I saw you tonight, as I usually do when we exchange the children. I feel the distance growing between us, something new in our relationship. I don't miss you as I used to. My friend was surprised by how good-looking you are. I was surprised by her surprise. She was giving you an intense-probing once-over when she saw you the other day, and her thirty second long investigation only revealed that you were attractive.
Tonight I gave you an Ayyam i Ha gift - flowers, a card with a prayer for husbands, and cookies. You thanked me. I said "you're welcome". We smiled. I enjoyed seeing you happy and accepting happiness from me.
But I sense that we are moving on.
Let me emphasize again that I do not want this. I want us to grow together, not apart. You cannot stop growth, I will keep growing and developing, so will you. But wouldn't it be nice to grow together?
I am realizing about myself that I really love people. I love getting to know them deeply. And yet, some of my friendships, the ones that are quite deep, I feel a little anxious within, I feel anxious about the intimacy of the relationship, there isn't clear paths on which the relationship ought to develop. I don't know where to lead it.
It comes down to me accepting love, I think. Feeling calm in the presence of another human being who I love and accepting the relationship for what it is, and accepting that love and not feeling the need to say anything or have it be anything, just allowing it to be. I am sure I am not alone in this struggle.
I spoke with a woman tonight who is very clear on her boundaries. We are exhorted, as Baha'is, to serve humanity. Wealth is described in terms of desire to serve (spiritual wealth) and capacity to serve (material wealth). I have a great desire to serve, and my challenge lies in understanding my capacity to serve. Where are my boundaries? What is too much? What is not enough? And where is the guidance in the Writings which clarifies that? How did 'Abdu'l-Baha know when to rest? When to pay attention to his own needs? My counsellor tells me that I have a body and that body has needs. I find that my biggest source of stress with the kids comes from the fact that I am constantly being interrupted, that I don't have time to simply concentrate on my own needs, thoughts, musings. But then I think to myself, that Assiyah Khanum had to walk through barren icescapes and mountains with barely enough food and shelter while taking care of her children. How did she balance her needs?
The quotations which come to mind are "deny not My servant should he ask anything from thee, for his face is My Face, be then abashed before Me" and "The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice..." So what do you do if a situation or a person is asking you to do something which would be unjust to your own self? How do you really know what is just to your own self? Should we even be concerned with our own selves? 'Abdu'l-Baha was not.... at least not most of the time from the stories I know. One story where he manifests Justice is with the coach driver, he was determined not to be cheated, when the driver demanded an unjust fare for the journey, 'Abdu'l-Baha fought back the drivers attack and paid him only what he deserved. At what point does serving others become enabling? And at what point is saying "no" simply selfish? And at what point is it clear boundaries?
I guess this blog has expanded recently, I guess it is no longer simply about my emotions relating to the shock of my husband leaving our family - it seems that I have come to new lands in my emotional travels. And these lands are new and inviting and interesting and populated and enjoyable. I am happy to be exploring these lands, these relationships.
I am surprised to find happiness here, in this YOW. I knew that happiness was always there, but to find it here, in this blog, in this deepest part of my heart, where I explore my feelings to the marriage, to the end of the marriage, to the YOW, this is all very surprising to me. Surprising, but welcome and exciting. To me, it indicates growth.
There is a friend of mine who I love deeply. She is a cool, funny, witty, creative, patient mom and supportive, insightful friend. And yet, I feel like I can't totally trust the relationship. I feel like I can't trust her. I feel like she isn't that spiritually developed. So , in a sense, I feel like I need to protect myself from parts of her and to also strengthen other parts of her, to Teach her, if you will. And then there are other friends I have, where we don't have that much in common in the material world, we are in different age groups, at different points in our lives, but somehow, I feel a deep spiritual kinship with these people. I am thinking of one woman I know in particular. She is quite a but younger than I, but I feel a deep love towards her and I feel like I can trust her, rely on her, that I can trust her to turn to God, to serve. Does this indicate she is spiritually wealthy? It is refreshing to be around her, I feel like I can rest, like I don't need to be working. It is rare for me to find people like that, people who I feel supported by on a spiritual level. I wonder what that means?
This guy that I have these ambivalent feelings towards. I feel that way around him too, that I don't need to work, that he can support me.
This is again, all really new, all these realizations for me. Service. Spiritual capacity. Spiritual wealth.
The truth is that if I spend enough time around some people, I end up feeling spiritually drained. And around others I don't. What is going on there?
