This isn't really an infidelity-related question...I hope it's okay to get some feedback on this.
I am slowly starting to get some holiday-anxiety regarding my family...and there are - how many weeks until Christmas?? <big sigh>
My family did not offer any support to me after my H's affair. I guess it was the final straw for me in hoping that they could love and support me the way I had always wished that they would. They were just awful and in so many ways, I wish I had never told them about H's affair. I am learning to see them for what they are....but holidays are tough.
So in IC, I have had to deal with the fact that I've had an emotionally abusive childhood. I wish I had dealt with it years ago...but not until H's affair had it really come back to haunt me. Now...I have to heal from their abuse. It's another (important) layer in healing myself from H's affair.
I need some strategies in dealing with them...things that I can 'tell' myself in order to get through the holidays. I know that the holidays are going to be hard for me because of H's affair (triggers galore)...and I won't be able to throw any stressful situations on my plate without having some serious anxiety.
Hi Kara. Okay, here's some things that have helped me.
1. Remember that "the holidays" will come and go no matter how much you participate in them -- or not.
2. Gifts that are truely gifts are given from the heart with no sense of obligation or expectation of anything in return -- except perhaps witnessing the happiness of the recipient. (In other words -- I wouldn't wear myself out shopping for people you don't particularly like to be around.....)
3. Carve out some time just for you -- and don't feel you have to explain it to anyone.
4. Keep up with the usual "affair discovery" care of yourself -- ensure you get the right kinds of foods, and enough exercise and sleep.
5. Breathe deeply.
6. Think about Mary giving birth to Jesus in a stinky, drafty stable -- without the benefit of meds, homecooked food, hot showers and disposable diapers. Then relish your hot shower, your hot coffee or tea, your clean clothes and the heat in your house.....
7. Consider volunteering some time to help those in need in the larger community.
8. Think about how those who have hurt you so much may have been wounded in their past -- it doesn't excuse what they have done, but it may help put their treatment of you in perspective.
9. Remember, (just like the picture of that cottage on the other thread) that the perfect Christmas experience is an illusion......on this earth, anyway.
Hi Jean! Those were good ideas. My goal for Thanksgiving & christmas day is just to make it thru both days without crying or talking about the A.That's a big enough task for me!
Kara. I am not sure what your plans are with your family during the holidays....but if they are the siblings that grew up in the same home as you did, surrounded by emotional abuse/neglect...then I think that Jean's words are something to try to implement. Your family can't respond to you in the way that you need...by the way, are you aware of what you need from them? Do you need hugs? Do you need words of encouragement? Do you need for them to acknowledge it? Do you need for them to stop criticizing you? What is it that they need to do to "ACCOMMODATE" what you need...to help pull you through? Sometimes our family is not equipped to provide us with what we need. You may need to seek it elsewhere. I could not get from my family what I needed because they are so "depressingly sad" about everything...they see the cup half empty...I see it half full. Anyway, I got what I needed from my therapist and friends that I knew would accommodate...I just needed someone to listen. In any event, you know yourself better than anyone....pay attention to what you are feeling when with your family....if you need to do something, like take a walk, read a book, take a nap,...then do it. You are in a semi state of trauma now. You need to be as kind to yourself as you can. If you offend others during the course of the holidays...recognize it, apologize for it and simply go on. Best of luck to you.
Hi Kara,
The Holidays are always stressful for me and my dysfunctional family, but after D-day, it was intolerable. So instead of going to the usual traditional Christmas gathering that my family, I made my own schedule. I went to visit for very short times with only a few relevant members. I am the problem solver in our bunch, and I just couldn't fix anything for them around that time. I didn't feel one bit guilty for it either. I did what I needed to do for me, I'm still doing that to this day. There will be many Happy Holidays for us to share, but that first year I had to make it all about me.
Kara just an idea but can you find some activity you can do with your children and husband to give you the spirit of Christmas back. My thought would be something like spend the day scooping out dinner to those at the homeless shelter or have your children go through their clothes and toys and box them up to donate to those less fortunate. Perhaps wrap them up and bring them to a battered woman's shelter with your children.
These types of activities tend to make us thankful for what we have. Kara our family is just that......they can't be turned in or exchanged no matter how hard we try. Believe me I tried Find the spirit in other ways. Take your kids skating, go sliding, go caroling......something to make a new Christmas tradition of your own.
