Tag: maladaptive stress response

“It Happens Everyday,” But it Shouldn’t

It Happens Everyday, Carly Simon

It happens everyday
Two lovers with the best intentions to stay
Together, they decide to separate
Just how it happens, neither is certain
But it happens everyday….
Well, you make him a liar
Turn him into a robber
Well, it happens everyday.

I have had to go to two pre-trial conferences related to my divorce from Lena. I recognize that divorce is often ugly; it doesn’t need to be, but it is. Like the lyrics above say, “Well, you make him a liar. Turn him into a robber.” It’s very sad how two people who once were so much in love can twist history and try to tear one another apart. I have sincerely tried to not go down that road. It’s not what I want at all, but then again, I didn’t want the divorce either. In these two pretrial conferences Lena’s lawyer has said somethings that are just patently false. I don’t know if the false information comes from Lena or this is just a standard page out of her lawyer’s playbook; but it sucks.

I would much rather be told that I got fat and unattractive, that I was a lousy lover, that I was too grumpy or just a plain old asshole, than have lies said about me.

1st Lie

Lena’s lawyer claims that I was unfaithful throughout the marriage. This is plainly and simply FALSE. I never cheated on Lena. I never wanted to cheat on her. I never had eyes for another while I was with her. I was so in love with her and thought she was an amazing, smart and stunningly beautiful woman. I thought we were very compatible sexually and I never felt any reason to look for something anywhere else. Period. Seriously.

So, where does this lie come from? Is it merely a standard page out of the divorce playbook of lawyers? Maybe. It doesn’t make much sense in New York State as it is a no fault state — so infidelity doesn’t matter, if it were true, which it is not. Is Lena projecting? That’s a possibility, but I never thought she was cheating on me during the marriage despite the fact that she openly admitted to cheating on her first husband several times “after she knew the marriage was over but before getting out of it.” I was so in love with her and thought that she was so in love with me that I never thought either of us would cheat. But… maybe she did and now she is projecting; I just don’t know. I do know her mother often accused me of cheating because I spent time at the upstate home without Lena. During the marriage Lena said she knew her mother’s accusations were crap and just part and parcel of her soul cancer. I would have hoped that by now Lena would have realized that nothing good ever comes from allowing her mother’s psychotic mean spirited drivel into her head; again, I just don’t know.

2nd Lie

The second lie is that I never lived in Rivertown with Lena and her children. In last night’s blog post, I wrote how hurtful this lie is because it completely negates everything that I did there for seven years.

When Lena and I were talking about getting married in 2010 and 2011, I was 100% open about my mental illness history and suicide attempt history. I told Lena that I needed to keep the home in upstate NY and spend some amount of time here because living full-time all of the time in Rivertown would not be good for my mental health. I agreed to spend 50% or more of my time down in Rivertown with Lena and her kids. But we both agreed to the idea that we would not necessarily be together 365 nights a year. The first couple of years I thought this arrangement was working OK and I did spend more than half of my time in Rivertown. I drove the kids to their before school program and picked them up from the same program after school. Later I drove the kids to and from school often. There were several times when I closed up the upstate house and spent 4-6 months 24/7 there in Rivertown. I was on the pickup list from the high school for the kids… Why would I be on that list if I never lived there or only came down on weekends? I can subpoena school officials to prove this.

I drove the kids to soccer/basketball/lacrosse/dance practices. I have photos from mid-week practices and games; not just weekend events. I attended dance and concert and play rehearsals; again, I have photos from all of these things. Again, these are mid-week practices; I wasn’t just around on “some weekends.” Dance teachers/coaches and friends can confirm that I was an involved step-parent. One coach wrote in a text message to me that for some period of time it was obvious to him that I was more involved in the lives of my step-children than either of their biological parents… because I wasn’t working (as both parents were) and I took the time to be involved. I was there. I was involved. I was part of a family. I was part of a community. Again, I have tens of thousands of photos proving I was there and that I was involved. I have a list of a dozen people willing to testify under oath about my being there and my level of involvement. I have doctors that I saw regularly down there with records showing visits etc.

It’s a bald face lie that I never lived down there. Did I sell the upstate home and move down there 24/7/365 when we got married? No. I did not. But I spent a significant amount of time there investing in the family, home and community.

Below is a slideshow of just a smattering of the tens of thousands of photos I have of the time I spent living in Rivertown:

View Thumbnails

Grief Comes in Waves…

Recently I was chatting with a young mother whose baby died in her arms shortly after being born too prematurely to survive. I check in on her every few days and I told her that grief comes in waves… That she shouldn’t be surprised if she feels better one day, or for a few days, and then the agonizing pain returns. I warned her that this will happen again and again, and may never end; the hope is that the period of time between waves will grow longer and longer as time goes on.

I should listen to my own words. I woke up this morning around 5AM and had a really nice conversation with a young man who has reached out to me because of this blog from South Asia. After showering and having my 2nd cup of coffee I went down to my office with the idea of editing some photos. I turned on my music app and a song that I love but had not listened to in a while came on… by the 2nd or 3rd bar I was in tears. The tears just welled up in my eyes and I could feel my heart expanding in my chest to the point it felt like it would burst. Then the tears just flowed.

The gut wrenching wave of grief struck me out of the blue and I felt like I couldn’t breath. It felt as if it took all of my bodies will to make my heart beat each beat. My brain was awash in sadness and of course, me being me, my initial response was to wish that I were dead. I wasn’t acutely suicidal or in any imminent danger to myself… I just wanted the pain to stop and my old “stand by” reaction to this type of stress is wishing I would just die.

The song was “Forever Young” by Alphaville…

I love this song… I have since it first came out… but it reminds me of Lena. This morning, out of the blue, when hearing this song all of the hurt Lena’s leaving me… pushing me out of her life… and the lives of her children who I helped raise for 8 years… all of that soul crushing, heart breaking pain came rushing in as if it had just happened all over again.

I recognized the stress for what it was and immediately turned off the music and forced myself to run some errands. But the “wave” didn’t stop when I turned the music off. Driving felt almost surreal as I wasn’t aware of consciously deciding to turn the wheel a certain way or press the gas or break… I was kind of on auto-pilot. I still felt like just breathing was taking all of the energy that my body and mind could muster. This lasted for more than an hour! Some quacks would call it a panic attack… but I would not. It was a grief wave.

As I am writing this, now 8 hours later, I am listening to “Forever Young” on repeat and I can feel those feelings without letting them push me to that “wish I were dead” spot and helping me write this post. It never ceases to amaze me how certain songs can provoke certain responses… and as time passes the invoked feelings can change. In the months prior to marrying Lena, I listened to this song alot and thought of it as a happy song. Now different verses of the song provoke very different feelings.

Prior to the marriage the first verse spoke the most to me and it rang as youthfully hopeful to me…

Let’s dance in style, let’s dance for a while
Heaven can wait we’re only watching the skies
Hoping for the best, but expecting the worst

Now, almost 9 years later and fully knowing the whole marriage was a lie… that I was used and abused and then thrown out like a dead work horse… this verse rings truer to me…

It’s so hard to get old without a cause
I don’t want to perish like a fading horse
Youth’s like diamonds in the sun
And diamonds are forever

I have promised myself that I will NOT kill myself over Lena. I just won’t give her that satisfaction. I probably will kill myself some day, but not over her!