Looking for the silver lining...

[irishblessings]

I am struggling. I miss my XH. I miss my old relationship - my friendship - the man I loved for most of my life. I read about all of these successes - people who achieve these great new lives. I feel like I am stuck in spinster mode. I know I am early in this but it is taking its toll. Within a year my X left, had OW, divorced me and has made zero effort to have any contact with me. This is after 30 years together, 3 amazing kids, and truly great memories.

I know I need a 2x4 - feeling sorry for myself. Reading too much about reconciliation or Xs returning. Should be thinking about what I want my life to be like now that it is not going to be what I wanted it to be.

I got it bad! Sorry - but so glad to have some place to purge! Thanks for listening!

[yellowbrickroad]

Vent all you want!!!
There are many people here who have already walked a mile in your shoes and have lived to tell the tale.
Some of us have divorced, reconcilled and remarried our WAS.
Some of us have divorced and found someone new.
Some of us have reconcilled.
Some of us love being single and have created wonderful new lives.
Not one of them is a failure!!!
Hang in there IB it just takes time and patience.

[AntoniaB]

IB, my 2 cents on this is that for me, (and you and I are on essentially the same timeline), I am really doing well and not missing him that much. I mean, I had 23 years with my XH. I loved him with an intensity that just made me think that I'd give up anything for him. And yet, it's 500 days since he dropped the bomb on Oct. 25, and I'm feeling very detached from those feelings anymore. I'm even detached from missing him at this point.

The only thing I can chalk this up to is that I've done so much to establish an entirely new life with new friends, acquaintances and close friends, and new interests, and I'm sort of constantly discovering new interests and I'm kind of interested in anything someone else recommends (simple example but in my "old" life I hated all "old" movies, and now I'm actually watching things a good friend recommends and discussing the merits with her...). I don't know, I mean, I love him very much and always will, or I love the "him" that I once knew...but I also really love the new me, and I guess I'm just so different from the old me that I'm not feeling so pulled back into missing him, because "old" me misses him most.

So you know, maybe this is something that will just change for you with time, but I guess if you do feel stuck, it can never hurt to make an even greater effort to try things or form friendships that are ALL NEW, that have no connection to him. Maybe then your life will be more filled with things that are not reminders of him and that past life.

I almost never talk about the divorce with people anymore...it's like ancient history to me. I notice that when I talk about him or the divorce, I miss him. When I talk about my life alone now, I'm much happier...

[AntoniaB]

Ok I reread your post and I see more I want to comment on. The part where you say you've had no contact after 3 kids, 30 years, and great memories.

I think when you bring that up, you're showing that you're still feeling a lot of sadness/regret/anger/etc. about things not going the way you planned. First of all, that's totally understandable. But until you can get past that, you WILL feel stuck.

What you have to try to work on is to let go of the feeling of being "cheated" of a future. This might be one of the hardest things to deal with. We all have this "feeling" that if we spent all these years with someone, had kids, formed a life with them, made future plans, etc., that we are wronged if those plans do not come true.

The most valuable thing I have learned through all of this is to LET GO of the feeling that just because someone says "we will do this" or "I will love you forever" that there are no guarantees.

What you're feeling stuck by is the fact that you have a "belief" and your belief has been crushed. There is a book called The Four Agreements that is all about this. It says, very simply, that you must learn to get rid of your beliefs if your adherence to the belief is making you struggle/be unhappy.

Look at it this way: what if 30 years ago, someone said to you, "you're going to have 30 years in a wonderful marriage. you'll have kids. You'll have wonderful times and memories. And that's it. No more. You get 30 years with THIS person."

Would you have taken that? Would you have walked away from that promise because it wasn't till the day you died? I doubt it. You'd have taken it, and you'd have hoped you could make it last longer.

And you did what you could but it couldn't last longer because of free will of another person.

But you wouldn't take any of it back, would you? NO. I am sure you wouldn't.

So be happy that you had what you did. I'm not saying you're not happy with it at all. What I'm saying is that you're allowing the fact that this isn't continuing to cloud all those 30 years. Don't let that happen.

Be happy, be thrilled, that you had what you did. Just because you lost it doesn't mean that the rest of your life isn't going to be wonderful. It will just be DIFFERENT FROM WHAT YOU EXPECTED.

Some people never get that 30 years, IB. My mother had great years with her KIDS, but my mother and father have been living like a divorced couple under the same roof, being angry at each other, for 40 years. This will persist till one of them dies. No sex. No sleeping together. No affection or caring at all. Just a blind devotion to "marriage" as they are both Catholic.

I've already had FAR more than she has had, even though my XH betrayed me. I'm lucky, compared to her.

I just want you to try to look at the good you have had, and the good you still do, and to stop focusing on what you do not get with him now. And I think if you believe in a higher power, you need to look at this as your higher power finding a way to pull you away from a rel. that was toxic and only bound to destroy you.

You have a second chance to live your life. I get totally why you feel the way you do. But if you try to look at it from a different perspective, you will FEEL differently, and you will break free from where you are now.

(((HUGS))))

[irishblessings]

YBR and Antonia - You all are right-intellectually I know it - emotionally I'm not all the way there.

One thing that I am realizing is that my X was a former coach. As a result, you tend to build a wall around yourself - because there are so many people who feel they have the right to tear you down. So I became very protective of him and our family. Letting down my guard and trusting people - new friends has proven to be a challenge.

More work to do...

