Lin, I agree with a lot of what you said, but I have to say that one of the things I don't think you guys are seeing is that I have made some HUGE changes from where I was at both before this whole thing blew up, right when it blew up, up until now. I caught myself this morning beating myself up for repeating, as you say, some of the same things that I know are wrong. But, then I thought to myself, "you know what? I HAVE grown a lot as a person already from this and learned a lot, and I HAVE made some really hard changes for ME to make." Everyone's journey here is different; everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. I am open to and extremely grateful for all of the wisdom and advice you all pass on to me, and I honestly want you to keep it coming. At the same time, none of you are ME. I may have some completely different things to go through in my journey than you did, and I may do some things BETTER than some of you did. I guess what I'm trying to say is to please not judge me based on how YOU would do things. I may not be as strong as a lot of you and may have more challenges in particular areas than you did, etc. BUT I AM TRYING! Why do you think I keep posting here and asking for you guys' help and telling you just about every single move I make, including most all of my screw-ups? Do I enjoy getting hit with 2X4's? Not so much. Why would I tell you guys all of the ways that I mess up other than to continue to push myself to do better and to learn from this? I spend so much time every single day writing these long posts to you all both asking for advice and encouragement and telling you ways I've messed up and also the successes I've had. AND I AM SO VERY GRATEFUL that you guys take so much time to always be there for me and respond and continue to push me. My point is that it's not particularly fun to get tough love, and if I didn't want to keep fighting for this, I certainly wouldn't be continuing to come back here and tell you all of my mistakes when I know I'm going to get beat up for it. Your tough love keeps me fighting, and I appreciate that so much.
At the same time, I have made a lot of changes that have been very challenging for ME personally. Would they have been challenging for you guys? Maybe not. But I'm asking you to not judge me based on YOUR strengths. While I have made some real progress in my actions and things I have done, it's ironic that it's rare to hear praises from you for what I HAVE DONE RIGHT! For instance, rather than at least telling me that it was good that I worked towards putting up some boundaries for H regarding the unprotected sex and coming home, etc., WHICH WAS VERY HARD FOR ME PERSONALLY TO DO, I get torn apart for not saying it the right way or even bringing it up at all! And for me to go days without contacting H except for maybe an e-mail or a voicemail message absolutely kills me - but instead of giving me some encouragement for what I HAVE done, I get ripped apart for not doing it long enough or for having a backslide and falling into an old pattern...
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I respect you all so much, but it's hard to have you mostly point out all of the negatives in what I've done wrong and not see the positives in what I've done, too. It's nice to be encouraged for the GOOD things once in a while as well. And, not being in my shoes, you can never know how hard some of the things I HAVE done well have been for me, just as I will never be able to know how hard some of the things you all personally experienced in your own situations were for you. As I said, there very well may be things that I have done very well that some of you might have had a real hard time with. If we were all the same and were able to deal with things perfectly and had all of the same strengths and all respected ourselves perfectly, etc., etc., this would be a pretty boring and uneventful world I guess, wouldn't it?
And it has gone widely unspoken that H also has some changes to make in our R and has made some very big mistakes. Yes, I know what we are to learn from Michele and others is that changes that we make in ourselves can cause changes in others. I get that, and I want you to continue to push me to make changes in myself. And I know and have stated many times that I take fullr responsibility for the contributions that I made to this whole mess happening. I feel HORRIBLE about it and hope that someday I will be able to forgive myself for it. I feel so bad that I put H through what I did and that we have found ourselves in this mess. My personality is such that I am overly apologetic and feel very strong emotions of sadness and despair whenever I feel like I have made a mistake, especially when I know it did or may have caused someone else to hurt. That absolutely kills me inside. I would take on the hurt ten-fold myself if I could shelter someone else from hurting. Have the things I've done caused H to hurt? Absolutely. Do I know what I need to do to help with his hurt? In part. Even so, is it incredibly difficult for me to make so many changes that are tearing ME apart in order to give him his space and make him happy? It kills me. I feel like I'm being expected to make all of the sacrifices, and although that's my personality to do so, there are a lot of things that I need to do that are way out of my comfort zone and that are pushing me to grow harder than I've ever been pushed before. And let's not forget that MY H IS SLEEPING WITH OW! That tends to weigh very heavily on one's mind and make it a lot more difficult to do the right things and to grow as a person than it might be if they were not. Granted, it would not push us to grow in many of the ways we may need to, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't make it horribly difficult to endure. To ask me, a person who expresses my emotions honestly, fully, and openly to a fault sometimes (as you know), to not ever talk to H about the R/M/OW is like asking me to quit breathing sometimes. It goes completely against who I am as a person. AND I have made enormous strides in this area, whether you see it or not or whether it's how you would do it or not. I am going to backslide in this arena, because this particular aspect of DBing is a HUGE fight for me because of who I am.
