how do i keep my hope alive?

[trytryagain]

it's really amazing what 2 miles on the treadmill will do for your attitude. especially when there are cute boys in the gym with you.

even better when you get home and find out you won free tickets to a play you wanted to see.

OTM, thanks for your response...i guess i just feel like i'm not being driven by the horsemen right now. i'm not angry or have any bad or negative feelings towards my H. i'm just sad. i can't make up his mind for him, but i haven't been saying negative, knee-jerk things to him over the last few weeks, either. so i don't feel like i've been reacting. i'm sure i let contempt in the driver's seat a little too often over the course of our M, but that's not where i am emotionally right now.

just sad. but. 2 bottles of wine and a slumber party at my sister's should help temporarily cure that which ails me.

[talia]

TTA,
I find it funny that beating the crap out of my physical being does so much for my mental being.....

GOOD KARMA today! Puttin out the good vibes.

Just remember - you are miles and miles ahead of where you could be since H left. YOU are doing wonderful things to deal with this and you don't have to be perfect.

The solution to not being perfect is ABSOLUTELY a slumber part and 2 bottles of wine!!!

Have Fun!

T

[trytryagain]

made myself get up this morning and hike 2 miles in the snow to yoga. i set a goal for myself and i followed through on it. the hike was long and hard but yoga made it worthwhile! felt good to accomplish that! the 2 mile hike back UP the hill was a little trying, though...

having a fun girl's weekend with my sister. we are totally snowed in. H texted this morning and just said he hoped i was safe in this weather, which i guess was nice of him. went to a bar with my sister last night and i will admit to being a bit mopey. still miss him so much.

spent some time at a girlfriend's today, she's also a life coach so we talked about where i'm at and i think i'm in a pretty good place, all things considered. i have my moments, but things could be a LOT worse.

[trytryagain]

it took all the strength i have not to text or email my H today. i just wanted to make sure he was ok in all the snow, but i resisted contacting him. he knows how to reach me when he's ready to talk. i'm still doing my best to focus on ME and pursue things that will make me happy, but 95% of the time, i feel mostly like i'm just trying to distract myself. i miss my H all the time. it's been over a month since he decided he wanted to separate, which i know isn't that long of a time, but it seems like it's been a year. absence can make the heart grow fonder, but can't it make it forget, too??

[hhh]

Dear TTA,

I SO know these feelings. I worried about H too early last yr when I hadn't heard from him in days..but it is still pursuit and shows him you are not moving on. My mom told me to call her whenever I felt a stronge urge to call him and she'd talk me out of it. I'd call a friend, or go for a run, do yoga, anything to distract...and yes it may seem like a distraction at first but I firmly believe that it changes your 'energy' (for lack of a better word). You force yourself out of necessity - will yourself, even if you don't feel like it - to do other things, get lost in other things ('the flow' of an activity you like) - and your mental patterns start to shift so you STOP obsessing about them so much. I do have moments where I still slip back, but now I know the tools and how to get myself out of these places. You start to view it as a fun challenge. It's a shift of your mental energy and then even your aura starts to follow (I know I'm sounding like a new age guru here!) Other people notice it and give back to you what you give off.

I'll get sad sometimes yes, but remind myself that I FEEL so much better when I focus on the above. It's almost a decision you make yourself make.

I think the growing fonder/forgetting wanes and wafts a bit over this process. Moments when I don't think about him at all, then when I feel like I miss him more... but over time the balance shifts so you start to feel better/more ok without them, you don't need them and you can be happy on your own. For any R to work, you have to be happy on your own anyway, so best to focus on that. Try to think of it as a fun challenge..and when you have your moments of sadness let yourself feel them. I get to those sorta-dark places sometimes, and then I get tired of feeling that way and it reminds me to get the hell outta that place... the too longer you linger there the more it sticks so you need to make conscious effort to help yourself as much as you can. Lean on your friends and family for support and we're here for you too!

You're a great person and he's a fool...his loss, for now at least! You're working on yourself and he's running away.
You CAN do this.
big hugs,
hhh

[Onthemountaintop]

it took all the strength i have not to text or email my H today.

Is it fair to say you're probably wondering how he manages to feel the pain of separating but not come running back?

