Divorced, but 'still hopeful' to reconcile.

[still hopeful]

JOURNALING-

Saw XW this PM for a moment. Pleasant short conversation. Nothing to convey. I continue to emotionally detach from my 'drug of choice', my XW. It's true, the detaching isn't an action, it's simply an evolving feeling (for me any way) from behaviorally disengaging. My disengaging is allowing me to place less importance on XW and what she does or doesn't do, allowing me the freedom to stop placing expectations on her, and subsequently being angry with her. As frank_D told me, my NOT letting her go makes me a ****! He was right. I see that now. I also see that my XW and I will never reconcile unless I let go. By letting go, XW at least has the opportunity to see the reality of D and what she has made of her personal life. I realize that she may decide that she is happy with her choices. That's her business and I have to be fine with that. I choose to be happy. I also realize that she may take a long, hard look at her personal life today and what she sacrificed to have her life the way it is now, and decide that she gave up too much to have a life of running and searching instead. At this point, she may decide to approach me to ask me about the possibility of working on reconciling. I have to be fine with that too. I choose to be happy. This last possibility is a scary proposition. I have been working on improving myself for 3 years. The prospect of beginning to work on reconciliation with someone who hasn't changed one bit since we split is anxiety provoking.

Well, that's a bridge to cross later, huh? I do know that playing the scenario over in my mind, along with my answer, will help me to to respond as though I was expecting XW's change of heart and allow me to deliver my answer in a lucid, calm, thoughtful way. I do believe that I will want to work on reconciling with XW despite all of my hurt, but I have heard of some DBers who chose to 'date' their EX for a considerable period of time out of the fear of being hurt again, plus allowing enough time to pass to see if their EX will display consistent behavior over time to engender their trust.

I'll see soon enough. Right now I am focused on me and NOT on her whims. As frank_D told me when my sitch began, as long as I continue improving myself, she will eventually want to be more a part of my world and THEN I will have the opportunity to decide if she will 'add' to my life or 'subtract' from it like she has in the past.