anguish: Agonizing physical or mental or emotional pain; torment.
agonizing: Extraordinarily painful or distressing.
torment:Great physical pain or mental anguish.
Extraordinarily painful, deep, distressing emotional pain. That is where I am at.
I am not depressed (in low spirits). I am actually in high spirits at times. But I am grieving. Deeply. Acutely feeling the loss of this marriage.
Maybe I should try to put all the grief on hold until after the YOW? Technically we are still married. Technically, the marriage is not over.
The grief is huge now. It feels larger than me. In the beginning there was stress, planning, action. Now things are more settled, there is just the emotions associated with the breakdown of the marriage. This sorrow accompanies me everywhere. No where can I go where the grief is not with me. I don't mind it so much. It's comforting in a sense, a deep emotion I can sink into. It becomes problematic when I need to take care of the kids. Grieving is not compatible with taking care of them. I do a good job, but it's not easy.
Sorrow. Sadness. I am in mourning. Recently, I have had more space to process these emotions. It's been good. I feel more peaceful acknowledging that they're there. I am sad. This is a loss. These emotions aren't going anywhere. But I also can't let them stop my life. The Teaching needs are great - I love Teaching. It gives me strength, happiness, healing. I have this hole that is my companion. But so what. It's like a handicap. Just something to integrate into my life. Sorrow. Sadness. Grief. My hole.
My chest feels hollow. It hurts. Like my heart has been shattered. I feel like I've been kicked in the stomach, beaten, defeated, left outside in a rainy back alley, dropped there by some thugs. I lay there in the rain, bruised, battered, bloody, I lay there and I have no strength to get up.
There's no point. There is no hope. There is no one to save me from this pain. There is just acceptance of the pain and moving on with my duties and responsibilities.
I had a dream that my step-sister, who is really sweet, was beaten up by another girl. When I found out what happened in the dream, I spoke up at a formal event to tables of women, about injustice and cruelty - we needed to be thoughtful about our own lives and where we see cruelty or injustice and actively work against it, in order to stop this type of thing.
I find myself thinking, what's the point?
Someone lives their life and labors in the path of God, someone else just follows the gods of their own idle fancy, one grows spiritually, serves, loves, develops their spiritual capacities, the other, pursues, wealth, status, material possessions. One lives for the next world. The other lives for this world. From appearances it would seem that the second would have a better life than the first. To those with spiritual sight, however, we see the reverse is true.
My estranged spouse has moved into another house. I dropped off the kids yesterday and I was shocked by the grandeur of the house. It's a gorgeous, large, handsome beautiful house. It hurt. He walks away from his responsibilities, moves in with another woman, abandons me, abandons the marriage and he has this apparently easy, blessed life now? How is that fair?
I find comfort in the words of Baha'u'llah in His letters to the Kings.
"Rejoicest thou in that thou rulest a span of earth, when the whole world, in the estimation of the people of Bahá, is worth as much as the black in the eye of a dead ant? Abandon it unto such as have set their affections upon it, and turn thou unto Him Who is the Desire of the world."
It matters not that he has a gorgeous house, that I wonder how on earth did he afford? This world is worth nothing, how much would I care for a dead ant's pupil?? The entire matter is laughable.
And again, I find solace in the Blessed Beauty's words:
" "Even or odd, thou shalt win the wager." The friends of God shall win and profit under all conditions, and shall attain true wealth. In fire they remain cold, and from water they emerge dry. Their affairs are at variance with the affairs of men. Gain is their lot, whatever the deal. To this testifieth every wise one with a discerning eye, and every fair-minded one with a hearing ear."
It matters not what I see happening in the world around me, the apparent gain that my dear husband is experiencing, while I struggle with debt, kids, grief. I am assured by the Beloved of the Worlds that "nothing save that which profitteth them can ever befall Thy loved ones," I will succeed no matter what appearances may be, as long as I remain steadfast in His Cause.
God, grant that I do remain steadfast.
