Because I Love Him (Her)

One of the recent repost requests (I’m working on the others)

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I’m not sure if I’ve posted about this before, but “because I love him (her)” is not a reason for anything when someone has hurt you. Especially if they have hurt you badly and continue to mistreat or fail to respect you.

Email (to me)

Hi all,

I am almost a week behind in email and phone messages. If you have sent an email needing an answer to me and it’s okay to post on the blog, please put help request: okay to post on the blog in the subject line. I will remove all identifying information of course.

If you have sent email about bootcamps, please put BOOTCAMP and the night you’re interested in (Tues or Thurs) in the subject line. If you have called about bootcamp, please email me.

If you have emailed me in the past two months and I have not answered, please write RESEND in the subject line. I apologize for being so swamped, but I am at the moment.

Thanks all for supporting each other and being here.

Learning What We Need To Know

“I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.” – Winston Churchill

When I first started my journey toward wholeness, I spent a lot of time wishing that someone would feel sorry for me, take pity on me, see that I had been through a lot.

My first therapist did not feel sorry for me but told me what I needed to hear. My support group could be brutally honest as well.

One dear friend told me if I was looking for sympathy I would find it “in the dictionary between sh!t and syphillis.” Harsh words but ones that helped me to realize that there was no prize in getting sympathy. There was only a prize in hearing the truth about me. And if the truth is told with love and caring, it is a great truth indeed. Some of the greatest truths are harsh to hear.

2/07/10 Check-in Thread

How is everyone doing???????????????

Identity and NC

“Identity is the antidote for enmeshment.” – Terry Kellogg

I read this quote a long time ago when I was overly enmeshed with an unhealthy, abusive person and had no identity of my own. The book and this blog recommends two very important things: get into your own head and get out of anyone else’s. As you forge your own identity, the need to know what he or she is thinking, doing or saying becomes irrelevant. That is why going NC AND paying attention to your life is the key to moving on success.

Positive Energy

I wanted to post this to encourage all you who are working so hard.

When one door closes, another opens. ~ (widely attributed to Helen Keller)

Often the ending of one issue or situation paves the way for something that would not be possible if the previous situation still existed.

Often we cannot see, when we are in emotional pain, what opportunities await us now that the path has been cleared for them to happen. The time between the one door closing and the next opening sometimes feels confusing and difficult.

In that in-between time, it’s easy to question yourself. Sometimes it is hard to have faith in that which has not happened yet.

Sometimes it’s tough to believe something good is ever going to happen again.

When times are tough and/or frustrating, look back at your life and look at the opportunities you’ve had during times when other doors closed. Look at the times things worked out when you weren’t sure they were going to.

It is important to do your work and acknowledge and FEEL the painful emotions of loss, but it is also important to stay positive about the future and about the doors that are not yet ready to open. These are not trite words and pithy sayings. It really is TRUE that new opportunities become available when we lose certain things and people in our lives.

Do your work, have faith, and don’t give up the day before the miracle happens.

The door WILL open for you. Just put one foot in front of the other and do the work. Stay positive and stay open to new beginnings. They are out there. They will happen for you. Trust the process and stay strong.

Sometimes It’s Just Not It

This is a repost in response to some comments about the not-so-bad relationship ending. This post actually generated a massive amount of heat when it was first posted. Let’s see what happens.

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I’ve blogged on here a lot about how sometimes the simple answer to “Why didn’t it work out?” is that it wasn’t it for both people. It has to be IT for both people for it to be IT. If it’s not, then it’s not. And sometimes your partner is doing you a favor by bailing. Because it gives you the chance to meet someone who really is it in a way you can’t imagine now.

After I left my first marriage I became involved in a rebound relationship and it was pretty stupid and I got out quickly (but not before going to Chicago and paying way too much for a weekend, I’ve blogged about that on here).

I think my Chicago escapade ended, formally, in August but he kept writing me or would occasionally send me some picture of himself which, I imagine, was designed for me to write back (and say what? I’m not exactly sure).

Around the beginning of September I met a guy who was a friend of friends. I had developed, by that time, a fairly big group of friends and someone pulled him into the group. From our first conversation we hit it off famously. I was enjoying my new found freedom and had a nice group of friends at work and a nice group of friends at home and I didn’t really need one more friend.

February NC Chips

Let’s inspire and help each other!

It’s that time of the month again!

No contact (NC) is truly the key to moving on. It’s a big, important topic which is why it’s the first chapter in the book.

Even if you work with, have children with, mutual friends with, NC is possible in that you only speak when you have to, you don’t get into emotional issues, everything is very business like. If you don’t share anything like that, going NC is very important: CUT OFF ALL CONTACT.

Anyway, long before the book came out we gave NC chips for staying NC for various lengths of time (as they do in 12-step programs). We also talk about issues and struggles for those not NC a long time. We have 24 hour chips which means for this 24 hours you will commit to NC!

I notice a lot of you have struggled and slipped into the “Breaking NC” pool of sludge. If you break NC or respond to your NC-breaking bananahead ex, you don’t “go back to square one.” You have had progress along the way and it’s easier once you’ve done it a while to do it again. So shower and get right back to NC. And tell us what you’ve learned Dorothy.

