I so appreciate everyone's support as I take the steps I need to at this point.
Journaling~
I've been taking a break from writing on my own thread, which I think is a good thing. I tend to focus way too much on H and his new R.
I have been busy, but now that work is done for a few months (mostly, just some prep now), I can think of other things and do some projects I've had in mind. However, that's not what I want to write about today.
I have noticed that my focus on H is something that I've had for a very long time. During the beginning of our M, I focused on him almost exclusively, very little on myself. Then came my daughter, and my focus was on her. As she got older, it shifted to her and H, then to my son when he was born. The one constant here was that my husband's actions and feelings were always on my radar, and took on greater importance than my own wants/needs/desires.
It has taken me nearly two years of separation to realize this. I had had inklings before now, but had never really put it all together. One thing that I realized very shortly after H left was that we needed the separation b/c our R at that point had gotten so toxic that we needed time apart to heal as individuals. Sadly, it seems that he has not taken the same route as I have - that of looking inside himself. But that brings me to my more important realization ~ I have no control over that. Obvious, isn't it? Yet so hard for me to grasp.
When I read DR, I realized that I had been looking for my M to improve so that I could be happy, instead of finding my own happiness first. My happiness was entirely dependent on my R with H - a recipe for disaster.
I recreated the M my parents' have, which is not a good one. What I learned from my father is that men are distant, unemotional, easy to anger, and that you have to work hard to get their love and attention. My H was all those things, except w/o the bad temper; instead, he was passive/aggressive.
From my mother, I learned that you have to pussyfoot around your H and make sure he's content, don't rock the boat, blame your misery on your circumstances and play the martyr. Interestingly, my mother has changed and now, at 67, really does have her own life, and is much happier.
My grandparents were very much like that too. The pattern is clear, and it's up to me to break it.
I am certainly not blaming my parents - they gave me that model, but I chose not to ignore the fact that it wasn't working. I continued to tell myself that my H was very different from my father b/c he didn't yell and break things, or call me stupid. But he wasn't different. He ignored me, just like my dad, and put me down in subtler ways. And I let him. I said nothing. In later years, I would occasionally berate him for being hungover, but then would put on the martyr act. Did it work? No. Did I change? No.
I am not blaming myself alone for the demise of my marriage. My H did a lot of things that destroyed it. If I were to put them on a scale, he probably did more, but that does not absolve me of responsibility.
The most important lesson I've learned in all this is that I can only control myself. How many times have we heard that? But how hard it is to really internalize it, to make the changes permanent.
My challenge lately is that I don't like the way my H is treating my children; I think he is breaking down the tenuous R he only began to build after he left. But that is HIS R with HIS children; only he can decide how important it is to him. Sometimes I worry that my children will suffer from having him as a role model, as my brother and I suffered from having our father as a male role model, but I can still model for them what a person of character is, regardless of gender.
If I am honest, I can say that - as long as I'm not thinking of stbx and his gf - I am happy, happier than I have been in a good many years, consistently. It has been a long time, several years, that I have had more than brief glimpses of contentment.
I do not blame H or my M for that; rather, I recognize that I did not have the knowledge or tools to create that for myself. And now I do.
That is the greatest blessing of this trial.
Thank you, God, for knowing what I needed, and for pushing me - kicking and screaming - onto this path.
Love to you all, Nicola
Life isn't about finding yourself; it's about creating yourself My thread: Trusting God's Plan
