DONNA--finding herself #15

[mkultra]

Oh, I know Donna. I just meant that he may get jealous and see this differently, or not. I have also been advised to file for legal seperation but I get paralyzed by indecision. What made you decide to do it or agree to it. Was it the H constant nagging or were you just sick of it?

He thinks your making it hard? Damn, you were making it easier for him to do the right thing. The only thing you were making hard was letting go of a good woman.

I agree that February was not that long ago for someone you have known most of your life and who you will have to know the rest of your life. Gimme a break. He talks like a child who is playing house.

I like what you added. Hope. I bet that shot through him. Most people act bitter in that arena and you were hopeful. That's awesome.

[NNP1965]

This is just my opinion:

It is not okay for a married person to date. Period, under any circumstances. It is not okay for the WAS and it is not okay for the LBS.

Just because the WAS does it, does not make it right for the LBS to do it.

Besides, why would you want to get one more person involved? Say you met someone that you cared about, then you also have his feelings to consider if your H ever does decide the marriage is important to him.

[NNP1965]

Donna, you did good yesterday. Good job staying strong in this difficult situation.

[oldtimer]

Donna,

I'm so glad the LEGAL and BUSINESS matters went well for you. That must be a relief and you deserve to have that relief.

As for the rest, well, I think you pretty much know what I'd say. If you want me to make it explicit, lemme know. Otherwise, you already know.

[Reincarnated]

Yeah, I already know...

[oldtimer]

So hard to bite tongue

[Reincarnated]

I just got back from my IC appt. It was a hard one, as I was reeling more than expected (but she expected it--hell, a court date with him after only 6 full weeks out of the house!)

I still want to find the answers somewhere on how to keep this from happening, or becoming so permanent. I know that the only chance is to let go--give time a chance, focus on ME. Focusing on me will be to save my life, and a positive outcome in either direction is possible.

We talked about my reluctance to let go. IC started to broach the suject, but she remembers back to my family of origin. He was more to me than a spouse. He also became my pseudo-parent, as I was not cared for like that as a child (had to fair for myself, then start raising my sis at 10). He promised to take care of me, always fight for me and be my hero. She said, his flaw.

I think that, as I have found with this whole process, I can't push my ways through. But I have to get back in my head when I am around him. I can at least fake-it-until-I-make-it if I stay in my head, business and kids...but around him, even over the phone, my broken heart wants to fix it, influence his choices, make him wake-up...I don't understand how he walked away from so much.

IC said that, listening to all of my relays of what he says, that he is done and has moved on. She said that she still can't predict what the future may be, but right now, he is not available to me any longer. I cried, saying I don't want it to be done. I so don't. She said only time will bring you there, that and no conact/talking. My head knows this, but my heart wants to rebel, because I miss him so--his smell, the sound of his heartbeat, the way I felt in his arms...
Anything looking future involves him. I have to rearrange my dreams, or pull back completely and not look past tomorrow (that is what he has done to deal).

I gave IC my copy of Uncoupling. Maybe she can find something in there. But I doubt it at this point. It reiterated the fact that the WAS can't begin to see the positives that were always there in the old R until you show him that you have moved on. But it also might be too late--it is a matter of timing. I am scared.

What if I pushed for so long that he is already past the point of no return?

How do I keep getting through without the focus on saving the M?

He complained that I never did anything around the house, leaving it all up to him. Now, I am doing it all out of necessity...and still finding time to GAL. I only wished he had come to me with a truth I could hear earlier.

But he says that none of that matters, now. His feelings have changed. Period.

He has told me before that it was 2/10 that he "fell out of love with me--felt nothing toward me, only guilt for using me sexually--that something died inside him that night."

He also "fell in love" with CW by the end of April (latest, since that is the first documented trip away they had for a weekend for sex--when did he first kiss her? He can't tell me).

How do you move on so quickly after 21 years?

IC said she wanted me to take my time answering, first from the heart and then the head: Do I think that he is done in our M/R? Both my heart and head said no...I asked her what she thought.

She said, based on all he has said, that he is done, has made a decision and turned a corner, moved on.
She said that this is where he is now. NO one can predict how this will all pan out in the end. But I have to save myself, because holding onto a relationship that one doesn't want is self-destructive.

