Tag Archives: Accountability

Let It Be

Posted on by learning to live like water

let it be

This morning I chose a guided meditation on acceptance. It seemed quite clear to me after my last blog, Still Waiting, that I was not doing a good job of accepting what is. I have been holding on, waiting for some resolution, some miracle of understanding to happen.

The guided part of the meditation asks, “What would your life be like if you could accept someone else’s point of view all the time?” I remember thinking, “I can’t…accept lies and deception of another person as a way to achieve personal satisfaction….I can’t.” As the guided part ended and I slipped into the gap, I thought, but why not just accept what happened, as just what happened? Why not, just allow it to be, since it is, it was, what happened? Why fight this forever?

And, at least, for that 20 minutes, I accepted it. I accepted the pain, and the heartache, and that I loved him, and who he was, and who I was, and the lessons I learned, and the place to which it has brought me. Without judgment. Without tears, without any emotion about it. I just observed it, as an experience of my life.

Which is exactly how I view my long relationship with my ex-husband. I can see the good, the bad, the ending, the beginning, the differences, the pain, the joy….

And for that time while I was in that deep gap of silence, and maybe longer, I can see the same with Scott. It was good, it was bad, it was thwarted because of his inability to be accountable for his actions. His actions before me, his actions with me. His actions with her. I don’t judge, I actually have a good idea what burdens he carries. And that he carries even more now, somewhere deep inside that damaged psyche. For that I can have compassion.

I accept it is the way it is. At least for now. It may not last. But it may. It seemed to resonate on a deeper level than before. I can only hope. I can only be mindful, as I move through the next days, weeks, months, and let it be.

Which is ironic, it’s what he always wanted me to do, lol. Let it be. Don’t tell her, let it be. Don’t ask that question, let it be. Don’t look for answers, let it be.

Suddenly, I think I can let it be, but only because I have answered my questions, I know what happened, I see quite clearly. I stood in my own truth, I did what I needed to do. The story is written, the truth came out, the whole truth. The rest of the story unfolded as it should have, and my story continues to unfold, as does his, as does hers, but those are none of my business.

So I’ll let it be. Right now, I stop asking questions, I stop holding on to the trauma and the pain and the love….. Just let it be. It was an experience. Like taking a trip, like taking a drive, like any other experience. I may have learned more from it, and so I will be grateful for it. I don’t wish it never happened, because then I would not have known that I can still love passionately, unconditionally. I would not know that trust needs to be earned. I would not know that unconditional love has to extend to ourselves first. Always.

Acceptance. I hope I can continue to let it be. I know that the waves may still wash over me, I hope I can go back to this place, and let the waves come in, and go. Let the tide rise and fall again. I hope I can find the man I’m looking for somewhere along the tideline. Where all the treasure washes up.

Choices

Posted on by learning to live like water

I had an unusual conversation with A last night.  He had taken a “good morning” pic of himself in his bathrobe, and said something like “Good morning sweet Deb” or something, but sent it to the woman who he’s been seeing in Santa Fe by mistake.  It was not risque, it’s something he does every day.  But, of course, it did not make her happy…..

I felt bad for her, really, and for him.  He likes her, and I’m sure it would be hard for her to understand our intimate but non-sexual relationship.  I asked him about the other woman up in Michigan, and he said she was off with her “other” boyfriend.   He’s thinking he’s not going to try to be monogamous.   The woman in Michigan is obviously not, the woman in Santa Fe obviously wants to be, but apparently that picture ended it between them.

I told A I could never NOT be monogamous, I can’t do casual sex.  I said, “S would have been happy if I could have done it.”  LOL.  Personally, I don’t see A as the casual sex type, and in fact, I’m pretty sure if I agreed to have a relationship with him that way, he would be completely faithful to me.  I think if he falls in love again, he will be monogamous.  I think he’s just craving affection right now, reacting to the fact that I had to shut down the plans to get together over Christmas.  I know I broke his tender heart again.  I had to be honest.  Maybe it was too soon for me, but I think it was just chemistry.  I have tried before to feel passion for him, and I sometimes feel it but it never lasts.  I want to feel it for someone like I did for S, every day, every moment.  I want to be enough for the person I feel like that about, and he will be enough for me.

I don’t want to share, I don’t do it.  Don’t want to even know how to do it.  S once told me I can change myself so I’m not so jealous.  I said, I don’t want to…..I see no benefit in it.  S felt every relationship was different, what he had with one person he could never have with another, so he wasn’t sharing.   No, except his body.  His intimacy.  Probably his thoughts and feelings.  The things that make a relationship special, and wonderful, to have one person who knows you and cares for you, and has your back.

Nope, not interested in multiple partners.

