The Thinking Other Woman

Might as well talk about the astrology of the next three years. There’s a big split in the transits for all three people in our triangle that starts right about now. Make no mistake, the major period of action doesn’t start until this time next year, and it goes for two years … but, if no groundwork for that gets laid (groundwork like, I’m 64 years old and this is my last chance to bail if I really want a different kind of relationship for the rest of my life), nothing happens.

Even the tarot agrees. Events, I’m told, have tried their best to help this person see the reality of the life they’re living. The Universe is about to give up on this person. I know I am.

Let’s make one thing perfectly clear, here. These two staying in the marriage and making it a satisfactory one IS still in the cards. HOWEVER: I notice that at least one of these transits on her side strongly hearkens back to work that was supposed to have been done and growth that was supposed to have been achieved earlier. (And I know right when that was, too … that time back in 2016 when somebody acted like they didn’t want to be someplace and sort of slept through it rather than applying herself.)

Without the scaffolding of that work having been done back then, I think it’s going to be a lot harder to paint that mural.

Either way, there’s the drumbeat: Something COULD have happened right now, in the latter part of 2022. Four months left in the year. If it had, it certainly would have set the stage for 2023-2025. There’s a good spate of contact transits coming up in the next ten days.

What usually happens when these come up: A flurry of activity from a certain person checking directly in here on a phone, without having to do a search to get here. This person, ostensibly from “Toronto” or “New Jersey” or, at one point, “Paris,” visits and visits, and then … nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada.

It's happening again right now. Only THIS time the person just scrolls the damn blog page and doesn’t read anything.

Good GRIEF.

The linchpin is, THIS IS ALL UP TO FREE WILL. I can’t speak to him because his last instructions to me were, “I intend to stay married,” so my hands are tied. To go by his behavior over the past seven years, here, her exercise in free will is to remain in rectal defilade. So, the person with the free will is … TA DA!!!

And, since this person is still heavily codependent and has discovered neither balls nor spine, I expect a flurry of visits here around August 17, and … that will be it.

Imagine longing to design your own life for some 64 years and when you finally get the chance, and the Universe is practically IMPLORING YOU … what do you do?

"Ehhhh … it’s SO much easier to let other people decide after all, even if I’m miserable with what they decide for me … AGAIN."

No decision IS a decision. It’s a final decision to let things stay the way they are forever, right?

(At least other people will be happy.)

If he doesn’t speak, that’s it. I don’t need to worry about hearing from this person in 2023. I don’t need to worry about seeing him in 2024. Those times will just pass us by, and we’ll be on another timeline and all hope this ever could have worked out will be

                  gone,

                             gone,

                                                gone.

People have mixed feelings about Dr. Phil, but he’s right about one thing: The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. And we all know what that is.

What’s funny about this is: I have one transit that says I’m not likely to be happy whatever I get. And, you know?? I COMPLETELY understand that one.

I imagine this guy chickening out one last and final time, and I’m very sad about that. It’s the cutoff of all future potential. If he’d just SPOKEN, the POTENTIAL for a very good outcome was there.

BUT: I imagine this guy speaking, and I quail in terror. Because I know some very serious emotional problems are over there, together with yet another attitude that doesn’t want to apply itself. He himself knows, not much can be done with a relationship partner who has a nonworking attitude other than stew in problems and have a miserable relationship that gets worse and worse over time. I’m not willing to put up with that.

My life has been “stimulating” enough.

If he actually SPOKE, I’d speak to him, sure. But without divorce papers all properly signed and delivered where they are supposed to go, I simply can’t remain involved. That shit is radioactive. I can’t do one thing if I keep my hand in other than make things worse, and I won’t do it. Absolutely. Motherfucking. Not.

And what I need to see is a good, solid working attitude. I don’t mean jump when I say jump like good Fido. I mean hitting the journals, books and therapy to see how and why he got himself into this mess and how he plans to behave differently in the future. I mean seeing himself as something other than a worm.