I never knew that a human could be in this deep level of pain in life, esecially with how long I have been doing this. I feel like a fool for holding on for so long...kept asking C how I could fix this, and she tells me that I've done all I can do. More of the same will only drive him further.

Let go (act it at first if it isn't natural).
No phone calls.
No contact at all.
Hsve a friend meet him to pick-up/drop-off kids for a time.
Use email.
Take focus off him and what he does/doesn't do and put it on me.
Eat more normally and drink more water.
Become more active--dance, yoga, kickboxing, treadmill, SOMETHING--this week.

Read: Becoming Unafraid, get Boundaries and Nikki's pics from store or Amazon, CT Divorce Law handbook recommended by Educator (to look through in 2 weeks).


This weekend, I have the kids Fri--Mon nights, and we are going down to LI to FINALLY get to the ocean beaches. Camping on Sunday night all the way out East.

[Reincarnated]

OK, OT, sock it to me.

Let me see if I can guess, though. Fill in the blanks.

* More persuing behavior. (It's like, since I don't talk with him at all anymore, that it gets all bottled up now and I explode on him--it is all he has seen the last 4 times (more?) that I have seen him).

* He said that I don't take how he feels into account, only how I feel.

* He keeps asking me to let him go.

* He has said that he won't be talked into anything.

* I asked if he thought that part of this might be that he can't see a way back from where he has gone--he told me to stop trying to analyze him.

OK, what did I miss?

I posted the story above of the WAS getting the space they needed only through a D. I think I have done this, as well. Not sure if the 3 month cooling-off period will be enough for him to feel the time and space. But there is no other option at this point.

It took him only about a month to decide that he was really done with us (no feeling left at all, not in love) to falling in love with another woman.

I know that nothing can happen while he is with her. I don't think there is enough time here (by 11/19) for that sitch to blow up. So, looks like I will have to see how long I can hold on (hold on and let go at the same time? Let go to hang on? Let go to make room for the new? Urgh..).

***
On a side note, H told me that CW will be bringing her D to a different bus stop in the AM to avoid confrontation. I just said fine. I told him to tell CW that I am never speaking to her or her H again after what happened at court (IC is convinced the CW was the one who made this up to destroy even more). He said he handled it--how? He said he doesn't want to hear anything that CW's H says. Whatever, he won't be able to say anything because there won't even be the polite sentence or two anymore. Too bad, I know he is hurting, but I just can't risk it.
One of them lied (who could it have been?), and it almost cost me the house if H didn't return to his word on the $$ issue.
(She showed up in her giant truck to pick her D up, anyway, with all of her kids in the car (so I couldn't make a scene? who knows...). I pretended that she was completely invisible, talking to all of the other moms waiting, and even her other kids. She no longer exists in my world. Others expressed surprise that she could even show her face and act normal, with no remorse. I know the answer to that.

I hope H sees this some day. But I know it won't be from me pointing it out.

***
Always trying to end on a good note:
Just got off the phone with my student teacher. She sounds very good, and I am excited to have another set of hands in the classroom, teaching a completely new level of learner :0)

I really do love my career. And I have missed all of my kids (over 600 of them!)

[Reincarnated]

mk--Sorry I missed answering your Q:

I asked him to move out (I thought a temp sep) because I was going through cycles of hope that would crash upon a word or act that brought me back to his reality of the sitch, and each down-turn brought me closer to suicide every time. I might have ended up hospitalized...or dead, if he didn't leave. He had convinced me that he was telling me all of the truth, blaming me for the breakup in the M, when he had already started an affair.

When the affair was discovered, it was only 2 days before he was going to leave, anyway--and I threw the rest of his crap in the driveway. His apt was already rented. I filed the legal sep the next day, realizing that I would now have to contend with a 3rd party involved who had anything BUT my and my kids' best interest at heart. It was to protect us from her. Read above, and it is lucky that I did.

We'll see how much more she has wormed her way into his head by the final hearing.

[NikB]

Donna - I'm sorry that you're so sad. My heart's breaking for you, too. But you'll get through, you're sounding so much better.

About those books, don't order the Boundaries ones through Amazon right now... they're backordered and mine have been delayed AGAIN until the end of September.