But the difference between A and S is that A will tell a woman up front, that she is not the only one.  He won’t pretend to two women that they are the only ones, and then do what he wants, the way S did.  A will give a woman a choice first, if she wants to be with him when he might be with someone else.  Neither me or Betty was given that choice, we were taken by deception.

A can stand in his truth and be himself, and own his story.  S cannot.

A has never been anything but monogamous.  I don’t think this choice will last for him anyway.  I think he’s just looking for affection til he finds love.

Interesting, though.  To compare A’s telling me this, honestly, and S playing me (and Betty) for the same end.  I wish he’d been honest with me.  That’s all.  So I could have chosen to have done what I did with  him, knowing the truth, or chosen not to.  But he took my choice away with lies and deception.  We cannot even be friends now, the truth would have at least salvaged a friendship.  It’s too bad that he chose that road.  It’s too bad that he still has not owned it, at least with me.

He will say he has.  He said he will pay 5 lifetimes for what he did to me.  But that statement is about him….how it affects him.  It has nothing to do with acknowledging how it affected me.  It is about how he will pay, not about how I already paid the price for loving him so much.  He’s sorry because he will have to pay.  He’s not sorry that I had to deal with lies and betrayal by someone I completely adored.  He can’t feel my pain, he can only feel his own.  I would guess he feels his own pain with Betty too, but I doubt that he can feel the real pain that he caused her with is lies and deception too.

I have managed to pick myself up, on my own.  To take the hand of the universe, and my friends, and stand back up, dust myself off, bandage and care for my own wounds.  S caused utter devastation and walked away from it, uncaring, unfeeling.  Truth be told he did that with Betty too.  He called her on the phone to tell her, he couldn’t go to her house and face her pain. I told him to go sit with her while she read the hard truths in my letter to her, and face her pain, and deal with it. To let her see him deal with it.  But he didn’t.  He left her alone, to deal with it by herself, as he did me once the truth came out.

At least he treated us equally.

Any way, my feeling is when you choose not to be monogamous, especially physically, you open the door to pain and hurt.  At least, you have to be like A and say it up front, and let someone have free will and choice in whether or not they wish to be with you.  I would always choose not to be with someone who was with other women.  Always.  I should have been given that choice with S.

 

“BRAVING” Trust

Posted on by learning to live like water

BRAVING-2I am a HUGE Brene Brown fan.  Also  HUGE Elizabeth Gilbert fan. (Not at all surprised they are good friends.)  One or the other of them always pops up saying exactly what I need to hear at the exact time I need to hear it.  It is amazing how the universe puts the people you most need square in your path when you most need them.

The day after S so thoughtlessly and cruelly dumped me, I saw Brene on SuperSoulSunday talking about her new book, Rising Strong, and I had it downloaded onto my kindle before the show was over.  I went on FB yesterday and one of the first posts was Liz Gilbert posting a new Brene talk on “The Anatomy of Trust.”

It is quintessential Brene, full of personal stories, making us laugh, and cry, just being so real, and teaching us what we need to know about trust.  I watched it, it’s only about 10 or 15 minutes, and then watched it again with a pen and paper to make notes.

Naturally, I was filtering my recent break-up as I watched it.

She created an anagram for building trust.  It is B R A V I N G.  Because when we trust someone we are “braving” connection, making ourselves vulnerable.  Here’s the down-low.

B – Boundaries.  For trust to develop between people, boundaries have to be set and kept by both parties.  With S, I had one.  Don’t have sex with anyone else if you’re having it with me.  Pretty clear.  He had a lot….and they weren’t clear, they were subjective.  Don’t ask too much, don’t make plans too far ahead, don’t expect anything, don’t demand anything.  You get the idea.

R – Reliability. Do what you say you’re going to.  I don’t think I ever broke this one with him.  I generally try to do this with everyone.  S did what he said he would, if he felt like doing it when the time came.  Thus the blurred boundaries….  If he talked about going somewhere, it didn’t mean he would.  If he said he’d call, it didn’t mean he would.  If he said he was open to a relationship, it didn’t mean that he’d feel like that next week.

A – Accountability.  Owning your story.  If you make a mistake, which we all do….owning it, apologizing for it, and making it right.  I have no problem with this, I apologized often and fully, usually for misunderstanding him or his actions. (And in hindsight, I was often right, and apologizing for it.)  S….apologized after the prison whore.  He came to me, he looked me in the eye, he told me the whole story, he felt bad, it was over.  It went a long way toward building trust.  Then, a few months later, began the HUGE voluminous deception of me, and Betty….and he still has not owned that to me, he still has not apologized for months of deception when all the while I was asking him to let me go.  Not accountable.  At all.