There is another friend of mine who is wonderful, energetic, thoughtful, wise, well-grounded in the Writings, practical and very helpful. She is always serving others. I love her deeply and admire her. I have learned a lot from her. And I ask myself. How can I serve her? She who doesn't every complain, or talk of her own troubles, or unburden herself. She whose heart I am certain contains griefs and burdens, like all of ours. How can I lift her up, make her life better, more joyful?
And then, part of all these musings, is - how can I lift up the whole world? And then, how can I lift up myself? If I burn out, then how can I serve? And I have these two exquisite girls to raise. What's the best way to mother them and to be myself?
If wishes were horses ...
I wish things were different. Why can't he turn towards this marriage?
I am so sad. It is such a loss. It's the death of a union. A third entity is created when two people come together in marriage. An entity more powerful and greater than the sum of its parts. How can someone just commit suicide on that creation? How can he not see that this is the wrong choice? It's never the right choice to walk away from a marriage, especially one where there are children involved.
If wishes were horses beggars would ride, the saying goes; a horse, a horse my kingdom for a horse.
I once asked my husband, in the early days of our courtship, thinking of the saying "where angels fear to tread", where he though angles feared to tread. I don't remember what he answered, but I do remember thinking that the answer was very convoluted and confusing.
As for me, I believe that angels fear to tread against the will of the Almighty.
I feel like all the signs were there from the beginning. That he has not turing towards God, that he would wrap himself in idle imaginings. I didn't take these elements of our relationship seriously. I thought, naively, that like me, he would do whatever it took to make this union work.
I was wrong.
And yet here I am. Still mulling over the ruins of my marriage and wondering how it can be saved. Wondering if there is anything more I could have done or can do still to save it. I am like a doctor pumping the heart of a person whose heart has stopped beating. Mechanically attempting to keep life in that body, when the spirit has already left. That is what my marriage was like. And now, now I have stepped back from the operating table and am watching the body. I am watching to see if the spirit will return to the body and the body will take a breath again once more. I have stepped back and am watching, waiting for the Will of God to be made known. The spirit of a marriage requires both parties to be committed.
It is so maddening to have to just sit idly by and watch this marriage's spirit depart it's body. I have a hard time reconciling that fact within myself that there is nothing more I can do.
And then I pray for him to be forgiven. Baha'u'llah tells us that whoever is responsible for the divorce will experience deep remorse and calamity. I feel sorry for my husband for what he is bringing upon himself. I love him, and I love our marriage, but I can't do it alone.
i can fly, but I want his wings. We could soar so high together, he and I. I think that he doesn't believe in his own potential, nobility and greatness. He is sold on some cheap illusion of who he is. His ego has sold him on the fact that he is only worth what someone thinks of him. And so he is a prisoner.
But, he like so many other people in the world, is simply in need of education.
This comes to the point of how to Teach people the Faith. Perhaps, in the future, this will all work out to his favour and he will be able, due to these tests, to turn towards God?
I am so sad. It is such a loss. It's the death of a union. A third entity is created when two people come together in marriage. An entity more powerful and greater than the sum of its parts. How can someone just commit suicide on that creation? How can he not see that this is the wrong choice? It's never the right choice to walk away from a marriage, especially one where there are children involved.
If wishes were horses beggars would ride, the saying goes; a horse, a horse my kingdom for a horse.
I once asked my husband, in the early days of our courtship, thinking of the saying "where angels fear to tread", where he though angles feared to tread. I don't remember what he answered, but I do remember thinking that the answer was very convoluted and confusing.
As for me, I believe that angels fear to tread against the will of the Almighty.
I feel like all the signs were there from the beginning. That he has not turing towards God, that he would wrap himself in idle imaginings. I didn't take these elements of our relationship seriously. I thought, naively, that like me, he would do whatever it took to make this union work.
I was wrong.
And yet here I am. Still mulling over the ruins of my marriage and wondering how it can be saved. Wondering if there is anything more I could have done or can do still to save it. I am like a doctor pumping the heart of a person whose heart has stopped beating. Mechanically attempting to keep life in that body, when the spirit has already left. That is what my marriage was like. And now, now I have stepped back from the operating table and am watching the body. I am watching to see if the spirit will return to the body and the body will take a breath again once more. I have stepped back and am watching, waiting for the Will of God to be made known. The spirit of a marriage requires both parties to be committed.
It is so maddening to have to just sit idly by and watch this marriage's spirit depart it's body. I have a hard time reconciling that fact within myself that there is nothing more I can do.
