Frita’s Lost and Found

[Henry]

So Frita has her Lifetime Movie of The Week adventure. Typical fare. Frustrated housewife. Leaves for an adventure. Gets fingered in her sundress by some South American stud. Finds out he stole her credit with his other hand. Realizes she is not built for a life at sea. Heads home to mopey husband who didn't realize she was gone. Writes a book. Sea, Save, Get Fingered. Divorces her husband. Goes back to sea. Meets finger/credit card guy. They go parasailing. There's an accident. He gets paralyzed. She realizes she doesn't love him. She leaves him. She writes her follow up, Sea, Save, Get Paralyzed. Finds out she's really a lesbian. Marries a biker chick. Biker chick beat the shit out of her. Writes another follow up Sea, Save, Get Beat Up By A Biker Chick which unfortunately bombs. Runs into her mopey husband at the Rite Aid. They ask how each other is doing. Frita leaves the pharmacy and drives away.

[Frita]

@AH
Yeah, the turn of events are much better for now. It’s probably more like the Taoist teaching of the Chinese farmer and his horse. There is a differing perspective in any situation.

@7W5
I don’t really do social media except Facebook for local events. My spouse unfriended me at some point, maybe last year? I don’t know that I really even care to make him jealous or whatever. Then I would get on some treadmill if trying to influence/control a situation:him instead of just focusing on me.

@Jacob
No military strategy for me, not doing any battling here, giving him room to live with his own self-created chaos. It seems that I am perfectly capable of being on my own, could have a life/go out/have fun/date, and don’t need to generalize my spouse’s judgements of me to others’ future beliefs.

@mathiverse
I just saw an crewing advertisement and decided to apply/interview and see where it went.

@UrbanHomesteader
Glad you can follow along! All the crew is single and none have kids. I don’t know how compatible the life is with long-term relationships.

Exciting events: 1) Last night I had night watch from 10 PM to 7:30 AM. Several people were trying to sneak aboard. Drunk people can sure struggle with “no.” It makes for a long day. Glad to have a break. 2) Oh, I am trying to figure out how to climb around in the engine room without getting so dirty. Dawn dish soap seems to be the best way to pretreat prior to washing. 3) My favorite flip flops broke with the part that goes between the toe pulling through the hole. I tried to fix with a washer as seen on YouTube. That didn’t work. Deliberating between buying new, finding preowned in next port, or attempting to fix in a different way.

[Laura Ingalls]

I empathize about the sandal situation. My 10 year old once restrapped and twice resoled Chaco’s bit the dust last winter. The neighborhood trash picker fellow by our Airbnb rejected them too. They must have been worn out. I bought a pair of cheap sandals down there since I only had one other pair of shoes along. I bought a pair of Teva’s as real replacements when I got back to the U.S.

[Riggerjack]

@7,

I was vibing reactive on this thread, but it actually didn't have that much to do with your post (I'll explain a bit downstream.) I don't recall feeling reactive when replying to many other post you have made over the years.

When I say reaction, I'm not talking about emotions. I'm referring to:

Usually I'm just thinking that you have a unique perspective to offer here, and I'm the sort of human who finds reading/writing quick and easy, so if others don't have the energy to reply to a "wall of text", I will make the effort in order to keep you coming back.

The speed of your reply. You find writing quick and easy. I usually type with one finger, two, when I'm excited. If I type a wall of text, it is generally hours or days of work. Usually, to set up the part I consider elegant. But whatever I'm trying to express is probably only elegant in the context I give, and only after some time spent in contemplation.

I'm autistic. Slow contemplation is just my natural speed and inclination. The further I try to extend my thoughts into speedy emotive territory, the less relevance they seem to have. Though I would note that while you and I keep talking past each other, Mathiverse nailed my intent, message, and purpose on his first try. This makes me think I can communicate clearly, if my audience is willing to commit some effort to interpretation.

But I also respect the right of anyone reading my writing to not commit that effort. Life is busy, and amateur puzzles are rarely worth the effort.

You seem to be willing to engage, thank you. But we seem to be playing different games, using the same field. I have no need to change your game, I'm just trying to provide my perspective on how our games seem to be interfacing. My disappointment is not with you. Rather, I feel like a game designer who crafts an "easter egg", only to watch it not be found.

