The Planet Of Fulfillment

[Busting Mode]

Me: 47
Ex-Wife: 42
Together: 4 1/2 years
Married: 8/9/10
She Filed for Divorce: 4/8/11

She said she wanted a divorce 2 months after we got married, so that means I've been diligently DBing since around 10/10/10.

7 months I have been at it, and today I received this email:

------------------

Hello Michael

Thanks for the flowers and the cards for the kids and then of course for the wonderful words of admiration!
We had a good day although I worked the night before and the next 3 nights so not much time to sleep but I'm use to that!

I'm not sure how to tell you this so I'm just gonna blurt it out!

I unexpectedly met someone I really like I didn't feel the need to tell you right away because I didn't want to hurt you, but our friendship relationship has always been about honesty and trust so I feel it's necessary to let you know.
I'm sorry I know this will hurt you and it truly is not my intentions I just don't want you to have false hope about us.

I want you to find your true happiness and not waste time you deserve true happiness and the best that life has to offer!!

I know you will be ok and I have learned so much from you and from our relationship I thank you for that and for all the fun exciting things we have done and shared together. I want us to both be happy we deserve it!!

With all that said, I still have your things and not sure what you want me to do with them??

I will always love you and have a special place for you in my heart we will remain friends as well just best to be out of contact for now while we start this new life. Do you agree?

Love always L----

-----------------------

Right now I am not in a place where I care to even explore my feelings about this let alone type them out - numb is the best word I can think but even that isn't really it...

However I did send her the following response, because the last time we spoke (a couple of weeks ago) I promised I would always be authentic in my communications with her instead of trying to control and direct things all the time. So I wrote back:

"Wow. Not sure how to respond to this right now other than to say you have always been my friend and I see no reason for that to stop now. When did you meet him?"

Not sure where that will lead or if she will even answer it, but I am actually thankful this inevitable day has finally arrived so that I can finally stop dreading it and begin moving past it.

I am not sure whether I will be available for her or not when this new guy somehow fails her as well (as I am believing will likely happen, but hey I could be wrong)...

But I know there is still enough of my feelings here to at least continue exploring and sharing some of it with you, so I guess I will just keep on posting now and to find out where it takes me.

"The pain is not there to hurt you. The pain is there to make you more aware." - Osho

Much love and blessings to you all,

Mike

[~¤DG¤~]

Oh Mike, my heart skipped a beat when I read that, I can't imagine how you must have felt.

I wish I had the words to comfort you. Just know I'm here, and I care.

[~ kd ~]

oh wow! While I didn't get the "Dear John" letter, I feel for you regarding the OM.

The emotions will be chaotic. It seems to start with numb, the sad, then angry, and then any mixture and blend as it stirs about inside you.

Use this board to vent any and all of it. Do NOT internalize it. Let it out. But let it out here, where it is safe and will not harm DB with your W.

[AloneAt35]

I'm so sorry, I know this won't help, but you deserve better.

[Queen_of_Swords]

Oh Michael. I am so very, very sorry. I don't have to imagine how you feel. I've been there. Poleaxed.
You have my best wishes and prayers at this difficult time.

[Busting Mode]

Thanks D,K and A.

So. The title of this thread. "The Planet Of Fulfillment". I chose this title as a way to help me move through all the pain that I am so often feeling, and finally lift myself up to the levels of Love where I belong.

Couple of nights ago, I had a conversation with a friend who said something like "Think of the context in which you live your life as being like a planet you are on."

In other words, the context in which you put things becomes your whole world and everything all around you.

For example, up until we had that conversation, I realized I had been living on "Planet Desperation".

Now on that planet, everyone in the world, myself included, is desperate for something or someone they don't have. So they do all kinds of crazy, desperate things to try and get this thing they feel they lack. They do everything they can, desperately trying to get their needs fulfilled, any way they can.

It's a very lonely planet. People are always just walking around talking to themselves, rarely looking up and rarely being fully present with other people. Indeed, most of the people there just use other people. They can't really ever be there for other people, because they are so focused on themselves and somehow getting whatever it is they lack.