Sorry for going off on a tangent here. I was just thinking earlier today when I was getting down on myself that I truly have come a really long way on this journey and that I need to recognize that and use that as a source of strength in conjunction to using your tough love as a means to kick me in the butt and make me keep fighting to CONTINUE on this journey that I know I still have so much more to experience and learn from. Point is, I wouldn't be here if I didn't care enough to keep pushing myself and to want to learn everything I can from this, regardless of the mistakes that I make and whether I am doing it as quickly as you think I should be. I realize that the clock is ticking and that there may be a point in time where I've made one too many mistakes. But I am very proud of myself for how far I've made it already, and I'm going to keep fighting to keep continuing to grow. I do care enough to want to save my M, or I wouldn't be here. Just because I am not able to implement EVERYTHING I need to do with the blink of an eye doesn't mean I haven't made some huge changes. And I'm going to continue to fall down and have to keep fighting some more things that are really difficult for me. BUT I'M HERE AND I WANT TO DO IT! If it were as easy as reading something and then just saying "well, okay, well that's easy. I'll just stop having any unnecessary contact with my H, I'll not snoop whatsoever anymore, I'll never bring up our R/M, I'll never ask him about the OW, I'll never get emotional in front of him again and never cry in front of him, I'll completely cut off communications with his family, I won't respond to him when he wants to make love to me, I will never do anything again that appears clingy, etc., etc." then nobody would be on this board, would they? Michele's advice is very easy to understand, but implementing it is another story. Every single person is going to be able to do what needs to be done at their own speed depending on their strengths, their personality, their desire to better themselves, their character, their emotions, etc., etc. As I've said before, sometimes it feels like you think there is just this switch that I'm supposed to figure out how to turn on that makes me just STOP doing anti-DBing things. I wish that it were that easy for me. I recognize when I mess up, and that's half the battle. For me to act in positive ways to work on implementing strategies to put myself in a better place, both with myself and my H and my M may take longer than you think it should. AND I have already made enormous strides for ME. I have a long way to go, and I get that, but I keep coming back here and keep reading Michele's book and keep pushing myself out of my own personal comfort zone. I'm not going to be perfect, but I am committed to continuing to pick myself back up and keep fighting for my H and my M, no matter what.
Okay. Off of my soapbox now. I hope none of you will be offended by reading what I've written. That certainly is not my intention. Maybe it's part of me getting stronger and standing up for myself, and maybe that's a good thing. I just want you to recognize that behind all of my mistakes and backslides I have done a lot of good things as well. If I hadn't been at least moving forward in some positive ways, I have to believe that my H would have filed for D and been out the door by now. He has not completely closed the door on us. In fact, his actions lately have been quite the opposite, and I feel good about that, even if you guys don't. And during the midst of him doing some very positive things, I have continued to push myself to keep distancing myself from him, to set some boundaries (though not perfectly done), to let a phone call from him go to voicemail as I feel my heart ripping out of my chest. It is EXTREMELY hard for me when I feel him coming closer to me in some ways to keep pushing him away. And I'm going to keep working at it and keep up the fight. And I'm going to win this fight. I know that in my heart, and maybe that is why I'm so impatient.
Okay. Hopefully I haven't made you all angry and cause you to not post anymore... I understand and recognize that it's human nature to remember and point out the flaws in people or the things that go wrong versus to preach praises about the things that people do right. I get that. And I WANT you to continue exactly as you are as far as beating me over the head with the errors of my ways. I'm strong enough to take it, I want to hear it, and it's helping me to get stronger. Just maybe give me some credit on occasion where credit is due, okay? I think a combination of tough love and kudos for getting things right sometimes is just what I need. Can I ask that of you?
