Untangling the Skein

Untangling the Skein of Fuckupedness
Chump Lady

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Figuring out the cheater is energy directed at THEM, which is energy deflected away from YOURSELF. You’re asking why they are this way, instead of asking yourself the harder question of  — why am I hanging around this megabitch who’s not my friend?

I call this stage “Untangling the Skein of Fuckupedness.”

The skein is impossible, but by GOD, you’re going to unknot it, piece by piece, make it linear and you WILL understand it.

Untangling the skein of fuckupedness is a coping mechanism. You want to figure out what makes your cheater tick so you can ensure that they never do anything so devastatingly hurtful again. If it’s their FOO issues with their mom, well, you’ll call and make that counseling appointment for them. Untangling the skein is codependent behavior. Not only will you make the counseling appointments, next you’ll get your magic marker and highlight all the relevant chapters in the affair books you bought for them on Amazon.

Stop it! Stop it right now! It’s not your job to figure them out! You only get to figure out YOU. What your values are, what you will tolerate, and what is acceptable and unacceptable to YOU. That’s it.

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My first urge after learning of the extent of Drew's deceptions and infidelities - well, my first urge after I gathered some shreds of sanity back - was to try to understand why. Was it because of his sense of exceptionalism and entitlement, of having always been the golden child? Was it because his job required him to practice compartamentalization, encouraged him to tamp down empathetic urges? How did his relationship to his crazy, narcissistic, emotionally-hungry mom play into things? His penchant for risk-taking?

If I focused on him, I didn't have to confront my own pain. If I understood him, if I understood why he did what he did, I could prevent something like this from ever happening again. Right?

Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. In so many, many ways.

Thank you, Chump Lady, for giving me a label for what I was doing - for helping me identify when I was using my energy up on him instead of me, which in turn helped me pause and refocus on myself. It's his job to figure out how he could do what he did and what he can do to address those issues. It's my job to reconstruct a narrative of my life, to tend to my own wounds, and to heal from this trauma.