Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers Working on detachment, my anxiety, and the joys of limbo

Btw, my H is pursuing a similar path with what he has been doing (hanging out with a younger crowd, drink, drugs, hard partying...and all the rest).

Hello Phoebe.

My daily check in to see how you are doing and to give big rainbow hugs.
I hope that you got some sleep last night and have had a productive day.
Tell me a bit about the weather and scenery there at your home. I realized I enjoy reading your posts when you share those details as I long to go back to the country.

Ironically we had plans to move from this city this year and go back to a place that had a better outdoor situation. And now I am trapped here for the foreseeable future so that I can keep 50 percent custody of my d5. Not to mention I have silently blamed WAW for us moving here so many years ago. I did not want to move here, but I gave into her to do it. Looking back I have into so many of her demands over the years that always set us back in one way or another. But that's another story for another time.

Sorry for the short rant, my goal is to check in on you and make sure you are doing well.

So pull out the pencil and pull up some YouTube and let's see that smile.

Focus, Phoebe

My WH is 60 and still having out with the young crowd!

It isn't age but waywardness that drives this.

No doubt when I amoved 95 there will be a young whipper snapper of 85 complaining her 88 year old hub has run off with a 55 year old.

It's the dynamic that's the issue in this.

Wrinkles bumps and corns not withstanding.

V

Hi everyone. I was out all day and really need to get to sleep now, but I wanted to thank you all for checking in on me today. I'll get back here tomorrow and get caught up and write about my day. It was good, by the way. Kind of hard with the grief work, but good. More tomorrow!

Pencil smiles!!!

Good morning Phoebe,

I hope it was a restful night, and I am sending you positive vibes and pencil smiles so that you may a wonderful day.

Hello, hello! Another day in the country, so another day with plenty of work. It's been dry for a while again, so i'm heading back out to do more brush-hogging. That project will never end, at least not as long as I still have the tractor.

Out to work and then I'll check in later. SadHub, I'll tell you more about the place. You can do your country living vicariously, even if you're stuck where you are for a while.

Good evening Phoebe.

How has your day been. Hope you had a great outdoor day.

Well, I'm back!

So yesterday I saw my grief counselor. It was hard to talk about my loss history, and, yes, I cried almost the whole time I was trying to talk through it. Big surprise, right? On the other hand, she was an incredible listener. The idea when someone is telling about their loss history or a relationship history is to be a heart with ears and no mouth, so the listener does just that and may react normally and even cry, but should not talk or question.

The idea is not to pretend we will arrive at a point where we no longer hurt. I don't think that is possible, particularly in the case of relationships that are ongoing. The idea is to understand our own history, identify any themes (like my lack of emotional safety in Rs) or any recurrent behavior in ourselves (I realized that I go back to those who have rejected me and pick up any crumbs they drop me, usually in the form of physical attention, hence the reason I allowed intimacy with my H the night before I found out about the PA).

I listened to her loss history last week and she listened to mine yesterday. Then we talked a little bit, and she shared the next step, which is to choose a specific relationship and record that history as another graph. She shared the history of one of her own Rs. It's hard work, emotionally, and my counselor's pain in her own relationship is as present as my own.

So now I need to examine a specific relationship. In this case, probably my marriage, but the same process can and should be done for most major relationships in my life. Again, it's to help me learn about myself as much as it is to learn about the other person.

So, it was hard, but perhaps more of a neutral experience than I expected because we didn't talk about the loss history, per se. I shared my history and then shared the observations I had learned about myself. Then we talked about those observations and themes more than the actually history.

After all that, I went thrift shopping, and it was a sale day at the two places I went. I got 2 pair of jeans and 3 shirts for $16. Good brands, too. Sweet. It's to have clothes that fit. I'm still choosing to embrace the weight loss. Well-fitting clothes make me look healthy, whereas the baggy stuff made me look ill. I tried to wear a pair of my hiking pants today to work in, and they literally fell down. So much for those!

