Completely Here
Yup, still smiling. Just had a nice long telephone conversation with Sara and she is still completely here. I feel she's taking a break from the moral battle she engages with herself because I can sense the relief in her voice while we talk. But I know it's only temporary. I've learned over time that the things that make me feel happy and content with us is exactly what causes her heartache. And this is putting aside any guilt or morality issues. And I think because she knows I feel this way with only so little to go on, that makes things worse. But she knows I take what I can get, and she's an all or nothing kind of person. It's a continual compromise for both of us. Unfortunately, in our attempts to find a day, we've realized that there is no opportunity in the very near future (next two weeks) for us to get together. That disappoints and saddens both of us.
posted by do_in_it_2 | 10:05 AM
5 Comments:
Hi - You wrote that the things that make you happy & content are the things that cause her heartache. What things? Refresh my addled memory, please. Also, it's interesting that she sees herself as 'all or nothing'. Obviously not true, at least not for 3 years! She's been able, at least sometimes, to do less-than-all. We tell ourselves stories about ourselves & sometimes forget to revisit them to more accurately reflect the realities we choode. Example: I always thought of myself as an unhappy person with a black cloud over my head. When I started feeling happier & more contented, I struggled because happiness wasn't in my conception of myself. It took work to revise my self-concept & not feel sad (strange as that sounds) about giving up the black cloud. Maybe she will realize that she's not as all-or-nothing as she perceives herself? Does that matter? (Maybe it doesn't!!) --VM--
I'm content if we can talk every few days, leave messages daily, and get together whenever the opportunity arises. The heartache for her in regards to all that is because - its only every few days we can talk, can't read/send more messages daily, and the opportunites to get together are too far apart. She doesn't realize that contentment and satisfaction are different things.
What you say is true. It's quite possible that its more a matter that because I'm content with how things are, she takes that to mean that I'm happy with how things are and don't care for anything more. That is totally not true. No doubt she prefers it all, but if its a choice of something or nothing, she goes with the something. And I think contentment would not be so much a problem if she'd come to realize that.
Now that comment was one of the most insightful things I've ever seen you write here.
I feel sorry for her if she ends up in 30 years looking back at her life as not being enough for her - not having enough of you, enough satisfaction from her husband, enough happiness in a day. And I feel sorry for you if she chooses to blame that dissatisfaction on you.
Somehow I think that when you struggle to end the affair for Sara's sake it's so that you will keep her from that disappointment, because she is unable to find the contentment and satisfaction in what you DO have.
Kayten - as insight as the comment may have seemed to you - it really is just an 'on the surface' - in plain view - common sense observation to me.
Did I ever mention that she questioned her decision to marry her husband every day since her marriage? Before she even met me 3 years into it? So I doubt if I'm keeping her from finding satisfaction in her husband. I think that marriage is definately one of finding contentment. He provides her the family environment and security most women seek in a marriage.
I didn't mean to say that the discontentment with her marriage was your fault. What I meant to say was that if she has a habit of looking at glasses as half-empty and being generally dissatisfied with what she doesn't have more than content with what she does have, it could be a longterm problem for her. And then if she looks back one day and does not blame herself for her own choices but others for what they gave her to live with so to speak, it would be a sad state of affairs. Many people do that, but I think women more often than men, because they tend to buy more into the glamour of the happy-ever-after ending and hold their lives up to an unattainable standard. I've always said that for an affair to be successful, both parties need to be more content with the reality than pining for what they don't or can't have. I hope she's finally on that road.
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