V – The vault.  What you tell me in confidence I keep in confidence.  And what others tell me I also keep in confidence.  I think I did that, still do that.  I have never told anyone the things he told me in confidence.  I don’t think he has either, told anyone anything I told him.  (However, my life is much more an open book, and no one knew me in his life, so there was nothing to tell and no one to tell it to.)  However, he was quite willing to falsely trash his girlfriend to me, to send me a naked picture of her to make me jealous.  So…I think that picture should have been in his vault.  But he didn’t keep it there.

I- Integrity.  I don’t think this needs any discussion.  Screwing two women, for months on end, who love you without them knowing you are doing it is a total lack of integrity.  Making up lies about his girlfriend, when she was his ex, is a total lack of integrity.  I know he wants to say I was with A when I was with him….but I was never with A physically when I was with S.  Never.  I met A after the prison whore, right after.  I went out with him, he was like a salve on a gaping open wound, but I wasn’t with him sexually during that time.   S can pretend I did what he did, but I didn’t.

N – Non-judgement.  I know I did not judge him for anything he told me in confidence.  I did, in the end, judge him for his lies and deception of me, and of Betty.  He also was fairly non-judgmental, although he at times disparaged me for some of the spiritual teachers I liked.  Ram Dass in particular.  His reasoning was that Ram Dass came from a privileged family in Boston, and S felt he was in it for the money.  I didn’t come across Ram Dass until a few years ago, when he was about 80 or so, and I felt he had a lot of valuable insight at that stage of his life.

G – Generosity.  When someone does or doesn’t do something you thought they would, having a generous thought about them, like, “I was hoping you’d do this, but I know you love me, and we’re ok.  I just want you to know I was thinking of it.”  I do this to a fault, and did it with him way way too much.  Gave him a lot of credit he hadn’t earned.   I don’t know if he ever did it, he seemed to love to find something to complain about.  He had the nerve to say, not long ago, after he dumped me but before I found out he’d been with her all summer,  that he was upset that I said in my blog that I “cuddled” with A before A left on his big adventure.  S and I were not not even speaking then.  He had refused to make plans with me Memorial Day weekend. Refused to go to Florida with me after getting me all excited that he would likely go.   Now I know why…because he made them with Betty.  It’s almost humorous that  he had the nerve to bitch at me for cuddling with A, while he was screwing Betty.  It was just a manipulation.  But it wasn’t generous.

Looking at this anagram, and filtering this relationship through it, I see and am filled with the knowledge that I gave away my trust to someone who didn’t earn it.  Period.  And I’m lucky to be out of it, without more scars.  It’s a lesson learned, learned well.

Trust is made up of seemingly small insignificant moments, Brene teaches, that build trust over time.  Not a few big events.   S shouldn’t have earned my trust simply because he apologized and owned his story about the prison whore.  There were so many small moments that I wrote off, because they were insignificant.  And really, those were the things that were telling.

This lesson is included in her book, Rising Strong.  This is the link to the video:

http://www.supersoul.tv/supersoul-sessions/the-anatomy-of-trust/

 

How to Keep From Falling into the Abyss

Posted on by learning to live like water

It was a roller coaster ride today.  But, as it turned out…I feel much better tonight about everything.

I had sent that text this morning to him, and another one…yeah, I know, what am I doing?  Then I sent him one saying, just please ignore those.  They are waves of pain and anger washing over me, and you can just ignore them.  A bit later, at 11:30 AM, I got a voicemail from an “unknown” number.  I usually listen to those, in case they are about a credit card, or something….so I listened to it, it was him….

Saying he wanted to talk, but there were no avenues open to him, since he was totally blocked.  He went on to say it wasn’t true that he didn’t care about my feelings….I was crying when I listened because he was that calm sweet man that I fell in love with.  I only listened once, because it was too upsetting to listen twice.  So I didn’t get it all. I answered via text…that I can’t talk yet.  Maybe some day, but not yet.

A couple hours later I went up to my room to change out the closets, and take a nap when I was done. (This was after I spent two hours power washing the deck.)  I was exhausted. I looked at my voice mail, there were two blocked ones, from him.  This time, not unknown, it was his number.  He asked me to get in the car and drive down to the beach (I don’t think he said his house but he might have) and we could talk.  He said at the very least, I could have  “nice day at the beach.”  ??!!  It was far too late to even think about that.  Besides, I don’t want to meet with him.  I can’t…without losing it.  I don’t want to go there with my emotions.

I texted him, and told him what a nice afternoon at the beach would be to me.  And what he suggested was not it.  I told him I would unblock him so he could text, but  to please don’t call, please, I am not ready to talk without breaking down.  Apparently he had read my blog in between, where I said he was like a juvenile 14 year old in texting me to tell me he was back with Betty Boop.  So what I got was an angry text, “Would that be the same texting as the fucking 14 year old juvenile…?”

