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.
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4 comments:
Hello
I just felt the need to respond to your blog after receiving it via the goggle alert for me/cfs. I have me/cfs as a result of untreated lyme disease...24 yrs now. I have found that a combination of managing my symptoms ( Bruce Campbell's site on CFS self help) and treating the lyme has been helpfu~ it is a very slow process unfortunately. I am fairly new to EFT and am learning how to use it. It caught my interest in how much progress was made for your husband's symptoms with EFT!!! I also do the muscle testing and asking my body techniques plus pain neurtalization techniques. Asking my body I have found out what is caused by stress and what is physical ~ although both can be tapped on as you know. I have neuropathy so tapping is hard but I have found my own way to deal with it. I am sorry your husband is struggling with the validity of this.
Basically I am over talking here, but wanted you to know that someone out there heard what you had to say! The internet is a fascinating connection to the world! Your October post has given me hope for me in using EFT.
Renee
Thanks for commenting Renee. I'm glad to know there's a connection with someone else out there using EFT for ME. You're right about the internet - it has brought me many useful pieces of information over the last few years, EFT being probably the most significant of them.
I was interested to hear you use muscle testing, which I have also started to use, and find the answers very illuminating. I find the whole process of EFT (in combination with muscle testing) very empowering and it probably helps that you discovered EFT for yourself - one my husband's issues with it is that it is, from his perspective "my thing" and as he needs to feel separate and distinct from me, it cannot be "his".
Your comment is really appreciated - thank you for letting me know my post has had a positive effect somewhere in the world! Lots of useful information regarding applying EFT to chronic illnesses such as ME/CFS can be found in the 'Insights' newsletter which you can subscribe to for free on emofree.com. If you search on that website for 'neuropathy' you'll find some suggested applications of EFT for that condition that may bring you some much needed relief and make the tapping easier! Wishing you healing & health.... x
Well I think there are people listening still and they do care too. Well I do --- even though I'm not sure about the route you're taking --- but, by that, I mean not sure for MYSELF. I don't doubt your integrity and honesty for a moment and we all find our own way through out troubles.
As you say, it's very difficult ---well nigh impossible, to try to combine the role of spouse and therapist. You can't --- no one can. There's too much personal emotional investment and too much at stake. On the other hand, it seems extremely unfair of your husband to blame his illness on you. How can that be ? I suppose it depends on how you look at M.E.: is it a physiological condition, like MS, cancer, TB etc. or is it psychological ? Even if it is the latter then the person with the disorder has to bear some responsibility and if its physical, then how can one person's way of being have any bearing on another's physical wellness? Or would EFT suggest that the emotional turmoil has a direct effect/transalation into physical/physiological harmony -- in which case, I suppose, your husband's discomfort with your work-committment could cause his physical suffering. Even if this is so, surely the sufferer has to bear some responsibility for their reaction/response. The responsibility cannot be put on you. That's just an excuse.
For me, (and I've said it before here ) M.E. IS a physiological condition with real physical, neurolgical symptoms and these may be overlayed with psychological/emotional issues which eminate from the havoc such a condition wreaks on the sufferer's life.
I think you see it differently...and certainly you have a different viewpoint about what will make your husband well again. All we can say is that 'the jury is out' in terms of conscensus and we are all trying our best in a confusing and confused situation.
I'm sorry you are going through a rough patch. You sound lonely and sad and tired.
I wish you both well
Thanks, cusp, I'm glad you're still there and expressed that you still care! I know the EFT route is a little contentious with ME community. But I did want to say that using EFT for ME doesn't mean that I don't regard ME as a "physiological condition with real physical, neurological symptoms". It is most certainly that.
But EFT has shown itself to be effective in thousands of case studies of real physical illnesses including cancer and MS. I have personally eradicated from my life very real (though less serious) real physical conditions including recurrent cystitis, thrush, and migraines. I am currently teaching EFT to my father-in-law to help him combat prostate cancer. ME is one of the more difficult chronic illnesses to treat (along with MS, Parkinsons etc), since the problems are system-wide and at a cellular level.
I am not suggesting that ME is some kind of psychological disorder any more than I am suggesting that cancer is some kind of psychological disorder. But I believe (and the effectiveness of EFT in relieving many serious conditions seems to bear out) that our bodies create the symptoms of illness as a result of stresses that we put ourselves through, and identify (and eliminating) the root causes of those stresses will lead us towards healing and health.
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