Goodbye Rosie Goodbye Family Options

[Zita'sMom]

I feel that I've been followed by a black cloud for sometime. If anyone here has followed my story, I've lost 3 young cats the last 3 years (one murdered), and a dog, had some near death health issues, financial crises with the building of a new house (my H and I's "dream home") and just one thing after another.

Rosie is my husband's 17 year old border collie and she has been failing for some time. H has made an appointment to euthanize Monday morning. She has lost bladder and bowel control, she falls and can't get up and we've found her laying in her own diarrhea a few times. She had some quality of life when she went on walks on our property but she fell down on the hill the other day and got stuck - when I found her she was quite distressed. We've found her fallen down the steps as well. She just shivers now on the walks and I know she has no quality of life.

If that were not painful enough, during my first ever counselling session with H on Tuesday, H announced to me that he was splitting. He and my stepdaughter found a place the next day and they are moving stuff now. This comes as a total shock. I knew when I grieved Ziggy he was not able to handle that. What I realize is that he married me 2 years after his wife of 23 years died, and he had not dealt with the grief. I know it sounds like a soap opera, honestly I don't believe my life over the last 3 years since I met him.

To me this says that we must truly and honestly face our grief and not bury it. Otherwise we live on the "surface". If we disconnect to our feelings we can do a lot of damage to ourselves and others (H had told me of marrying me that he was "never so sure of anything his whole life").

You cannot run away from grief. It will follow you. Trust me I have learned this the very hard way.

Anyway, please do think of Rosie Monday morning and send your healing thoughts for a gentle and loving transition. I will not be there for the euthanasia because she was H's dog, and given the current situation it would just make the whole thing worse.

I do not know how to survive all this except just to breathe and live only in this moment. I do have good friends but I am still in shock.

Jan.

[Zita'sMom]

Emergency help please...

I went into x-h's work studio this morning and it was bare - not a thing there. This was a place where we taught classes together, had spiritual group meetings, meditated etc etc. I really broke down, then talked to a friend who said that that working out the conflicts with SD and problems with the house was just not worth it to him since he just didn't love me anymore.

Perspective, please! I'm going to the dark place in my mind right now that asks, what's wrong with me? That maybe I was too reactive under all the stresses, that I should have tried harder to be calm, that I should have done this, that, whatever.

Please help me stop my mind from reeling like this - I am feeling today like maybe I was / am just a rotten person.

Please help my friends!!

Jan.

[goliath]

Oh Jan. Take some deep breaths. Breath in through your nose and slowly exhale through your mouth. Take a hot bubblebath and pamper yourself a little bit.

You're grieving the death of your marriage. It's quite understandable that you would look within yourself and ask what you may have done wrong. No matter what you did or what more you could have done, there is no way you could salvage what was left all by yourself. Your husband walked out.......of course it hurt you very much. It IS about him and NOT you Jan. You have to believe that because it is true. If you had issues with your stepdaughter then the issues belonged between you and her. Your husband should never have taken sides period. I speak from experience because I also have a stepdaughter who is now grown and has a family of her own. When she was the age of your stepdaughter there were many times I wanted to put her in the toilet........head first.............flush. Girls especially get so much worse as they climb those teen years. They think they know everything!

One stepdaughter apparently wasn't enough of a challenge for me. Oh Lord........I will never forget taking my best girlfriend's daughter in when she was 13 years old. My girlfriend married a man who was abusive both physicaly as well as emotionally. Their home was so unstable and my girlfriend begged me to take Amy. Linda wanted Amy in a stable loving family........one she was not able to provide for her. My hubby and I agreed and off to court we went and became Amy's legal guardians. Oh boy!!!! What a handful that girl was. Her Mother continually tried to coach us on how to raise her and we finally had to say to her that we had to do it our way because now we were Amy's family unit. Without going into too long of a story, Amy lived with us until she graduated from highschool and by then my lifelong friendship with Linda had been destroyed. It was because of how much I loved Linda that we did what she asked us to do in taking Amy in. I was devastated and grieved for the loss of our friendship and still to this day think about Linda. She made some lousy choices in her life and her husband was just one of them. He carried on an affair that Linda knew about with a woman for over a year. He abused her children and her and was drunk most of the time. Linda never left John even though he caused her so much pain in her life. There was nothing wrong with Linda until he got ahold her and pounded away on her self-esteem changing her into somebody who couldn't think straight about anything. Eventually he destroyed the beautiful woman I loved so much who was my friend. Through the years Amy was with us Linda turned into a person I didn't know at all anymore. She had become a stranger oblivious to the life around her and failed to recognize those who truly loved her.

Your situation is not about you Jan. This is about your husband and what happens when grief is not resolved. I know it's hard not to have thoughts about what you could have done differently.........but in the end it wouldn't have made a difference even if you had. Your husband still would be carrying the grief he never dealt with after his first wife passed away. Unresolved grief comes out eventually whether we like it or not. Kept harbored, it can come out in a very ugly way. What your husband did was thoughtless and apparently he didn't recognize the great catch he got when he met and married you. Who wouldn't want a compassionate and deeply loving woman such as yourself? If he thinks for one second the grass is greener on the other side and that he won't run into problems with another woman he's quite mistaken. That little girl of his will bring chaos into any relationship he may choose to engage in. So you see Jan..........It really isn't about you. When you married him, his baggage came right along with him. Believe in yourself and allow the goodness and love in you to rise above the tormenting thoughts you are now having.

I hope some of what I said helped you Jan. You've been through more than your share of grief. Stay connected to those who really care about you and love you for just who you are. There is nothing wrong with you..........

Hugs of love,
Beth