Over the Shock and GALing 4

[Thinker]

I realized something by watching my emotions today.

In general. I am comfortable with the idea of facing a protracted status quo period. If things stay as they are and only improve slightly, then I'll be OK.

I am also not that afraid (theoretically) of getting divorced. I have examined it, and it is not the end of the world. It would be sad, bad for our kids, and a preventable tragedy, but once again, I would survive.

The real, overpowering fear that I have, is of being left (abandoned, betrayed, insert similar verbs). This would seem to be an unnatural fear since the end result would be the D state which I already discussed as being not so terrifying.

But there it is, the fear that is driving me. Whenever my W gets a text message or starts acting strangely, that fear pops up. Not the fear of getting D or of losing her, but of getting abandoned. It is the fear that makes me want to snoop or otherwise control her and prompts me to sometimes think about calling it off and leaving her first.

It is a fear of something that is really not that fearful (just potentially painful). It is a fear that I think stems from childhood experiences exacerbated my the recent shock of the A.

This realization has changed anything yet, but I think it will help me to control this gut emotional response in the future.

I hope.

The gut fear of being left is pretty painful.