more than most, I think you get it. Or you will. Where the head goes, the heart will follow. Your happiness will be the only barometer for you (okay and your kids') but your w's failures/success or happiness/misery or regrets/lack thereof, CANNOT matter to your future. If she wants back in, cope then. If not, you'll already be farther down the road into your future.
I see so many people here wanting to hear/believe that "someday the WAS will regret it" OR worse, wanting the WAS to be miserable no matter what... we simply don't know to what extent they will enjoy their new life OR deeply regret it OR whether they'd ever admit it, let alone to us...but if they don't regret it, if they are genuinely happier without us, then how can we want them in our lives as our partners? I for one want a partner who wants me back the same way. I don't need to feel unwanted on a daily basis. No thanks. So if they're gone but you spend your time wondering what is going on with them while they've left your life...and you hold onto THEIR happiness as some sort of judgement on you or reflection of your present/future self worth... It'd be like letting the rain in Seattle, or the sunshine in LA, be factors in YOUR life's happiness and "personal weather"...and they're not. Make sense?
J-
25,
I get it to a degree (and only to a 'degree' because it's sinking in), and I'm getting it more and more. It just has to sink in. There's a lot to be said for Smiley's Spiers Doctrine...accepting that I'm already divorced (as opposed to accepting that I'm already dead) and living my life with that knowledge and reality (as opposed to being able to now function like a soldier should). Once the fear is gone, you can move on and function like you should. Yeah, I hate that it happened...but it did. The focus, again, has to be squarely on me and my healing and recovery. My happiness is up to me now...W cannot matter at all to my future. Period.
I want a partner that wants me back the same way too! Again, we have to get to where our WAS don't matter at all to us or our future. This is something that I'm working on. Yeah, it makes sense. It makes perfect sense to NOT let something that you have no control over determine your happiness or self-worth.
"Always go straight forward, and if you meet the devil, cut him in two and go between the pieces." - William Sturgis, clipper ship captain, 1830's.
