Blame it all on me
Posted by: Kelly
Subject tags: personal, life, human interest, divorce
on Oct 17, 2008
This is my first time writing a blog. My good friend suggested that it would be therapeutic for me to share ideas, and that others might benefit from what I have to say, so here goes.
I'm a 37-year-old mother of two amazing children (ages 8 and 4) that mean the world to me. After 10 years of marriage, about 3 months ago I found out that my husband was cheating on me AGAIN. I got the news via text message. No, it was not a text from his girlfriend. It was a text from him. I was standing in the grocery store with my two kids, staring at the little electronic screen with my heart splattered on the floor "Cleanup on isle five!," I should have yelled, "I don't need the damned thing, anyway."
What is it about women like me that makes us endure a second (third, fourth, etc.) round of emotional abuse? There are millions of us out there. What makes us believe that our men can keep things together after one fall from grace? I think that it might be that we are just not thinking about what it takes (or what it means) to step out on someone. I mean, anyone who risks losing a really good family life for a few snacks on the side is simply incapable of a values-based existence. Well, that was enough for me.
That was just the beginning. I have dodged a barrage of life's missiles and have had to overcome quite a few personal tribulations. It's pretty clear that I have a long way to go, but one of the first things I have to battle is my husband's tendency to blame things on me, especially to the kids.
When we first separated, he promised me that he would not have the children around his girlfriend until after our divorce was final. Actually, I unilaterally amended that to "until he has solid plans to marry her." I don't want my kids to see their father engaging in a string of casual relationships.
After I convinced him that he had to leave our house (for my sanity), he got an apartment so he could "have the kids overnight." When he moved in he also moved his girlfriend in.
Someone shoot me now for thinking that family values could prevail in the mind of this man who clearly has a problem with penile mental dominance.
Because of his living arrangements, he has only had the kids overnight 2 times in three months, and he is unreliable at best when it comes to showing up to see the kids.
When he came last Wednesday to get the kids our son asked, "Dad are we going to stay at your house tonight?" He said " I would love nothing more then to have you stay the night, but your mom has a problem with it." I could not believe he blamed it on me, but then again I seem to have a gene for naive supposition.
To partially solve the problem, I let him hang out with the kids at my house and I left for the day. This is not the house we shared when we were married. I had to move into a smaller house to make ends meet. When I got home later that night and got the kids in the tub, I told him I wanted to talk to him. When I expressed that his comment was inappropriate, HE WENT BERSERK!! He started screaming at me, "I mess up one time and you flip out, you do it to me all the time."
OK, so he has a short fuse. At least he admits to messing up. I had not "flipped out" at all, and I have never blamed him for anything in front of the kids. I think that his reaction was a knee-jerk to my unwillingness to compromise on letting the kids stay in a household where he is sleeping with a girlfriend.
I think that my dilemma is becoming clear. I am faced with teaching my children good values despite the fact that their father displays what can only be described as self-values. I would like the kids to learn self-respect and respect for others, but their father does not model those qualities.
I might never understand why my ex is the way he is, but I'd better start understanding myself. I'd like to know why, for example, women (and men) stay with a partner who cheats. Do we really think that they will change? I must have convinced myself that he would, but thinking about it now I believe that I knew the risks and put my heart back on the chopping block anyway. Why don't we see the warning signs that are there before we ever marry someone. It's not like they weren't obvious. Love is not only blind, it's deaf and dumb. Why?
I'd really like to blame everything on my ex. He sure did a lot of damage, but blaming him won't solve my problems. I have to learn from all of this, so I'll have to blame myself for some things too, most notably ignoring the obvious.
This blog will probably wonder from time to time, but in keeping with the theme of this website I want to focus on topics of broad interest, such as the psychology of divorce and surviving devastation. I'm not a psychologist, so I'm hoping to get some feedback from people who have a background in psychology. I also want to discuss raising children in the aftermath of divorce. It seems to me that this subject is really relevant to a lot of lives.
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You're in a pickle all right, but you seem to have the right attitude about things. Learning about yourself and understanding how to keep yourself out of harm's way the next time around is the key to future happiness. It seems to me that your biggest dilemma is in how to teach your children solid values, and that you can only do by taking the high road.
You must, of course, model the behavior you want them to learn. They will pick up on the differences between your behavior and what your ex displays, and eventually they will choose which path to take for themselves. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that it will be yours, but there are certainly things you can do to improve the odds.
Talking to them about the consequences of irresponsibility and showing them what responsibility looks like are pretty important, and it seems like you are already privy to these concepts.
As for why we stay with partners who cheat, there are really only four possibilities, and they can be labeled self-interest, self-esteem, fear, and tradition.
We don't give too many dangerous situations a second chance unless the benefits outweigh the liabilities. The self-interest category could also be labeled the "Hillary Clinton Syndrome." Hillary is not someone who suffers insults gladly and I'm sure that she had quite a few reservations about sticking it out with Bill after his publicly embarrassing infidelities, but Hillary has political aspirations that put the brakes on any plans for divorce. Bill was and still is an asset if she wants to navigate her way through Washington's political quagmire. Self-interest is probably the only rational reason for remaining with an untrustworthy partner, and even this assertion can be challenged.
As for self-esteem, many victims of infidelity are afraid that there is nothing better out there, or that even if there is they won't find it. This thinking is often associated with a fear of being alone. Certain fears result from a low self-opinion, while others are associated with more formidable issues. Many people stuck in a low self-esteem sand trap never get out, but others have a point beyond which their rational faculties kick in.
As mentioned above many people fear being alone, but for people in your situation there are some other powerful fears as well. One is the fear of loss, not only of things, but of relationships and connections that are established through a marital union. Some people might consider fear to be a rational reason to stay with a cheater, but, of course, it is not. The very fact that an emotion is the causal agent makes it not rational (i.e., of the intellect). Fear of change is another important persuasion, and one could list others.
Tradition is rather old school, but it is alive and well in religious beliefs of the sacred bond of matrimony. Clearly our political system has discarded this view and most other people have, too, but those who lean toward literalist interpretations of the Bible often cannot justify divorce. After all, they stood before God and trusted his jugement in guiding them into that union. It must be in his will to test them with such trials.
Hang in there. You've been put in a difficult situation, but your attitude and actions will determine your outcome. The most important thing is that you are moving on.