And then I pray for him to be forgiven. Baha'u'llah tells us that whoever is responsible for the divorce will experience deep remorse and calamity. I feel sorry for my husband for what he is bringing upon himself. I love him, and I love our marriage, but I can't do it alone.
i can fly, but I want his wings. We could soar so high together, he and I. I think that he doesn't believe in his own potential, nobility and greatness. He is sold on some cheap illusion of who he is. His ego has sold him on the fact that he is only worth what someone thinks of him. And so he is a prisoner.
But, he like so many other people in the world, is simply in need of education.
This comes to the point of how to Teach people the Faith. Perhaps, in the future, this will all work out to his favour and he will be able, due to these tests, to turn towards God?
Six
I understand prisoners now. Time takes on a different feeling when you have something keeping you from acting. The Law forbids any new relationship development for one year. I am spiritually, and in all other ways, committed to my husband. Even though, he left, and he has shown no interest in reconciliation. In 6 more months I will have my answer. Will he have a change of heart? Will he decide to commit to this marriage? Or will he cast it aside, acting under the false assumption that it will be different with somebody else?
i want nothing more than for him to want this marriage. But I can't make him want it. Lord knows, I have tried.
And at the same time, I also want to know, definitively my marital status. And in six more months I will know.
My heart is so emotional, and able to handle rich relationships. As much as I love my marriage and pray for my husband daily. There is also another man who I have fallen for. There is almost no relationship to speak of there. I am keeping my distance and he is totally unaware of my feelings.
I find it surprising that I have room in my heart for this kind of emotional complexity.
Also in six more months I will be able to consider that relationship from a position of new clarity. Married or divorced.
The YOW is a period of total emotional unclarity. I guess ideally, the couple tries to reconcile. But in my case, my husband is happy to walk away from this marriage. So it is unclear. Emotionally I can't move on, even though all signs indicate that he is not going to come back. So I just have to wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait for this year to pass. And it will pass. I have never been in a situation where I had this imposed on me, this waiting for time to pass.
This is what parallels this to prison. It is almost fitting that if a couple screwed up their marriage enough to be in a YOW that they enter marital jail.
One year is not a long time, especially from the standpoint of eternity.
I love my husband. I wish he could see that all the conflict is just an illusion. It all passes. We only take joy with us to the next world anyway. Fundamentally, I wish he could turn to God.
"We verily swear to abide by the will of God." I wanted to leave the marriage many times. But in the end I never did, because it's not the will of God. I found other avenues through which to work on my issues.
I have told him many times that we can make this work , with creativity and determination. He replied that he doesn't want to.
How can someone not want to? How can someone not want to do whatever it takes?
"Whoso maketh efforts for Us, in Our ways We shall guide them." Whatever you do for God, the payoff is so great! It's worth any struggle and transient discomfort. I wish he could SEE that !
But alas, he can't.
Is he spiritually blind? Why can't he see that? Why doesn't he want to make efforts for God? Am I really asking, how can I make him want it? Free will. It's all just too sad.
Six more months. In six months I will have my emotional freedom back. Right now, I am in emotional prison. A conjugal visit would be appreciated. (Ha ha)
i want nothing more than for him to want this marriage. But I can't make him want it. Lord knows, I have tried.
And at the same time, I also want to know, definitively my marital status. And in six more months I will know.
My heart is so emotional, and able to handle rich relationships. As much as I love my marriage and pray for my husband daily. There is also another man who I have fallen for. There is almost no relationship to speak of there. I am keeping my distance and he is totally unaware of my feelings.
I find it surprising that I have room in my heart for this kind of emotional complexity.
Also in six more months I will be able to consider that relationship from a position of new clarity. Married or divorced.
The YOW is a period of total emotional unclarity. I guess ideally, the couple tries to reconcile. But in my case, my husband is happy to walk away from this marriage. So it is unclear. Emotionally I can't move on, even though all signs indicate that he is not going to come back. So I just have to wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait for this year to pass. And it will pass. I have never been in a situation where I had this imposed on me, this waiting for time to pass.
This is what parallels this to prison. It is almost fitting that if a couple screwed up their marriage enough to be in a YOW that they enter marital jail.
One year is not a long time, especially from the standpoint of eternity.
I love my husband. I wish he could see that all the conflict is just an illusion. It all passes. We only take joy with us to the next world anyway. Fundamentally, I wish he could turn to God.
"We verily swear to abide by the will of God." I wanted to leave the marriage many times. But in the end I never did, because it's not the will of God. I found other avenues through which to work on my issues.
I have told him many times that we can make this work , with creativity and determination. He replied that he doesn't want to.
