Pros and Cons of a Disappearing Act

Posted on by stilllearning2b

Being abandoned sucks. The shock alone is enough to stop your heart. And then, once it starts beating again, all you want to to is yell at your so-called partner who thought it was acceptable to simply walk away with no notice and no dialog. It steals your voice. It leaves you in a perpetual state of uncertainty and doubt. It means you never had a chance to fight for your marriage and you’re left alone to try to sort through the mess of what’s left. Friends and family question what about you was so bad to cause your spouse to slink away like a thief in the night. It calls the entire relationship into question. And there are no answers to be found.

Yeah, there’s no doubt. Being abandoned sucks.

But, as with everything, there is another side. One I have fully embraced (it was either that or go crazy). And one explored, somewhat humorously, by Chump Lady. One of my favorite lines from her? “You mistook this ice cube for a human being. It happens. Maybe you bred with the ice cube. I’m sorry.” Thank goodness I didn’t procreate with my ice cube and his vasectomy ensures he never will.

 

So, here are the pros and cons of abandonment as I see them. I’d love to hear your additions as well.

 

Pros

-It’s efficient. There’s no long, protracted “do we stay together or split?” period.

-You never get your hopes up. You know it’s over.

-The no-contact advice is really easy to follow.

-You know he/she is a jerk (regardless of what you thought before) and you don’t waste time pining over him/her.

-You don’t have to make the difficult decision about divorce. Even if your spouse leaves it to you to file (as in my case), it’s a clear course of action.

-You may have been lied to (for years, even), but the lies are over. You don’t have to listen to any more deceptions.

-You don’t have to spend any awkward time living in the same house as your soon-to-be-ex. Although you may have to clean out his/her underwear drawer if they left without their belongings.

-If you need evidence to prove “fault” for the divorce or custody laws in your state, you’ll have plenty of fodder.

-You’ll spend less time divorcing so you can get busy healing.

-It makes for an interesting divorce story.

 

Cons

-The shock is horrific. It literally almost killed me when I dropped 20 lbs in a week and developed an abnormal heart rhythm.

-You feel discarded. Like you weren’t even good enough to have a discussion with.

-You feel so angry, yet there is no one to yell at.

-You will always wonder what happened. And answers, even false ones, never come.

-You may discover a hidden life, complete with betrayals from sexual to financial.

-You will be blamed. Everyone always insists there are two sides to every story. Even when you didn’t know there was a story.

-You have no time to get used to the idea of being single. You’re married and then “poof!,” you’re not.

-It makes it hard to trust again. If one partner disappeared without warning, what’s to stop the next from doing the same.

-It’s difficult to sort through the marriage and identify areas where you could improve without assuming the guilt for the whole enchilada.

-If you have kids, their relationship with the disappearing parent will be affected at best and absent at worst.

 

Looking at those lists, I’m sure glad that I didn’t have to make a choice between the two. It goes without saying that they’re both awful, horrible, no good, very bad experiences. But, as I’ve said before, happiness is divorce in the rearview mirror. Get through and get on.

 

 

 

 

Why People Cheat

Posted on by stilllearning2b

I never thought I’d tackle this post. First of all, if I could answer this question with certainty, I certainly would not be teaching middle school math; I’d be taking over Oprah’s spot. The reasons people stray in their marriages are as varied and complex as marriage itself. Past, present and personality weaving together to create a perfect storm. To add to the complexity, the reasons people cheat are rarely the reasons they say they cheat. You are much more likely to hear excuses or blame because the truth takes bravery and insight along with a willingness to then divulge the understanding that was reached.

 

So, without further ado, here are the patterns I have seen emerge. We’ll start with the simplest.

The Bad Decision

This is the “it just happened” infidelity, although that excuse makes my skin crawl. This is the affair born of bad decisions that may or may not have other co-existing causes. There is no magic in a wedding band that suddenly causes all others of the opposite sex to be invisible. We all meet people that we find attractive and that awaken that little spark. But you always have a choice. Long before anything happens, you can make the decision to walk away. The earlier the better. The closer you get to flame, the more  difficult it becomes to leave. You may get to a point where your body has the best of you, but you can choose to use your brain before then.

The Need for Physical Connection

A marriage where the partners have different sexual needs is certainly a struggle. In this type of affair, one (or both) of the partners are craving more physical intimacy and they look outside the marriage to sate their appetites. My frustration with this type (and the affair described below), is that so often the straying partner is helping to create the desert at home by turning his or attentions away. This reason is also used as an excuse for infidelity and can even be created by the straying partner as a way for them to reconcile their decisions within their own mind. After all, it’s easy to claim a sexless marriage and difficult to refute unless you never close your blinds.

