It is so hard to tell. I guess you have to know, and find, your own limitations. There are many people here who can do the Act As If thing. Maybe because of my codependency, I just couldn't. I needed to be broken, to actually get to the point where I don't care anywhere near the level that I did. I was afraid to get to this place, where I may not ever want him back at all. Letting go is the hardest thing that codependent people ever have to face, and will be a daily focus for me for the remainder of my life, I think.
I always picture my H leaving the door open when he pees. Or trimming his nose hair. It wasn't until he left that he started to notice and chop through the unibrow he usual sported unless I reminded him. The hard core that I remember has been covered with a layer of softness around his middle and chest, overlapping pants that he still swears is his size. I wonder if he farts and belches in front of her as much--like he didn't even know it happened. If he orders the porn when she isn't there (he was doing that while he was still sleeping with both of us!).
She can have that version. With all of his aches and pains, bad back and wrist, crankiness and hot temper, his sitting for hours in front of the tv... maybe he did have to leave to become a better person. Who knows at this point? Maybe this is his chance to grow, if and when he ever steps up to the plate. Maybe this is who he wanted to be all along.
My H, the man I loved, was that young boy at 15, leaning out the truck window to yell he would call me tomorrow--and he did. The one who sang to me "First Time" by Styx and "Glory of Love". The boy I made love to in every place possible as a teen--some of it stays with me to today, like the warm Feb day in a clearning in the woods...The man who reached out our puppy to me on our honeymoon and said "This is the one." The man who silently cried while I was slipping into a coma just before our son was born, scared at what he could loose. The man who held me for weeks after my father died, although we were both too heartbroken to be intimate--we were just there for each other. The man who sat by my side for 8 hours during our D's skull surgery, never letting go of my hand.
Nothing can take those things away from me. Those are mine, those memories and that love. It might not continue into a future, but I will always have that man in my heart. He doesn't exist anymore but in my heart. He has been gone for a long time, now; longer than I ever thought was possible. He is a ghost of himself.
It is part of acceptance. Hold onto the good as memories to treasure, forgive the bad that we can't go back and do over, and move on.
