For anyone interested, here's a press release regarding the use of EFT with chronic illness by an MD (a Urologist) in Los Angeles. CFS (the US term for ME) is mentioned in passing.
http://www.emofree.com/Press-Releases/chronic-illness-robins.htm
Tuesday 14 October 2008
Friday 10 October 2008
Wife/therapist, husband/client. Bad idea, obviously, but what choice did I have?
When the gaps between blog entries gets longer, it tends to mean things are going okay. Here I am, though, with a need to offload to the (possibly no longer bothered) blogosphere. It's just a way of feeling like I'm talking to someone when there's no-one to talk to. Is anyone listening? It doesn't matter. Does anyone care? Probably not. But who knows, maybe there's another EFTer out there who is attempting to help a spouse with a chronic illness who might know where I'm coming from.
We've hit a wall. I guess it was a predictable problem, and if I didn't have so much invested in the outcome of his illness it probably wouldn't occur. But it's not easy to work with the ones you love. A spousal relationship cannot easily accommodate what is essentially a therapist/client scenario. Though in my mind it is framed otherwise, and is a function of my love for him, I can appreciate for him it might feel different.
Part of me feels I should have insisted on the daily EFT that was working so nicely - but then, no, what kind of respect is there in insistence? So when he stopped being willing to do it on a daily basis, I let it ride. That feels like a mistake now (since 6 weeks without tapping has led to him walling himself off from me again) but maybe it was an inevitability, since what we have come up against is his fundamental belief that my passion about my work (which he sees as me prioritizing my needs over his) is the fundamental cause of his illness.
I accept that is his reality, but it isn't mine. What that means, unfortunately, is that we're living two mutually exclusive realities and though I'm prepared to work with him from the starting point of his reality he wants me to agree with him that his reality is The Truth before he can go any further. I could do that with ease if I were his therapist and not his wife. I'm happy to agree that his reality is the truth for him, but that's not enough for him. He wants me to accept culpability for his illness, and I can't. If I were his therapist (and not his wife) there would be no issue. But how can he accept any input from the person he feels is the root cause of his illness (and denies that they are)?
The upside is he's a lot better than he was. He describes himself as "in recovery". But in to achieve the profound healing necessary for his full recovery we need to get to the emotional root causes. I feel they lie much further back, but for him, those root causes are to do with my passion about (and commitment to) my work. Work which is more than work but in fact my identity, my vocation, my passion and my life's purpose.
He says I can't have it all. I can't have this thing that I love so much and expect to have a good relationship with him too. So there we are: impasse.
I don't know where we go from here. I expect it will all look different a few days from now. Each small crisis resolves and moves on in relative peace until we hit another crisis, and these crises have tended over the last year or so to be less confrontational and further apart. I suppose it's all part of what love faces us with: ourselves.
More and more, when we hit these points, I find myself having to accept the possibility that we are just two very different people who may become more and more separate as we attempt to find our own happiness. Perhaps that happiness doesn't lie with each other. Often, a crisis will be the catalyst for a period of renewed closeness. But one of these days, maybe not.
On the upside, he wasn't personally abusive as he has been on previous occasions, and after an initial emotional reaction on my part, I regained my composure and am able to go to bed calm, if a little resigned. Whatever happens, at least these days I am able to deal with it.
We've hit a wall. I guess it was a predictable problem, and if I didn't have so much invested in the outcome of his illness it probably wouldn't occur. But it's not easy to work with the ones you love. A spousal relationship cannot easily accommodate what is essentially a therapist/client scenario. Though in my mind it is framed otherwise, and is a function of my love for him, I can appreciate for him it might feel different.
Part of me feels I should have insisted on the daily EFT that was working so nicely - but then, no, what kind of respect is there in insistence? So when he stopped being willing to do it on a daily basis, I let it ride. That feels like a mistake now (since 6 weeks without tapping has led to him walling himself off from me again) but maybe it was an inevitability, since what we have come up against is his fundamental belief that my passion about my work (which he sees as me prioritizing my needs over his) is the fundamental cause of his illness.
I accept that is his reality, but it isn't mine. What that means, unfortunately, is that we're living two mutually exclusive realities and though I'm prepared to work with him from the starting point of his reality he wants me to agree with him that his reality is The Truth before he can go any further. I could do that with ease if I were his therapist and not his wife. I'm happy to agree that his reality is the truth for him, but that's not enough for him. He wants me to accept culpability for his illness, and I can't. If I were his therapist (and not his wife) there would be no issue. But how can he accept any input from the person he feels is the root cause of his illness (and denies that they are)?
The upside is he's a lot better than he was. He describes himself as "in recovery". But in to achieve the profound healing necessary for his full recovery we need to get to the emotional root causes. I feel they lie much further back, but for him, those root causes are to do with my passion about (and commitment to) my work. Work which is more than work but in fact my identity, my vocation, my passion and my life's purpose.
He says I can't have it all. I can't have this thing that I love so much and expect to have a good relationship with him too. So there we are: impasse.
I don't know where we go from here. I expect it will all look different a few days from now. Each small crisis resolves and moves on in relative peace until we hit another crisis, and these crises have tended over the last year or so to be less confrontational and further apart. I suppose it's all part of what love faces us with: ourselves.
More and more, when we hit these points, I find myself having to accept the possibility that we are just two very different people who may become more and more separate as we attempt to find our own happiness. Perhaps that happiness doesn't lie with each other. Often, a crisis will be the catalyst for a period of renewed closeness. But one of these days, maybe not.
On the upside, he wasn't personally abusive as he has been on previous occasions, and after an initial emotional reaction on my part, I regained my composure and am able to go to bed calm, if a little resigned. Whatever happens, at least these days I am able to deal with it.
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