Six Ways We Hurt the Ones We Love

Posted on by stilllearning2b

My ex husband used to tell me, “I’ll never hurt you.” I knew it was bullshit. After all, the ones we love are also positioned to hurt us the most, even when it’s unintentional. Yet even though I knew his statement was wrong, I chose to believe him. Because I wanted it to be true.

In contrast, my now-husband will occasionally say, “I will hurt you. And you will hurt me.” I don’t necessarily like to hear it (after all, it’s not what I want to be true), but he’s right.

At some point, in every relationship, we hurt – and are hurt by – the ones we love.

Yet all those hurts are not the same. This is definitely one of those cases where the intention behind the act matters as much as – or even more than – the magnitude of the emotional injury.

1 – We Hurt the Ones We Love Inadvertently

We get careless. Speaking without thinking and making hurtful comments we don’t really mean. Often, we know we’ve stepped over the line as soon as our voice leaves our mouth. And apologies – and regret – soon follow.

This type of hurt is especially prevalent when people are busy, preoccupied or tired. We can try to mitigate it by taking a few moments to decompress from work before entering the home or being careful about topics broached when stress is high. Regardless, as long as we’re human, this sort of accidentally trespass will happen. Apologize, acknowledge the hurt feelings and move on.

2 – We Hurt the Ones We Love Unconsciously

Sometimes we forget that we don’t know everything about the people we love. And sometimes we say or do something hurtful without knowing that it is a tender area.

These are distressing missteps for both parties; one feels badly for the accidental wounding and the other is tending to the wound. At the same time, these can also be healing transgressions, as they provide an opportunity for increased vulnerability and openness.

3 – We Hurt the Ones We Love Cautiously

There are times when getting our own needs met mean hurting someone else in the process. This is deliberate harm, meaning that it is conscious and premeditated, yet it is also compassionate harm because the impact on the other is considered and buffered as much as possible.

Sometimes, hurting others in the short term is both necessary and kind for them in the long run. This is true for everything from administering a childhood vaccination to asking for a divorce in a lifeless marriage. Step carefully and with kindness, but make the needed cuts.

4 – We Hurt the Ones We Love Selfishly

When you hurt someone without regard for their feelings, it is different than the previous method. It’s selfish to act without regard for others when your wants crash against theirs.

This is often the type of hurt that arises from cheating. One partner is feeling unappreciated or ignored and so they seek to meet their desires without considering the pain that it will cause their spouse. Often, they will perform creative cognitive contortions to evade facing the reality of what they’re doing to their partner. In the worst cases, the selfish person then attempts to cover their initial harm with lying, manipulating and/or gaslighting. Jerks.


5 – We Hurt the Ones We Love Instinctively

We know what we have learned. And for those that have been raised in homes where any attention is good attention and abuse becomes muddled with love, they may hurt others from a place of unconscious reflex.

This is a tragic hurt as the contagion of unacknowledged trauma carries forth like a virus, infecting the next in line. And the only way to stop its spread is to face its origin and learn how to neutralize its power.

The hurt that radiates outwards from addicts, often leveling those around them, fall into this category. Yes, their actions are selfish, but they are operating at an instinctual level in an attempt to meet their needs.

6 – We Hurt the Ones We Love Intentionally

It’s difficult to accept that this is even possible. How can you love someone and yet seek to hurt them at the same time? Yet it is not so unusual for us to simultaneously possess such diametrically opposed – yet intense – emotions.

For some, it may come from an innate cruelty or disorder, abuse in its most ruthless form. For others, it is a much less harmful, using love testing in an attempt to alleviate their own anxiety.

Hurting the ones we love is inevitable. Yet it is within our power to limit the harm and to take responsibility when it does happen. And when we’re on the receiving end, it’s helpful to consider what may be behind the words or actions that caused pain.


The Cheater’s Playbook

Posted on by stilllearning2b
cheater

My ex left behind a letter, typed and in duplicate, when he unexpectedly exited my life. That was followed a couple weeks later by a suicide (attempted) email, sent to both his other wife and my mother. Since I had no other explanations, I poured over those words for months, looking for answers.

His words were cruel, dismissing my importance in his life and emphasizing his unhappiness (which he blatantly denied up until he left). I internalized his sentences, saw them as a direct reflection on me.

And then I connected with others who had been cheated on and summarily dismissed. I was shocked to hear that they had received many of the same words from their ex.

“Do all cheaters read the same playbook?” we joked.

But behind the quip was something deeper – if they all recite the same lines, maybe those words have more to do with the cheater and less to do with me.

I read the letters again, this time with a different perspective. He was making excuses. Maybe for the benefit of others, but even more likely, in an attempt to assuage any guilt he may have felt over his actions.