Perhaps I should simply get better at not hiding my meanings in such compressed format...

But I admit that I really don't understand how:

So, long term, if one were invested enough were to try to revive a depressed family member, (despite all of the very good reasons not to try) I would recommend:

1. Be fully charged, with maintaining that charge as first priority.

2. Be protected. Shitty people do shitty things. Expect dealing with shitty people to be unpleasant and messy. Refer back to 1.

3. Get the help of the personality gurus on the forum to get a good feel for the rewarding parts of experiences that fit your husband's M-B type/Ennigram type.

3. Find a personally rewarding activity your son and you want to do together. It doesn't need to appeal to your husband, nothing will. But if this activity is done in his presence, where he has to expend energy to remove himself...

4. Strategize with your son to find ways of introducing your husband's rewarding experience opportunities into your daily life. Success here won't be pleasant or fun.

5. Repeat, in hopes that your husband gets charged enough to begin searching for rewarding experiences on his own before you lose interest in supporting him.

This may feel gross, like rewarding shitty behavior. Inviting someone who has been shitty, to spend time with you is not generally considered good practice. But learning to be you, even among shitty people with the will, knowledge, and desire to share their shit with you, is how you assure yourself that this is a broken personal pattern. This is how you move forward, knowing you did all that could be done. You will know how to maintain your own battery under stress. You will know how to spot charging and discharging patterns, and how to intervene before a crisis forms. You will know that you won't need to repeat this pattern.

But that knowledge will come at a very high cost. And there's no shame in choosing not to pay that cost, or choosing that your son not pay it. Sunk costs are no reason for further investment.

gets unpacked to inspire:

Hmmm...I read Riggerjack's post as coming from a man who has evolved enough to have developed a functional adult feminine energy"big sister" perspective himself in midlife, but maybe doesn't fully grok that many women in our culture are pretty much taught this around age 10. So, it's just a variation on the theme of what a wise older woman told me in terms of my need to be sure to get enough sleep and hydration myself when I was breast-feeding my first infant. IOW, it's still towards promoting the ever-supportive "big sister" role for Frita, although with an abstracted nod towards revitalizing her own feminine energy and empathizing further with her husband's ego butt-hurt in terms of "expectations." Blah, blah, blah...

Though I'm always interested in the translation.

I would think that if this were an accurate assessment, I should be far more impressed by 10 year old girls. Maybe that's true. But I think it's more likely that my thoughts simply died in translation. I make extremely perishable, short range thoughts, it seems.

However, as soon as I read this thread, I realized that I had been fairly oblivious to the fact that Frita had made several comments on my journal thread and maybe elsewhere about how women our age start feeling "invisible" and how men our age don't have that problem. So, then my "reaction" reading this thread was that I became angry at Frita's husband for making her feel "invisible" or "unpretty."

This. This always amazes me, every time, and everywhere it comes up. The neurotypical seem to accept no responsibility for their feelings whenever anyone else is involved. Eleanor Roosevelt said, "No one can make you feel inferior, without your consent."

I have many times in the past felt "invisible and unpretty". Nobody made me feel this way. This is how I reacted within my own mind to the input of others. The mind is mine. The reaction is mine. The only influence anyone had was their own input. While their input may not have been meant kindly, I chose to accept their input, and turn it into feelings of invisibility and unprettiness.

If I feel invisible and/or unpretty, I can choose to spend my life with different people in hopes they will have different input. Or, I can be more discriminating in how I allow the opinions of others to affect me. Or some combination of both.

The first strategy is common, and seems to work fastest. But leaves me vulnerable to the same pattern of accepting the input of others, and turning it into feelings of invisibility/unprettiness, should their input trigger the thought pattern I have built and left intact within my mind.

And I can't think of a nice way to explain this, but it seemed to me like your advice was like telling the Donna Pescow character in "Saturday Night Fever" to keep offering the John Travolta character all the blow-jobs he wants as a path towards personal growth.

Well, I admit that there are few situations I can think of, that a blow-job wouldn't improve. But I think Frita's situation is probably one of them.

