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Context: Below is an email from my wife 7 weeks ago, and my reply below, which gives a good summary of the recent crisis, Oct 2015. I want to emphasize that the situation now is much, much better in so many different ways, particularly insight.  Actually, looking back helps get perspective on how far we’ve come and clarify where we want to be in the future.  Note: names have been changed, to maintain anonymity.

Dear Hubby,                                                                         21st Oct 2015

It was very “wrong” of you to discuss me with my brother (Jon) without my permission and to divulge with him that I told you something was “wrong”.
Sad to say, but it seems I cannot trust you either. It doesn’t matter if that was 3 weeks ago. What’s been said has been said and you have now involved my family which I didn’t want you to do. It is not so easy to uninvolve them. Please just stop writing to him. Don’t try to “fix” this by writing to him again. Just leave well enough alone.

Lee

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REPLY:

I understand you feel it was “wrong”.  I realise it can be complicated with family, and could add to the confusion.  Sorry that you feel you cannot trust me – this is quite important to resolve.

I would like to try explain briefly why I felt the need to reach out to Jon (your brother), but I think this might be best discussed in person, possibly with 3rd-party input too.

A few weeks ago, I noticed your anxiety increasing, changes in sleep and eating, severe struggles with daily functioning and paranoid thinking, a pattern similar to the crisis last year.  I tried to talk to you about my concerns, but you were insisting that these feelings were just signs of a spiritual problem and that you needed to “work on your ego”.  You were not able to consider that this may be an episode of a condition such as depression, PTSD or however you prefer to refer to it, (which is not caused by you or any particular current event).

You were spiralling down very, very fast.  This was not only affecting you, but also causing tension in our relationship and family stress levels.  I did not react the same as last year – advice that I was given recommended that support and advice from spiritual leaders, medical specialists and sufferers of similar conditions, particularly family members, may help with gaining awareness.  Awareness (insight) is needed to accept the correct help to relieve the suffering.  To be clear, I am not sure how much longer I am able to hold our relationship together, our family together, without you fully accepting that we dealing with a real condition, that requires serious attention, together.

Your pain eventually became so severe, that you reluctantly agreed to start back on the meds and go for overdue followup appointment with psychiatrist.  My decision to reach out to Jon (and get second opinion from psychiatrist) was carefully considered, as an attempt to raise your awareness of the problem, before it reaches dangerous levels like a year ago.

I guess you don’t remember, but there have been moments in the last couple weeks where you seemed to have awareness of how difficult the situation was for us, particularly me dealing with this problem alone, and you expressed clear understanding and actually acceptance of me reaching out to your brother.

I want to repeat what I have told you many times before.  I am committed to our relationship and confident that we can not only survive, but actually thrive in our connection and growth, if we can work together with trust, compassion, compromise, honesty, openness, understanding and love that we’ve worked so hard to nurture over the years.

Finally, please remember what I wrote to you only yesterday:

I want you to know… I am constantly trying to explore and better understand my feelings about us and our challenges.  I am not perfect AND you are not somehow ‘defective’, as you suggested recently. We are both human, given a Divine gift of life in this world, with exactly the right specifications (read: physical, emotional & personality characteristics) needed to achieve our purpose in life.

It might seem relatively easy to state this from an intellectual perspective, but emotionally / spiritually it’s hard. It’s painful. To really accept and internalize these ideas and Divine beliefs (everything that happens is as it’s meant to be & it’s for the best) require effort. And it sometimes hurts.  It’s often confusing. Scary even. But it seems our task is to accept, breathe, refocus on the precious present and step foward with value-driven activities.

I don’t have all the answers – heck, I don’t think I have any ‘answers’, but only a firm belief that together, as soulmates, we can find the right path, through any challenge, to fulfil our Divine potentials. The pressures & challenges are there to help us internalize the intellectual trust in Gd, so it becomes an emotional faith in yourself (and your soulmate). As we’ve learnt before, it’s no coincidence that diamonds are formed under harsh, high pressure conditions. You are a diamond: precious, bright, sparkly, strong, valuable, versatile, unique, colorful, wanted, friendly, interesting, special, reflective & creative. Take my hand. Don’t let go. Together we will reach the surface from the depths. We will shine a stable, constant light, with clarity and meaning, that we never imagined possible.

Hubby

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