Yes, I answered.  It would be.  That was a man I adored, breaking up with me like an adolescent, that he had a new girl, and was too busy to talk to me about it.  NOT like a 66 year old man.  It wasn’t texting I objected to, it was the use of it, to devastate me and run and hide.  It was childish, and juvenile, and cruel, and I will stand by that til the day I die.  I also told him, if he can’t own up to the repercussions of the way he told me, we have nothing to talk about.

I have not heard from him since.  I assume he is not going to own it.  I assume he can’t be responsible for his actions.  For the decisions he makes that hurt others, because he has not responded.  He is angry, I could tell from his text, that I  publicly called him a juvenile 14 year old.  I am gonna say, every single person I have told this story to, has responded, wow, how immature. No one needs to hear from me that it was a childish, adolescent thing to do.  What I stated here was the obvious.

I am not supposed to speak the truth here.  I am not supposed to say what is on my mind, what hurts me, what I need to work through.  I am supposed to sweep it under the rug, to pretend it didn’t happen.  Apparently.

So, the end result is, I am not angry.  But I see him more clearly, and see that there is nothing we have to talk about, that he is not the man I thought he was, and is not the man I want.  So, I feel stronger in my resolution to just get through this, and to get over it. Right now, it still makes me uspeakably sad, but I at least see that the path I’m on is the right one for me.

I am leaving Betty Boop out of the equation.  She has nothing to do with the relationship between he and I, or the repair of the damage that was done that day.  She may have been the catalyst, but he is the one who chose the path of devastation with me.  I remember wondering where she was this morning, that he was free to talk to me.  But only fleetingly.  I was glad she was not there.  I was happy I was on his mind, because I missed him so much this morning.  Because I loved him so much this morning.

I feel stronger tonight. I still love him, but right now it is not the debilitating kind of thing it was earlier today.  I would guess I will always love him, but the baseline between us, whatever our relationship evolves into, or doesn’t, is that he has to be able to own his actions.  I don’t have and don’t want a friend who can’t say, I’m sorry.  I was wrong.  I didn’t mean to hurt you.  All of my friends and I have apologized to each other at times, for misunderstandings.  We ALL own what we do.

I want a man who can man up.  I want to be able to talk these things through, not to sweep them under the rug and pretend they didn’t happen.  Not that he wants me anyway.  But even in a friendship, even without the deep-seated love I have felt for him, you have to be able to own what you did.  I have so many times apologized to him for misunderstanding something he said.  I don’t want to hang with a 14 yr old.  I want a full grown, adult male.  If Betty Boop wants the 14 year old, and likes sweeping this stuff under the rug til there’s a lump in the rug and someone trips and falls on their face….she can have it.  It has nothing to do with me.  I would guess it’s one reason he chose her.  I don’t run from this shit.  I don’t bury it so that it makes me or him sick, or the relationship. I will always do what makes me stronger, I will fight the good fight, I will have the hard discussions.  And if I hurt someone, I will do everything I can to make amends. The Sunday before, two weeks ago, we carried on an intimate text conversation, about feelings and emotions, and for the first time I felt like he got me, and could be with me without being defensive. It went on for a couple hours.  It’s a wonderful thing to be able to talk about these things with the man you love.  It’s sexy, it’s a turn on.  And he liked it, too.  He told me at one point in that conversation, “I think you need to tell me that about a dozen more times.  XOXO”  He doesn’t use that, XOXO much.  It meant something to me.  I would have loved to tell him what I said, again and again.

I will tell him, now, since he is still apparently reading my blogs.  It was because I loved you, that it worked.  It was an expression of my love for you.  Love changes everything.

I hope some day he can see that owning your actions, and the fall out from them…is a mature grown up way to deal with things.  I hope some day he will see that pretending it was something other than it was, and didn’t ripple out the way it did, does nothing but ruin relationships, and will make you sick.  The anger he feels at me at this moment, for making him look at it, will make him sick. If he could own it, and make amends for it, he would only free himself, and perhaps (not saying definitely) allow us to at least be friends.  What he did to me….doesn’t make him unworthy.  Which is why I told him even today, I still love you. He is worthy of that because he exists.  But it does keep the bridge burned without any ability to rebuild even a friendship.

I couldn’t go to the beach and pretend that I was happy to see him.  He hurt me, more than I have ever been.  I still cannot have a conversation with him without breaking down, which is why I said I would text, and I know even that may be a mistake.  I don’t know if he even wants to build a bridge between us, for any purpose. It would seem to me that yes, he does., based on his 3 voice mails today.  I could be wrong.  But the foundation of a bridge for any purpose, if one is to be built, will be the ability to own one’s actions and the consequences.  Or it will just fall into the abyss with the first footstep that goes over it.