Divorced, but 'still hopeful' to reconcile.

[still hopeful]

Disengaging from my 'old' XW is the most difficult portion of working towards my ultimate objective of achieving the possibility of reconciling with my 'new and improved' XW should four critical things occur: (1) she wants to regain what she gave up, specifically her family and her husband, (2) she recognizes problems in her behavior and values and she vows to either work on resolving her issues or vows to find out how best to work on her issues and demands the same of me,(3) she actually does the work and the changing to make the reconciliation efforts successful and demands the same of me, and (4) she fully commits to making the marriage work by giving and demanding honesty, integrity and regular communication.

I know that I cannot reconcile with XW as she was. By the same token, I did not deserve to reconcile the way I was either. I see my issues. I am working on them and as I see new ones, I work on those too. I love my XW and I want the best for me and her, either together or separate, but hopefully together as new and improved individuals in a new and improved with the resulting synergy working in our favor to make our original dreams for our M our reality.

Regardless, for me, disengaging is STEP ONE and I am three years behind in taking it. My friend flicka is my Jiminy Cricket here, reminding me that all of my noise making and belly-aching is a useless waste of energy because it is not focused on healing me and protecting my children better from situations that they didn't ask to have brought upon them. Unfortunately, spewing is how I think, how I sort, how I figure my 'things' out and ultimately understand. I know it looks like time wasting to some, but in the end, I do make my way to the correct decision and correct path, albeit sometimes way later than I would often like.

For my fighting spouses, ex- spouses, and STBX spouses I salute you. The successful and veteran DBers here keep giving the same advice...to disengage. I see the goal. I am making my way to the goal, but my path often looks like I don't know what I am doing because I don't. I 'auto-correct' on the fly and my path to MY goal looks like a zig-zagging mess, and it feels that way too, but I do have a goal and I will move forward, either with my 'new and improved' XW or alone. Either way, though, I am moving forward, gaining new experiences on which actions (and NON-actions) work and which ones don't, storing the productive ones and discarding the counterproductive ones immediately.

Bear with me here, and I will bear with you. I'll keep posting my story, my successes and failures in disengaging, my successes in getting a meaningful single (for the time being) life. I hope that my successes and failures will provide both inspiration for you and warnings to you that will make a positive difference in your journey.

Letting Go Tom
JUST DO IT!