M didn't really mention anything except that there was serious trouble between you and your wife because of another woman, in response to my prying about why you guys were moving. I think that's where the part about her being a bad parent slipped out.
As a parent, there are things that she should know or pry into or know when to get involved and how, and it just seemed par for the course that she couldn't answer any of the questions I was asking, so I finally told her I was going to email you, and she was surprised at that and reluctant because that would mean she talked about it to me, but said fine, and we got off the phone real fast, and needless to say, I don't expect her to be paying for anymore of my plane tickets.
Even if she knows more about what's going on, and for whatever reason felt she couldn't talk about it, that also goes to her inane parenting sense. Her idea of family dynamics is that you keep hush-hush about everything, and you don't help when that's the right thing to do. I don't think she has any conception of what it means to help out a family member, aside from sending over money. Wait, did she offer to send over money?
So I don't know any of the details or the dynamics.
It's good to hear that you're trying to work things out and are committed, there isn't a better starting point and it sounds like you're communicating, so that's excellent and keep it up. Obviously in a situation like this, repairing trust should also be number one on the agenda, so I encourage being vigilant and mindful about transparency. I don't mean you should divulge every little thing that's going on with you, I can see that getting annoying on her part, but if something needs to be said but you're not sure, lean towards saying it. Don't make assumptions about what she's thinking or feeling when you can clarify something on your part by just saying it or asking about it on her part.
It's good that it's foremost on your minds not to harm the kids. M's predictable mantra was that she hoped you guys would work things out for the sake of the kids, and that's fair. But I wouldn't make considering them a major part of the process. If you handle the process properly and well, the benefit to the kids will be automatic, you don't need to think or worry about them, aside from just raising and teaching them. If you can reach a place where you can look at yourself and say that you're alright, you fixed the marriage and B and the marriage is alright, then the kids will be fine. If you pay too much attention on not screwing up the kids, there's a risk that the process will be incomplete or flawed.
I think your focus should be on yourself and really look into yourself and why and how this happened. Go back through all of the stages that led up to this, and don't just focus on the drama after the shit hit the fan. You have to go back and ask what were your feelings and motivations, what was your analysis or lack of analysis. Locate that one moment when you did or felt or said something that should have tripped a wire indicating, "Oh shit, this is bad".
This idea isn't from the monastery but from a men's batterer program I trained in in San Francisco. We called that moment "fatal peril", it's the moment of decision where you reach the breaking point and you're going to do one thing or another. It's the danger point (peril) from where if you don't back down, there's no taking back what you do next. And it's going to be bad for everyone (fatal).
But it does relate to the monastic trainings in mindfulness and watching what our emotions are doing and what our thoughts are, and not just being caught up in the tide of emotions and other motivations.
I don't know if any of this is relevant, so I'm just going to throw out some ideas to consider, or to remind you if you've already considered them.
I think it's important to revisit the development of the events to understand yourself and what your motivations were. From my last visit there, you guys looked like you were doing great, I've gotten totally comfortable with B (and after seeing her sister in action, I thought you totally won out of the 3 sisters; T, too, but that's a different story), the kids were great, although I thought it may be time to instill C with some assertiveness and leadership skills and to be able to analyze things through and come up with his own opinion and enjoyment. S at this point has no problem with that as she knew what song she liked and she wanted to hear it over and over. And over and over. (I actually remember a similar memory, which I think may have been the start of my love of music (it was some Disney song while we were visiting Uncle Aki on a plastic record player and I couldn't get enough of it. If you have any insight on that memory, let me know)).
But then hearing this, it becomes apparent there was an underlying problem and it needs to be understood and addressed, and not brushed aside. A lot of people looking from the outside might look at a family and think that everything is perfect and they must be really happy. But maybe they're not.
So I also encourage you to do a happiness analysis. The Dalai Lama once observed that everyone says they want to be happy, but they keep doing things that lead to more suffering. And it's because many people's emotions are out of control or taken for granted as just being what they are. Their emotions just roam freely and they don't have the mindfulness to consider their actions and the consequences and ask, "will this make me happy, or will it likely lead to suffering?".
