TF, There are those moments aren't there, I know I had one not to long ago. I think it is healthy, I find that even when you are experiencing those down moments you know things are going to be okay, you are just allowing yourself to experience those feelings.
Keep it up, you are doing great.
Formerly "missherlove"
Me49 XW49 M17 T19 S16 D20
Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.
Speaking of marathon analogies, I was reading a book by Dave Ramsey today (the financial peace university guy) and he also used a marathon analogy. His marathoner friend was telling him about the hardest part of the marathon -
"At about the eighteen-mile marker (out of 26.2), runners begin to lock up. Some really nasty things start to happen to your muscles and your mind at that point. Almost through the race and nothing wants to finish. The highly trained and conditioned body starts talking to you about stopping. Big black clouds of doubt enter the mentally tough and trained competitive mind. "
I must be at about the 18 mile marker.:) Hopefully I can rehydrate and push through until . . . . ?
TF, when you get to the point that you are, close, but not quite there, when it's hard to stop your mind from looking ahead a little, when you know you'll have to switch gears and go about this differently than you have been. I believe there gets to be a kind of security in detaching as the LBS. I can only imagine that there would be some anxiety thinking about the task that's looming on the horizon. Thinking about functioning as a couple again instead of essentially alone.
TF, it sounds like you're close to finishing this leg of the race and you've got the strength and the knowledge to go on to the next. I hope you can feel us cheering you on!
Wow, Seeking, I was just briefly discussing this with someone the other day.
Detatching becomes our safety net. Why?
Because once we learn how to do it, and we learn to appreciate what it has done for us, it becomes easier to get to that place or not want to leave it.
Is it really the best place to be?
With our MLCers, I do believe the answer is yes. Even when they say they want to come back, there has to remain a healthy distance for a long while. Because they aren’t ready for there not to be and if we are honest with ourselves, neither are we. With them, it is something that has to really be slowly undone.
With other people, family members, friends, new R, unless the other person’s behavior is extremely destructive to us, then I would say no, it isn’t healthy in the long run or even fair to the other person. However, you will find it happening.
That is where trust begins to enter the picture. Communication skills that hopefully we have improved through our own journey. Old fears may rear their ugly heads. It is then up to us to redeal with those things, hopefully not taking anywhere near as long as it did in the past. This is when it is time to really apply all that we have learned.
It is another period of retraining ourselves. To be open to taking the risks again. To allow the baby steps to be ours. To remember to be patient with ourselves. To really have our eyes open, not just to what others are doing, but to ourselves. Especially to ourselves, what we are doing and how we are feeling. It is hard. I will tell you it can be very hard and very scary. It is necessary though.
TF, just remember who you are, what you have learned. And be open to more learning and growing. You are ready for what ever comes next for you.
"Acceptance doesn't mean resignation. It means understanding that something is what it is and there's got to be a way through it."--Michael J. Fox
SA and Cat, Thanks for your posts. SA, you put into words what I have been trying to sort through in my mind, why I am feeling the way I have.
I do absolutely feel the need to remain detached, though more open. I know if I don't, those expectations may and probably will start creeping back in and neither one of us is ready for that. He still does have a ways to go.
I have slowly been taking very tiny risks and so far so good, no negative reactions but it is so hard to know how to proceed.
Trust, Cat. Do you mean in ourselves or our MLCer? My walls are definitely built pretty high. I trust my H as far as I can throw him which isn't too far considering he outweighs me by about 100 pounds. I don't trust him with my heart, not yet with our money, not with much - though I am starting to trust him with our kids, mainly because he is proving himself. I guess that it what it is all about.
TF - I could have written that myself. I'm going through exactly the same feelings and it's not easy to remain completely detached and even more difficult to trust H, since I don't even feel that he is trusting himself yet.
He gave me hope by asking to come back, but I also get discouraged, because subconsciously I want so him to show me more love, more remorse, more, more....and it's not there the way I would like to see it...yet. He is truly depressed and is dealing with him now and not ready to deal with US.
I do see how he is reconnecting with D. And that's great
Funny you get you self into a certain state of mind when you detach and he sure threw a new curve ball at me by saying that he wants back. I have to find new balance for me to go through this stage.
M53 H54 D17 M33Y T38Y Bomb OW 09/09 OUT 10/09 BACK 11/09 OUT 01/10 WANTS TO R 04/10 BACK with OW 05/10 Wants to Reconcile 05/11 I said NO
Mila, and your curveball came right out of the blue! Weren't you expecting D talk? This is a tough row to hoe.
That was an interesting comment you made about your H not trusting himself yet. They do have to find their way back and figure out who it is they are and how they want to be.
I too am so glad to see my H reconnecting so well with the kids. Ultimately that is more important especially at this point - their little hearts have been hurt and they don't have the understanding I do about what is really going on, just that daddy hasn't been daddy. They are happy though still pray for their dad every night before bed, as they have for the past many months.
I would love to hear the words from my H, but at this point just am watching actions.
