addiction-to-drama &laquo; WordPress.com Tag Feed http://wordpress.com/tag/addiction-to-drama/ Feed of posts on WordPress.com tagged "addiction-to-drama" Sun, 06 Jul 2008 14:45:48 +0000 http://wordpress.com/tags/ en <![CDATA[<strong>Addicted to Drama (Soundtrack Included) II</strong>]]> http://gettingpastyourpast.wordpress.com/?p=596 Sat, 03 May 2008 15:37:36 +0000 susangpyp http://gettingpastyourpast.wordpress.com/?p=596 I'm rerunning the "Addicted to Drama" post since it's come up in some of the recent comments.

I been starin' at your photograph
Wondering where you're at today
And I've been hanging by the telephone
Hopin' that you'd come home and stay

You told me you needed
More walks, more talks
More feelin' close to me
I wanna be close to you

I didn't know you needed
Some roses, some romance
A little candlelight and slow dance
That's not how it's been
But maybe we can try again
Try, try, maybe we can try again

Try Again by Champaign (R&B song circa 1980?)

I heard this song today and I remembered that this was the ex's and my song. It's a nice song but it's the perennial breakup and makeup song..."I could search the whole world over and never find what you've always given me...."

It's what I wanted to hear...that he FINALLY realized that he could search the whole world over and never find what I had given him.

He was great with the "I heard this song and thought of you...." and he had a good voice and would sing to me a lot.

We spilt up in 1978 and he came back and sang Barry Manilow's "Weekend in New England." When will our eyes meet? When will I touch you? When will I see you again?

Of course my heart just went all a pitter and a patter because if you know the song it builds to a great crescendo (as did my life) and ends with a great flourish (not so much my life). But all that glitters is not gold. I did not know that then. DUH.

Today I heard Try Again and was thinking, "WHAT was I thinking???"

I mean, HOW many times do you get suckered in by the same old song?

How many times was he searching the world over? Idiot.

I have been remarried now for 10 years. We have never broken up once and my husband has never dedicated an "oh jeez I just realized I love you" song to me or really any song...no argument we've ever had would rise to the level of needing a song to go with it. When we were going out we used to do a goofy little dance in the car to "Walking on Sunshine" (ssssshhhh, don't tell anyone...hubby is a Harley ridin' tough Vietnam vet type...don't tell anyone that my rendition of Katrina and the Waves makes him laugh).

But seriously...my first husband and I were in the dramatic breakup and make up mode for so many years...it was what we DID...we could have received Oscars for it (maybe Grammys even)....we did the slow and sorrowful "Oh I was so wrong...what was I thinking?" and then we would be back in the pits again...and the pits HURT SO MUCH...and then the relief came in the form of "OH I WAS SO WRONG! Let's NOT EVER DO THIS AGAIN!" and so it went.

We would be fighting, fighting, fighting, then not-talking-not-talking-not talking and then some switch would go off (or on) and he would get all doe eyed and teary eyed and say, "I had a dream about you last night...you were leaving me...and I couldn't bear it..." and perhaps break into a operatic solo. To which I would try to stay strong and since he was "on the ropes" let him know how much he hurt me...have him grovel in fact...and get whatever vengeance I could get and perhaps request a couple of more Manilow songs...."Maaaaaaaaaandee....."

Oh yes, my name wasn't Mandy...but it was the thought that counted....and so I fed into it...thought I was making him hurt about hurting me and we were going to put this thing together right once and for all and it was going to be GRAND.

Grand I tell you.

Only no one changed anything and therefore (tah-dah!) nothing changed.

And we beat our two stupid heads against that same brick wall until we were bloody and bruised and had to separate and divide up 2 houses, 3 kids, 2 dogs and a cat.

AND WE WERE BREAKING UP LIKE THIS FOR TEN YEARS BEFORE THE FAMOUS FINAL SCENE.

I don't know about him, but I was, truth be told, ADDICTED to this breakup and makeup pattern and too scared to be alone and too cognizant of the fact that I would have a lot of CRAP to work out if we ever split.

He finally found a girlfriend who was stupider than me (yes, we were still married but that didn't seem to matter and she wasn't the first) and she hung out while we struggled through the end, split up and then got back together ONE MORE TIME (I only did it to prove I could, I was getting healthier at that point and he was no fun to play with anymore).

But while he was giving her some crap line about "I need to try to work this out for my kids" and she was falling for it (good luck to her...you won the grand prize baby!!!)

I was thinking, "I don't care how many songs he sings, he's not coming back." because I was in therapy now and putting my life together.