Instead of asking about happiness, we tend to just follow desire. Desire is the culprit that keeps us chasing after things which don't necessarily bring happiness, or ultimately brings about unhappiness and suffering for others. I think he's also pointing out that we all have the potential to be happy just as we are, but desire convinces us we're not happy and act in ways that bring about more unhappiness.
At the monastic mindfulness training level, this happiness analysis is brought all the way down to the smallest decisions we make any day that affect our emotions. Even if someone is walking too slow on the sidewalk in front of us and we can't get by and start feeling annoyed or angry, the analysis kicks in: "Is being annoyed and angry making me happy? They're not doing anything wrong, it's me that's being annoyed and angry. Can't I just pause and take a breath and be patient and walk slowly until I get an opportunity to pass and be happy with that?"
It's not easy, and I'll attest that it's a long, committed process, but I think it's fact that we can learn to control our emotions.
I'm not making any assumptions of what we're like now, but I do think you, T and me all have anger issues that we inherited from dad. M frequently talks about T's anger issues at the office, even with patients. I know that I have anger/negativity issues and dealing with them is part of the mindfulness practice I took from the monastery. It's a part of me now to identify anger/negativity the very moment they come up and to adjust myself away from them. By constantly doing this, I know I still experience anger and negativity, I'm not getting rid of them yet, but I'm training myself to be more peaceful by taking control of the emotions.
In general, anger is an important emotion to learn to be mindful of and control during difficult times since it's probably the easiest emotion to blind us and make us do something we otherwise wouldn't do. I recommend a book that's on my bookshelf by the window in New Jersey called "Anger" by Thich Nhat Hanh. At times he goes a little simplistic, but he's writing on a very basic level for an introductory audience. And even though he incorporates Buddhist elements and language in some passages, it's because that's his background but he's not trying to push Buddhism on anyone. The book is also good because his discourse on anger also includes the basic ideas and methods behind mindfulness training.
If there are any issues you want to get out or bounce off someone else, you can totally let me know. If B's willing and you're comfortable with it, you can also let her know she can contact me to discuss what's on her mind. Obviously I'm not taking sides, the best interests of both of you are in my interest, so I'm only hoping to help keep lines of communication open.
I'm confident that both of you are smart enough and capable enough to achieve your goal since you're committed and working on it, but recognize that outside help may be necessary to keep things clear because it's easy to get myopic about these kinds of situations. Even if you can achieve your goal of staying together because you're being smart and capable, I still encourage identifying and dealing with all of the underlying issues. If you don't do that, there still may be problems with the foundation of your relationship here on in that might come up later.
I think by doing it in this way, you can strive to be confident of what you want and what are the most important things to you and neither of you will have doubts that things ended up alright for the wrong reasons. Ideally, I think the hope is that you'll end up in a situation where you can look around and realize this is not at all bad and certainly could be a lot worse, and you can put your efforts into making things better. What can I do for the kids? What can I do for B? What can I do for myself that will make me happy without bringing future suffering?
I recently read Ozzy Osbourne's biography because for someone brought up on rock music, his memoir is like reading history. And when asked about how he's been able to maintain his marriage to Sharon despite the long list of outrageous incidents to his name, he said, "I never stopped telling her I love her and I never stopped doing the little things for her". All the little things he constantly did ultimately likely meant a lot more than a grand gesture every once in a while would've meant. That's wisdom from a simple man.
If you come across difficult parts, I hope both of you avail yourself of the available network – her sisters and me and T – to figure out what's best for everyone. I think everyone cares and everyone is willing to help without judgment, even if not everyone has the ability and may be uncomfortable getting involved. I haven't emailed T in months so I don't know what he knows, but I hope you don't mind if I ask him as a means of sharing information and creating the best situation where we can come up with ideas or problem solve if any major issues come up. I'm not sure of T's current emotional availability, but during the course of his engagement and marriage, I've seen him shine and really come through on things I had doubts about, so I think he's also an important resource.
take care,
NB: I'm sure he deleted this immediately and very probably didn't read the whole thing, at best skimmed it.
