From: llama@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (sine nomine)
Newsgroups: alt.angst
Subject: Re: more commitment angst
Date: 27 Jan 93 04:53:41 GMT


 steve@estel.uindy.edu writes:
>with me if she's not happy. Still, I don't feel like her abandoning her  
>commitment to me, so she can get on with her life, lets me off the hook.  
>I've got to let *myself* off the hook. I still feel really committed to  
>[...]
>if I heard someone else saying those same words I'd say "You &^%&$!#  
>idiot! You've got to face reality! You've got to get on with your life!  
>Wake up and smell the &^$%#$# coffee! If people treat you like &*^*& they  
>don't *deserve* your commitment." But they're still your children. They're  
>still your parents. She's still my wife. {NOT! :-(.} I guess it's really a  
>family thing for me. She is/was a member of my family. We have a  
>commitment thing in my family that goes way back. I'm guess I'm just not  
>ready to give it up. 
>
>I think I've got it bad. Or maybe I just don't get it.

it sounds like you've got a really good handle on your feelings about
the situation, actually. there are only a couple of things i can add
to your analysis:

first, one of the hardest things there is to learn is that you can't
make people feel things that they don't want to feel, no matter how
good your reasons for thinking they should feel that way are. it's
frustrating as hell and it's something i keep finding myself knocking
up against in life. doesn't matter how logical *i* can be, all those
weird people out there insist on ignoring me and being stupid. so you
have your feelings of commitment that are undisturbed, and that's fine
*so long as* you realize that she doesn't feel them anymore and isn't
going to act as if she does.

second, the only way around this stuff is time. i've come to think
about breakups as being similar to the way i felt about christmas when
i was a kid. when i was about 10, i suddenly noticed that adults
didn't get toys for christmas and figured out that there would be a
day when i wouldn't get toys for christmas, either. and i hated the
idea! i couldn't stand to think about the concept of christmas without
toys. if you'd told me then that by the time i had to deal with the
reality of toyless christmases i'd be ready and it wouldn't be nearly
ass painful as i'd feared, i'd've thought you were crazy. but it's
been like that with lots of things in my life: stuff that seemed just
too hard and too painful from where i was standing when i first saw it
managed to become doable by the time i actually approached it in
reality.

that doesn't mean that it's not going to hurt. i was ready for my
marriage to be over when it ended and there were still painful
moments. but the reality of being divorced was nowhere as huge as it
seemed the first time i realized it was going to happen. and painful
breakups since then have been difficult, but by taking just as much as
i can manage at a time and letting the rest of it worry about itself,
i've found that eventually, in time, even things i'd thought would be
too exquisitely painnful to even think about have turned into bearable
experiences.

so i'm babbling again, and i'm not sure if anything useful has
appeared in this. but really, in six months or a year, you'll surprise
yourself with how you feel about the whole situation.

--
sine | deb
"the things you hold dearly are scoffed at and yearly judged once and 
then left aside, 'cause they're blind, they hold you too close to the 
line. and i see what they only might if they learn but they're letting 
you burn 'cause they're blind" -- the replacements
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