Tatoo day is today, So i'll let ya know tommorrow how it felt. I'll take a pic and try to post it here.
I really have to get a new thread of my own but still in the air where to post. I do think i will start posting here. Just waiting until the 23rd as i feel the need to check the spot.
JAK
You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when, you can only decide how you're going to live now. ~Joan Baez
I can't wait to see a photo. If you want to 'chat' directly anytime I can send you my email address. I am in the same predicament about starting a new thread. Also I really feel close to those guys like Husband, Theo, Delia, Yoyo, Lonely olive etc...
Hope it doesn't hurt to much when you get the tattoo done.... Saffie
Saffie me 46 H 46 M in 1986 D20,D18,S16,D13 H's A 01/05 to 07/06 H recommitted to M 07/06 renewed vows 09/06 Going from strength to strength
Okay, not a lot of time to post this morning because I still need to pack! But, here are some great strategies...pick and choose among them, there's no "right" way to use them.
1. In My Control/Out of My Control chart
About a given situation, list the things you can control in one column and the things you can't control in the other. Either fold the list to hide the out of my control stuff or tear it and throw it away. Too often we put our energy into things outside of our control (like our H's feelings about OW, his texting, etc.) instead of focusing on what's in our control--our thoughts, our feelings, our actions. This is a good one to help you detach from a particular situation and can be used as a vehicle for problem solving for YOU.
2. Gratitude journaling--Every morning or evening, carve out 10-15 minutes just to write down all the things you are grateful for in your life. Some days are harder than others, but it's amazing how it helps you refocus on the positives in your life instead of the negatives.
3. Where am I? Where do I want to be? journaling--Take a particular situation in your life and assess. For example, you might list where you are with your feelings about OW, and then write about how you want it to be. It's kind of like outlining your beginning and ending destinations. I wrote about how I wanted to have weeks at a time where I didn't think about her, and that if I saw her at a function or out somewhere, I could be pleasant and not at all threatened by her. Lots of other stuff too.
4. Love letter to yourself--Write yourself a love letter and keep it with you all the time. Read it frequently, especially when you start feeling down or frustrated or start running your OW story in your head.
5. Rewrite your story--this was HUGE for me. I essentially took all of the events post-bomb and wrote the happy side of that experience. If not for H dropping the bomb and having feelings for OW, I wouldn't be where I am today in terms of my M or how strong and smart I've grown. When the old story comes up in my head, I just remind myself of the positive story.
6. Pivotal questions journal exercise--When you find yourself in a situation where you feel treated badly or unfairly, ask yourself the following questions:
*If there was something that I was gaining from this situation, what might it be? (the payoff) *Why am I allowing this person or situation to victimize me? *How can I change my perception of this event so that I don't feel victimized? *I have choices: Do I need to walk away? Do I need to change the context in which I view the situation? etc.
Those are just a few strategies...but I've done a lot of work around what's in my control and out of my control, and it always helps me refocus. I can choose to think about and hold onto OW, or I can let her go and think about something else. I can put my energy on holding onto the past, or I can put it on here and now where I have a chance to make things different in my M.
Hope these help!
SD
Me: 40 H: 43 H had EA from 2/06-9/06 Bomb 5/06 Piecing since 9/2006 3/2008: Boundary setting 7/2009: Boundary crossing~dropped my own bomb. 8/2010: Marriage finally on track!
I would love your e-mail address. I too feel close to a lot of the people on this board like H, CL, TAl and others But we can keep in touch with them also.
JAK
You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when, you can only decide how you're going to live now. ~Joan Baez
Me 35, H 38; Together 13.5 yrs, M 7 Bomb 1 10/07/06 Sep'd 1/14/07 - 4/15 Piecing: 4/07 - 9/07 Bomb 3 10/11/07: Never loved you, let's separate 2/08 slowly improving 7/08 Piecing (7/25/08 rings back on!!) Current thread
Thanks SD. Great ideas. I particularly like #6. I will try that at the next opportunity.
Just journaling. Probably had the last relaxing weekend of the summer as there was no sports activity for the kids. Just worked around the house, hung with the kids, went out to dinner with a new friend, another mom from football/baseball.
At dinner with the friend, she started talking about OW. Their sons got together over the summer to play/have a sleepover. I did not ask, the friend just started talking about it; she probably thought it was good conversation as all our boys played baseball together over the summer. I just wanted to say stop talking about OW, I have no interest in her and I don't want to know. As I am thinking about how to say this without begging the question, why?, my friend proceeds to tell me that OW has been dating a guy named X, my H's name, for about a year. I almost lost my dinner on the table. She then corrects herself and says, Y (a derivation of H's name)from another town. Luckily I was able to turn the conversation elsewhere.
So last night H asked me how things went at dinner. At the sametime I was out with the friend, her H and her son went to my house to hang with H and the kids and watch the preseason Pats game. H then tells me something personal that the friend's H told him. We got to talking and I blurted out what happened. H was very nice and reassuring.
Later after the kids were in bed, H came down and sat at the kitchen table with me and he started to ask a bunch of questions about what I thought about OW and such. He feels badly that I am stuck on the OW thing and he is the cause of it. I try to tell him that at this point I know that it is me that can't get this out of my head, not because I don't trust him or that I think that he doesn't want me/us, but for some other reason that I have not yet uncovered. I want to be able to turn off the OW, to not care if her name is brought up, etc... I told him how I cringe when I hear other people say how nice she is. Nice girls don't get involved with married men.
