Sheltering-in-place.....When That Includes Him.
Shout out today to my long-time friend in the trenches of partner care, Liza, who provided the idea and some excellent content for today’s blog, as well as being my second set of eyes on it. Thank you, Liza.
Well, here we are in another unimaginable situation together. First, he blew up our lives. Now, there’s a pandemic.
Washing our hands. Self-isolating. Working from home. Sheltering-in-place. Home-schooling. Lockdowns.
But what are we supposed to do with him???????
Deep breath.
Let’s start by blessing our health service providers, emergency responders, the staff in the stores where we are getting supplies for self-isolations, quarantines, and sheltering-in-place, and parents who are juggling working from home while they are parenting and schooling children who are now at home, too. These are times when there are so many heroic commitments to humanity playing out every day in basic provisions for daily life and in our most critical needs in emergent care. Thank you for every act that bears witness to the value of others.
Also, if the most important message hasn’t landed yet within you, let’s try again: practice social/physical distancing as if you have COVID-19 so we can flatten the curve faster, keep our hospitals from being overwhelmed, save lives, minimize suffering, and shorten this pandemic. We can do this. Through my work in post-disaster recovery, critical incident response, and ministry I have seen us do this. Decide. Lead. Persist. Survive. Succeed.
Now, let’s look at our “other” situation…
Whether you were living apart or still in the same house, sometimes the practical logistics of managing during this pandemic mean you end up in close quarters with “him.” You are sheltering-in-place with the one person you no longer trust, and (possibly) the one person whose presence makes you want to scream, sob, withdraw, shake or self-medicate. And there’s no end in sight. Hmmmm. What could possibly go wrong?
Lots. And some of it really matters. But, there are ways to make this less risky for you and less traumatic for children.
The first resource Liza wants you to have is a list drawn up by a Virginia law firm detailing how to live under the same roof as separated people without jeopardizing your legal position to move forward with a divorce later. Specific concerns may vary from state to state, and country to country. You can find that out for your specific location. The point of this list is to give you an idea of how courts may look at this arrangement should you eventually divorce. If you can’t demonstrate separate lives in ways such as outlined here, you may lose the chance to count this time living together as time that will count as part of any required “waiting period” before filing. Here’s the link Liza wants you to have so you can begin to think through your “house rules” for sheltering-in-place together. As you review, be aware that some things may not be possible during a pandemic (like having a third party visit you).
An additional legal implication not mentioned in that link is that in some states, if you continue to live together and have sexual relations, you cannot use any aspect of adultery in securing a divorce or settlement. This is another crucial point I have pointed out before that the treatment industry does not mention when they ask you to stay together “for at least a year of recovery.” I don’t know how they sleep at night, when they lead you into that decision without warning you should seek legal advice first, but that’s just who they are. It also confirms what some women resist facing; the priority in the treatment industry is to protect his interests, not yours. His legal interests, for example, are protected throughout the disclosure process. But here, again, your legal interests don’t matter and aren’t protected.
The legal concerns are very important. And given the sudden appearance of “divorce coaching” services being appended to treatment industry marketing; I am no long “out there” all alone in addressing divorce issues for us. When the industry starts doing stuff that I’ve been doing all along, you know they are being pushed to deal with their failed recovery realities in order to keep customers. Meanwhile, they still do not advise you to get advice about the implications of staying with him after discovery. So, don’t make any assumptions.
There are different reasons why people stay in the same house—finances, intractable conflict on who should move out, much needed parenting or health care support, pandemic imperatives in place before other arrangements are possible, the hopium for recovery that haunts most of us at some time or another, or just not being ready for the step to live apart because you are still trying to figure out what reality looks like in your traumatized state. Whatever reasons you may have, the key is to NOT pretend sheltering-in-place together is NOT full of quicksand. It is. Legal, emotional, psychological, spiritual and physical quicksand is everywhere. But being educated about that can improve your chances of not falling into it.