The context of these words matters.  People certainly can change and relationships that once were a good fit may not be any more. Some people choose to handle the end with respect for the other person. When these word are spoken in that context, they can be valid and true. Others make different choices and use these words to try to excuse their deceptive behavior and to try to pass blame on to the other partner. In that context, these same words are poison to the receiving end.

If there is a Cheater’s Playbook somewhere, these phrases would certainly be found within:

 

I’ve never felt like this for somebody before.

Hmmm…that’s funny. Because I seem to remember you using some of the same proclamations of love with me that I uncovered with your new paramour.

 

He/she just gets me.

Do they even know you? I wonder what sort of front you have presented and if your mask has had the opportunity to slip?

 

I just wanted a chance at happiness.

So do I. Funny thing, though. I don’t perceive lying to others as a prerequisite for happiness. In fact, if I was hurting someone I cared about, it would make me pretty damn miserable.

 

I haven’t been happy for a long time.

So why didn’t you say something? Spouses certainly get to know one another, but full-on mind-reading is still science fiction.

 

I didn’t mean for it to happen.

Oh, please. You may not have had the intention to cheat from the onset, but you certainly made lots of choices that led you to that conclusion.

 

You’re imagining things.

I wish I was. That would be preferable to realizing the truth, that the person that I loved and trusted most in this world decided to act selfishly and destroy my world as a result.

 

This wouldn’t have happened if you…

Nope. Not taking that on. If there was something you were not happy about, it is YOUR responsibility to bring it up and provide an opportunity for it to change.

 

I never had a chance to…

I am so sorry (said with much sarcasm) that you didn’t get a chance to date/enjoy your childhood/have adult time without children. Choices have consequences. You don’t get to pretend they don’t.

 

I need someone who pays attention to me.

So do I, but you’ve obviously been turning elsewhere. And whatever you nurture, grows.

 

You don’t appreciate me.

Well, I don’t appreciate this, that’s for damn sure. And be honest with yourself, have you been acting in a way that deserves appreciation?

 

You don’t understand me.

You’re right. I don’t. I don’t understand how you could just throw away all that we have worked to build. That’s not who I fell in love with.

 

I’m just not attracted to you anymore.

You know, there have been many moments when I’m not attracted to you. But our vows are bigger than that. Commitment sometimes means putting in the effort to reignite that passion.

 

I never meant to hurt you.

Well, you did a great job of it nonetheless. What exactly did you think the repercussions of this discovery would be? A welcome party for your affair partner?

 

I never loved you.

That certainly fits your actions. I don’t know what’s worse – thinking you could do this to someone you love or realizing that you faked your feelings the entire time?

 

In order to begin healing, I had to realize that his words were projection and misdirection. I had to learn which of them to ignore and which contained some element of truth. Because one thing is certain about cheaters – they lie. And so often the words they share upon their exit are nothing more than little drops of fiction, breadcrumbs that if followed, lead to the wrong conclusions.

Refuse to Be a Victim

Posted on by stilllearning2b

“Let me introduce you to the victim advocate,” offered the policeman who had arrested my husband the day before.

 

I stopped short. That was the first time that word – victim – had ever been applied to me. I certainly felt victimized. My partner of sixteen years had just abandoned me with a text message, stolen all of my money and then committed bigamy. Yet even though I was still in the acute phase of suffering, I startled at the application of the word “victim.”

 

Because even though I had been hurt, I did not wantto see myself as a victim. Although it felt good for the pain and unfairness to be recognized, the term also made me feel minimized. That word embodied weakness in my mind and I wanted to feel powerful. It spoke of a lack of control and I wanted to be the one to drive my life.

 

I did not want to be a victim.

 

But for a time, I was.

 

In the beginning, I spoke about what was done to me. I looked for resolution and justice from outside sources, hoping for an apology from him and a conviction from the courts. I embraced my pain, feeling justified in holding on to it. Meanwhile, I demonized my ex, removing all semblance of humanity in my view of him.

 

There was a certain comfort in accepting a role as a victim. I garnered sympathy and commiseration from those around me. I had limited control and limited responsibility. But those same conditions that sheltered me also confined me.

 

As long as I saw myself as a victim, I would remain one. As long as I was limited by my past, I would remain a prisoner of what happened.

 

When the desired justice from the courts failed to appear and the hoped-for apology never came, I was left with a decision to make: I could either bemoan the circumstances or I could change my response.

 

I chose the latter.

 

I used the following ideas to help shed the guise of victim and make myself the hero of my own life:

 

Rewrite Your Story

 

When we are harmed, we often feel powerless, as though we are simply being led through someone else’s story. One of the first steps to renouncing victimhood is to take control of your story. Rewrite it. Reframe it. Narrate it. Change the perspective. Take yourself out of the role of victim (done tome) and put yourself in the role of hero (I did…). Write it or tell it until you believe it.

