Totally Lost after 23 years

[stella_k]

I forgot to mention in my "ranting" after MC, that when we walked out the door, W said a few nice things, wanted to hug me, but I walked away. That was my "good for me" piece, no physical touch - that was so tough, I just kept my hands in my pockets and walked away, hoped in my car and cried for 5 minutes and drove home.

CBK, I'm not so great in giving advice, so please take my opinion with a grain of salt.

ok, here goes.

I think you should have let her hug you when she wanted to. You are going to be friends for a while, remember? And you are going to validate HER feelings. Now walking away when she was saying nice things and tried to give you a hug may have left her feeling insecure. As a friend you have to try and do the opposite , you must create "a place of solitude and safety" for your W and be the rock for her (stole it from someone else's post, so true!). AND - it doesn't sound like that was a "good for you" piece after all.

Your GALing - how about working out? Sorry if you have mentioned it somewhere on your thread already, I didn't see it. Gym was and still is very big for me. You can meet new people there AND feel good about yourself.

Here I have copypasted a post from SvenTheRed (I have a problem with creating links recently), found it on the old thread, "Advice from those in Piecing". I love that post! I hope you will find it helpful too.


"I don't know where to start, so I'll just roll out a couple ideas and things that worked for me. The story is too long to do it justice in one post.

I should also note that it doesn't work for everybody - as much as we'd love it to. A lot of what I did worked, ever so slowly and with a fair amount of luck.

First off, what really made the difference for me was to stop letting fear rule my life. Fear of what post-D life would be like. Fear of what my kids, family, friends would think of me. FEAR - ever paralyzing. When I let that go, and started to LIVE, BREATHE, as if there was plenty of life to live, for me was out there it was a huge weight off my shoulders. And with that I was able to focus again on the things I needed to do as a MAN, Father, son, brother, friend, etc. It was then that I GAL'd and with that melted the FEAR on my AWAW's heart that I would again hurt her or make her feel outcast. It took a long time. So secondly, is patience.

One must also remember (for those where the WAS is having an affair) that it is simply an escape. They are running from a what they perceive as a miserable place. Reality is the OP is not the solution - so try and not let them get under your skin. The work of the day is making yourself a better, changed person. If you are a man, walk with dignity and strength. If you are a woman, have compassion for your WAH and his confusion. Either way, I can confirm that nagging, begging, pleading, or whatever doesn't work. Be strong, for yourself.

With that, work on yourself. Get to the gym, join a club, whatever. Heck, I totally overhauled my group of friends, lost 25 lbs, joined the Fire Department.

When it comes right down to it, all I did was to make myself the "better" option for my W. I KNOW I became a different person from the one my W married. And truth be known, I didn't much like that guy (the one I'd become). A wuss. Ick. So I took my life back, for me. Changed it. A direct quote from my W from a couple months back as we were painting our kitchen together. "You know, you've CHANGED. I mean really changed." This coming at a time when I had just lost my job and we had a lot of uncertainty coming at us. I'll tell you, I have changed, but I did it for me. A nice circumstance of that is that my marraige was saved. But note, it was a circumstance, NOT the goal.

I'll leave it with a couple more thoughts. First, read as much as you can - Michelle's other works (CYL is great), or other things - Mars/Venus is great stuff, For Men Only or For Women Only, and for the men specifically, a quick and easy read is Hold On To Your N.U.T.s. But secondly, don't try and wrap any method 100% around your situation. There are similarities, but we should always delight in our differences. Use advice as a guide but don't lose yourself in it.


I thought I'd finish with a recap of the journey I have been on..."