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Well, today is the first time I have ever spent an entire day in my apartment! I needed to do some cleaning and organizing but am usually busy elsewhere. Today, I decided to get some things done. I cleaned out my closet which contained boxes of stuff that I threw in while moving. I found old family trip itineraries (sp?), cards and notes my kids made for me, family pictures and rough copies of poems I wrote for my W. I tossed all the junk and kept the good stuff. The best part is that I'm OK! In two weeks it will be a full year since I separated, a very sad anniversary indeed. Yet, I think about what it was like living with her and I don't want that kind of life again. I found something I'd written to myself itemizing the things I would like from my W, it was incredible how little respect she showed and the endless degradation I lived with. It's better without her. This next year will be one of healing, I've gone through the shock and awe and now it's time to heal. Wish me luck! Tonight, I'm OK.

Good for you, Wii! You sound like you have done a lot of healing already ... um, and a lot of cleaning too!?

Thanks Being Me, I think the healing comes in pieces, just a little at a time and with a few fallbacks along the way. I must be patient with myself and not expect a perfect recovery! I am always too damn hard on myself and expect more than I would expect from anyone else in my place. I gotta remember to chill!Let things happen at the pace they will happen, not easy to do.
Anyway, today I went to pick up the kids after church and found more of my belongings on the front porch. It feels so cold and hostile to approach me and my belongings in that manner. When I went in I had a welcome surprise though, STBX informed me that she just put those things there so I could go through them, she didn't know what I wanted to keep. If I couldn't take them today then that was OK. She told me that she was cleaning out the garage and would store any of my things there until I decided what to do with them. I still have books and other things that I just have no room for at my place, and yes, I need to take care of them. I told her to just toss the magazines and she said "Oh, but you used to love reading those magazines, why don't I keep them awhile longer and then you decide" That was really nice. People are so weird, me included. I had concluded that her putting my things on the porch was a hostile act and, actually, she just saw it as a convenient place to put them so I'd see them and go through them. She was really a pleasure to talk to today. She has her moments...too bad they became fewer and fewer over the years!

A good example of how we can misread people, and make assumptions about situations, where there isn't even an issue.

I am glad your STBX shows her good side sometimes. Shows that there is a human in there somewhere, 'eh?!

I always try to remember that time heals all wounds...even theirs.

love

...and usually at our expense!
OK, that was uncalled for but WTH it's my thread I'll say what I wanna!

They were at least on your porch and returned, so give her some credit. Could have been like my xs exit. MOnths after her exit, I neatly packed up, wrapped, boxed and cushioned breakables, her family photos and some odds and ends my x 2 left behind and two pieces of furniture. All neatly stacked for her to pick up in my garage. I merely asked for the return of my garage door opener and my script sunglasses that were in one of the vehicles.
Never got my script sunglasses back in one of the two vehicles she took off with, found my garge door opener a month later in pieces in the lawn (neighbors say she tossed it out of the window of the moving truck).
I had been civil enough that I let her come and go as she pleased to get her forgotten left behind stuff after her major move, while I was on the road for business travel, but after coming home after a week and finding the house in disaray, spit on the walls, photos shredded and then placed back into the picture frames, amongst other stuff. That was it. Hence my packing up what was left and leaving it in the garage. To this day I cannot figure what anyone would do with three identical sledge hammers, three identical picks,five shovels etc. you get the picture. But must have been a fun raid on my garage. So the garage just about got cleaned out and I got a busted up garage door opener left in the lawn in exchange. That was one of those "defining moments" as they say, I chose not to have any contact after asking repeatedly for her to do her exit with dignity and respect - which she chose not to. The unwarranted harassment by her and her offspring continued years after and I continued the no contact.
So it's been four years and then some since the garage episode. Never did get the sunglasses back. But I suppose they were still in the expensive custom van when she traded it in - of course it was beat to h@ll and not a straight panel or bumper on it two years after she left (roomate told me where it was when x2 traded it).
And now four years and then some since the departure, two people I know said they ran across her in the last couple of weeks and they said the same thing - "She looks like sh!t. Dirty clothes, unkempt, strange look in her eyes etc." (That's not really new news)
Be greatful Wii , you don't have to pray for a lost soul everyday.

Hey wii,

It's been a while, and I have just been able to come up for air! My life has been a whirling dervish for the last month, so now that I have a little time, I thought I would post to those that kept me afloat from half a world away, and who continue to do so.

My postings have decreased. Sometimes when a crisis occurs, I go back to multiple postings, but most days, not.

I'm tired of the "Lifestyle". I stopped seeing a therapist for the same reason. I'm tired of going over the same terrain, with no "ah ha!" moment.

I can totally relate to your feelings about the stuff on the porch. Like me, I think that reaction comes from the years of contempt and disrespect from our STBXs. Because we would get beat up on a continuous basis, and because NOTHING was ever right or enough in their eyes, we continue to think that ALL motives are malicious, even though they are not.

This has really rented space in my head, and I'm not sure how I will ever approach any new relationship, but you never know.

I like you have begun to enjoy the freedom I have. Today, I go to the gym after work, go home, and enjoy solace. No one to disappoint at every turn, no one to critique me using the wrong chicken to make dinner or putting the dishes in the wrong place in "her kitchen". No one to tell me: "I know you tried your best, but your best was shi^^y!" True phrase.

Don’t get me wrong, I still miss the closeness and serenity of a monogamous relationship. Someone I work with got divorced about a year ago. He’s 50, and is sleeping with new woman every night. Sounds good, but it’s not for me. Never was.

You got the same treatment as me. Leave your W. alone with her new friend, and my wife with her 61 year old attorney boss. I feel sorry for both of them for having to resort to their choices: your wife another woman and mine some obese maybe still married boss who is 13 years older than her. Maybe wishful thinking, but I believe they will not be any happier in two years. We have become more introspective in our roles in the failure of our marriages. They have not. They are in for some hard times, I believe. Yech....

Remember the line from "Born in the USA" "End up like a dog that's been beat too much, till you spend half your life just coverin' up"

That was so true for me. Remember the story I told you about accidentally breaking the new vacuum and actually feeling like I was taking hostile fire trying to reassemble the plastic clip, because I was in fear of her reprisal or worst, just the disgusted look with the head shaking.

I guess like you, I miss the long ago dead woman I fell in love with, and all the good things being an intact family can be. I feel sorry for my (and your) kids. They are the losers.

Thanks for dropping by FLTC and GB! The one thing I am thankful for is that just before we separated my W said to me "I just want you to know that nobody could have tried harder to save this marriage than you did and I recognize that" I said "thank you, it means alot to hear you say that". As Love reminded us, we're all healin' in some way or another. I'm starting to read a Christian book entitled "Healing is a choice" It's written by an evangelical talk show host, Stephen Afterburn, whose marriage ended in divorce. He talks about the lies we tell ourselves and the need to connect with others to heal. It's worth a look for anyone interested in a Christian perspective.

Well, it would appear the Surviving forum is becoming like the TV show, everybody's getting voted off the island! My master plan is now coming to fruitation as I watch everyone else self destruct and I become the LONE SURVIVOR! My main nemisis Attorney Tom seems to be laying low these days and I can only guess what cunning plan he has in store but I'm ready for ya Taco Boy, bring it on, this forum will be mine!!!! (followed by excessive waves of mad laughter).
Now, to my dear departed fellow Survivors, remember THE BEST IS YET TO COME!