I think the key and it is hard for some people is to own your strength and be strong for yourself. It's definitely not an overnight transformation but I read somewhere that if you act the way you want to be for a certain amount of time, you eventually adopt the framework & characteristics you were attempting to act like. I'm sure several months ago when I was trying to act like everything was ok, trying to appear happy, confident, etc. that it probably looked false and was transparent, easy to see through. But constantly learning about yourself, looking into personal development, getting counselling if you are depressed and need some therapy to get you back on your feet, taking care of yourself (going to a gym, getting healthier, stronger, more fit, eating better, shopping for new clothes & shoes, changing your boring old image, getting haircuts regularly,etc.) really goes a long way to building your self-esteem and feeling better about yourself. Once you start to feel better about yourself for real and you're no longer acting, you feel the strength that comes with that improved sense of self. You feel better about yourself because you are a better person and during that process you weren't with your spouse so you realize that in the end, the responsibility was always yours to take care of yourself and make yourself feel happy - that's another great lesson I've learned.
- I was that weak man that professed my undying love to a spouse who treated me horribly, took advantage of me, in the end was only interested in the things I could do for her and the paycheque I brought home. - I was that weak man who put my wife on a pedestal and always felt she was too good for me - I was that weak man who told my wife that I loved her more than myself and was afraid of losing her - I was that weak man that let her walk all over me like a human doormat and accepted that poor treatment as a normal part of marriage (for better or for worse) - I was that weak man who never asked for help because I felt like I didn't deserve help (again poor self-esteem) - I was that weak man who believed that bad things happen to bad people and the reason I was treated so poorly and had such bad luck with my life, my wife and everything in this world was because I was somehow a bad person and I didn't do enough - I was that weak man that believed that being a nice guy meant that you allowed people to treat you poorly and never complained about it - I was that weak man that was too afraid to establish rules & boundaries with how people & my wife should treat me & respect me
I was that weak man.
I'm not a weak man anymore.
I am a strong man. I am becoming stronger everyday. I am strong and I don't have to step on other people to prove it. I prove it by taking care of myself, enjoying my individuality, setting a great example for my children, finally enjoying the work that I do (I was also that guy who complained about his dead end job, crappy hours, poor pay, overtime, etc.), going to the gym, working up a decent sweat, making myself physically stronger & healthier, shopping for myself and buying myself new clothes & items that I once believed that I never deserved... and this is all just the beginning. My friends see it, they see that I'm happy, funny again, they call me regularly (I had friends that called me regularly at the beginning of this mess just to make sure I was ok and wouldn't do something horrible to myself - the best friends a person could ask for, I'll always be thankful for them not giving up on me, my wife is actually jealous of them and has been for years, I never understood why, it's possibly because they treated me well always and she didn't like or respect that).
There are normal everyday things that people take for granted that would freeze me in my tracks: things like taking different routes to work or places that I'm travelling and being safe instead of intrepid, shopping for myself by myself whereas before I would be afraid to step in a store, let alone spend money on myself, spending money on myself and believing that I'm worth it whereas before never ever taking my needs into account.
I can do all of this without being resentful of my wife. It's not to say that I don't get angry every now & then (I'm human, it's normal emotion) but anger doesn't control my life anymore and I can't spend my entire day feeling sad or angry.
It's quite possible that without this marriage separation and how hurtful my wife was to me (and still is occasionally) that I would never have experienced the required stimulus to break out of my shell to become this person.
If you've ever heard the saying that you need to hit rock bottom to determine what direction up is, for me it's very accurate. It's pretty much when I lost everything that I considered important in my life that I discovered that I was the most important thing in my life and need to remember that always so that my children learn to be strong, happy, well rounded individuals with bright futures ahead of them and I can't just do it for them, I have to do it for me first for it to be a genuine lasting change.
I will definitely look for that book on amazon Mike, thanks again for the great reply back and affirming that some of the stuff I'm doing is working (at least I know it's working for me personally) - I've never felt better and more empowered as a human being.