So leave your concerns, issues, questions, stories here and

Come get your chips!!!

NC Chips

24 hours: white
30 days: yellow
60 days: green
90 days: blue
6 months: purple
9 months: red
1 year or more: GOLD

Pick up your chip! Tell us what chip you get and how you did it. Share your NC power of example! Talk about how long you’ve been NC and what it’s been like for you.

I would also suggest, in the way of being good to you, to BUY yourself an actual chip, a real chip and keep it on your dresser/bureau or some other prominent place as a reminder of how WELL you are doing. Standard poker chips are fine but the gold ones can be a nice round gold piece from a jewelry store or buy a chain with a nice round gold pendant. If you’ve been a NC you definitely deserve something nice. Make your symbol REAL and not just virtual!

If you’re struggling with NC, talk about your biggest challenges to NC and what is standing in your way and if you need help/support.

What are your challenges? What are your issues?

Housekeeping

So many, so many new readers. I will be doing another intro thread soon but please feel free to introduce yourself in the check-in thread. Let us know who you are! We are here to help.

I’m doing a lot of radio/tv next week in anticipation of the v-word. Check media appearances page above. Some are local (NYC) and some are national and some are internet (global!). And there’s more to come.

I am calling everyone to firm up the bootcamp rosters by the 15th. If you haven’t registered but absolutely want to participate, please email me soon especially with the nights you are available. I expect the NYC radio/tv appearances might increase the registrations, so please let me know this week. Please make sure I have your email and your home or cell number.

Please check the commenting guidelines above. No one is in violation or has been (this is a nice, civil, articulate group) but if you question something, the answer should be there.

This is a great community that is growing by leaps and bounds (quite the uptick since the holidays). Thank you all for being a wonderful part of it.

The Horror That Can Be Reconcilliation

Repost requested in comments.

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On GPYP we don’t discuss reconcilliation attempts. We just don’t. Everything GPYP teaches comes from my personal and professional life and academic research. Maybe there are therapists somewhere that have a high rate of reconcilliations that work out, but I have not personally experienced that. Couple dynamics can be changed and recharted through couples counseling but it’s an intense (and usually long) process.

I know couples who have successfully gone through counseling who are married and/or have children and lots at stake and two committed people. I’m not talking about couples counseling in this post, I’m talking about a breakup (a true breakup, not a separation to sort things out) and then attempts at reconcilliation. Rarely have I seen that work out and never with people who haven’t been together or married a long, long time.

The only exception to that rule is what I call the “event defining” break…a drunken episode and then the couple go to AA and/or Al-anon and work their programs and come back together….or the death of a child…where I have seen more than one couple go to their separate corners, unable to share the pain, and eventually come back together later in the grieving process. But besides these two “event defining” breakups, I haven’t seen many reconcilliations that work out or any apart from these situations (except for one couple who, while broken up, found meditation and yoga together and now are all Zen about everything on the planet and another who had just married too young and separated for a year and went to counseling together and then regrouped as a mature couple staying in counseling for a few years).

Professionally I haven’t seen it very often and I haven’t heard about it from many other therapists. I don’t study it and there may be entire bodies of work that I’m missing, but my professional experience and my personal experience is that they don’t work.

And sometimes just trying reconcilliation, if you have certain histories, can be a trauma.

The Tail That Wags The Dog

I once went out with a guy who thought I was the greatest thing since the folded napkin.

In the beginning it was fun and romantic and airy and light. We each thought the other was just the best. But as we grew closer, he got “confused,” was “unsure” if he wanted to be this serious. Then we would part for a while until he thought it unbearable and then we would do this dance a few more times.

Comfort Zones and Defense Mechanisms

In her seminal work, Our Inner Conflicts, Karen Horney says that behind the fear of change is often the fear of changing for the worst or the fear of being unable to change at all.

What if I try to change and no one likes the new me?

What if I try to change and find that I can’t?

Often the fear of “what I’m going to change into” and the unknown “new me” is more frightening than staying in the comfort and misery of what is known. Another fear is that change is not possible.

02/02/10 Check-in Thread

New thread. How is everyone doing?

Wisdom 2

Repost requested via comments. Pls let me know if this is what you’re looking for! Thanks.

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Sully: Hang in there.
Toby: Hang in there? That’s the sum of your wisdom on the subject?
Sully: That’s the sum of my wisdom on most subjects. ~ Nobody’s Fool (film) written by Robert Benton 1994

Sometimes the simplest advice is the best. When we don’t know what to do, we should do nothing. When we are overwhelmed by the enormity of our tasks and the state of our lives, we should look at things one day at a time or one hour at a time or one minute at a time.

Some days we can and will challenge ourselves to go further, be better, explore more. And still other days it’s a matter of white-knuckling it through the day when the best you can do is breathe in and out. Put everything aside and just grit your teeth and get through. Sometimes it’s time for a mental health day. Other times it’s time to kick it into high gear and do the things you need to do.

It is imperative, a lot of times, to bring the solution down to the simplest task and the smallest measure of time otherwise looking at everything will just paralyze us.

