of serenity is born of acceptance. 

Energy Redistribution

After our first couples therapy session, ever, we argued the rest of the day and did not stop for five days - it got worse and more uncompromising than ever. I felt very hard and dry inside with my heels firmly dug in the earth. I was ready to write to the therapist to cancel the next appointment - it seemed pointless. His interpretation of what was said during the session is so different from mine.
I just give up... but I have not stopped working on myself, and I now make myself aware of being grateful for even the bad things that are happening, because they show me so clearly what I don't want or can't live with. Within my heart I really feel like I am in a good place, amazingly - it does not always feel like it on the outside, but when i quietly go within, I am happy and at peace.
My Heart made me aware of a startling situation (my Head freaked when it heard this!):

Heart to Head

My Brother gently gave me his sage advice, borne out of recent experience in the disruption of marital relations and the pain of juggling shared parenting. Once again I was taken aback by the generosity of spirit, the non-judgemental attitude (true love!) and the validations of me as an individual whose thoughts are not as way off as I have been led to believe. He said the following: "Whilst philosophically sound your truth will need to be played out in real life, everyday life. Mom and I will support you in this journey without judgement in which ever path you choose. The first thing I learnt in my experience, is that whatever path is chosen, the child must be and must remain the primary focus. Everything else comes second.

Clear as Mud

My truth and what I wanted to release (see Letting Go and Love without Need) was perceived as a complete reversal of my previous agreement - His reply was long-winded but it ended on a promising (and somewhat romantic) note, and tells his side of the story and how he sees me:   "... from the day you returned to me 22 years ago, it has been my desire to spend every waking moment with you and sharing every sunrise and every sunset. Suddenly this last year this has not been convenient to and it is not convenient to any woman who is suddenly on the prowl in the hope of attracting a younger and more handsome mate. So this I do understand .and have no defence for I understood there would be a possibility of this being the consequence of you choosing to fall in love at 18 with a man 21 years your senior.

You made you choice, you took the marriage vows and you have no valid reason to excuse yourself. I love you, I adore you, I enabled you huge freedoms, which you have enjoyed and I want as my greatest wish that you be happy and fulfilled so I am prepared as you know to come to any arrangement to ensure life is a comfortable and fulfilled as possible. There is no limit to the reasonable accommodations I am prepared to concede to ensure your stated wishes..."

However in the days that followed it became clear that he did not quite understand my letter of Letting Go, so within a week, whilst lying in my hammock contemplating my soul, I penned another, hopefully clearer more concrete 'agreement' as Further Clarification: A Blueprint for the basic attitudes with which to live, now that our relationship has changed...

Love without Need

I continued from Letting Go... "We do not need to turn this into a tragedy. We need to see it as the beginning of something even more beautiful – even better.

I am not suggesting this change in our relationship because I want something I cannot get within it. But rather because I feel your actions and attitude to both our marriage and life in general, are destructive to my feelings of wanting to expand/grow myself. I feel repressed, trapped and constricted. I feel like I have to be someone you want me to be rather than explore who I really am and can become. I am frustrated and feel reduced by your attitudes and actions and I would love to have your agreement to let it go and strike up a course of action in which everybody can win. Please understand, there is NO blame here, and I am most definitely NOT blaming you. You are free to behave as you wish, and I was, and am, free to choose to agree with it or not. I chose to follow your rules for the last 22 year, not grow my own, but obey.

You have asked many times how I feel towards you now...

Letting Go

Well... the plot I laid out in My Private Soap Opera didn't work out too well! One month later, to the day, he was not satisfied that his share of the Trade had been adhered to well enough by me, plus, he had broken my deal-breakers by discussing our (particularly my) sex life to others.

During this time, two quotes really struck a note with me: 'Promises are worse than lies, because you don't just make them believe, you also give them hope; for something you're not sure you can do.'
and 'Betrayal of the self in order not to betray another is the worst type of betrayal'.
So once again on this 22nd day of the month, during a precious scheduled time to myself (which was the major part of the agreements we had reached), I sat down and the following words flowed out of me, producing this letter which I presented to Him:

My Private Soap Opera

When was the pilot episode of this soap opera of my relationship?
This is not an easy question to answer... a reference point was earlier this year when I just HAD to come up with a solution to the very real problems in our relationship which were getting worse - and without having defined or clarified them, even within myself, I took the symptoms and tried to find remedies for each. This was the best I could do at the time. I had not yet gone through the painful months of analysing and distilling the emotions, all the reams of reading in books and online, trying to find some sort of root causes.
After a very late night tearful and emotionally draining discussion, where I broached the subject of what I needed now in my life and maybe we should consider trying it out, and we did... for a whole month, then all hell broke loose...

My Truth vs Your Truth

This post is a letter I wrote to my spouse in response to his proclamation « You are a silly little girl and you don’t know what you want ».

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Yes Darling, you gave me whatever I asked for throughout our 22+ year relationship. No, you did nothing wrong, and wanted nothing but the best for me. And I really appreciated it all.

It was made very clear early in our relationship, that for us to continue, I could not be my own person, that doing anything or even wanting to do anything separate from you, or not shared with you, would constitute that I did not love you, and the relationship would not work. Also it was made clear that I should feel as if I earned all the benefits you were bestowing on me, hence my work over the years for you and your companies.

The Exposed Me

I am a soul who has been hidden for too long. It decided this year, enough is enough, it is time to emerge and be visible! What a painful year 2012 has been, and yet I created it - it must be a big lesson I am trying to get through from my heart into my consciousness. But stop it or slow it down - I cannot. And it keeps bursting forth in my notes to myself... which I have always written, but which were never intended to be read.

I have a huge aversion to sharing my real or deepest feelings - this excruciatingly personal process of exposing my soul is so contrary to my past natural behavior... This morning this blog idea just popped into my consciousness (clearly coming from my soul) and it amused me so much.
So here goes, if for no other reason than the irony of it makes me smile!
I thought, let me put my heart-thoughts, head-thoughts, wisdom and soul-humour into a blog... maybe somewhere out there someone is also going through a similar sort of relationship with their soul and they would like to read or share whatever insights my soul is giving me, and perhaps they could relate to this and take comfort in knowing that someone else is going through this cataclysmic change coming from within.
And when I am at a loss as to how to handle the force of the evolution and how it affects ones closest relationships with spouses, children, parents, family and friends - in other words, the world out there, perhaps I could get feedback from other emerging souls on how to put things in perspective,  prioritise values, find solutions, and follow a path of choice.

If nothing else, I will enjoy putting all that is inside, out there! It seems like a symbolic gesture of putting my heart on my sleeve - making my soul visible - so as to become my authentic self.

A note to the reader - no matter how much I share, you will never get a full understanding of the entire situation, and when individual incidents are highlighted, a very skewed perspective can be drawn, and added to that; you are only hearing my side of the story. So please treat these drama's with that in mind - they are not isolated, stand-alone incidents. 

I do not blame, and I have no expectation for apologies. If I understand, then there is no requirement to forgive (does not mean I agree with or condone it). If I have no need or expectation of a need to be met, then there is no fear nor resultant anger (actually, that last one is for Saints I think - I'm still human! :)

"The Authentic Self is the Soul made Visible" - Sarah Ban Breathnach

...If you are keen to read the next post in this revealing story, click here: Kick Started by a Free Spirit
...Or choose from any number of my posts Here: The Visible Soul - listed from the earliest at the bottom, to the most recent at the top.