H then went on to explain in his way (unrelated examples that try to relate a point) about how he wasn't in love with her, but that he was looking for that love that he had lost with us. H then verbalized something that I had said to him a while ago that I don't know where we would be if the bomb hadn't dropped. H believes that things with OW were already over when I found out about it so he is struggling with the question of where would we be if I had not read that email. Yet he knows that the fact that I did find the email and thus I know what he thought/felt about her at the time, is causing me continued grief and it is what is keeping us from moving forward.
Almost a catch-22 type of thing. H told me that he doesn't have the energy to fight to help me get over this. I know this is my problem to solve; that it is in my head. H still is adamant that he did nothing wrong and I said that maybe that is part of my problem in not being able to get over it. I am not looking for him to tell me everything he did (I do not want to know), but part of me is looking for H to admit that his feelings for OW at the time were not right. I have fessed up to my failures in the M and how it got to where it did, but H says how he tried to tell me how he felt over and over.
I heard 'you're not in love with me' which I blew off because I knew I loved him. I just didn't realize that i wasn't showing him that i loved him in the way that he needed/wanted.
sorry, I am rambling. No point to this rant. Just trying to figure out how to purge OW as H says that he can't help and other people continually bring her into my head. I know I don't want her there.
Me: 41 H: 42 Married: 13Y, together 24 Kids: S11, S9, D6 Bomb: 7/11/06, now piecing
Care, If any of SD's suggestions don't work, and the thoughts of OW remain intrusive and persistent you might want to look into EMDR therapy.
It's sort of like hypnosis, except you don't go into a trance. It's basically a way of accessing the thoughts in a way that can't be done at the conscious level.
A mental health professional has to be certified to perform this procedure.
CL
CL 53 W 54 M 20 yrs. 03'-09' Separation + Old Patterns + GAL 10-14' Piecing
"The Master allows things to happen. She shapes events as they come."
Thanks CL, I'll check into that if the thoughts persist.
After the conversation the other night, H sent me an email the following day. Thought I'd share it here as it provides a little insight into one WAS' head:
Well, I think that part of what I have been trying to explain can help with that. [getting rid of thoughts of OW] You are fixed on OW as a person. when I have been trying to explain that it isn't OW. I have no interest in OW nor did I really. I thought I did but that was more the by product of someone that was being nice to me and expressing an interest. Which, at that time, made me feel good about myself. It seemed like a possible solution to how I was feeling about myself, not a relationship, just an escape from how I was feeling. I don't think I ever viewed a relationship with OW as where I was headed. I think I just simply used it as a means of not thinking any more and, perhaps, that is why it never led anywhere. It was actively very confusing to me. Despite knowing and, as a result, being done with trying to save you and I. it was actively very confusing and ripped me apart because to see where that led meant to officially quit on you and I and I couldn't do that despite my brain telling me that I viewed this from every angle and knew that you didn't want me the way I wanted you to want me. Quitting is not easy for me it is an acceptance of failure and that is hard for me. In hindsight, I know 100% it was no one person, it wasn't OW..it was just the idea of feeling good about myself again (or more accurately, not feeling so badly about myself) but even that didn't happen because it only led to more stress. It led to the feeling of what it would mean, which was to officially give up on us. Everything in my brain was telling me that I was the fool for years that you didn't want me. That we were together only because of the kids, that you didn't actually love me how we thought we always loved each other, that you got stuck with me but felt that someone else was actually out there for you. Everything in my brain told me that I deserved to be happy and that provided the opening, if you will, of wondering if there was something between OW and I. What I realized is that while maybe my brain was telling me I was stupid and that I should give up and let you go, my heart couldn't do it. My heart was still with you and always would be. From there it wasn't like what you were telling me to do when you would say "go find out" it was never a go find out, I knew it was you I loved and wanted to be with. The struggle was always whether I could risk going back to the "x" number of years. Do you see? It wasn't OW, it was whether I could risk trying longer to make you see that it me that you love and should spend the rest of your life with. Further, it wasn't that I didn't want to try and make you see, it was being rock bottom and having no place left to fall if I continued trying again only to go back to the same failure. I think that is also what is freaking me out about this "set back". I can't go back to rock bottom. I hate that you feel uncomfortable all the time and know that is my fault. I do not believe that you and she or she and I for that matter, were ever similar enough to really be more than friendly acquaintances but I can tell you with certainty, this was never about OW or any person. I will forever hate myself for the contemplation on giving up on us, despite what I went through and the struggle through "X" number of years. I don't blame myself for being tired and getting to a point of rock-bottom but that it led me to consider giving up enough to open up the thought of second guessing whether I belonged with you or not, I will always hate myself especially if we don't get passed this.
I had to sit and think on this one for a bit. I would read his words but then some portion of the email to OW would pop into my head (as I have the darn thing emblazoned in my memory) and I would start to question things all over again. So yesterday was a bit strange. But last night after we got the kids in bed, I realized that despite where he was and what he said and possibly felt for OW then, I know where he is now.
THAT is what I need to hold onto.
Me: 41 H: 42 Married: 13Y, together 24 Kids: S11, S9, D6 Bomb: 7/11/06, now piecing