How can someone not want to? How can someone not want to do whatever it takes?
"Whoso maketh efforts for Us, in Our ways We shall guide them." Whatever you do for God, the payoff is so great! It's worth any struggle and transient discomfort. I wish he could SEE that !
But alas, he can't.
Is he spiritually blind? Why can't he see that? Why doesn't he want to make efforts for God? Am I really asking, how can I make him want it? Free will. It's all just too sad.
Six more months. In six months I will have my emotional freedom back. Right now, I am in emotional prison. A conjugal visit would be appreciated. (Ha ha)
February.
Shitty. Crappy. Miserable. Down in the dumps. Wallowing. Depressed. Sad.
All I want to do is sit and do nothing and feel sorry for myself. I don't want to care for myself. I don't want to take care of my kids. I don't want to cook. I don't want to clean. I don't want to care for anyone or anything. I just want to allow myself to be sucked down into the depressing hole of sorrow and heartache.
I am angry. I find myself getting angry at things which stand in my way of self-pity. My kids mostly. I don't act on it, and even though I don't feel like doing anything, I am in fact very active and I am taking very good care of my kids and myself too. But I feel so miserable.
I don't like to be alone. When I was growing up I often came home to an empty house. I had an abusive parent. I am no stranger to aloneness and abandonment issues. No stranger, so much so, that I feel allergic to it.
In reality there is nothing going too bad in my life. I have a place to live, I have friends helping me with cooking, I have enough money for my living expenses, I am healthy, so are my kids. Nothing wrong on the outside. Inside, however, I am still re-living re-acting to the experience of him leaving and me being alone now and when I was a child. I hate being alone. I function so much better with others around. Although the thing is that I don't like to always be working with someone, when I do have someone close around, I do need a lot of time to myself. I hate being forced to take the time to myself. I hate that it's not an option.
At times, I wish I could get involved in another relationship. And at other times I cherish that I am in the YOP (which the UHJ actually states should be referred to as a Year of Waiting), and I am afraid of it ending, and thus ending this period of sorrow and deep exploration of the self. It's liberating, in a sense, to know that I am not only not expected to get involved with someone, I am in fact forbidden from doing it. It actually removes a bunch of pressure I would otherwise feel.
Of course, it leaves room for other pressure to come in. The sadness. How do I go on with my life, care for myself, my children, be joyful, make intelligent choices, model the type of behavior I want my children to grow up with while dealing with the sadness, the deepness of it all.
If I could just sit and write poetry, make art and express, I would be happy. I want to be very internally focused right now. I want to do deep, profound self-care, exploration and expression.
How do I create more room for that in my life?
There is a friend of mine I think I am falling in love with. When I started to feel this way, months ago, I brought it up with him (he has excellent boundaries and wasn't thinking in that way at all) and started to create more distance in my interactions with him. I certainly, did not want to encourage these feelings, but at the same time, I do like this guy, and wanted to make sure that we could be friends. It's impossible. There is no way I can be friends with him in this situation. If the YOW goes through then I can explore whatever path that relationship may take, friendship or other, and if it doesn't, then Hallelujah I have my dearest husband and family unit back and I can pursue definite friendship with the other fellow. Right now, the situation is too fragile emotionally for me to be closer friends than I already am with this guy.
It's tough. I am sure that other people have different things that come up for them in the YOW.
It's like all your issues that you have ever had in your life come to the surface, and you become aware of them. It's like the waters of your life still and you can see to the depths, as you are not adding more and more things to the surface and stirring up the waters which makes it harder to see the things you have already put into your life. The things which lay in your pool of soul and affect you in every way, every day.
I had another thought too. We live in space-time. Moving through space, we move away from objects, events. We can climb mountains and the path is difficult, but the reward is worth it. Moving through time, we also move away from events. In difficult moments every breath is a triumph, much like every step up the mountain a success. These breathes moves us away from the shocking event and as we move further away, as we struggle up the mountain, we are gratified by the journey and the view - and the event in the past, become less and less powerful to us.
It's just a question of allowing time to pass. And it will.
But OMG is it hard. As I said, I just want to sit and wallow and paint and take pictures and drink. The quintessential artist. I won't drink - but I am making art.
The hardest part is knowing that I don't have a support. That I need to pace my self because I need to be there for my children. Perhaps this is where the anger comes from. Perhaps I should just parent my own inner child more and trust that I will be able to be there for my kids when I need to be.
This guy, he's asked me how I am doing lately. I don't know what to answer him.
How am I doing? I am sad. I am lonely. I feel sorry for myself. I feel disconnected from everyone and everything. I am depressed.
