Being grateful for normalcy.......................

[brandnewday]

So what's the trick? Surely you were on the board as others were telling you: "work on yourself!" Surely you heard the messages and you maybe even thought you were working on yourself. But you didn't really work on yourself until later. So what was the tipping point? How do you break on through to the other side? What's the trick?

You are so funny...the trick?

I think it had alot to do with me and making a choice to live my life and not just exist.

I think the changes we make have to be real and one can only fake it for so long. I knew that as much as I tried to change, it wasn't really happening because inside, I was doing it for the wrong reasons.

I desperately wanted to save my Marriage at any cost and basically faked alot of it in the begining. I kept hoping that if my Husband could see the new me, then he would change his mind and come home.

I see the same thing from other posters also. They totally regress or backslide when something happens and all of the work they have supposedly been doing on themselves dissapears after one major spew session.

After playing games for so long, and seeing that nothing was working, I "got real" with God.

I saw myself in the mirror and saw all of the ugliness and the anger and the bitterness.

These were my issues, things that had nothing to do with my Husband, but did help cause the demise of my Marriage.

My Husband had a MLC and it was absolutely awful. I know that there are tons of threads about it, but basically he snapped when his Dad passed away. To me, it seemed as though he changed overnight.

I heard every single one of the typical MLCBS lines. I think he actually wrote the script! BUT...I also learned from many of the wise posters here, that there was some truth to his words. I had neglected him and paid more attention to the children. I had made myself more available to my friends then my Husband. I did not make him feel loved as much as I should have.

When he moved out of the family home I finally had the space I needed to actually work on my own issues. I also had an amazing therapist and did EMDR therapy.

I personally could not have survived his crisis had he stayed in the home, even though I thought I could at the time. I was devastated when he moved 3000 miles away and I was finally all alone with the kids, the bills and the house.

I was a late bloomer. It took me about 18 months from the bomb to truly learn how to detach. It was so hard for me. As I posted before, I made my Husband my reason for living and lost total perpective of who I was. I lost all control and had a complete breakdown.

I wanted to be happy again, I was so tired of watching life pass me by and so I made the decision to take one day at a time. Baby steps, for me, not the Marriage.

I also knew that my Husband may never come back again because so much damage had been done to our family and because he lived so far away, his pride may keep him away.

I had to become the person I was meant to be, the Woman God designed me to be. That meant going back to the begining and not trying to please anyone but God and myself.

My Husband and I began to talk more, although it was on the phone. He noticed the difference in me, just by my attitude and the tone of my voice.

He was gone for 2 1/2 years, and I only saw him for a total of 12 days during that time. I tell you this because so many LBS believe that if they do not see their WAS regularly or talk to them often, that things can't change in their Marriage.

It is true, NOT every single Marriage will be saved, but you will definately save yourself and become a better "you" IF the changes you make are real and are doing them for the "right" reasons.