Maybe you could go through my posts to help me understand how you came to this conclusion?

"Keep focusing on your own self-improvement. If he doesn't notice, somebody else will."

I agree that this is excellent advice.

I read this thread as Frita trying to identify where and what "her own self improvement" would be. My advice was and is directed right there. Identifying where to go is a very different process than simply putting distance between self and painful circumstances.

This line caught my attention and focus:

In theory, I believe marriage is a lifelong commitment by both parties to each be responsible for things to work. Who knows whether one is truly committed unless tested by life’s challenges? If he had ALS or MS, I’d still be here.

And my advice has been about resolving her current circumstances, with this part of her self intact. 30+ years of marriage and commitment and identity. If she ends it*, I think her post-marriage life will be cleaner and easier if she is internally satisfied that she acted true to her beliefs and commitments. I think she will be happier with the lessons she is teaching her son, if this is true.

So my advice has all been around Frita, orienting herself within her circumstances, and pointing out where I think a depressed husband is being mischaracterized. Not out of any sense of loyalty to him, (I don't know him, at all) but so that Frita can better understand her circumstances, and make more informed decisions.

My own sense of this, is that she needs to map out the direction her husband has been navigating toward (for simplicity, let's call this direction down**), and ensure she does not go any further in that direction. Establish a floor.

Then go through the work of climbing out of the hole she is in. Some of this climb will be recovery work. Some of this climb can be growth work. Growth is hard work in itself, but the extended reach growth brings, makes climbing easier.

Frita can do this in a way that leaves the door open for her husband to join her, without allowing him to drag her back down. The Hard Way.

Or, she can set out like her kiester is afire, meeting any "grabby" attempts from her husband to drag her down, with the sharp stomping such behavior deserves. The Fast Way.

The Hard Way gets her out of the hole with more of her self intact, if it works. It certainly takes more spoons. (So, very many more spoons) But once she gets to the surface, she will be certain of her ability to not repeat the patterns that allowed her to get where she is today.

Perhaps, her husband joins her there on the surface, having broken his patterns, and navigating by following her. I think it's more likely he does not. Either way, I think Frita will be happier with the Frita that navigates away from the depression, than the Frita who navigates away from her husband. It may seem like splitting hairs, as the husband and the depression aren't likely to separate in her presence. But I think the mental/emotional difference will be important to her, when she is looking back on this time in her life.

Which makes it important, now.



@Frita,

I do need to consider generational ride-or-die marriage programming.

Full disclosure, I don't have any of this. I believe in my marriage, but don't place much faith in the institution of marriage. As a child of divorce, I certainly believe in divorce. My mom divorced 3 times and is now happier permanently single. My dad divorced 3 times and has been married to his current wife for over 30 years. He seems as happy as he gets.

Why is divorce so expensive? Because it's worth it. It's an old joke, because it is so true.

So if you decide to divorce, I think it's probably the right call.

But if you decide to rehab your husband/relationship and stay married, I think that would be the right call.

And if you decide to rehab your husband and relationship, then decide to divorce, I think that would be the right call.

Does it seem like I have no clear idea of what you should do? I agree. I'm not trying to urge you down any path, I'm trying to help you identify pathways you may have overlooked or dismissed.

I'm only posting here in this thread because my own baggage surfaced reading through it. I have been the burnt out depressed guy, at the end of his rope, at the end of the relationship with an extrovert. She was also baffled by the personality changes I displayed as I flamed out. She was also getting what seemed like truly bizarre advice from her extroverted friends that caused her further disorientation and the relationship ended in uglier ways than I would prefer.

No, I don't need to rethink. Only difference would be that in this case it would be "destroying his will and capacity to continue his (theoretical but likely) online relationship with 19 year old Romanian dancing-for-tokens girl."

Yup. The advice sounded exactly like this.

Chaos was sown. Confusion, disruption, and intent to destroy were clear.

After all, the only possible reason to end one relationship is because it is interfering with a more valued relationship, right?

The fact that there wasn't enough of me left to even be in the relationship I already had, was only relevant in my own head.

I don't regret ending any of the relationships I have ended. We clearly weren't as compatible as we hoped. But today, looking back, I regret how I ended some of them.