On Planet Desperation people ALWAYS feel like they are lacking something, or that something is still missing, or that they are somehow incomplete.

They feel inadequate. Not good enough. Like they are unable to keep up or compete. They feel undeserving. Unworthy. And so they desperately try to prove and how lovable and deserving they are.

They try to impress other people, and they where masks pretending to be something they are not, and they tolerate things and compromise and constantly lower their standards out of desperation to feel loved. or to feel happy, or to fulfill whatever the emptiness is inside of them.

They are people who are never satisfied. People who are always hungry and thirsty and afraid even when their belly and well is full.

I could go on and on here but I think it's pretty clear. Life on planet desperation is a very bleak, tiring, unfulfilling and definitely unattractive place to be.

So then my friend says "Well what if you had a spaceship that you could jump in right now and leave that planet immediately? What planet would you fly to?"

And so I chose the context of my life right now to be all about fulfillment. On this planet, everyone is already whole and complete and perfect within themselves. Nobody is ever really lacking, or wanting or needing of anything they can't have, and anytime they do want or need something, it is such an abundant, luscious place to be that there are an infinite number of ways they can get there needs fulfilled.

Everybody knows that somewhere within themselves they are part of something so much bigger than themselves and we all know there is no reason to be afraid of missing out or losing anything because it's all just a great big heaping smorgasbord of experience and wow.

The people here aren't so attached to having only one specific flavor of experience. They delight in every bite!

On this planet desperation has been abolished and I am no longer being dependent on anybody else for anything. I already know I already have everything I need within myself to feel happy and fulfilled anytime I want.

On this planet I am no longer desperate to win her back.

I am whole and complete within myself, and their is an unlimited number of ways I can get my needs fulfilled, and to help others feel whole and complete and fulfilled within themselves.

We all do what we gotta do in order to be happy and move through pain. I just find it really useful to use strategies like these which give me power over the meaning that I give to things, and therefore power over the feelings that I have, the actions that I take, and the results that I produce.

Yes. It hurts that she is with another man. And, I had already prepared myself for it. And thankfully, knowing that it has happened feels so much better than waiting and wondering and worrying it would happen.

Now I simply know and can do anything I want with the knowledge.

So right now I am still looking at this time I have on my own as "an opportunity to restore my integrity" and get back to a place where I am TRULY feeling happy within myself.

I have not yet chosen whether or not to "close the door but leave it unlocked" as I read in somebody else's thread, but I really like the sounds of that so we'll see how I feel tomorrow.


Goodnight everyone.

Thank you for the Love.

Mike

[alamo76]

Michael, my heart sank with yours when I read that letter from your wife. It's so not the words we need to hear; you're right about it being a hurdle to jump over, but still, it's no bueno. Stay strong and stay the course.

[gypsyriver]

Reading that broke my heart for you.

"The pain is not there to hurt you. The pain is there to make you more aware." - Osho

Thank you for that quote. It really resonates with where I am and want to be.

[Busting Mode]

thanks everyone. not sure if this message will post or not because for some reason for the past few days my posts they keep on getting held in moderation for several days. No idea why, they never did before...

let's see if this one posts right away or has to wait as well...

[AloneAt35]

Your post about the planet of fulfillment vs. the planet of desperation really resonates with me! I realize that I have been living on the planet of desperation basically my whole life - even before my partner left me. (Perhaps it is because I grew up in a very insecure home and scarcity of all resources - emotional and material - was a huge part of my childhood.)

I carried this desperate sense of shortage and incompleteness into adulthood; my happiness and sense of self and even my purpose for living centered around my partner who 'rescued' me from the desperation of my life as a child. Now that I am not living with him, it hurts to live at all. I feel empty and lost. It would be amazing if I can grow to the point that I am living on the planet of fulfillment - knowing that I have enough love, happiness, and joy just for myself within myself.

Thank you for providing such a concrete image of what it means to truly GAL of ones own!