[AntoniaB]

Hmmmm....I think then that the thing that will really help you is to form a rel. with someone as a friend whom you can trust. I mean, you don't have to trust them with your life, but just trust them with being there for you, feeling like you can confide and not have your business all over the place...I think intuitively you'll know when you come across a person like this.

I will suggest that you read that book The Four Agreements. It's an interesting take on belief systems that just break down. You could try a library if you don't want to buy it. If you buy it there is also a version that has a workbook that you can journal in with directed topics and questions to answer and it's all helpful.

[beatrice]

I think Antonia has given you terrific advice and feedback, and I entirely agree with her. Our sitches are quite similar - long marriage and kids, but I am much further on timewise. Time heals and brings its peace, especially if we help by doing teh spadework, as you are doing.

One thing I would take issue with is your sense of being stuck in spinster mode, as if this was a bad thing.

There is dignity in being on your own as a woman. We are so stuck in the idea of coupledom, that we forget all the single people who live happy and fulfilled lives. It is easier to portray them as weird/embittered/perverted. but that isn't the reality. As Antonia said about her parents - together but stuck in a dysfunctional relationship. And I see many couples like that.

Hollywood always has romance on the agenda, but fails to celebrate any other mode of living, and we buy into that.

My xh is no longer 'centre stage' in my emotional life, and it is so good to have got to that point. Give yourself time. My life is so full now, that although I still miss what I had, which is human and understandable, I no longer am pulled down by regrets.

Approve of yourself and your life choices. You have class and dignity.

[dl443322]

Antonia and Bea are spot on as usual. Hiya girls.

IB, what you are feeling is normal. There is no one timeline in this. You feel what you feel.

Having said that, I think it might help to look at things a little differently perhaps.

Often when we feel regret or looking for our marriages, we do it through rose colored glasses. We tend to remember the good things and not the bad. We want what we THOUGHT we had or what we idealize in our heads.

But I think that you need to realize that while there were some good parts, there were also some really bad parts, too.

I would think that you dont really want that marriage again. If you have done the work, you should realize that you are not the same person, nor is your xh.

So, you are longing for what you think marriage should be.

I agree with Bea. No one should feel that they need someone to complete them. No on can make us happy.

It is when we are happy within ourselves that we can become open to another.

But it is in no way a necessity. You can be very happy alone - with friends and family in your life.

IB, would you really want to go back to the kind of marriage where you were so wrapped up in your husband's happiness that it didnt matter if you were? Where you put yourself last?

You may want your xh back but you do not need him.

you are an amazing woman. Full of love and compassion and strength.

Live a life that fills you up.

Use those rose colored glasses to see how much you have. Then choose to be happy each day.

[AntoniaB]

Hey Brookie! Nice to see ya!

IB let me piggyback on Brookie's and Beatrice's comments about being ok and even thriving as a woman who doesn't have a man in her life, by telling you about my close friend and her mom.

My friend's mom was divorced about 10 years ago. This was her second marriage--to the brother of the first husband, actually, who had abused her...then when he took pity on her for his abuse and cheating, eventually they got together and married. Flash forward to many years later, and second hubbie divorces her, and takes up with an OW, who is half his age. MLC all over the place.

Well in the 10 years since the second divorce, my friend's mom has never come to terms with not having a man in her life. She is depressed all the time. She has MS, but it's not a progressive form, and she should have only minor issues, but she has sort of turned them into major ones...all courtesy of her depression. Some days she doesn't get out of bed. She's a lovely, intelligent woman in her 60s. And she seems to project that she wants/needs a man to care for her. Hence, she doesn't have a long-term relationship.

What she does do is to lean on her daughter a lot. She lives across the street from her daughter, and my friend is now in a job she despises with a ridiculous workload, all to be able to afford to take care of the mom and keep her in her house which is in foreclosure. My friend feels she has to visit her mom and/or call her multiple times a day, because she is "lonely" and "sad." She takes her on vacations a lot, and then has to deal with taking her home, knowing that, in her words, "Mom has nothing to go back home to."

My friend is burning herself out so badly being a caretaker of a depressed woman who will NOT change her way of thinking, that my friend is now having an EA with a colleague. Why? She feels justified. She feels like she works so hard and sacrifices so much to help her mom, and she also believes that her mom SHOULD be depressed that she doesn't have a man in her life...and while my friend is married, she's not happy in her marriage, but she's hiding it and telling this coworker that she loves him on the side. She spent years convincing her husband that this coworker was just a friend, so that she can even go out to dinner with him and her husband won't suspect anything.

In short, mom is creating her own hell by thinking she can't be happy if she doesn't have a man and by never GALing, after all these years, and she's pushed her pain on her daughter, who in helping her, is neglecting her own marriage and working herself to the bone, then feeling she can rationalize a secret EA because she, too, assumes that if she doesnt' have a man to thrill her, that she can't be happy.

When I tell her that I'm doing great and totally got rid of the "spinster" mindset, she just says "that's so great that happened for you." As if it fell in my lap!

But she still pressures me to date and says that I have to have a man in my life because friends and family aren't "enough." I beg to differ.

So this is a long story, but I've told you because you want to do as B and B said and break out of that mindset. I think that mindset is slowly destroying my friend and her mom, and when that EA gets discovered, their whole family is going to be devastated.

[irishblessings]

Thanks all - I do see the validity in what you all are saying. I am responsible for how I see myself and what I do. I know that...

I need help branching out - finding what I want out of life.

Slow learner here....thanks for your patience:)