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Thoughts on resilience
Do you consider yourself to be resilient? Do you think your level of resilience has/had anything to do with the amount of time it has taken you to recover from your breakup/divorce?
I've been thinking about this because I was a little sad about my divorce, but mostly I felt bad for hurting my XH's feelings not because I was actually that broken up by the demise my marriage. I would like to think that some of that has to do with my being really resilient (since that's a good trait), but I've also wondered if I'm just an emotionally distant person (which is a not so good trait).
It seems like there is a fine line between resiliency and emotional distance and/or choosing not to acknowledge one's feelings and I wonder how you can tell the difference. I've always thought it was really healthy to not be one to wallow in ones emotions and sadness, but maybe it's not. Or maybe it's just an individual thing and some people need that time to reflect in order to be healthy, and others don't?
Anyone have thoughts on this?
Re: Thoughts on resilience
I think what you describe is more emotional distance than being resilient. In order to be resilient, you have to experience something bad and "bounce back" from it. It sounds like you weren't in a place that needing bouncing back.
Not to say that's a bad thing. I didn't feel anything with my divorce because I WAS emotional distance from that relationship. Now break up with guy I dated post divorce was an entirely different story. I was down in the dumps for a while, but got myself back up and functioning and was able to move on. I made myself get out of bed when I didn't want to, forced myself to see friends, and eventually I started ot enjoy things again. That's what I consider an example of resilience.
Do you find that you never process emotion, or is it just this particular situation?
I see what you mean about bouncing back versus being emotionally distant, and that makes a lot of sense.
To answer your question, I do process emotion, but a lot of times the things that are upsetting to other people just aren't that upsetting to me. I also don't show a lot of excitement about things (I do get excited and eagerly anticipate things, but I don't show it like other people). I care about things deeply but I just don't think I deviate a lot from my baseline feelings very much.
I think I am resilient but it still has taken me a fair amount of time to recover from my divorce. My situation was very rough... I was pregnant and my ex decided he wanted a divorce, then he wanted to make it work but then he ended up getting angry and kicking me out of our home. I had to leave immediately and live with my parents friends while we decided what to do. During that time I lost the baby and we decided to get divorced. This all happened in a 3 week period
I was able to handle all of that without going into a major depression because I am resilient but it has taken a long time to heal because I lost so much (my marriage, husband, home, baby, future plans, etc). It's been 2 years since that happened and I am in a much better place because I needed the time to grieve, etc.
My ex had a new girlfriend 3 months later and had moved in with her within a year... he can't be alone and always moves from 1 relationship into another wether he is really emotionally available or not. He couldn't have been in a healthy place 3 months after he lost his wife and baby and I doubt he is being honest with his new gf or himself about anything. He is not resilient... he is choosing to ignore the pain and guilt in by being in a new relationship.
I am so sorry in advance, my post is so long and I am passionate about this topic. I just wanted to share my experiences.
Do you consider yourself to be resilient? Do you think your level of resilience has/had anything to do with the amount of time it has taken you to recover from your breakup/divorce?
STBXH is severely introverted and shows no emotions. I felt "safe" with him because he was opposite of bi-polar family, abusive/violent ex husband prior to meeting him. Time was peaceful and safe with him. I had not realized until now (after splitting up with stbxh) that I denied myself of my own emotional needs to maintain a ?safe? environment. Now I understand the dynamics of our relationship and why I chose to be with him and it wasn't exactly healthy even though at the time it felt wonderful.
I considered myself to be resilient. I have been through things that were far worse than my divorce and survived. Because of that, I know I can get through this divorce so it was easier for me to hold it all together and keep on growing in life. However, with that said, when I am all alone in a quiet place, I can feel my soul hurting from the divorce and that is very healthy. I just need to allow myself to feel the pain from time to time so I can heal fully on the inside which will work its way out. (This is why I have a hard time relaxing and always playing games on my phone before bed or watching TV/internet too much to distract myself).
As far as being emotionally distance or resilient, if you are ?responding? meaning in the ability to control your emotions and made aware of yourself at the moment, I think it is very healthy. Every day we need to listen to our gut/intuition and establishing boundaries to guide our heart, protect ourselves, as make good decisions as we come across obstacles.
On the other hand, if emotional distance or resilient is more of a ?reaction? to a situation, it may be how you cope/survive. Sometimes this is merely shock but then you still have to deal with the pain when the shock wears off. Sometimes is a method of disconnecting yourself from reality and not living in the moment. Too much of this can make you feel like dead man walking. Sometimes being in a closed off mode may prevent dealing with emotions which is healthy itself and may prevent opening up to a healthy relationship when having a hard time dealing with emotions or not understanding how you are feeling.
Through therapy, I have been training myself to feel my emotions because they are new to me and at times, I was scared of it because I didn?t understand them. They can hurt but never had hurt that lasted more than a couple of minutes ever. I?ve been taught almost all my life that having emotions was a bad thing and made me a weak person. But that was because I was hanging out with the wrong type of people who was feeding off of my insecurities.
It has been 8 months since the news of divorce from stbxh but I am finding that my progress with healing has more to do with how I grew up and the divorce is just a small part to it. Because I?ve been in trauma and more alone than not in my whole lifetime up to this point, I need more time to reflect and work on myself before I get into another relationship. If it wasn?t for this divorce, I wouldn?t be aware of my personal issues and wouldn?t be on a healing path. So really, my stbxh gave me a very BIG gift.
Not to toot my own horn, but I consider myself very resilient. I would not have said this 3 years ago.
I felt the deep emotional pain of my X's betrayal and crimes. I worked my butt off to get out of the hole I was in and feel happier than I ever have before.
ETA : I think my resilience did indeed get me through things in a decent amount of time. I asked for help, worked with a therapist, and pushed myself. I know a lot of people who have let much less bring them down for a much longer amount of time.
I totally hear you on being more upset about hurting your XH's feelings and less so about the actual dissolution of your marriage. I am RIGHT THERE, as well as worried about upsetting my parents.
I am definitely an emotionally distant/emotionally controlled person. I am not one to express a lot of emotion with my family or my H, although I have close friends that I don't worry about being emotional around.
One problem I am seeing exists in my marriage (notwithstanding the whole issue of infidelity that got me here on SO in the first place) is that I didn't necessarily feel "safe" expressing emotion to my H. In my therapy session yesterday, we talked a bit about whether this was because of him or because of me. I actually think a lot of it is because of me, although obviously there was something in him that made me feel like it was not safe to confide in him/discuss hard things with him. My communication issues are huge, in part because I keep my emotions so in check and keep myself distant. And while I might think, "Gee, I am handling this so well," i.e. am so resilient, that is not the actual case at all.
Anyway, I think you can be resilient without being emotionally distant, but I also think it's really easy to mistake emotional distance for resilience. I am not a fan of feeling all the feelings, but I don't think this means I am resilient. I just think it means that I have a LOT to work on.