The Need for Emotional Connection

Two has the potential to be lonelier than one can ever be. There is no worse feeling that being with someone and yet feeling invisible. People can change and grow apart. In this type of affair, the straying partner is seeking responsiveness and demonstrative affection from another. They describe their marriage as “dead” and want to feel alive. I get it, but there are other options than an affair. Please, seek them out first.

The Need for Approval

This is often the affair of the narcissist. They are typically brief and in succession, a new partner replacing the former before he or she gets to know too much. This straying partner is driven by the need to be idolized, which is a trademark of early romance that fades as time reveals more about the person.

The Need for Stimulation

Affairs can be rewarding; there is a rush from the newness that is amplified by the necessary intrigue. Some people are wired to need more stimulation. These are your daredevils and stockbrokers. Others train themselves to need an increasing amount of stimulation, such as in the case of addiction. Their threshold for stimulation is set higher than a “normal” life can fulfill and so they are always seeking their next reward. I believe this is why there is a connection between Twitter use and affairs.

The Snipe Hunt for Happiness

I find this the saddest reason for infidelity. In this case, a person is truly unhappy and, rather than address the issue internally where it resides, they begin a snipe hunt for happiness, looking for it in external things and often, people. This affair is not driven by something missing in the marriage; it’s powered by something missing in the person. And, what makes it sad to me is that while they are on a winless quest for happiness, they steal joy from others along the way.

 

Many affairs can be described by more than one of the reasons above. After all, we’re all human with our complexities and fallibilities. Affairs happen. But maybe if we can understand more of why they do we can stop them before they start or learn from them once they do.

 

And, for those of you who have been betrayed, here is some more information for you:

Classification of Infidelity – A look at he types of infidelity from the perspective of the betrayed.

Will I Ever Trust Again? – A perspective on how to learn to trust again after betrayal.

Of Horses and Zebras – A description of how betrayal changes your brain.

The Upside of Betrayal – Betrayal isn’t all bad. There are some positives. I promise.

Revisionist

Posted on by stilllearning2b

When I was in the early days after the text, I found Viki Stark’s blog, Runaway Husbands. I had mixed feelings about the discovery. On the one hand, it felt good to know that I wasn’t alone. On the other, especially as she was collecting stories for her book, it was filled with wives adding their own, often anger-filled, stories of how he left. I spent a few weeks there and even added my own tale. But then I moved on, knowing that reading about the beginnings every day would keep me in the beginning. I cared about how he left but I was more concerned about how I was going to live.

If you have experienced a tsunami divorce, I recommend reading Viki Stark’s work. She distills thousands of cases into facts and patterns, which bring some comfort and depersonalization to the betrayed. Although her work is with abandoned wives, it fits just as well with the husbands I have encountered that have also experienced sudden abandonment.

In her recent piece in Psychology Today, My Husband Was Abducted By Aliens, she explores the way that the deserting spouse rewrites history and reality to match his/her own needs. I remember how crazy-making this was when my ex spewed lies in his suicide letter to my mom and other wife (spoiler – he survived). In time, I came to realize that he could not live with the cognitive dissonance created by his actions. So he rewrote my reality to match his.

One of the pieces of advice I give to someone in this situation is to have a reality anchor. There are days that feel like an acid trip through Alice’s Nightmareland, where you no longer know what is a fabrication and what is real. Have something that reminds you of the truth that can bring you back. I held a copy of his mugshot in my purse for months. It was my reminder that he was a criminal.  And criminals lie.

The most important advice I can give to someone who has been abandoned is to learn how to not take it personally. Sounds crazy, I know. Read this.

Regardless of what your exiting spouse says, it’s your story. Write your happy ending. Aliens be damned.

 

A Wife By Any Other Name

Posted on by stilllearning2b

When I married for the first time, I changed my name without thought. I was happy to replace the name that I associated with childhood with one that I related to becoming an adult.

I was young – 22 – and I had not yet accomplished much with my given name. Shedding it caused me no harm, only the hassle of making the changes to accounts and cards.

I embraced my wedded name, had no regrets. And, yet, in court when the judge was finishing the last of the paperwork, I was struck dumb when she said, “And I assume you want to keep your last name of B—-.”

After the mute shock wore off, it took everything in my power not to scream,  “$#!@ no!” I wanted away from that name as much as I wanted away from that artificial life. Besides, since he committed bigamy, there was already another Mrs. B—. That’s too many in my book.

My given name was legally restored that day yet I continued to use the other professionally for the remainder of the school year. It was strange time, bridging two worlds and using two names.  I worked under one name yet was applying for new jobs using another. I had accounts and cards in both names. I started my first real Facebook account using my maiden name and it suggested that I friend myself that had the married name (I had an unused account that I opened out of curiosity). For a year, I carried my divorce decree in my purse so that I could prove that I was one and the same, even though I felt worlds apart from my former Mrs. I almost felt like a fraud.