O my Lord, my Beloved, my Desire! Befriend me in my loneliness and accompany me in my exile. Remove my sorrow. Cause me to be devoted to Thy beauty. Withdraw me from all else save Thee. Attract me through Thy fragrances of holiness. Cause me to be associated in Thy Kingdom with those who are severed from all else save Thee, who long to serve Thy sacred threshold and who stand to work in Thy Cause. Enable me to be one of Thy maidservants who have attained to Thy good pleasure. Verily, Thou art the Gracious, the Generous.
- `Abdu'l-Bahá
I used to think that someone could actually make my pain go away. I ran into one relationship after another in attempts to run away from my pain. I experienced such pain growing up, I felt grief, loss and abandonment continually - it was simply the normal state of things. I found solace while riding horses, sitting in nature or walking my dog. As I grew older I thought the way to be happy was to drink, do drugs and have sex - I bought into the messages of society. I have a passionate, zealous nature, I do things deeply. So I did these risky and dangerous activities to the extremes. I only increased my desperation and and panic. I had no way of processing my emotions. I only ran from them. I ran into the arms of almost any man I could, in the hopes that by his holding me it would heal the heart-ache I felt inside. It only complicated things for me emotionally. I wasn't making healthy choices. I was trying to though, I tired to reason my way out of it, tried to reason which choices I should be making, tried to talk to my mother about it (my abusive, emotionally unstable, mentally ill mother). Ultimately, I married my husband partially to run away. There were problems in the relationship, we were not coming to unity through our consultations at all, dust was being kicked up around the problems and it would then settle into the slumbering forms of sleeping dogs. But on the morning of what was to be our wedding day, we started to consult again and I said, "Forget it, let's just get married." It was draining to talk about the issues, but it was too scary to consider the possibility of being alone. So I married him. Marriage cannot be a sleeping dog, the dogs got woken, and were never really tamed - they only became more aggravated.
At the same time, I was trying. I was committed to the union. I labored assiduously. I prayed. We consulted. I encouraged us to see counsellors. I sought personal counseling as well. I grew. I became better at dealing with my pain. My emotions. My depression. My anxiety. My panic. My abusive past. I invested spiritual, emotional, mental energy and I conquered my fearful reactions. I grew stronger in responding rationally to emotional situations and thinking my choices even under pressure of strong emotion. The partnership, however, never grew. Throughout the time we were living together, my husband blamed me for my emotional needs, even when they were packaged very humbly and thoughtfully. He refused to take any responsibility for the well-being of our marriage and he continually abandoned me emotionally. In the end, he abandoned me physically too.
This is the first time that I am alone with my emotions. I have always had a relationship to distract myself from the emotional turmoil and pain I felt. This is the first time I am actually alone. I have come to realize that no one can make my pain go away. It's my pain. Friends can help, they can be loving, sweet, caring, compassionate - this aids with the healing tremendously. But they can't process it for me. This is very liberating in a sense. It allows me the freedom to be who I am and trust my friendships to support me and love me through who I am. I have never had that reality. My experiences of abandonment growing up colored all my relationships, friendships and romantic. I was afraid of being hurt and rejected by my friends so I didn't trust them with helping me through any type of serious emotional upset. I was afraid of being "too much". It's only recently that I am having the experience that my friends love me and they *want* to help me through this. This feels so good, to know that I am loved, not blamed even with emotional needs. It feels very healthy.
As I was saying, this is the first time I am strong enough to actually process the emotional pain without hiding from it in a relationship. And it's just me and my pain. Me and my pain, and God, my Well-Beloved, my Desire.
The feelings I was having for that other man have transformed. I am able to be more distant from that friendship, engage with it more thoughtfully. I realize there is some attraction there or some chemistry or compatibility, but I don't feel as overwhelmed by it as I did before. As I grow better at caring for my own needs, I feel less drawn to drown myself in a possible romance. It's nice to just be friends with a man and not be obsessed about the possibility of something more. As that something more used to be my path for healing. But I am stronger now and can make healthier choices for healing.
I love my marriage. My husband is trying to destroy it and is totally dishonoring it, but nevertheless, we have a marriage. And marriage is a sacred creation, it is from God. It is a divine creation and I love it. My marriage is worth saving.
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