Veronica, Thanks for your thoughts and for the reality check...in a sense, I feel like you're sharing with me exactly what you and Kalni have just been discussing on your thread - that moving forward doesn't mean that we stop monitoring and checking ourselves - and making sure that we're moving forward with a good measure of honesty.
Is love causing me to hold on? Holding on to hope? No...that's not it. It's just an awareness of the fact that I loved her in a very real way for me - it may have been unhealthy - but it was genuine and it was the best I had to offer until I learned to understand more about love over the last few months.
I am moving forward and letting go - and still know that I love her - and much of the sadness just comes from the pain of knowing that over the last few months I have begun a journey of learning and self-improvement that will stay with me throughout my life - and when I started here, I wanted to have that journey bring me back to B - so that we could continue to grow together. I remember telling her once, that we could improve our marriage if we both decided to improve ourselves - those words were met with skepticism and anger - and an assertion that she knew what had to change in me and that nothing had to change in her...what's changed over the last few months is that I no longer think of any of my changes and growth in terms of her - rather - I think of these changes in terms of what will offer me a more fulfilling life in the present - and how that more fulfilled present can build into a brighter future.
Yes, my mind knows that B is unhealthy for me...as I'm packing up boxes and working through the reality of dismantling our life - I know that I'll feel a lot of emotions - many of which were just waiting to surface - and I'm going to give myself the time and space to feel those emotions - since there is much to mourn at the end of my marriage. Unlike B, I do manage to remember the good things we shared and the happy moments we had - I just recognize them for what they were - and won't allow myself to hold on to those good memories as though everything else were fine before - because things were not fine.
While I have posted over the months about how abusive she could be with her words...I've not often gone into the other things she would do...how she almost bit through my lip once and shocked me into tears, how she threw plates and bowls in our home, how I would actually worry sometimes about sitting with my back toward her...worried that she would attack me...those memories are all in me as well...and they tell me that this was not a good relationship for me - since it trapped me, over and over, in trying to figure out why someone could love me and want to harm me - when what I should have been doing was looking into myself for what was missing - and finding a healthier way to feel complete - without the need to feel harmed with love...
I know that I'll be okay...I also just know that I've got a lot of sadness to work through still...