Because I don’t find a lily-livered, fawning boot-licker attractive even one whit. I was attracted to him because I mistook him for someone like my late husband—someone who knew who he was and what he needed and would get behind himself and back himself up.

I may not have been thrilled with my husband’s attitude that no one was going to tell HIM what to do, and he was going to do laundry and take trash out and load the dishwasher and that was it—but that is WAYYYY better than someone who’s doing things he’s only half-conscious he doesn’t want to do and won’t think about it or say anything about it until ten years later when he’s complaining about me to someone else.

If I hear something like, “I need to have regular sex, because why be with someone you’re not having sex with? You might as well be roommates,” I know who that person is and I know what I’m dealing with. I know what I need to do to make that person happy. If a person such as my late husband said something like, “I could use some attention,” that spoke pretty loudly to me. I didn’t have to guess, I KNEW.

That shit’s fucking important. How am I supposed to run my half of the relationship if I don’t know? If the person’s a smiling Cheshire who doesn’t know why he’s “depressed” and all the while I’m on my knees on the damn FLOOR going, “PLEASE!! TELL ME THE TRUTH!!!” and he’s going, “Everything’s fine, honey …” what kind of shit is going to come down??

Look at THEIR marriage. THAT’S the shit that’s going to come down. And I don’t want shit part of that.

I’m going to know ten years later when he has a mental breakdown, or moves out all of a sudden, or I find suspicious texts from someone else ... that’s when I’m going to know he wasn't happy.

And I don’t fucking deserve that. How many times did I have to tell my late husband, “I’M NOT YOUR FIRST WIFE!”

And I sure as fuck ain’t this one, either.

Who the fuck gravitates toward someone because they’re “easy to talk to,” and then REFUSES TO TALK???

A hideous codependent who doesn’t want to do the goddamn work to get well, that’s who.

And something tells me if I hear from him now, that’s exactly what I would be getting.

Of course, the reason I believe this is I haven't heard anything from him in five years besides these surreptitious visits. I know he's thinking about me and that's all I know. All I really have to go on is the person who couldn't read anything about ACoA issues five years ago because it was "too depressing." (As if staying in that marriage wasn't.)

If things are somehow better and work has been done, well, that's good, solid, healthy thinking. And if it results in their getting back together or him divorcing and finding someone else instead of coming back to me, that's okay. We're old people now. We aren't the people we were when we met. We might meet again, go "Meh," and that's it.

All we were really supposed to do here is heal. We weren't really looking for each other; we were looking for OURSELVES.

Now, don’t get me wrong, THIS PERSON

            HAS THE CAPACITY

TO IMPROVE.

THIS PERSON HAS THE CAPACITY TO GO ALL THE WAY.

He’s smart enough. He is not, like my mother, so mentally ill that there’s just limited capability there and nothing to be done. Horoscope, tarot, and my intuition are all agreed: THIS GUY CAN DO IT.

He just needs to WANT to do it, he needs to find GOOD help, and he needs to motherfucking APPLY HIMSELF to emotional wellness as well as he does things like painting and old movies and … I don’t know, Raymond fucking Chandler.

If I don’t see good solid evidence of all of the above, I’m afraid I can’t bite.

And what evidence have I seen of that in the past seven years? Precious fucking little.

So, yeah, if I heard from him, it would be a nailbiting time. I would have to just adopt a wait-and-see attitude without expecting much.

Never put your happiness in the hands of others, ladies. Just keep living your own life and leave the morons to stew.

The sad thing is, we’re about to become seriously old people. The time for health problems, cognitive decline, and nursing homes draws nigh.

If we don’t do what we can while we can, and we don’t do it NOW, we’ll be drooling in our laps in the nursing home, sitting in our wheelchairs in front of the TV in our Depends. We’ll barely even know what day it is, and death will come and all our potential Will. Be. Gone.

Think about THAT.

https://medium.com/know-thyself-heal-thyself/this-conversation-with-an-experienced-therapist-changed-the-course-of-my-life-5223a0eb9ce6