 

Pick up a pen and write your happy ending.

 

Create Purpose

 

Whatever happened, happened. There is no changing the past. But you can use the past to create something better in the future. Find some anger about what occurred and use that as fuel to drive you to create something better. Look around and see others suffering and use your experience to render aide. Use your rock bottom as a foundation for your life’s purpose.

 

You have the power to create something wonderful out of something terrible.

 

Make Changes

 

When unwanted change is thrust upon our lives, it’s easy to feel hopeless. Learn to recognize the potential hidden within and use the opportunity of uncertainty to create change of your choosing. There is no better time to release what no longer serves you and to embrace new beginnings.

 

When you’re rebuilding your life from the ground up, you have the power of choice and the wisdom of experience. That’s a powerful pair.

 

Find Gratitude

 

One of the powerful and difficult exercises that can empower the victimized is practicing radical gratitude. Face what has caused you the greatest pain, the most suffering, and write down why you are grateful for it. It is an amazing reminder of how much our thoughts rather than our circumstances are responsible for our happiness.

 

When gratitude is your wrapping paper, everything is a gift.

 

 

You are only a victim if you imprison yourself. Release yourself from the shackles of your past and let your spirit soar.

 

Five Surprising Upsides to Being Cheated On

Posted on by stilllearning2b

Nobody needs to tell you about the pain of being cheated on. You’re living that every moment.

Instead, I want you to know about the silver linings that can be found amidst the ruins of the betrayal.

 

I Was Married to a Con Man

Posted on by stilllearning2b
con

I thought he loved me. It turned out that he was more con man than confidant. 

If my husband had been Pinocchio, his nose would have been a giant redwood. While we were married, I thought he was a real boy. Once he disappeared, I learned otherwise.

My husband and I used to watch “Lost” and shake our heads in disbelief at Sawyer’s deceptions. We laughed at “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” when the con artists were conned themselves. We were shocked at the audacity of Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in “Catch Me if You Can“, and we were disturbed when we discovered the movie was based on a true story. While I thought he shared my disdain for the trickery and fraud in these tales, it seems as though he had been taking notes. Overnight, I went from an ordinary life to one that felt more like a movie.

 

My husband was a brilliant and talented man whose skills included creating and maintaining a separate existence. He had two cameras. Two bicycles. Two wallets. Two wives. Two distinct lives. When the financial mess he created in his life with me became too great to keep hidden, he broke up with me via text and vanished. That was when I learned that my husband was anything but a real boy — he was a con man.

 

My life was a virtual reality — my home a movie set consisting of false fronts.

 

He was an expert lie crafter; he always knew the exact proportion of truth to weave into the falsehoods to make a story believable. He always had an answer; he never hesitated. His office must have been like a busy air traffic control tower as he directed emails, texts, and phone calls to support his various tales. The extent of his deceptions was made clear when I sat with an auto insurance card in my hand — my name had been digitally removed — while I pulled up the file from the insurance company and verified that both names were present on the actual document. He thought he could erase me as easily as he could my name using Photoshop.

 

While my husband was in jail after being arrested for felony bigamy, I talked with his other wife, who was as stunned by the situation as I was. No woman should ever have to have a conversation about “our husband,” even if it is a cordial and informative discussion. I learned that when he was pulled in for questioning, his lies became increasingly absurd as he struggled to maintain his façade. My favorite? He claimed that he and I had divorced years earlier and I had since married a chiropractor named Mark Mercer. Mark, if you’re out there, I’m sorry that I have no recollection of our marriage and that I have never recognized our fictitious anniversaries.

 

One of the saddest aspects of the situation is that he was conning himself just as much as he was fooling those around him.

 

In trying to pull the wool over others’ eyes, he inadvertently knitted himself a mask with no eyeholes. He told so many lies for so long, he began to believe his own fabrications (he even admitted as much in a text to my mother). It became impossible for him to tell where the lies ended and the authenticity began. In trying to keep everyone else in the dark, he lost himself. The real boy was replaced with a hollow man.

 

I came out of the marriage confused, unsure of what was real and what was fabrication. I was embarrassed. How could I have been such a fool? My anger was explosive as I came to the realization that I had been literally sleeping with the enemy. The crime was intensified by the fact that it was carried out by the man who had sworn to love and protect me. Yet, eventually, I began to feel compassion for him, as I saw through the lies to the pain that must have born them.

 

I have come to the realization that the life I knew was real to me, and that has to be enough. I will never know what prompted his moral malignancies nor will I ever find certainty in truth.

I was conned, but that is not the end of my story. I am now exploring the world un-shaded by his lies.