Looking for support from other WAS's

[Bridgestone]

Hi Lost!
I'm going to add more than my 2 cents worth here if that's ok because I think you bring up some points that maybe between the two of us we can clarify for ourselves, each other, and maybe for some LBS who want to know what we're thinking.

Sorry to hi-jack your thread too much!

even if they weren't perfect, at least it was comfortable and safe. But then I think about how good I have felt on my own, making my own friends, paying my own rent - despite everything, there is such a sense of accomplishment for me to be able to make it on my own simply because I never have been on my own before. And then I feel guilty for feeling good about a life without H because I still love him...

What if you could work out a compromise with H that would let you have some of that indpendence (which ones mean the most to you?) and still be married?

Doing the math in your signature, you & H were HS sweethearts? He was older? Made you feel safe, & loved, and he was 'wise'?

I guess I wish that I could still be the person that he thought I was (the "perfect" wife) but in truth, I never was that person. I don't want to be put up on that pedestal anymore - I just want to be me.

Then why do you say you wish you could still be that person? Or do you just wish for the intimacies that person had with H?

And when I'm around him, I feel like I can't be me because he doesn't know that me. It's kind of hard to explain, but I think you get the gist of it...

I do, very much. I called her 'his illusion', she became martyr wife. Being a martyr is not healthy, for anyone! I was (am) scared to share my intimate feelings & thoughts with my H because he is not careful with them.

So I have handed him in the past what we now call 'balls of chit'. He doesn't know me because I didn't let him know me. I didn't let him know me because he was angry, inattentive, callous, brusque, with my feelings & my needs. I helped him build the illusion of martyr wife.

It is up to me to tear that illusion apart in front of his eyes & risk showing him the real me. It took me leaving to have the space, time, and safety to do that. It is getting easier to be 'me' in front of him now for longer and longer time periods. But that anxiety rears it's head when things get intense and yes, the physically ill, that I had for months before leaving, returns. That is becoming less & less (only once in the past month).

He can chose to love me for me or not. His choice, but I'm learning to love me for me. That is what has priority for me now.

Let me ask you a question... what if you showed your H who that new me (your 'me', not my 'me'!) is? And he fell in love with her too?

Glad to have a new friend on the boards. Keep posting, there are some here who have been there done that, others who watched it happen, everyone cares, regardless of LBS or WAS.