Christmas is always my worst time of year. I already left Walmart last weekend wanting to sit in my car and cry after. So many families, so many happy people, so many kids, so many couples...........UGH
Christmas is the happiest time of year for many, but the lonliest time of year for some. Not to get depressing, but are you aware that around Christmas the suicide rate dramatically increases? Apparently we aren't the only ones that can't stand thinking of the holidays. But inside Kara, we are the lucky ones.
All that 'stuff' is outside ourselves and uncontrollable, aside from triggers which aren't really controllable either.
As an adult you have the chance to exert some control over your holiday experiences. Whatever you choose to do this Christmas, you'll remember next Christmas. You'll feel that memory too. The same goes for two Christmas's from now, and three....all post-affair.
I also had triggers everywhere around this time especially that first year after d-day. This holiday will mark year 7. It's all different now.
You mentioned layers of healing Kara. I'm visual, and see that opportunity as kind of like veils of colors. You can layer them inward or layer them outward. I now have 6 years to look back through like veils of new memories covering that horrible experience in 1998/99. They soften the way that I can approach the holidays this year.
My suggestion is for you to do something this holiday, as an adult with some degree of control over your life, that really impacts your spirit and emotions (and healing) in ways that feel good for you. Maybe you can slowly transform the things that haunt you with the help you're getting from the IC, and people who are more emotionally atuned to you. Find a way to lay a pleasant more peaceful memory veil over these holidays that covers the pain you have endured and remember from the past. Then next year you'll have that.
....you have all given me wonderful ways of empowering myself at this time of year and wonderful ideas that will help me to reclaim the holidays.
I am printing off each and every one of your responses and will read them daily. My children are still young. I want/need to recapture this time of year...not just for me...but also for them. The last two years have been emotionally draining...and as a result my kids have benefitted only from whatever 'scraps' of positive emotion that I've had left in me. I'm sure many of you can imagine the incredible guilt that comes along with that.
I want to be able to look back on the holidays with fond memories. I don't want to lose any more wonderful memories - to happiness that is peppered with sadness.
I'm probably going to rain on your parade a little, Kara.
Life isn't endlessly happy. It's important to be able to deal with both happiness and sadness. It is just as valuable to me to have gotten through several really bad, stressful, difficult, and life-altering years (and to remember how) as it is to have and to create positive memories.
After all, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
It's okay to be sad, to remember being sad. It's not okay to live there.
<<After all, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.>>
And that is where I find myself now. The fact that I didn't seek some help during my late teens/early 20's has now come back to bite me in the ass. I knew that I was being mistreated by them...and (sadly) I hoped it would change. My best friend had told me years ago that it was in my best interests to seek help over this...but I figured it would 'go away'.
Well...it didn't 'go away'. I fact, in some ways it has become more hurtful over the years. My H's affair churned up a whole lot of emotion in me...but the one gut-wrenching feeling that was all too familiar to me from my childhood - was the rejection.
You're so right...life isn't endlessly happy. I know that all too well. I am learning now what I should have learned years ago....and then you throw some infidelity into the mix....and....well.... I have alot to learn. And I am determined to learn it and rise above it...yet I will never forget it.
But for this year...I am still looking forward to creating some happy memories.
In general, and this applies to most things in life (not just the aftermath of infidelity), I find it's best to name/understand the "thing" I'm dealing with, admit to myself how I really feel about it, get through the feelings (which means someday getting past them), and then the really hard part.
Let go.
In the past few years, I've let go of a couple of beloved pets, a wife and our marriage, a son, a business, and a home. Most of those separations were not willing ones on my part, which made them all harder to deal with at first.
Letting go is a skill my parents taught me early. My "growing up" years from 5 to 16 included five moves to different parts of the US and eight schools. The "rebellion" of my young adult years was to move to a "settled-in" city "good for raising a family" and to surround myself with people and things I thought would be permanent in my life and really dig in deep.
Well, if you look at my list above, nothing's permanent. So I have to go back to my own childhood and recall those skills I gave up: travel light and be ready to move on when it's necessary, for the time may come at a most unexpected hour.
I'm not trying to say that I have no control over my life and choices, but that I can never know when twists and turns and choices will present themselves. If I feel burdened by baggage (physical or emotional) I will not make the best choices moving forward.
And here's the kicker. Baggage is both "good" and "bad" memories. Good memories freeze me just as well as bad ones do. I can get stuck in either one when the best thing to do is just move on, while remembering.
Find the spirit in other ways. Take your kids skating, go sliding, go caroling......something to make a new Christmas tradition of your own.