My advice is geared toward you finding the path to the Frita you want to be, with the fewest regrets along the way. But I have no idea who she is.

You have to define her.






*or accepts that he is ending it.

** I wanted to write "the enemy's gate is down", in homage to the concept of assigning an entirely arbitrary coordinate system, but didn't want the association of "enemy" if the quote was meaningless.



ETA: In the time it took to write the wall of text, above, Frita has posted very encouraging updates, negating some of my concerns. Perhaps I'm overfitting my own past to this example.

@Frita, you seem to be doing great! Congratulations, and please disregard anything I wrote that doesn't seem applicable to your actual situation.

[jennypenny]

However, as soon as I read this thread, I realized that I had been fairly oblivious to the fact that Frita had made several comments on my journal thread and maybe elsewhere about how women our age start feeling "invisible" and how men our age don't have that problem. So, then my "reaction" reading this thread was that I became angry at Frita's husband for making her feel "invisible" or "unpretty."

I see this attitude often with women our age. Worse with women who spent 20+ years as professional moms. It's perplexing, and toxic, and has nothing to do with how other people treat you. If this (st)age teaches us anything, it's that our value and strength comes from within. Always has. Don't give off those meno-vibes. You are basically a teenager in the golden age category trying to figure out who you want to be for the next couple of decades. Embrace that energy instead.


note: I'm not saying this because of what's going on with your husband, but there do seem to be some embedded assumptions about men and women our age that I don't think are constructive or necessarily accurate.

ETA: This sounds harsher than I intended. It was meant more as encouragement.

[7Wannabe5]

I don’t know that I really even care to make him jealous or whatever. Then I would get on some treadmill if trying to influence/control a situation:him instead of just focusing on me.

Absolutely agree. It's just the secondary or tertiary fall-out from the fact that you are now behaving in alignment with "Living my best life" as your core mission statement as opposed to something more like "Securing the marriage." In fact, if you were behaving as you are with the intention of making him jealous then that would only further emphasize "Securing the marriage" as perceived control-mechanism.

I was being a bit silly in my comment about the "Certain to Win" book, because although the Boyd take on strategy is interesting, the details of topics of little interest to me such as WW2 warcraft, aviation, and late 20th century big business used to discuss the strategy in the book render it practically unreadable for me without immediate attempted translation into something more in my line such as relationship theory. Like if Jacob and I were actually in a book group together, and he chose "Certain to Win" as the book everybody had to read one month, I would feel compelled to recommend some super light chick lit the next month.

Your sandal problem reminds me of the time when I went completely minimalist and then melted the sole of one of my two pairs of shoes trying to keep myself warm on a winter day in the north woods with nothing but a small Mr. Buddy propane heater in an uninsulated shed. I was like "Fuck, I didn't pack super-glue."

The neurotypical seem to accept no responsibility for their feelings whenever anyone else is involved. Eleanor Roosevelt said, "No one can make you feel inferior, without your consent."...

Clearly, you haven't been paying careful attention to my writing on the forum if you place me among the neurotypical Seriously, I think we're experiencing a bit of a pre/trans gap in our conversation in which you aren't quite grokking my fast and loose shorthand. I strongly agree with your general take. It's very much in alignment with what I first learned about achieving "differentiation" when I was slowly (over three years!)processing my way out of my first marriage in a therapeutic setting almost 20 years ago. "Differentiation" is a complex concept, but it can be basically described as developing the ability to stay yourself, process your own emotions, within intimate relationships regardless of the emotional state/behavior of others. It is because I know that Frita is also somebody who fully comprehends "differentiation" at a level of mastery due to her career steeped in educational psychology that I am choosing to evoke some blatantly immature girlish "fight club" supportive energy on her behalf. If, for example, I was instead interacting with my 20-something tending-sometimes-towards-emotional-psychosis niece breaking up with her BF whose hip-hop video she danced in, I would definitely be swinging in the other direction with my advice and support and the tone of my advice and support.