So we danced around for a while longer (how musical we were) BUT I was not doing the same dance I always did and he got pissed off and went back to her (probably saying, "I was DREAMING about you!" to her because he was not very creative and hey, it worked for years on ME)...and I got on with my life.

She won the brass ring...TEE HEE...and she can keep him...drama and all.

Today it's hard for me to imagine that I fell for some nocturnal thoughts and a couple of mix tapes. I mean COMON.

I know it was my "stuff". I know I got so much out of the drama and that I had deep deep wounds that needed to be expressed and since I couldn't deal with them directly...I acted out and gravitated toward people who acted out...

Fast forward 20 years...I'm sane and happy and have a happy marriage. The ex is still blaming everything on everyone but him.

The kids don't speak to him and it's my fault or their fault or someone's fault but not his. But my boys are healthy and happy and that is all I care about. When they spoke to their father every now and again, he would call and tell them he was dreaming about them (well, it worked on me so what the hell). My boys would say, "So why didn't you pick up the phone?" They weren't getting all ga-ga about "I was dreaming about you" and going, "Oh gee...(SIGH)....you were DREAMING about me! How great a father are you!!!" No, they didn't fall for it. Not falling for words without action. Not falling for form with no substance. The line just DID NOT work on them.

My boys and I are close and they each call me at least once a week, if not more. If I don't hear from one because he's gotten busy, I call him up and say, "Remember me? I'm your mother." and they will say, "Oh I'm sorry I didn't call, but I was DREAMING of you." :)

I find it funny that they can joke about this. I never thought it was funny...but they saw right through the melodramatics because they weren't raised with it and have no stomach for it.

It all seems so silly to me now.

But once upon a time I fell for the songs, for the pithy sayings, for the dramatic scenes, both making up and breaking up. I got into trying to WIN him from some other woman and now I realize that letting someone else have him was the BEST thing that ever happened to me. They're made for each other.

Misery doesn't love company, it demands it.

Being addicted to the drama of bad relationships is NOT an easy thing to break out of. I had to do my own work, avoid the drama and chaos and learn to make peace with the peace. It's not easy but afterwards, life becomes so rich, so rewarding and so PLEASUREABLE!!!

If you get carried away by the song dedications and the sweet nothings, think again: LOVE IS AN ACTION. Love is what you DO, not what you SAY (or sing).

Life is not a musical and a cute turn of a phrase is not going to see you through hard times. You need someone who steps in and steps up EVERY SINGLE DAY. and you need to be able to enjoy your life. Life is not mountains and valleys, it's much more even than that.

Step out of the drama and step into your life.

Update 5/3: I downloaded some of these songs last week to see if they would have any effect and they didn't. I was pretty amazed by that. I now realize that a lot of this foolish song drama was just so much emotional manipulation. I heard Walking On Sunshine the other day and it (and him) still makes me smile 12 years later. No drama. Yeah!

]]> <![CDATA[8/22 TFTD ~ "But S/he Loves Me"]]> http://gettingpastyourpast.wordpress.com/2007/08/22/822-tftd-but-she-loves-me/ Wed, 22 Aug 2007 13:19:47 +0000 susangpyp http://gettingpastyourpast.wordpress.com/2007/08/22/822-tftd-but-she-loves-me/ "Many unloving things are done in the name of love." ~ M. Scott Peck

Recently I did some consulting for a group of women who are supporting each other after a divorce. The women are all from Long Island and all went through a divorce around the same time (end of 2006). They met through a community group for single parents and started to get together on a regular basis to talk and share and support each other. Very nice idea and something I did in my life once that had great benefits.

In 1992 I went on a retreat and had "The Grief Recovery Handbook" with me and gave it to a woman on the retreat who read it throughout the first night. Two other women on the retreat had read it as well. By Sunday the four of us had formed my first grief group and that grief group and the benefits that flowed from it continue to be felt in my life today (one of the women just visited me from Oregon and remains one of my closest friends).

So what these women have done is one of the most healthy and positive things you can do. Since Bill W. and Dr. Bob first discovered that sharing in a group is KEY to getting better, a thousand variations on this concept have come to light. The LI women had no experience in groups but knew, somehow, that the key to feeling better was to get together in a group.

One of the ladies discovered my blog and they have been taking posts and sharing on them every week. They wrote and asked if I could come out and consult with the group and "lead" a session. And we worked out the details and I arrived.

Instead of doing the planned session, we were greeted by one of the group members who had decided to return to her husband.

Now, this husband had cheated on her and basically told her that her lack of interest in sex drove him to the arms of another woman. She has 3 children under the age of 6 and an outside job. The woman was NOT disinterested in sex but was dead tired. Still, she caved to her husband's version of events and blamed herself for the disintegration of the marriage.

