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My List

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / Leave a comment

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So in writing our lists of what we would like to change about ourselves I realize that I have a lot of work to do. Serious work. Hard work. Uncomfortable work. But I feel ready for the journey that all this work will send me on because my life should be an expression of the gifts I have already received. And it is not. So here goes:

  1. I NEED to find new ways to express my anger or shut it off. New ways that are not hurtful to others but still make me feel like I am being heard as I think a lot of my yelling stems from feeling that I am not being heard or respected. I need to break this destructive habit because it is hurting everyone I love AND it is hurting me because when I lash out, I then feel bad, and then I beat myself up and it is a vicious cycle. I AM HURTING THE PEOPLE I LOVE, I AM INFLUENCING HOW THEY WILL ACT TO OTHERS IN THE FUTURE, AS IT GOES WITH NOT CORRECTION MY ANGER GETS WORSE. It affects my health, my sanity and my sense of self worth. Same with my kids. I don’t want my kids to be afraid of setting their Mom off because that is so wrong on so many levels. I want to teach by good example how to handle things in a calm and loving manner. Yelling breaks my kids and my husband’s sense of trust and comfort in me.
  2. I need to find a way to minimize the daily physical pain I am in.
  3. Some of the time I think when I get yelling it is because I am not hearing things correctly and it causes real problems. Maybe now is the time for hearing aids…but sometimes it is a relief not to hear things like Andre alarming in full stereo sound and I am afraid if I hear EVERYTHING it will increase my stress level. This seems like such a 50-50 thing.
  4. I am lonely. I need to make some friends, belong to a group, do something that is meaningful to me
  5. I am going to try yoga, go to meditation class and I have already signed up for a workout class. The fear for me is that I am afraid that all this movement will increase my pain so I have avoided it.
  6. I need to find a way to really ENJOY my kids again. Maybe more one-on- one time? It just seems like so often it is a battle to do game night, etc and it discourages me to keep trying. Special needs kids can suck the life out of you with their idiosyncracies, demands and high maintainence. It is hard to enjoy them when your normal is anything but.
  7. I need to learn to trust again.
  8. I need to feel like the things I am doing count and that they matter. How do I do this?
  9. I need to decrease feeling defensive when B criticizes me.
  10. I need to regain that sense of hope for myself and my children that I feel I have lost in the past 6 months.
  11. I need to have a sense of adventure and accomplishment in my life. That is why I love ____ because I am challenging myself and discovering new things.
  12. I need to stop living in fear about finishing writing my book and having it rejected so that I don’t even do it.
  13. Maybe I need to be a little less honest  or learn to say things so that they do not seem as harsh. I REALLY need to understand that I don’t have to say or do everything in the minute that it occurs and not let what other people are doing affect me don’t stress about other peoples things.
  14. I need to find out why I am not remembering things. Is it stress, hormones or dementia. It is truly scaring me
  15. I need to be able to put into practice what I believe if B does decide to leave our marriage or if I do. I need to remember that he is a very wonderful man and admirable man who has given me so much and that I am thankful for all he has done and that he does deserve happiness and if he cannot find that with me he needs to find it somewhere. I don’t want to hurt him or our kids by acting in less than an admirable way.
  16. Find my sense of humor in this bizarre life I am living,
  17. To not let my perceived feelings of not measuring up to what B wants/needs make me feel as if I have no worth
  18. Become more positive sounding. I think I am or used to be until very recently upbeat and positive but perhaps B does not see that. L does. N does but not sure B does. I don’t think he sees that for me solving things is very positive even if I voice negative in order to solve it.
  19. I need to find ways to work with Paul better. He and I are very much alike and both feel emotions intensely so we butt heads. How can I change this?
  20. Stop over analyzing things and just let my brain rest. I don’t have to figure out …what this will do to all our kids adult and little, where I am going to live, how will we do holidays, how will this effect Paul’s mental health, how I will support myself, how we will get the kids to school if I have a job, what college I may need to go to, how Gracie can continue to go to gymnastics if there were two households to support, what if I don’t like his new wife, if one of us moves, and what will need to be done… all in the first hour that B tells me he may want a divorce. I need to just try and live in the moment without projecting.
  21. I need to pay attention that I do not sabotage this relationship because I am scared by over analyzing, by not being able to enjoy the good moments because I am worried about the future and if I make a mistake it will all come tumbling down. I have run in the past when things got tough and even though every fiber in my being wants to run I will not do so.
  22. Accept how things are and be happy with how things are. Don’t constantly beat yourself up.