IOW, it's my take that it would be condescending to offer Frita advice in alignment with personal growth psychology, because I know she already has very high level understanding. I feel it's more appropriate to offer her a bit of retro-clearly-harkening-back-to-gurl-power-functioning support, because even someone who is self-aware post-Green-towards-Yellow/Turquoise in their functioning can benefit from a little bit of Level Red warrior energy on occasion. If somebody actually types words such as "unleash feminine chaos" that is indicative that they are operating from a level where they "have" feminine chaos, not from a level where they are reactively consumed in a state of exuding feminine chaos. If I were to type something to Frita along the lines of "Do you want me to help you key the paint job on his car?", it would be freaking hilarious because so extremely unlikely as behavior for either of us, but it would also be meant as supportive, because none of us can claim to be 100% or even 78.5% "differentiated" in response to the behaviors of our intimate others all or even most of the time, so I'm really just giving her a bit of a nod "Girlfriend, I feel your hurt."

I don't know whether your extroverted ex who tore up your garden on her way out the door was pre-"differentiated' or post-"differentiated' in her functioning (I'm guessing "pre" based on your input), but you might want to consider whether she might have actually unconsciously on some level given you a bit of parting gift with her feminine chaos. I kind of swing back and forth between the paradigm of relationship therapy from which the concept of "differentiation" arose (actually was invented in the context of family therapy for schizophrenics in the 1950s, because schizophrenics were less likely to relapse if their family members didn't take their behavior personally, and then was later put into use in marital therapy by David Schnarch) and the paradigm of sexual dichotomy theory (David Deida being one of this theory's post-post-modern gurus.) According to sexual dichotomy theory, what a human who prefers to manifest as core feminine in her intimate relationships most wants is a man who is strong enough in his masculine energy to hold on to her while she summons up and swings through all the depths of emotion*. So, if your extroverted ex had instead ended your relationship with more of a "It's not you, it's me, or let's just say it's both of us. We can still be friends who hug when they run into each other at the grocery store" manner (as I have ended a number of my relationships over the years), there actually might have been a level on which she was exhibiting less respect for you. I am probably still not explaining very well, but it is akin to how when some men I date tell me that I am different from other women because I didn't interrogate them or hyper-focus on what might be wrong with them on first date, I tell them "That's because those women werre actually more seriously considering a potential relationship with you than I was."


*Hanzi Freinacht in "The Listening Society" kind of puts both of these scales of functioning together in creating his multiple threaded levels.

ETA:

there do seem to be some embedded assumptions about men and women our age that I don't think are constructive or necessarily accurate.

Hmmm..my take would be definitely not necessarily accurate. This is why I was a bit confused when Frita offered the comments on my journal in response to my griping about the fact that I am currently terribly out-of-shape. My experience has been that it is zero-percent difficult to find men who find me sexually attractive as an older female (given that I'm not in a phase where I'm finding myself unattractive for reasons not directly related to aging.) However, it also has been my experience that it is absolutely true that middle-aged men behave as though women who are 7 or 8 years younger than them are their age peers. OTOH, it is also true that one of the reason there are so many instances of middle-aged women getting back together with the guy they dated in high school is that a lot of men will time-stamp you at the age you were when you first met them. Also, it definitely is the case that a youthful spirit, maintaining the ability to inhabit the perspective of "beginner eyes", and allowing yourself to be vulnerable are factors. You are definitely sunk if/when you come to inhabit the perspective that there are no men left on the planet whom you could possibly actually respect, so the rest of your life is going to be like Senior Year in high school, stuck with nothing but guys who are younger and/or shorter than you and hate you because you did better than them on the SAT.

[Frita]

Sandal selection in current port sucks (I have narrow feet.) so I ended up with a shit-I-forgot-my-flipflops pair. I decided to go for sparkling tops that make them look not quite so awful if I channel my inner 3 year old.

Well, I’d say I am in fairly good shape and look younger than I am. My spouse probably would have treated any person he married with contempt so it’s hard to take personally. I’m finally out of the “I have wasted 30+ years of my life in this marriage” (when I regretted the decision by our reception) stage. No idea what I am going to do, but no more tolerating mind games/blaming/empty promises/gaslighting me with his Mr. Nice Guy act outside of the house. I used to be embarrassed but have dropped that too.

@JP I was fully menopausal in my early 30s doing infertility treatment. Fun times. Thanks for the reminder that I could be in hormonal hell like many peers.

