I tried, I changed, but still am getting divorced!

[Mystik]

Hope you had a good holiday with DS.

[newmama]

Gabbysmom, lol about the one nighters! Been there done that a few times in college and I honestly have no interest at this point. What is funny is that this next time around when I am dating, I have the advantage to use hindsight, you know? "If I knew now what I wish I knew then..." Well I do! ANd so do you of course!

When I am ready to date, which is when I am ready to potentially find a guy that I want to be with for something more serious, I feel confident that I will find a good guy within a year. But that doesn't mean I will move in fast or marry him quickly! 'When I fall in love, I'll take my time, There's no hurry when I'm making up my mind' I honestly believe I know how and where to meet men and now that I am more confident in myself and willing to take risks like be the one to make the first move, WATCH OUT!;) But I know not to be too smothering, too aggressive, too fast....

And I will have a thick skin. You see, last Saturday night, I went out with my friend J and her friend A joined us. The teacher of the wine class was cute, "nerdy cute" as J described. I like nerdy cute! Among other kinds of cute. But anyway, turns out that J and A (sorry to be so anonymous, lol!) both really liked him. Since I am not interested in dating right now, I didn't care. BUT I noticed that he totally was into J or A but not me. I didn't feel rejected about it. I kind of thought "ok, he likes edge-y girls. Guess I'm not his type. No biggee!"

[newmama]

OK Gabbysmom, I posted in your thread about dating!

Just had a random thought....amazon.com knows A LOT about me...
due to cookies?

[gatsby11]

I LOVE nerdy cute!!

[ImprovedRomeo]

Eventually, I WANT another person and 2 wholes are better than one!

I feel the same way...I set out to have a family and I had a great one until STBXW decided to ruin it for us. But she can't stop me from following my goals. It's like when you're on a mission and you ask your troop 'now's your chance to turn back if you can't handle it'...she turned back but I'll keep on going.

Yes, too many movies lately

[newmama]

Gatsby--good taste! BUt we better not go out looking for guys together! We might fight over them! (lol!)

Romeo-no such thing as too many movies...have you heard of "movie therapy?" it's real! look it up!

Just came back from my therapist and want to post this before I work out....

OK so I wanted to feel at peace with the fact that I am letting go and dropping the rope. Here was his take based on my questions:

1)AT THIS POINT, even if I was able to talk stbxh into dropping the divorce, and doing something to get him to decide to come back, it wouldn't be in my best interest because HE didn't come back on his own...he is unstable enough to be easily swayed to go back to OW and give me a false reconciliation. My IC put it like this: if he is able to divorce me while feeling major doubts and is uncertain, then that shows me he is not emotionally secure (at this time or maybe never) to handle R at this point. Made sense!!!!!

2)If I were to let stbxh know that "who knows, if we are both available in the future, maybe we could reconcile" then that wouldn't be a good idea. He would think "newmama will always be there." It behooves me emotionally (for myself) and strategically to not let him know. Continue letting my actions speak for themselves....I am actually detaching and it is helping me.

3)he said that something major like a BIG BLOW UP or an explosion in their relationship could happen and it is plausible that it could cause stbxh to come to his senses. But we can't predict when and how so it's best for me to just move forward with detaching.

4)when I said I was worried about not being able to love stbxh again, he said the feeling of love is the "romantic love" that goes away in 3-4 years. He said that after that, love is am action, a commitment, an intuitive act, a choice, a comforting feeling...so we can love if we want to. (take THAT, WASs!)

5)when I said maybe I was wrong about my judgment of character and that scares me....he said part of picking a mate is just luck. He said people really do change and they are unpredictable.


6)he told me people who come through divorce and are resilient are able to take it as "an opportunity to grow and change" and use the time to improve themselves. (Sound familiar? Thanks MWD!!)

7)I asked him about handling S' first birthday tomorrow. (OMG this exact time last year I was in my hospital gown, waiting for the foley bulb and pitocin!)Well he told me that I can always say "in the future, I would like to acknowledge S' birthday together, but this year it is too raw. I hope you understand."
But he said ultimately to follow my gut.

8)He did warn me that stepfamilies always have problems. It's hard. It's stressful (not every minute!). He wasn't sugar coating it. (but it made me feel good thinking that stbxh and OW will have problems, even though they aren't married right now)

OK well I do feel good. I confess (NO 2x4s!!!) that I still had a 2% doubt about not talking to stbxh more about his uncertainty. I had a fear of doing permanent damage to any option for R in the future, not that I want that today or this summer for that matter.My IC told me IT WAS NORMAL to still hold on to some hope as the ship goes down....meaning that I can detach successfully and still want to R in the back of my mind but that it will shrink as time goes on. He said that if stbxh does come crawling back, it may be too late because I could already be happily involved in another relationship.

[courageous wife]

(((NM)))

I like your therapist!!!

[newmama]

Thanks CW- He was citing studies and research for a lot of the stuff and he also kept saying "listen to your intuition"

[newmama]

haha! stbxh just dropped off S. I was wearing a dress today "just because." (stbxh picked up S early,I did chores around the house, then visited my grandma to help her pay her bills online, then went to my therapist)

Well, stbxh says to me "you look nice. Did you do something?"
I tell you, this is the second time he has complimented me on my looks during this whole year+separation and the third explicit question about my plans in three days! I evaded the question at first because I was holding S and he was wiggling around. Then said 'well ONE of the things I did was help my grandma pay her bills.' haha!

OK and then about 7:50 I got a wild hair/flash...that if I DON'T acknowledge S' FIRST b-day with stbxh, then the only person he will be sharing it with is the selfish bitch! (OW)

So before they arrived, I quickly grabbed a cupcake, slapped some frosting on it (that I made earlier), and an Elmo face that I made. I showed stbxh the cupcake and said "do you want to celebrate his birthday tomorrow after his shots?" and added "wow, this time of day last year I was getting all hooked up for his birth!" he just said "yeah...it's hard to believe isn't it?"

folks... I won't hate him because he is too sad! He has special needs in the relationship/emotions department. Damaged people need love too...but he needs too much work right now!

[Piano]

4)when I said I was worried about not being able to love stbxh again, he said the feeling of love is the "romantic love" that goes away in 3-4 years. He said that after that, love is am action, a commitment, an intuitive act, a choice, a comforting feeling...so we can love if we want to. (take THAT, WASs!)

I didn't realise it was 3-4 years...I was thinking more like 2. Anyway, doesn't matter. I like your therapist too!

Happy birthday to your little one. 1st birthday. Wow!!! Congrats to you for bringing him into the world and taking such good care of him. HUGS!