01/30/10 Check-in Thread

New thread!!!! How is everyone doing? Happy weekend all!

Annual V-Day Post

For the third year in a row, I’d like to do a Vday post for those newly broken up or not so newly broken up and Valentine’s Day is or is not bugging you.

I’m currently doing a round of radio and television interviews based on the statistic that 40 percent of couples break up between New Years and Valentine’s Day. Staggering, eh?

But that is spread out between Jan 1 and Feb 13th. Even more staggering is that more divorces are filed on February 15th than any other day of the year. So Valentine’s Day is not, excuse the pun, all roses.

Valentine’s Day is NOT what it seems. It’s a Hallmark/Culturally Constructed Holiday. It’s pretty dopey, if you ask me. It’s nice in some ways but the pressure is immense in other ways. Like not everyone’s family is a Norman Rockwell painting on major holidays, not every couple is a picture of bliss on Valentines Day. And even if they act like they are, chances are they’re lying and the lies may blow them apart from the inside out. Again, Feb 15th = divorce day….tah dah!

Maintenance Crazy Repost

In the year before I met Michael, I dated some but not much. For the most part I wanted to be alone. Inside I was giving up on romantic relationships and really tired of watching people around me “settle” for less and telling me I was too picky. I ended two very close friendships with two women who were best friend 1 and best friend 2 mostly because of their willingness (almost eagerness) to give up who they are for a relationship. In my mind they gave it up and convinced them this person was “the one” because they were tired of the romantic rat race.

For me I vowed to NOT do that. I’d rather be alone. And I was alone and sometimes lonely. But I was more content being alone than dealing with the past bananaheads I had dealt with. And as of a result of not settling, I met the most wonderful man in the universe who loved me in a way I had never ever been loved before. Who was always kind and happy and supportive and loving and THERE for me without enmeshment, without challenging each other’s independence and personal space. The unbelievable wonderful life that happens when you have a partner who gives you both enough love and enough space is what happened to me. For not settling for less.

After the book came out in May, I heard from a lot of old friends and old boyfriends. Some very welcome and some not so welcome. One email was from someone that I “lost touch” with who had a very calm manner and who, when I knew him, was into getting better and into recovery and therapy and all of that. Worked very hard at it. Apparently after we lost touch he dropped the ball on that one and went off in some other tangential direction. As a result, he’s in the same place or perhaps worse off, than he was when we lost touch some 8 years ago. He’s now (again) looking for love in all the wrong places and thinking that a relationship (woman) will complete him. He’s done the backslide in a huge way and has no one in his life who will check him and say “hey, maybe this is not a good idea….” He goes to some program where “positive reflecting” is the only feedback allowed. So apparently they’re all doing what they want and giving each other big high fives over it even if it’s nutty and self-destructive. The thing is that he’s never gone back to “as bad” as it was when he got into 12 step programs and therapy, and he’s never going to be in enough emotional pain for the nuttiness to become apparent. Somewhere along the road he stopped recovering and was just below-surface crazy…never again being in enough pain to deal with it, but never being happy or satisfied and not knowing why.

I’ve talked about being in so much pain that you become willing to do anything you need to do to change things so that you will never feel that way again. Unfortunately some people never get to that point. Because they’re just maintaining the craziness right below the surface. Never sick enough or hurt enough to actually do anything about it. Just maintaining their dysfunctional, crazy lives and thinking (or trying to believe) all is okay. Unfortunately, they even get close to change. It never gets quite bad enough for them.

1/25 Check-In Thread

How is everyone doing? Feel free to continue conversations from last check in here.

These Dreams of You

I receive a lot of email from readers having disturbing dreams about their ex. There’s a couple of things about dreams: 1) some of them are calling attention to something you need to work out or look at in your waking life; and 2) some are completely random dreams about nothing (even if your ex appears in them, it’s not really significant).

Does Anybody Miss Me Redux

Does anybody miss me?
Does anybody feel the way I do?
Does anybody wonder
If my lost and lonely heart is missing you?
~ Les Reed / Johnny Worth written for Shirley Bassey 1969

I grew up in a pretty nutty foster/adoptive family but there was enough of a lull in the action, often enough, for them to give me a love for Broadway and divas like Shirley Bassey, Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli, Vikki Carr, etc etc etc. Our craziness had a soundtrack and I loved that soundtrack.

I loved this album “Does Anybody Miss Me?” by Shirley Bassey. I truly did. And I loved this song. It was just a great song and summed it up for me nicely.

All my life I wondered if anyone missed me (most notably my crazy biological family) but most often the last person I broke up with. Did he miss me? would he want me again? would he want me again while I still wanted him???

I spent my LIFE wondering if people (biological mother, last boyfriend) MISSED me. I wanted to be missed. That was a goal. MISS ME PEOPLE. Make me think I matter.

…and when he did miss me or want me would I just laugh…oh you silly man…I am SO over you! and then go on…vindicated…I did matter…I do matter…ah yes,

SOMEBODY missed me. Missing me was some measure of my worth so TAH DAH! I had some!