[Henry]

(when I regretted the decision by our reception)

You'll always have the fond memories of the limousine ride.

[Frita]

You'll always have the fond memories of the limousine ride.

Simple wedding, no limo, glad to not have wasted the money! My best memory is some friends’ little kids opening gifts for us. They had a good time.

A few hands left and a couple more started. The two new ones are my son’s age, rather immature, and seem to think I am their mother. No!!! They kind of remind me of my husband: trying to get me to do things for them that they can do themselves, wanting emotional support/constant attention/unidirectional interactions…and confusing being a new deckhand with being helpless.

[Henry]

My best memory is some friends’ little kids opening gifts for us. They had a good time.

That's nice. I think your husband is buying Hristo's boat.

[7Wannabe5]

Sounds very much like the second grade summer school group I am currently teaching. My co-teacher is old school tough as nails, so we are running a very tight ship. There have been tears, but nobody is leaving without achieving basic competence in three digit addition and subtraction by the Standard American Algorithm.

[Frita]

@7W5 Good for you! Those kids will appreciate it some day, if they don’t feel proud now. I hope you have a budget ( inner city, I doubt it) or generous business sponsors*. Are you using manipulatives and *real world/money applications?

This morning at breakfast these two we’re discussing their condom stashes. One has 25 (with 24 remaining less the one he practiced with) the other, one with the hopes of using by Christmas. Perhaps they are seeing me more as a co-worker than a mom now? Regardless, the conversation was even more pathetic listening to some of the other guys’ inventory statistics.

[7Wannabe5]

Clearly, you have "wing-woman" written all over you. One of the reasons I've considered becoming a sex therapist is that people (virtual strangers!) always seem quite open to telling me all about their sex lives. I only partially can grok boredom with small talk, because often it seems like I exchange two remarks about the weather with somebody and then they are sharing something much more intimate with me. It must be another ENTP thing.

[Frita]

@7W5 Ha, these guys probably need feedback but aren’t ready for it (aren’t asking and that’s not my role and their shenanigans amuse me).

Back when I was writing psych evals and doing behavior management, I was the person who could get people to offer up all sorts of usually hidden details they wouldn’t tell other people. Then they’d continue this confessional interaction. (Sometimes at the end of the week I’d think, “Please don’t talk to me until the beginning of next week. I want the weekend to myself, not dealing with DFS.”) I think just being accepting, never shocked, was the key. This just comes natural to me. Dysfunctional family background or ENTP trait, might be a chicken and egg question…

Like you, in real life, people tend to overshare with me. Though I HATE selling, I am good at it because of that. These aren’t bi-directional conversations as they aren’t scripted like the dreaded small talk.

[Frita]

***No shaming, self-administered or from others, are allowed in this journal.***

Three months crewing and I am back home. While I learned a lot and had time to reflect, it’s not a long-term lifestyle for me.

Confession: I chose not to mention that my spouse is abusive and the last time he strangled me was when I started therapy again (with someone who focuses on domestic violence and stalking). Even from a distance this summer, the abuse continued and escalated within an hour of being in the house. He mostly ignored my son (per his usual) but did not verbally abuse him in my place.

I realize that no-contact, a legal separation or divorce, and eliminating contact with anyone he interacts with would be ideal. My son wants a relationship with his father. I can’t ask him to go no-contact, nor should I. That last thing is the sticking point.

So, for right now, I am in a bit of a holding pattern. I am certainly further along from where I was at before. Leaving is complicated and dangerous, not quite the black-and-white choice commonly believed. I am focused on self-care, coming out of isolation, trying to make some friends who do not know my “nice guy” spouse, and enjoying my life even if things are as they are.

[Laura Ingalls]

Stay safe
I am going to send a pm

[ffj]

Be decisive but stay safe.

One of my daughters best friends at the time had an abusive father that would hit his wife. Scrawny little guy that needed his ass whipped. Had no clue until years later after her death (from an auto accident). Never would have determined that just by looking at him.

Good luck

[ertyu]

Wishing you strength and safety.

[Sclass]

@Frita I am so sorry you are in this situation. Good luck making a better future for yourself.

[Henry]

A lot of courage here.