Changing my name was different at that point. I was 32. I had made a name for myself professionally and had hundreds of former students who knew me only as Mrs. B—. I almost lost the opportunity for the job I currently hold. Upon receiving my resume, one of the administrators realized that she was close friends with a former coworker of mine.

The administrator called her friend, “Did you used to work with a Lisa Arends?”

“No,” replied the friend, assuming that I was some charlatan.

She was telling the truth. It was my other self that had worked with her. Luckily, she realized the duality of my identity and called the administrator back to clarify.

That was a wake up call for me.

In a time when women married young and operated primarily in the domestic sphere, a name change was harmless. Now, with women marrying later, working outside the home and facing the realities of potential divorce, a name change can have very tangible consequences. Most discussions that I see on issue address it from a philosophical perspective, eschewing the patriarchal origins or talking about embracing the new family.

That’s romantic and everything, but what about the real world?

When my parents divorced, my mom had no real choice but to keep her married name. She had spent years building up a small business and her name was key to the word of mouth. No name = no way to put food on the table. She has since remarried yet retains her prior married name, at least in the professional realm. Ideal? Perhaps not. But practical.

I am choosing to do much the same. Although I refused to keep my former name out of principle, I now am operating out of practicality. When I wed again this fall, I will keep my given name. I simply have too much to lose if I do not.

On a side note, this reminds me of one the nicest gifts I have ever received. I won Teacher of the Year under my old identity. After the divorce, the plaque, which once occupied a place of honor in my classroom, was relegated to a closet since it was no longer in the right name. For my birthday (the first we were together), Brock snuck the plaque out of the closet and had the nameplate redone to match my new identity. Yes, I cried.

I queried my Facebook followers the other day on this topic. Many of them had also faced setbacks and hassles with multiple name changes and do not intend to change it again, regardless of changes in marital status.

Did you change your name? Would you do it again? How do handle (or intend to handle) the kids’ names (an issue I don’t have to worry about:) )?

It’s always funny when my students comment on my former name. When they see Mrs. B— scrawled across a clipboard or emblazoned on a book, they ask, “Who is she?”

“Oh, just someone I used to work with.”  She feels like a lifetime ago.

Besides, Tiger doesn't care what I'm called, as long as I'm still his momma:)
Besides, Tiger doesn’t care what I’m called, as long as I’m still his momma:)

Of Teddy Bears and Security Systems

Posted on by stilllearning2b

Teddy Bear

For most of my married life, I felt secure. I had a husband that I trusted. I owned a home and had been at the same job for many years. I felt comfortable in my life; I trusted that change, if desired, would come from intention. It was predictable and I liked that. If you had asked me where I would have been five years down the road, I would have answered without hesitation.

That feeling of security and blind trust is what allowed me to become complacent. Too comfortable. I was petrified of losing that feeling of security. I was very conservative in my decisions, choosing to avoid risk whenever possible.

I lost all semblance of security when he left. Everything was in question; nothing was sure. I didn’t have time to let it scare me. I simply had to survive. I was operating at the base level of Maslow’s hierarchy: eating, sleeping and breathing were my priorities.

I started tiptoeing back into life. I branched out but much was still unknown. I could not even imagine where I would be five years hence. And I was okay with that.

At some point I realized that the security that I had held so dear was an illusion, the equivalent of a child clutching a stuffed bear to ward off the dangers in the night.

I had outgrown the need for the illusion of security. I realized that the house, the job, the marriage could disappear.  There were no guarantees in mortgages and marriage certificates. They could be pulled from my hands just as easily as that stuffed bear, leaving me to face the night alone.

I had an experience that highlighted my changing views of security during my Match Madness phase. I dated one man for several weeks. He had money. I mean, real money. After only a few weeks, he mentioned the idea of me moving in, leaving my job and becoming basically a kept woman. I was repulsed by the idea but fascinated by my response. At that point, I had put in my resignation at my job and had no idea where I was going to live or how I was going to make money. I was facing the very real debts from my ex and had not yet received innocent spouse relief from the IRS. In other words, being kept should have been a temptation.

But it wasn’t. It felt like a prison.

I realized that the illusion of security works to hold us in, using our fears as restraints. I would have been bound to him by the fear of being penniless, not out of mutual respect and love. It went both ways. He was accustomed to using his bank account to hold women; he never had to work on relationship skills since he assumed that his wallet would do it for him. He was scared by the thought of a relationship without that hold.

Security looks different for me now. I don’t look for it externally, rather my security comes from trusting myself and knowing that I can make it through regardless of what happens. By next year, I will again have a marriage certificate, a mortgage and a secure job. But now I won’t be looking at them for comfort and assurance; that will come from within. I no longer clutch onto the metaphorical stuffed bears, but nor do I refuse to hold them.