Lies and Deception

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / Leave a comment

Okay, I have to be honest here. I KNEW THIS WAS COMING…SOMEDAY…just not now… this minute, this hour, this year. Even though I have seen this played out in my mind 100 times I was still dumbstruck when B came to me and uttered that ugly seven letter word D.I.V.O.R.C.E.

So you might be wondering if you knew; why didn’t you do anything about it?  Believe me, it’s not for lack of trying. The fact is my husband stuffs his feelings, doesn’t share and honesty scares him. I knew this was coming because I began sensing it about two years ago but no longer trusted in myself to be my own determiner of truth. Frankly, I asked, begged, and cajoled B but…”nothing is wrong… everything is fine” were the only words I heard. But it wasn’t. Obviously. And today, after the “shock” no longer has the power to kill the soul but just send this heart in life threatening arrhythmias; I am mad. Really mad. Why?  Because if my husband is the man he has claimed to be, he shouldn’t have let his disappointments/anger/frustration at me and our relationship build to the point that he casually tossed a match and in the process burnt the house down. No, in my book, you are suppose to share and be honest, which in turn puts out the little fires before they become the raging inferno that feels like it is now consuming my very soul.

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And here is the other thing… by not being honest with me it made me experience this vague sort of “unscratchable itch”…a feeling that something wasn’t quite right, keeping the Unisom company rolling in unexpected profits as I lain awake night after night trying to figure out what, if anything, was going on. And in doing so it was forcing me to be less than honest with myself. It felt like I was cavorting with Alice in Wonderland and not living an authentic life.  This lack of honesty made me feel even slightly crazy and left not believing in my own powers of intuition and maybe that hurts most of all. Because if you cannot believe in yourself and what you know is true, well, what CAN you believe in?

But mostly, I am mad because in knowing this was coming I have been living in fear with a sense of dread mixed in a/k/a LIMBO that soul sucking state of being from which there is no going forward and no going back. I was just stuck and I’ve been there for the past two years, living as if a ghost was haunting me. A ghost that no one believed in, yet, I felt its spirit was there taking up space in my mind and in my home. And now I am left to call in Ghost Busters or Myth Busters, for at this point they are one in the same and the bill to clean up this mess will make the National Debt look small. And it didn’t have to be that way if B’s own fears about honesty hadn’t held him captive.

The Lists

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So on D-Day (Announcing I might want a divorce day) we agreed to make several lists. The first is our WISH LIST of what we would like the other person to change. The second was what we need to Change About Ourselves and the third was Fun Things We Could Do As A Couple. The Things To Do As a Couple List has its own issues. Like can I really take dance lessons without throwing out my back? Do I have to own a Harley to shoot pool in a pool hall? If I text a sexy message to my husband will it be intercepted by a child and what is the code word for nipples?

I have been working diligently trying to put together my list in a way that either a) just lists what the thing is b) what the thing is and how it affects me c) what the thing is and list an example or d) all of the above. When I started the wish list I wondered if I would get even eight things on it but as a wrote it began to just flow out of me and I ended up with 21 things on his list and 23 things on mine. As I sit back and think about this I realize if I could come up with all of these items so fast then obviously there are things I have chosen to ignore, things that have bothered me over time, etc. Maybe I should have worked on some of these before now.

The lists also made me mad and got me thinking thoughts like “Hey, buddy the decision to keep going in the marriage or to end it is mine too. And you might be surprised how the ending will be different than the ending you have pictured in your mind. Maybe I will move away and attend college and you will have the kids while I do so.”  This is not just your game to call.

Of course, we cannot exchange lists now because B took the boys up to Church Camp the day after he dropped the bomb and they are gone for a week. The sad thing is I do not miss them a bit but then again they have only been gone 24 hours. I am soaking up the quietness of the house like a future skin cancer victim soaks up the rays of the sun.

Frankly, it is so nice not to be met with the constant battles of a teen who has autism. The “I don’t want to’s”, the non-stop “no’s”. Honestly, I think I have been overwhelmed by all the special needs in this house for the past year. I know I have lost a sense of hope for Andre which is a terrible thing because I have always had hope and it has sustained me during the trying times. To be without hope feels like walking in a swamp with no moon and no flashlight; the alligators lining the banks ready to take off your toes. Or worse.

If I am honest there are days where I dream of a place consisting of cabana boys to do my bidding, maids, and professional low-calorie meal making chefs. A place where the word, “MOOOMMMMMMM” is banned and people smile as they pass you and no one gives you the finger when you accidentally slide into their lane of life. Right now I feel like the cosmic middle finger is raised in my honor!

