Conference turris::womannotes-v3

This is just MY OWN set of experiences....

For me, when you love someone so much that you would always have good for
them even if you had bad, you start "controlling situations" so that it 
becomes fact.  Let me try to put that into a couple of examples to which
I'm sure some can relate:

	o  When there's a <insert delicacy> and a bowl of cereal, you
	   serve <delicacy> to loved one and are HAPPY about it.

	o  When loved one constantly switched jobs, you find the reasons
	   why loved one should be happy and feel justified to leave
	   old job (no matter how many repeats).

	o  Maybe you even put loved one in a position to not have to
	   work.

I guess what I have done is progressively take responsibility for the
other person's life, and done lovingly not grudingly.  I suppose that is
why the continued sense of guilt after separation - you really do love 
and want to do everything possible to make "everything better" for the
ex.  You may officailly announce and separate, but you do not just stop
feeling responsibility.

I guess, then, for me, the guilt stops when you give up responsibilty
for the other person's life.  I don't know when that is for you or if
you even relate to this, but it has taken me a long, long time to come
to this place.

May you have some peace,

Barb

    Yea, I've gone through this some upteen times during my marriage
    some 5-10 years ago.  At the end of this marriage, it wasn't acutally
    that difficult to leave in that the love I had for him was hardly
    there anymore.  I think I nearly hated him to death and I don't
    mean that lightly.  So getting out on my own was wonderful and terrific
    in that I could be myself.  
    
    During the last 1.5 years of that marriage, I had already little
    by little emotionally detached from him and started attending ALANON,
    as well as, AA.  By that time, I had already created limits as to
    what I could take and not take anymore.  I was only 22-23 at that
    time and felt as if my life was that of a very old lady.  I was
    missing out on life.  
    
    The only way I was able to keep my head on straight and not regress
    into guilt for leaving my husband and father of our kids, was to
    keep a one track mind concentrating on myself.  I refused to pick
    up after him or his friends, I bought myself an outfit, and enrolled
    in Real Estate school without his consent or blessing.  I was sick
    and tired of working at the Cotton Mill as snack bar operator while
    I had helped him through school and he held a better job.  It was
    my turn, like it or not.  So, I went on with my plans and let the
    bricks fall where they may, which they did very heavily and painfully.
     The next morning, I packed 10 plastic trash bags with my and the
    kids' clothes and never looked back.
    
    I kept my mind focused on my dreams and the kind of girl I knew
    that I once was and wanted to still be.  I had to let my husband
    take responsibility, for a change, for his own life and consquences.
     I, with support, therapy, began to understand the intricate tangle
    of which this unhealthy relationship developed.  You have to make
    a decision about what it is you want out of this life and then decide
    what's the most important?  'cause the day will come when you'll
    rock in that chair and your life will wear its tale on your face. 
    
    
    The best way to help someone is to let him/her ask for it!  

    RE: 1  
    
    Excellent point. 
    
    RE: 0
    
    Your ex may unconsciously be maintaining his problems as a 
    way of getting you or someone else to take care
    of him. Helplessness in an adult has its unconscious purposes.
    When someone's life is not as it should be, and they are not doing
    anything about it, such as getting therapy etc., it worth asking
    yourself if they might be satisfied with things as they are.
    
     Eileen

After I was divorced I went through the same sort of thing.  My ex would
call me and tell me all about his problems and how awful his life was.
He did it because that was the role I'd always played for him (the non-
judgemental mother-figure) and I listened for the same reason.

In the middle of a conversation one day it suddenly occurred to me that
I didn't care about what was going on in his life anymore....so I told
him, "Frankly, Phil, I just don't care.  I don't want to hear it anymore."

I was met by stunned silence and he's never dumped his problems on me 
again.  :-)  I'll bet his girlfriend (now his wife) appreciated it!
heh-heh!

Nanci

    RE.3
    
      A thought to consider, however, I have known him for 8 years, and one
    thing I know about him is he is very reticent to accept help from
    anyone. Although other replies have brought to my mind that perhaps if 
    it took him so long to accept help from me, his only confidant for 8 
    years, then perhaps he is having trouble 'letting go' himself.  The 
    thing that gives me so much trouble, I guess, is that during 6 months
    of counseling, I kept on saying 'he doesn't talk to me' and now all of
    a sudden he is, somewhat.  It's just that it is too late for the
    relationship now.  He has somebody.  He is doing the same thing with
    her that he did with me.  He is going to make her prove herself for so 
    long that by the time he is ready to accept her 'warts and all' she is
    going to be sick of all the work.  Part of me that cares for him and
    wants to see him happy wants to tell him and maybe help him avoid
    repeating the same mistake again.  The part of me that is trying to let
    go says keep your mouth shut it's his life, see even after 8 years, I 
    really cannot say whether or not he will mind the intrusion.  
    
    kc

    I don't even know who C.P Snow is but s/he said a mouthful, which I'll
    have to paraphrase since I don't have the source here:
    
    	The most accurate measure of what a person wants is
    	what s/he has.
    
    aq
    

    If I could add a little bit to this from the "other side of the coin"
    as it were:
    
    My soon to be ex and I split in March. I got into a new relationship
    rather quickly afterwards, and felt guilty for my feelings towards
    this "someone new" in my life. This feeling passed when I realized just
    how *much* this new person means to me.
    
    My ex found someone shortly thereafter and I believe that, in time, we'll 
    both feel this sense of guilt much less, for we know we did the right 
    thing. Our relationship, when it was good, it was beautiful. But, of 
    course, when it was bad, it was dismal and we would've ended up hating 
    one another had things continued the way that they were.
    
    We both have gone through several bouts of "guilt" because we both devoted 
    so much to the relationship and to the other person. Now, while I'm sure 
    that we'll both go through these feelings more than a couple of more 
    times...I think that we'll eventually adjust to the realization that we 
    just weren't right for one another, no matter how hard we tried to make us
    "fit" with one another. I will always love her until I am gone.
    
    I still carry a picture of the two of us around in my wallet (my 
    girlfriend knows about this, by the way, and understands). It's just a 
    picture, but it was from one of those "better times" and all it does 
    really, is remind me that we are *both* good people and that we should 
    *each* still want the best for the other...even though we thought, at
    one time (quite selfishly though it may sound)...it was us.
    
    Don't feel guilty. Not going into too much detail, I can understand his 
    position and empathize to some degree. It will pass...it'll be better for 
    him sometimes than for you, then worse, then the opposite for yourself at 
    times as well (meaning better for you than for him). However, it'd be the 
    same thing in the marriage as well...sometimes better, sometimes worse. 
    Funny how we all still want to keep that line in the vows, isn't it? 
    Because it's soo damn easy to quit during the "worse" these days. But, 
    that's life...and so it goes. 
    
    Good luck...to both of you,
    
    Kevin

    
    kc - 
    
    it takes about two years to readjust to a major life change; divorce
    (or marriage!), death of a family member, etc.  Not my stats - this
    comes from Psychology Today and was independantly cooraborated by a
    therapist I worked with, and my own experience.
    
    Jamd
    

    Feeling sorry for the mans problems is one thing.  Feeling guilty
    is quite another.
    
    He must take the consequences of his own actions...and for those
    beyond his control (illness) he must learn to live with them on
    his own.  I'm not saying to ignore him, just remember that you only
    get one life (imho), and you should try to live it to make *you*
    happy.
    
    
                                     L.J.