Change, fear and acceptance

Change happens, fear appears -- we either act, accept or become paralyzed. For me, it's easy to become paralyzed on issues that really get to the heart of my underlying fears. While with recovery, it's easier to become accepting of things that I might otherwise have considered dramatic, I can become paralyzed either in addiction, procrastination, or avoidance.

I am currently trying to decide ... trying to hear my heart, avoid my own willfulness ... about whether to leave my husband, how to do it, when, etc. I can't hear the answer clearly. Even though it's getting clearer, I still get confused. I know it's because there is interference between me and my HP. Or maybe I'm not listening with the right ears, the right heart. I hear the truth -- there is no emotional support, no physical intimacy, no friendship, just a partnership and a lot of familiarity. Hell, I'm familiar with a lot of things. Doesn't make them good.

I guess I am learning patience -- boy, am I tired of it. I feel like my life is on hold and I'm sitting here spinning my wheels, knowing there is something better out there, seeing it with my own eyes.

But ... I'm not sitting still. Things are changing. The acceptance I talked about is one of them. Two weeks ago, I miscarried a child I didn't know I was carrying. I have felt confused ... confused about even how to feel. The child may have been my husband's or it may have been the child of someone else, but the child did not come to full life. I accept that the HP that controls the bigger universe knows that there are multiple reasons that child was never born.

After that miscarriage, I saw clearly that my husband (who had no idea the child might not be his) will never be able to support my emotional needs. I accept that it might have taken something this tragic for me to realize the depth of his emotional unavailability. In fact, I've known all along throughout my years of acting out that I could get pregnant if I continued to act out and go on sexual binges. And, even as I write, I accept that I have not supported my husband's expectations and need for fidelity and support either. I accept that I am the only person who can decide if I am willing to continue in the marriage and there are reasons it shouldn't be an easy decision.

I have also seen in all of this my pattern for seeking out love where it is not available. I have realized that over the years, starting with the biological father who caused my existence but never claimed it, then the stepfather who began sexually abusing me when I was three -- I have wanted men to love me who don't have the capacity to love me. Sitting at home this past week, I was reading back over a journal that I have kept since 1989, and saw that a male friend, a guy I called my best friend, has consistently not been there for me for more than 17 years. But I kept going back to him for love, not romantic love, just the emotional support that a person needs when they are happy, sad, or hurting. Never once when I really needed him, has he been there. It caused me to think of other men, friends and lovers... all I wanted was for them to simply love me, to see my worth, to not use me, to be there for me as I would do anything for them, to win their love, acceptance and support. But I've never been willing to walk away and simply love myself, to care enough about myself to fill that hole in my heart with the power of the greater universe, my HP. My need for and attraction to those emotionally unavailable people was based on history ... needing to right old wrongs. I see these patterns now, and it is helping me to accept them, to walk away, and see the truth.

My stepfather, who I had purposely not talked to in more than a year, called me last week after he heard about the miscarriage. He said he was sorry to hear about what had happened. At the time the call came it was disturbing, I could have wailed and railed. I could even have pretended that I actually knew whether it was guilt or true concern that caused his call. But the point is ... it is what it is. He called. It was more than what some people who I've sought to right his wrongs with did.