The other women tried to get her to see it wasn't her fault and she wasn't to blame for his bad behavior. She wouldn't really listen. Just before she left she said, "I know he loves me and the kids and he wouldn't have done this if he felt satisfied." And she scrambled out the door leaving the other women frustrated.

This brought up a few things:

  • you can't make someone see something they don't want to see.
  • You're ready when you're ready (more on this in another post).
  • You get what you put up with. You
  • settle for what you agree to settle for

    • and

  • some people buy the "You know I love you" even though the behavior says something completely different.

    • Even though we never did get to what I went to Long Island to do, I think the aftermath of the one women's leaving was very beneficial for the others. We started to talk about "But I love you" and what that means.

    As I've said on here many many many times, "Love is an action" (also the words of M. Scott Peck). It does not matter what you SAY but also what you DO. It is not only that this guy cheated on his wife but also that he blamed her for doing so. One of the foundations of a healthy relationship is taking responsibility for your own stuff and that also includes NOT taking responsibility for what is NOT yours to own. The woman had asked her husband for more help with the house and the kids so she would be less tired and more interested in a physical relationship. He said she was "too" demanding.

    Whenever people tell us we're too demanding or expecting too much, we need to not accept that. If we have reasonable expectations that are not being met, then we are not expecting too much. It might be TOO MUCH for this person who is lazy and selfish and not interested in being a true partner, but that does not mean it's too much or we should lower our expectations. It also doesn't mean we need to engage in an endless, fruitless power struggle with someone who is completely NOT interested in being the type of partner we need. It means we need to evaluate why we are with THIS person.

    In the LI scenario, this woman decided to take all the responsibility for a marriage gone awry. She decided to hang her hat on the fact that "he loves me" because he SAID so, not because he demonstrated it in any way. Does she know, really, deep inside that he's full of crap? Maybe. Sometimes our denial is so deep and so strong that we cannot get to the truth from here. We need to go back and get emotionally beat up again.

    For the other women, they had to confront their own sadness, anger and frustration at their friend's choice. Sometimes we just have to let people go and do their thing. Sometimes they come back and sometimes they don't.

    But "he loves me" is not reason to return to a bad situation if he doesn't ACT like he loves you. Maybe this woman is not ready, is scared to be on her own, or is just tired of being a single parent. She is, for whatever reason, going to give it another shot but it's NOT, really it's not, because he loves her. Love is an ACTION. Always.

    ]]>         <![CDATA[Addicted to the Drama (Soundtrack Included)]]> http://gettingpastyourpast.wordpress.com/2007/06/27/addicted-to-the-drama-soundtrack-included/ Wed, 27 Jun 2007 23:56:22 +0000 susangpyp http://gettingpastyourpast.wordpress.com/2007/06/27/addicted-to-the-drama-soundtrack-included/ I been starin' at your photograph
    Wondering where you're at today
    And I've been hanging by the telephone
    Hopin' that you'd come home and stay

    You told me you needed
    More walks, more talks
    More feelin' close to me
    I wanna be close to you

    I didn't know you needed
    Some roses, some romance
    A little candlelight and slow dance
    That's not how it's been
    But maybe we can try again
    Try, try, maybe we can try again

    Try Again by Champaign (R&B song circa 1980?)

    I heard this song today and I remembered that this was the ex's and my song. It's a nice song but it's the perennial breakup and makeup song..."I could search the whole world over and never find what you've always given me...."

    It's what I wanted to hear...that he FINALLY realized that he could search the whole world over and never find what I had given him.

    He was great with the "I heard this song and thought of you...." and he had a good voice and would sing to me a lot. We spilt up in 1978 and he came back and sang Barry Manilow's "Weekend in New England." When will our eyes meet? When will I touch you? When will I see you again?

    Of course my heart just went all a pitter and a patter because if you know the song it builds to a great crescendo (as did my life) and ends with a great flourish (not so much my life). But all that glitters is not gold. I did not know that then. DUH.

    Today I heard Try Again and was thinking, "WHAT was I thinking???" I mean, HOW many times do you get suckered in by the same old song? How many times was he searching the world over? Idiot.

    I have been remarried now for 10 years. We have never broken up once and my husband has never dedicated a "oh jeez I just realized I love you" song to me or really any song...no argument we've ever had would rise to the level of needing a song to go with it. When we were going out we used to do a goofy little dance in the car to "Walking on Sunshine" (ssssshhhh, don't tell anyone...hubby is a Harley ridin' tough Vietnam vet type...don't tell anyone that my rendition of Katrina and the Waves makes him laugh).