Quicksand traps include things as simple as being a healthy woman with sexual desires and needs (yes, it’s not always about “his needs not being met” after all.) Living in a pandemic crisis can create another layer of longing to connect sexually and release the energy that’s building up. You lose perspective being cloistered from a broader landscape of the past, present and future of life. In a pandemic, the HERE and NOW can seem like all there is. If the trauma symptom of a foreshortened future is one you’ve had before, it also may add to this pressure of being locked into NOW. And don’t forget he may still be passing STI’s/STD’s or even the coronavirus to you and others in the home.
Trauma bonding through the pandemic can be another dynamic with which you must deal. It creates a manufactured sense of intimacy and connection that exists like an island in the ocean of storms and near-death experiences that more accurately describe your real relationship with this person. When children witness the “sea change” between the two of you they gain false hope and security about things going back to the way they were before dday. This is profoundly unfair to them, because the chances are that once the pandemic ends, his sexual and sexualized activities will start right back up. Even the treatment industry doesn’t expect these men to stop. As you are worn down by these things emerging, children get dragged through yet another “break-up.” Please think carefully before you put yourself or your children through that.
Another more sinister but real concern is that he is likely to use every resource he can to reel you back to some kind of relational quicksand. It is vital to remember that he is way better at manipulation and conning you than you will ever be at recognizing it. He’s been doing this for most of his life. We are complete novices at figuring it out. And a part of us may not want to. He may change his behavior in every way that you want. He may give you everything you’ve asked for. You may have long, deep conversations about the meaning of life and how he is a changed person. Then he may gild the lily and add in spiritual content:
· This pandemic is God’s way of creating the opportunity for us to find each other again.
· It’s the isolation we needed to truly see each other and what our relationship can become.
· It’s God’s way of asking you to forgive me so we can be a family again.
· When we put our children first, God changes both of us so we can begin again.
However this stuff comes at you, your broken heart desperately wants to find a way forward without ending it. You are exhausted emotionally, spiritually, physically, psychologically, and financially. You are vulnerable to being manipulated into decision that are not necessarily in your best interests or in the best interests of your children. Every trust you hand him gives him leverage to protect his interests, however, and to set himself up again in the secret life he wants to hide behind your believability.
How hard this kind of thing is to say to women who, like I did, want the option of beginning again to be a real option. It’s always an option. But it is often a costly one because there are no statistics to indicate otherwise. And if it was a “real” option the industry would have done the research and would be selling their model on real statistics. They can’t. Their own practices must be showing them it’s not worth doing that research. In fact, I heard that someone tried to get some research going but couldn’t find practitioners with any cases they could use. Hard truths, indeed. Nobody in the industry is going to do credible and publishable research that will show that their model doesn’t work.
So how can you avoid all these types of quicksand:
Limit the length of your conversations if you must have them. Run a five-minute rule, for example.
· If he is goading you into an argument to try and rustle up some emotional energy, respond by saying “I may have to think about that.” Don’t promise anything, or agree to discuss it again. Just repeat “I may have to think about that.” If he badgers you just say “I have other things on my mind right now. It will have to wait.”
· You may want to take turns cooking supper. The one who is cooking eats supper with the children and the other takes their food somewhere else. This is to facilitate quality “normal” time with children and also not create false expectations that they are now one big happy family again.
· Follow some of the guidelines in the legal list about doing laundry and keeping food separate, etc. Don’t lapse into past distributions of household tasks and start automatically helping the other out. Negotiate and determine what is best not just for him, but for you and your children.
· Do not spend down time together doing the same things as per your previous ‘regular’ routine. Decide how much of that is right and safe for you. The answer may be none of it.
· Ask your therapist for more suggestions about how to avoid old habits and the quicksand they may entail.
This pandemic is a curve ball for so many women already in the thick of their worst crisis, ever. Let’s not let down our guard for ourselves or our children. Do the best you can. Start new habits. Retrain yourself, him, and children to a new normal of family life so that no one gets the wrong idea about what sheltering-in-place is really about.
Thank you, Liza for always have your mind and heart on what partners might need most! And let’s all remember, live like you have the virus so you won’t spread it or catch it, either. Flatten the curve!
With you,
Diane