Hmmmm... I offer up another thought. Remember back in the beginning and we would ALL say that it was like the WAS was living in a fog? Perhaps were we not also living in a fog when we were living with WAS. We had blinders on preventing us from seeing the imperfections of not just the WAS but ourselves too?
Maybe it's easier for me to say this a year out having explored my self and found everyone on here and we've all shared our souls with one another. Because I remember wanting him back and at one point he even said "You were miserable with me." I said he was wrong... but in reality, I was in such a fog that I couldn't see that he was right. I was miserable. Living with an alcoholic and a depressed person is a miserable lifestyle, an unhealthy one too. I became what they say co-dependent. Thank God for the end of it now... let me tell you the sun is so much brighter these days...
I think the biggest obstacle that we must overcome at this point, now that it is done and over as TD said, is to move on and find a way to open our hearts again to the possibililty of love... a really good love and a healthy relationship. I think I may have found that, I hope I am not wrong... there are no red flags here. But it is still scary as hell I fully admit that. But I'm taking the risk and diving into the water.
I think some WAS come through it more maturely than others. I know Underdog's WAS is very good with his kids and doesn't pull weird crap on her. Shame all of them can't be more mature where there are children concerned.
But you are on a good path and sound great and your ds can only benefit from your strength.
Pam
"We must be willing to let go of the life we had planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us"
I think we all got to know our own faults and strengths so much better going through this experience of betrayle and deceit. I also think that both parties were probably in a bit of a fog for the marriage to end up on the rocks. I know I was in a fog of depression till almost the end of the marriage and D opted out emotionally well before the marriage ended.
I can't imagine living with a depressed alcoholic and I'm glad that is not an experience I had to go through. You very much deserve to have found your happiness now. But not all of us spouses were alcoholic although I would bet most or all of them were depressed as the OP was a band aid for them, a fix which may or may not last as time goes on.
I think we all must move on and overcome to have a happy, healthy life. I don't necessarily belive that we have to find another person to be in our lives to have that happy life. I would not say it is an impossibility that there will ever be someone in my life again, but at this point I don't see myself wanting someone else.
After all this time I have found I like living alone and doing my own thing. I'm not sure enough maybe of not losing myself again that I'm willing to seriously consider someone else in my life.
On the other hand, for me with all its faults. I had the marriage I would have wanted and I enjoyed it. No, not at the end but for a brief time I felt loved and cared about and I felt a strong feeling of loving and caring for another person. Some people never have that in their life and for me I've already been there done that. I suppose if you find something like that and both parties want to work at maintaining a good, strong, healthy relationship then it would be worthwhile to try again. Because it was pretty wonderful for a while. But, D and I weren't capable emotionally of maintaining it. To my mind we both had emotional issues to deal with, to have a strong, healthy R.
Now I just have to deal with me to have my happiness, much easier.
Pam
"We must be willing to let go of the life we had planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us"
Moonlet likes to play in the pool. At first, she would only cling tightly to Monkey or me. But now, she lets us put her on the boogie board, so that she can ride around.
Our pool seems to have a leak in the air ring around the top so I'm having difficulty with it this year. Callie and Shara seem to miss it but the boys not at all!
Pam
"We must be willing to let go of the life we had planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us"
It sounds so neat that Moonlet is getting into playing in the pool.
You know at times it seems hard to see you and Sage as the same people whose threads I followed so closely a year or so ago. In a good way of course!!
But then at times I still have trouble seeing CHL as the cold, hard hearted person he became so maybe I don't switch well when situations change. Maybe it is just too ingrained a habit to see him as the warm caring person I believed him to be. He declined all of my offers for him to stay in touch with the shelties, even Frostbyte. I wonder if he never cared for them or if it was easier for him to go forward with his new life if he never saw the shells in a close way again? I really thought Breeze meant something to him and expected to hear from him when she passed away last year but nothing.
My life is on track and something I realized over the weekend, actually couple of things and some still thinking on. I remember Calystra telling me way back in the beginning that I hadn't DB'd long enough and even if D came back then it wouldn't last as I hadn't came clear of the emotions yet and set my changes in place. At the time I couldn't see that at all and *ALL* I wanted in my world was for him to come home. I see now so clearly that she was right. I was still an emotional wreck and just all over the place, trying to change but the emotions I didn't manage weren't letting me make lasting changes. Managing emotions still sucks for me, probably always will as I grew up in very emotional type surroundings and that is the way things were handled. But at least now I know I don't like that and there is a better way! So that is the one I focus on when things get hairy.
I don't know if me changing would have been enough even if D had came back after I had them solidly in place. I think he has too many emotional issues of his own for a lasting R to have been built and if he had came back it might have just pulled me back into the same type of problem R that we had before he left. Some things would have been different but would it have been enough without him doing any changing in his boundaries and his style of communicating? I'm truly not sure it would have been, and in a way that is sad because does that negate everything I thought we had at one time?
I watched some of my old videos this past weekend and then my friend S came over to have lunch and help work on the kids pool. I said you know I gave up a lot of friends/acquaintances and my dogs for D and never really realized it before today and I hadn't. At the time I gave everything up I thought it was worth it. I am not sure I believe that anymore. I told D more than once that even though he lied, cheated and divorced me I didn't regret my decision to be with him. But was that the person that was emotionally insecure talking the whole time or did my marriage and R with D mean something special at one time?
In one way it no longer matters but in another for myself I think I need to know before I even think of getting involved with someone in my future. I need to know me even better so I'm not making an emotionally unsound decision but one based on my being secure in myself and able to hold boundaries in place for me and not let my life be sucked into an R. My friend said she thought I was crazy at the time for marrying D and giving everything up. But that isn't what I need to base my decision on it needs to be me seeing what and where I am today and what I want in my future. You know I don't ever again want to be that dirty, sweaty t-shirt I remember you posting about one time on your thread!
Pam
"We must be willing to let go of the life we had planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us"
Pam, you shouldn't have to give the things you love up to have a R.
I mean, as much as you love your dogs, would you give them up for someone you met that was allergic to dogs?
Who you're with should 'enhance' your life, not detract from it. I don't know if your XH made you give up these things or you did it to yourself, but don't ever let it happen again!!!!
What a profound insight!
Maybe it is just too ingrained a habit to see him as the warm caring person I believed him to be. He declined all of my offers for him to stay in touch with the shelties, even Frostbyte. I wonder if he never cared for them or if it was easier for him to go forward with his new life if he never saw the shells in a close way again? I really thought Breeze meant something to him and expected to hear from him when she passed away last year but nothing.
So that is the one I focus on when things get hairy.