Thank you all again for being there for me. See you soon. (I hope! )
What are friends for? We will always be there for you. If you need anything, I'm not too far away. Not good at directions but give me landmarks and I will find you.
Gman Me 40 W 30 kids B 11 B 10 D 8 Been here off and on since 06. PA Confirmed Dec 08.. With God, anything is possible. Do or do not there is no try. Sometimes you have to roll the hard six...
You have forged some bonds in the hellfire you are going through, bonds that serve you and others beyond the flames.
The quality of people, for the most part here, is such that if in a smaller town or closer proximety, I truely feel that I would have more true friends than I currently do which is pretty sparce for reasons of exacting standards. : )
You are good people Jim, faulty with an eye toward repairign yourself, but good people none-the-less.
Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. My God, do you learn. - C.S. Lewis
Life is usually all about how you handle Plan B. - Jack3Beans
Listen without defending; Speak without offending - FaithinAK
I hope work is going ok. I am here ANYTIME. Just holler. I don't care if you call me at 3am to tell me you bought a new pair of shoes dude. You can do that because your Jimbo.
Thanks again to you all for your support. I miss all of you. I see all of the well-wishings for me on this thread and, this is going to sound really corny but I can't help how I feel- it warms my heart that the Universe has seen fit to bless me with such wonderful friends. I can't begin to describe how much this means to me, especially right now.
Work still sucks- I'm at a standstill with "the big project" because of all the BS busy work that is being piled onto me right now, keeping me from addressing said project previously mentioned. Mach mentioned that it is probably a blessing in disguise to keep me from dwelling on my sitch, and he is probably right. I just wish that my blessings were a little lighter in that department! (As a sidebar comment to the Universe- I said a little lighter: that doesn't mean that I want to lose my job. Just so we're straight on that! )
The papers mentioned in the "dear John" letter came in the mail today. Or at least, I'm assuming that that's what this is. I haven't opened it, and don't plan to for a little while. I need to get a grasp on my feelings. First, I just felt dead inside- no tears, no grief....nothing. I went upstairs and took a bath, and had a good run on the hamster wheel, rationalizing the whole event. Now, after about an hour and a half, I'm typing this up and getting more emotional. I know that I don't want my W like she is. It would be so much easier to just chalk it up to a misdiagnosis of MLC on my part, and chuck it in the bin. But I can't do that - not in good conscience. I know too much now. Sometimes I wish I didn't. Ok, now I'm crying. And that lasted for a good ten seconds or so. Now I'm ahold of myself again. I hate this. I know I'm rambling, and right now I just don't give a damn. Now, I'm angry.
"Maybe I'm the one Maybe I'm the one Who is A schizophrenic psycho, yeah..."
I know I'm going to look back on this post and laugh one day- it really does look as if I'm posting drunk! I think maybe I just need a good incoherent ramble right now. I guess so- here come the tears again. A little longer this time. I hate this. I hate all of it. I don't want to feel this. But I know I need to.
Memories. It brings back memories of the deep pain I felt when I went through this with my first love from back in high school. Except I know that the first time, it wasn't MLC- but just a very screwed up, very confused young lady with too much baggage. I look back and see that she was trying to be happy by latching onto a relationship. She was a relationship junkie, of sorts- when the thrill of love left any R, so did she. Of course, I found out about it after the fact from one of her old boyfriends who she went running back to while I was away at college- he felt I should know. It hurt like hell, but it opened my eyes to how she really was. And I guess it prepared me for when she ran off and got pregnant and subsequently married to yet another boyfriend while I was gone. I heard from her years later- she apologized and told me that her marriage had failed, because her Grenada veteran husband was a crazy SOB....and that she was now married to a car mechanic who was a very good man, and they had 5 kids together...all with severe psychological issues.
His name was Jim, too.
There go I, but for the grace of God.
My W has never run around on me before now. She had always been faithful. I saw how, as the MLC was overcoming her, she seemed to fight it off as best as she could. I saw how, even -literally- moment to moment, she flip flopped back and forth.
Then she was overcome.