What the hell type of answer does he expect? It bothers me. He is genuinely concerned, he really wants to know. But I can't share too deeply how I am doing, or I leave myself open to fall further for him, and I don't want to just say "ok". I want to be honest and truthful while still maintaining a good boundary in the relationship. How do I do that?
All I want to do is sit and do nothing and feel sorry for myself. I don't want to care for myself. I don't want to take care of my kids. I don't want to cook. I don't want to clean. I don't want to care for anyone or anything. I just want to allow myself to be sucked down into the depressing hole of sorrow and heartache.
I am angry. I find myself getting angry at things which stand in my way of self-pity. My kids mostly. I don't act on it, and even though I don't feel like doing anything, I am in fact very active and I am taking very good care of my kids and myself too. But I feel so miserable.
I don't like to be alone. When I was growing up I often came home to an empty house. I had an abusive parent. I am no stranger to aloneness and abandonment issues. No stranger, so much so, that I feel allergic to it.
In reality there is nothing going too bad in my life. I have a place to live, I have friends helping me with cooking, I have enough money for my living expenses, I am healthy, so are my kids. Nothing wrong on the outside. Inside, however, I am still re-living re-acting to the experience of him leaving and me being alone now and when I was a child. I hate being alone. I function so much better with others around. Although the thing is that I don't like to always be working with someone, when I do have someone close around, I do need a lot of time to myself. I hate being forced to take the time to myself. I hate that it's not an option.
At times, I wish I could get involved in another relationship. And at other times I cherish that I am in the YOP (which the UHJ actually states should be referred to as a Year of Waiting), and I am afraid of it ending, and thus ending this period of sorrow and deep exploration of the self. It's liberating, in a sense, to know that I am not only not expected to get involved with someone, I am in fact forbidden from doing it. It actually removes a bunch of pressure I would otherwise feel.
Of course, it leaves room for other pressure to come in. The sadness. How do I go on with my life, care for myself, my children, be joyful, make intelligent choices, model the type of behavior I want my children to grow up with while dealing with the sadness, the deepness of it all.
If I could just sit and write poetry, make art and express, I would be happy. I want to be very internally focused right now. I want to do deep, profound self-care, exploration and expression.
How do I create more room for that in my life?
There is a friend of mine I think I am falling in love with. When I started to feel this way, months ago, I brought it up with him (he has excellent boundaries and wasn't thinking in that way at all) and started to create more distance in my interactions with him. I certainly, did not want to encourage these feelings, but at the same time, I do like this guy, and wanted to make sure that we could be friends. It's impossible. There is no way I can be friends with him in this situation. If the YOW goes through then I can explore whatever path that relationship may take, friendship or other, and if it doesn't, then Hallelujah I have my dearest husband and family unit back and I can pursue definite friendship with the other fellow. Right now, the situation is too fragile emotionally for me to be closer friends than I already am with this guy.
It's tough. I am sure that other people have different things that come up for them in the YOW.
It's like all your issues that you have ever had in your life come to the surface, and you become aware of them. It's like the waters of your life still and you can see to the depths, as you are not adding more and more things to the surface and stirring up the waters which makes it harder to see the things you have already put into your life. The things which lay in your pool of soul and affect you in every way, every day.
I had another thought too. We live in space-time. Moving through space, we move away from objects, events. We can climb mountains and the path is difficult, but the reward is worth it. Moving through time, we also move away from events. In difficult moments every breath is a triumph, much like every step up the mountain a success. These breathes moves us away from the shocking event and as we move further away, as we struggle up the mountain, we are gratified by the journey and the view - and the event in the past, become less and less powerful to us.
It's just a question of allowing time to pass. And it will.
But OMG is it hard. As I said, I just want to sit and wallow and paint and take pictures and drink. The quintessential artist. I won't drink - but I am making art.
The hardest part is knowing that I don't have a support. That I need to pace my self because I need to be there for my children. Perhaps this is where the anger comes from. Perhaps I should just parent my own inner child more and trust that I will be able to be there for my kids when I need to be.
This guy, he's asked me how I am doing lately. I don't know what to answer him.
How am I doing? I am sad. I am lonely. I feel sorry for myself. I feel disconnected from everyone and everything. I am depressed.
What the hell type of answer does he expect? It bothers me. He is genuinely concerned, he really wants to know. But I can't share too deeply how I am doing, or I leave myself open to fall further for him, and I don't want to just say "ok". I want to be honest and truthful while still maintaining a good boundary in the relationship. How do I do that?
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