He has never lost you, he hasn't felt that because he hasn't. You have been drenched in the pain. The only way to get past that is to take back your life, take back the power he holds over you. Don't make choices based on what affect it may or may not have on him but only what affect it will have on you and/or the kids.
He has moved on and you have to decide if you want to sit around waiting and being in a constant state of pain hoping he will come back or do you want to create a life where you can find your inner happiness without thought of the past?
hugs, kat
Me-53(and learning!) S24, S21, D18, D17 Just keep swimming, Just keep swimming. Dory
He has had no insight into how I feel or any other part of my life for a very long time, due to going dark...I think the last time I got emotional with him was in the spring, but spoke with him afterward and explained that I just wanted to fix things for the kids, that I knew it was over. I think a mutual friend told him a while back that I was fine and moved on with my life. Seems that is what he has hoped for - he is happy, and hopes that I will find my own happiness someday.
I've done so much for myself in these past years - certainly not sitting around, but yes, waiting. Pushing forward and waiting. One foot in front of the other and waiting. Surviving. I've written about this in the past, I know. How I have a good life, full, so full that I can't even imagine how to squeeze a new love interest into it (if I had any interest in the first place - I have tried, on match and eharmony, some dating a while back). I have created a life that I am happy with - except for that huge, gaping hole.
The question is, HOW do I stop feeling what I feel? I can't deny that it is there. Maybe it is a matter of time...or maybe it will always be there and I should just get used to it. I am exasperating to myself.
Donna, loss is loss and somehow we just have to accept that it's OK to feel that gaping hole sometimes. It's human to want a companion, someone you can come home to and say "guess what happened today" and know that person cares. It's OK to keep desiring that and to sometimes shed a few tears, despite having a good life otherwise. It's not all black or white, perfection or failure...it's a mix, I guess that's what life is all about. Keep taking that step forward and believing that the pieces will one day fall into place and one day they will!!!
OT - that was so well said. I am printing it out so that I can keep these thoughts permanantly. I needed to hear this to really cement in my head what I have felt about friendship with the X. It wouldn't be productive in my life and hearing that that is okay from someone else helps. I have felt what you expressed, but thought that maybe it was just my own opinion, and therefore somehow useless.....guess i need to work on that!
"You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf." Jon Kabat-Zinn
I can end your suspense: you will ALWAYS miss the old-H in some way. Even if you were to reconcile, you will miss the old-H. The end of an M kills the old R. It is gone, past, to be mourned, to be loved, to be missed. Just like your mother, you will always miss some part of the M, some part of old-H. It will always be sad that things did not work out. Even if you wind up with a new better life, and a husband you love much more and much better, there will always be a loss, there will always be sadness about it. But, like I said, this is hardly unique to divorce. We mourn all sorts of losses in our lives. Those losses stay sad. Look, I am HAPPY that I got D. I am much much happier in my life, happier with my husband, in a much better place in pretty much every way. And, it is still sad that I lost my M of 17 or 18 years, that I no longer have the R with the person I grew up with (except that we couldn't really grow up when we were together). IT IS SAD.
I can tell you also that no matter how you want your life to go, assuming that you want it to go well, right now there is only ONE WAY to go. Let go, stop making your choices contingent on what XH may or may not do, and make a great life for yourself.
You think not detaching earlier affected your chances? Maybe, if there was a chance, but it seems that your H was long gone before you knew. But not detaching now certainly will continue to affect your chances -- your chances of having a good life, your chances of having a more normalized co-parenting R with XH, your chances of attracting a good partner into your life, whoever that might me...
You are still waiting for XH to heal you, to rescue you. That is still pure and simple codependence. What about your codepenents group? And why do you never respond when I ask?
Whether or not you should stop being dark, whether you should be friends with EX-family... Your focus is on what it says about you rather than on the value of the R and the other person in the R for him/herself. In a nutshell, you are taking how they react to you, interact with you as proof about something about yourself...Don't choose it because of what you think such a choice says about you, for that is the back door toward codependence rather than away from it.
The friendship question I was thinking about is not about what it says or doesn't say about me. It was more along the lines of what path would bring me closer to any chance of reconcilliation in the future. And as I am sitting here thinking about this, I can see similarities in my objectives with that of his girlfriend's past actions, while she was still working through friend-crush-flirting, wedging herself into my marriage. Yuck.
I just want to find some make-believe rewind button and have my husband back, the man who loved me, once.
Emotional exhaustion. How many naps can you take in a day? And I stayed home to catch up on real work...
Sincerely, if you really want to maximize your chances at reconiliation, detach, let go, and stop being codependent.
Starting a sham friendship with XH to try to get him to end his R, leave his home, and reconcile with you is not real friendship and it will not help your chances of reconciling.
If you can have a genuine friendship not based on you wanting something from him that he doesn't want to give, then that might be OK. But, it doesn't look to me as though that is where you are.
I don't know what else the Alanon group can do for me. I have no interest in more drama in my life, and it became a source of drama (my sponsor being an adulteress, and a woman I became friendly with freaked out on me when I withdrew for a while, took it personally).
I read the materials... 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol (or codependence)—that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
I try to work the program. The powerlessness is hard... The struggle between DB influence and leaving others to their own choices.
I recognize the selfishness in wishing that ex would see what happened and how much I loved him and would have worked on it... I want him to be happy. I just hoped so much that it had been with me.
Starting a sham friendship with XH to try to get him to end his R, leave his home, and reconcile with you is not real friendship and it will not help your chances of reconciling.
If you can have a genuine friendship not based on you wanting something from him that he doesn't want to give, then that might be OK. But, it doesn't look to me as though that is where you are.
And therein lies my frustration with myself.
So, just continue as I have been, one step in front of the other, and accept the sadness and missing him. Got it.
This sucks (says the little girl inside). Grown-up me has to wipe her face and get some work done...