I look at the world around me and I see cycles. It is the natural order of things. Stagnation is death. But I see this cycle, and it looks so much like the first time around. It has both prepared me, and cursed me. It has given me the strength to recognize that this time it is different. But yet eerie similarities emerge. I know from my Ws diary that she had plans to D me and marry the OM. I really don't think those plans have changed. She is a force that there is no stopping once she has made up her mind. I don't think I can avoid this D.
I also don't think she's equipped to have a healthy R, either. What happens when she decides that she's no longer happy, but she couldn't possibly expect that her old H would want her back..."Hey, maybe KIDS will make me happy!". And why the hell not? That's what happened the first time around.
I firmly believe there are no coincidences in the world. Two situations years apart that appear to mirror each other sends me a message. One that I have to assume points out some sort of deficiency in me, otherwise I wouldn't be having to repeat this lesson. What is the message? What is it I'm supposed to learn from all of this? Why this same scenario AGAIN? It can't be "sometimes you can do everything right and STILL lose"...I already know that from other experiences in my life.
Universe: you're on notice!...Teaching me with the same piece of $#!+ textbook as the first time around is going to yield the same result! If I didn't "get it" the first time around, what the hell makes you think the same scenario is going to yield different results?!?!?!?!?!? Find another damn way to teach the lesson, so I can get it the hell over with, learn the f-er and get beyond this $#!+!!!!!
PATIENCE AND FORTITUDE CONQUER ALL THINGS. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
DBing and MLC take their toll....Please provide exact CHANGE. -Jimbo
Remember the the process, many of them take this route. By no means is it over.
Your exactly right, when you say that she is not equipped to have a real R.
You know the real wife. Sometimes it is easy to STILL look at them as who they WERE. You know better. Take a look at how this so called relationship with this op formed.
It's a life ring to a person desprately trying to stay a float, trying to avoid sinking and have to take an honest look at where these feelings she has truly stem from. She is using this fake R. Nothing more.
Your emotions will swing like you described, from frustration to anger to sadness then back into perspective. Just allow yourself to feel and press forward my friend.
I'm sorry too..I really feel for you. Did you open the package? I guess you know whats inside. Have you got a good friend or relative nearby? I'd advise going to be around people and then maybe opening it, or maybe get on the phone to someone who cares about you deeply, it helps you know.
As for what you desrcibe about hard lessons and cycles : "I look at the world around me and I see cycles. It is the natural order of things. Stagnation is death. But I see this cycle, and it looks so much like the first time around. It has both prepared me, and cursed me."...
well, I know you have some interest in astrology and what you describe sounds very Plutonian.. and I am betting that Pluto in your chart, or Pluto transits could be at play here.. and if you look into that, or book a session with an astrologer, you could look at both sitches from years ago and now and draw some parallels. And if pluto is at play, that can be a tool to some deep pyshcological healing and then your patterns WILL change, believe me. Such is the nature of pluto.. and it IS painful, people going through this stuff describe it as being in Hell, of being stripped bare of everything that matters to them, back to the core, or down to their soul. You feel exposed, vunerable, in pain and WTF happened to me?? BUT.. its the symbolism of the phoenix rising from the ashes.. so, one day, you will rise up out of this, trust me.
You said, why am I being punished with this lesson again? Did I not learn it the first time around? Well, no, I guess not. You must have been very young back then, if you were in college so perhaps your soul was not ready to be transformed and change. Now you are older, I am sure you will learn and move past this.
But, take heart Jimbo and be kind to yourself... these things are very very slow movoing, they are painful and drawn out, but you will come out the other side, just not maybe overnight! So, keep posting, we are all here for you and I hope you can be in the company of someone who loves you, because you need that right now.
Al xxx
Me:40! H:37 Together: 12yrs IDLY & left 11/07 ADs 03/08 OW 8/08 Reconciled 05/09 now married! my thread
(As a sidebar comment to the Universe- I said a little lighter: that doesn't mean that I want to lose my job. Just so we're straight on that! 
)
I think maybe I just need a good incoherent ramble right now. I guess so- here come the tears again. A little longer this time. I hate this. I hate all of it. I don't want to feel this. But I know I need to.