The Audubon meeting last night was all about bluebirds, and it was great! I am definitely going to the one next week, too.

So this is for SadHub. My local report. After being unseasonably cool, today it hit 83 sunny degrees, which is too warm for this kid. Luckily it wasn't humid, so it was reasonable, plus the tractor has a/c.

I have solar panels and they generate all the electricity that I have used since the went in, so today they were cranking out the watt-hours and running the meter backwards. I'm grid-tied, so I pay for the privilege of being hooked up by paying a monthly line fee and basically use the grid as a giant long-term battery. I make extra power all summer and then in the winter I pull it back out. It's pretty cool.

I spent another 4 hours today brush-hogging and waging my continued fight against invasive species -multiflora roses and Japanese barberry. I once though that the roses were pretty. They still are, but now they are the enemy. I love it what a massive shrub becomes a pile of mulch. It sounds easy to drive a tractor around, but it is strangely hard work. Because it's all field edges, and the edges are hilly, all of it is done with the tractor in reverse. I spend those hours cranked around, looking behind me, running two levers with my arms and my feet run the brake and clutch. I get out and my limbs are just kind of trembling and my neck is sore.

Still, it feels like such a victory to reclaim land that was previously unusable. The roses firm impenetrable thickets, and I've probably reclaimed a couple acres or more. It's also cool to be putting the tractor to use. I don't know if I'll be able to keep it. It's just quite a big expense. I'm going to use it all I can in the meanwhile.

You'd think the birds would all fly away while I work, but they seem really interested. I must scare up insects as I go.

No contact with H continues, which is good. Every day leaves me feeling a little bit stronger and more resilient without him. Every day I check the mail, mentally prepared to find that H has started D proceedings, but nothing has come and no word from him about it. Total limbo, but I am out GALing! I know I need more pure social contact, but I spend time with people every day, and the work I do on my property makes me feel like I'm doing something meaningful.

I see my journaling has gone overlong again. Oops.

You really sound very good about your day (last few days)! The grief counselor obviously knows how to keep this at a manageable emotional level. It's an interesting process.

I was reading about a trauma release therapy method (unrelated to this) called Somatic Experience, and the theory is based on how a traumatic experience for prey animals is released by shaking and deep breathing, which resets the nervous system, but that in our human society, we suppress these reactions (based on shame, perceptions of how we should be and behave, feeling out of control, etc.) and that this is why we develop PTSD - we don't allow the body to go through the necessary healing process.

From that perspective, it is interesting to see how you and your providers all think your shakiness should be suppressed by medications or other interventions - it fits right into the theory of how we respond to it. Maybe we need to embrace our physical reactions to trauma more and not try to control them or suppress them!

Congrats on the thrift store finds! I love them, too - have several outfits that look like they cost 20 times more than what I gave for them. And it's such a boost to put on something nice.

I hate to bring this up, but have you considered if the birds that stay close, are nesting in those shrubs...? I know birds will fly very near to try to protect their nests.

Hi Phoebe, I'm with you on the thrift store outfits! I love to browse in charity shops - and if I buy I go for good brands. Yesterday I was wearing a nice top and got a compliment from a female colleague. I was given that top by a friend who rummaged in her own thrift shop bag and gave it to me!

Sounds like you are doing well, given all circumstances. I agree with you on the social GAL, and it is an area to keep extending on I think. One challenge I set myself was - each month, I had to start up a new regular GAL activity. These included things like yoga, volunteering, a regular calligraphy workshop, a reading group, a ladies social group, salsa classes etc.

Over time, one or two of these dropped by the wayside, but almost 2 years after BD, I'm busy and I find that my weeks just get filled with social things. Have you considered volunteering at all in an activity you enjoy? I do a regular stint in a lovely charity book and music store. I enjoy that and meet a great cross section of people...

JMHO of course, but GAL does help a great deal - gives us a new focus etc. Take care anyway, and I think you are doing fine - just where you should be xx