My Husband Might Want A Divorce…Day One or 364 Days To Go

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So last night B and I went out on a date. Yeah, we had tried to have date nights before but they were never a priority and often got shoved aside for something more important, like cleaning the garage, scrubbing a toilet or shoveling up the dog crap in the back yard. You know…the important things in life!

So we have promised each other a weekly date night with no excuses. Hey, when there is food and wine involved I am game. Besides he is a sexy man and anytime I can cop a few feels away from the kids more power to me.

So we talked and cried. And talked some more. There were painful words which sear the soul but words I need to hear. Because here is the thing. For all these years B has had problem opening up and being honest while I have contributed to that by not letting him talk without commenting and getting defensive. It stems from his childhood and even though I have made my mistakes while he has at times tried to open up, in fact it is still his issue.

We enjoyed each other, he told me I was beautiful, that we needed more times like this and that this is the type of thing that reminds him about how much he really does like me. And so after our meal, we walked downtown, and sat on a bench and made out a little. It felt nice and while we were doing so two young girls walked by and said, “You two are so cute. How long have you been together?”

” Twenty-nine years,” we replied.

“What is your secret for being together for so long?,” they asked.

Which brought an immediate flood of tears to our eyes and B answered, “Taking it one day at a time.”

Later we went home and had great sex (is crying while “doing it” a turn on?) And as the tears ran down my face I said, “I don’t know how you can have sex with someone you don’t like.” And then I remembered…he was a man!

My Husband Might Want A Divorce…365 Days To Try And Rejuvenate Our Lives

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

Wow! I never thought I would be writing a blog much less one about a possible divorce. I will try to be very honest while preserving my families anonymity as our children are unaware of this situation and we are trying to keep this from them as we work towards a solution. I suspect this may be a rather long first post as I lay it all out. So let’s begin.

I’m Lynn, a 55 year-old housewife who has been married to B for 29 years. We have six children West 30 and grandson #1, Noelle 25 with grandson #2 and granddaugter #1, Jackie 21, Andre 14, Paul 13, and Gracie age 12. Andre and Paul both have moderate special needs and have autism.

Frankly, I thought we had a good marriage. We have fun together (though less recently), we are sexually combustible (yes even after all these years…lucky us), we rarely ever fight and I thought we loved each other deeply; so needless to say I was somewhat surprised when B sat me down and said “I think I might want a divorce.”

What…am I hearing correctly? He must have said “I have some remorse”,  ‘I want a new horse,” or maybe “I think you should take a correspondence course.” Did I mention I need hearing aides?

Within one minute of his pronouncement all this crap went through my mind:

How do we not hurt both the older and younger kids who will be impacted in different ways; ….are you kidding me?; how will Gracie continue her diving lessons?; …are you kidding me?; how will I support myself…I haven’t worked outside the home in 18 years?; are you kidding me, no really, are you F***ing kidding me….really, now?; how will we split holidays?; are you kidding me?; what if the kids hate his new wife?; how dare you!…are you kidding me?; I’ll never have sex again…wonder what the best brand of vibrator is?; are you kidding me?; but I love you…but I hate you right this minute, are you kidding me?; how will the boys survive this and who will get them to their services if I am working; and so it went.

“We are like ships passing through the night,” he said. (Semi-true)

“You yell too much at the kids and act too stressed out,” he said. (Semi-True but only because B avoids confrontation so the tough parenting gets regulated to me)

“You don’t seem happy,” he said. (Excuse me, I thought, I am not the one asking for the divorce so I must not be the unhappy one. I think you need to look at yourself there bud)

“You never get up in the morning with me” (Sorry, I thought that was your time to get ready for the day in peace but frankly am glad to hear you would like me to spend more time with you)

And so it went. His list of slights, imperfections, wishes, grudges, concerns and sadness.  He assured me he loved me but didn’t like me very much anymore.And at the end of it all I grabbed his hand and said, “Give it a year, please. Just give it a year and see what we can do to to change and or fix this. Because while I know so little, I do know this. I love you and you are a wonderful man. You have loved us, tried to make us happy, and made a wonderful life for us. You are an incredible and giving person and you deserve to be happy even if it isn’t with me. I want you to be happy no matter what.”  And he agreed to try for a year and then we cried.

So that is what this is all about. The 365 days we have to try and get us on track, to not hurt ourselves and our kids, to make changes, to try and re-connect and see after therapy if we really do want to or can remain together. I have no idea where this journey will lead us but you are invited to come along for the ride.

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