    But seriously...my first husband and I were in the dramatic breakup and make up mode for so many years...it was what we DID...we could have received Oscars for it (maybe Grammys even)....we did the slow and sorrowful "Oh I was so wrong...what was I thinking?" and then we would be back in the pits again...and the pits HURT SO MUCH...and then the relief came in the form of "OH I WAS SO WRONG! Let's NOT EVER DO THIS AGAIN!" and so it went.

    We would be fighting, fighting, fighting, then not-talking-not-talking-not talking and then some switch would go off (or on) and he would get all doe eyed and teary eyed and say, "I had a dream about you last night...you were leaving me...and I couldn't bear it..." and perhaps break into a operatic solo. To which I would try to stay strong and since he was "on the ropes" let him know how much he hurt me...have him grovel in fact...and get whatever vengeance I could get and perhaps request a couple of more Manilow songs...."Maaaaaaaaaandee....."

    Oh yes, my name wasn't Mandy...but it was the thought that counted....and so I fed into it...thought I was making him hurt about hurting me and we were going to put this thing together right once and for all and it was going to be GRAND. Grand I tell you.

    Only no one changed anything and therefore (tah-dah!) nothing changed.

    And we beat our two stupid heads against that same brick wall until we were bloody and bruised and had to separate and divide up 2 houses, 3 kids, 2 dogs and a cat.

    AND WE WERE BREAKING UP LIKE THIS FOR TEN YEARS BEFORE THE FAMOUS FINAL SCENE

    .I don't know about him, but I was, truth be told, ADDICTED to this breakup and makeup pattern and too scared to be alone and too cognizant of the fact that I would have a lot of CRAP to work out if we ever split.

    He finally found a girlfriend who was stupider than me (yes, we were still married but she wasn't the first) and she hung out while we struggled through the end, split up and then got back together ONE MORE TIME (I only did it to prove I could, I was getting healthier at that point and he was no fun to play with anymore). But while he was giving her some crap line about "I need to try to work this out for my kids" I was thinking, "I don't care how many songs he sings, he's not coming back." because I was in therapy now and putting my life together.

    So we danced around for a while longer (how musical we were) and I was not doing the same dance I always did and he got pissed off and went back to her (probably saying, "I was DREAMING about you!" to her)...and I got on with my life.

    Today it's hard for me to imagine that I fell for some nocturnal thoughts and a couple of mix tapes. I mean COMON.

    I know it was my "stuff". I know I got so much out of the drama and that I had deep deep wounds that needed to be expressed and since I couldn't deal with them directly...I acted out and gravitated toward people who acted out...

    Fast forward 20 years...I'm sane and happy and have a happy marriage. The ex is still blaming everything on everyone but him. The kids don't speak to him and it's my fault or their fault or someone's fault but not his. But my boys are healthy and happy and that is all I care about. When they spoke to their father every now and again, he would call and tell them he was dreaming about them (well, it worked on me so what the hell). My boys would say, "So why didn't you pick up the phone?" They weren't getting all ga-ga about "I was dreaming about you" and going, "Oh gee...(SIGH)....you were DREAMING about me! How great a father are you!!!" No, they didn't fall for it. Not falling for words without action. Not falling for form with no substance. The line just DID NOT work on them.

    My boys and I are close and they each call me at least once a week, if not more. If I don't hear from one because he's gotten busy, I call him up and say, "Remember me? I'm your mother." and they will say, "Oh I'm sorry I didn't call, but I was DREAMING of you." :) I find it funny that they can joke about this. I never thought it was funny...but they saw right through the melodramatics because they weren't raised with it and have no stomach for it.

    It all seems so silly to me now.

    But once upon a time I fell for the songs, for the pithy sayings, for the dramatic scenes, both making up and breaking up. I got into trying to WIN him from some other woman and now I realize that letting someone else have him was the BEST thing that ever happened to me. They're made for each other.

    Misery doesn't love company, it demands it.

    Being addicted to the drama of bad relationships is NOT an easy thing to break out of. I had to do my own work, avoid the drama and chaos and learn to make peace with the peace. It's not easy but afterwards, life becomes so rich, so rewarding and so PLEASUREABLE!!!

    If you get carried away by the song dedications and the sweet nothings, think again: LOVE IS AN ACTION. Love is what you DO, not what you SAY (or sing).

    Life is not a musical and a cute turn of a phrase is not going to see you through hard times. You need someone who steps in and steps up EVERY SINGLE DAY. and you need to be able to enjoy your life. Life is not mountains and valleys, it's much more even than that.

    Step out of the drama and step into your life.

    ]]>