It might be a gender thing, perhaps it is just a bit easier for men to get busy with work, friends and other things so moving on is easier. If he really does think his love for you is there, but the R is toxic to him, then maybe it is better for you to break it off now than to make it work, have kids, and then later in life MLC comes along and he'd be gone. Remember, so far, you are working on you, but he is not from what you've said changing himself much.

I'm not saying don't hope, I think you must. Personally, I would feel overjoyed to hear that he's come 'home' - it might even strengthen my own resolve.

But see the other side of the coin, too. When you begin feeling lost, remember to flip that coin to the side that acknowledges the long term repercussions if it broke off later in life.

[trytryagain]

i think that's fair, OTM. i do want to know how he can hurt so much and still keep his distance, i guess. he did text me this morning and just again say he hoped the dog and i had everything we needed.

i don't know if he feels the R is toxic, but he has said he feels chipped away at, since in the 5 years that we've been together, he's never able to "keep" me happy, but i also know he susbscribes to the man way of thinking that once a woman feels assured in her love, that she'll always feel that way. i know he got tired of assuring me over the years, but i think most women operate in that cycle of needing to know they are loved.

H has said to me a few times that he'd rather do this now than in 5 years or more and have to deal with custody of children. but what guarantee does he have that neither of this would be dealing with this 5 or 10 years down the road with someone else? just because we split up and remarried wouldn't mean we'd be any safer from D than we are now. at least IMO. and he's already HAD a MLC, or at least i feel like that's what he went through in 2008 when he wanted to split.

i do continue to work on me and thanks, HHH, for your input. i know that sooner or later, my "distractions" will become the norm for me and i won't feel as lonely or sad. i am not giving up my hope, but it gets harder to hold on to every day. it just seems like 2 people who love each other would be able to work things out like grown ups instead of running from their problems and refusing to work them out.

[Onthemountaintop]

i think that's fair, OTM. i do want to know how he can hurt so much and still keep his distance, i guess. he did text me this morning and just again say he hoped the dog and i had everything we needed.

How did that make you feel? Maybe that is the kind of hope you need to hold on to. Not a "I wish I could", but "you never know"...

but i think most women operate in that cycle of needing to know they are loved.

I'm starting to get that idea more. I hope he is, too, for the sake of any R he is in.

For me, the idea that problems might come up later with someone else has come up many times. There is a certain degree of hope in the N.American man perhaps that says I've learned and won't screw up or, we were just a bad mix that tasted really good. I'm not agreeing - I've read too much for that. I wish I could talk to him and convince him to read what I've read!

Going through ADHD as a married person is like a MLC, but it isn't.

[trytryagain]

OTM, i think that's exactly how that text made me feel. it wasn't like he was saying "i wish i could be there with you," but the fact that i know he's thinking about me gives me something to hold onto. it's a tiny sliver of hope, but it's still there.

if you haven't read mars and venus, i would really recommend it. if nothing else, the chapter about how women are like waves made so much sense to me and it made me think, hey! i'm NORMAL! other people feel the SAME WAY I DO! there's also a chapter about how men are like rubber bands, and knowing that when my H pulls away, it's not necessarily because he loves me any less would have been SO helpful to me 6 months ago. it just gives you so much perspective on how men and women function in relationships!

i think maybe that for someone with ADHD, it's hard to avoid the problems, or to avoid thinking that something else will come up later on. when you've dealt with being treated differently your whole life, it's not surprising that my H would feel the way he feels. not that i understand WHY he feels that way, but i can understand HOW he would feel that way, if that makes sense.

my mom tells me that even if we worked things out, i could expect him to want to leave off and on for the rest of our lives. i don't necessarily believe that, because i think that there are plenty of people out there with ADHD that function normally and happily with their non-ADHD spouses. i just feel like i've been given the secrets to living happily ever after and i am able to see how so much of my behavior, no matter how benign i thought it was, felt to him like criticism, judgment and resentment. i had so much to learn and i still do, and throwing in the towel now just seems crazy. now i understand how my actions and reactions affect him! now i understand how his actions and reactions aren't necessarily a reflection of how he feels about ME!

if you could convince him to read what you've read, i just might nominate you for a nobel peace prize! i can't get him to read anything but books related to his work field!

[Onthemountaintop]

The book's on hold for me at the library...

I know the wish I had feeling. If I knew what I know now a few years ago, I would be much more comforatable deciding to stay M

I know this is not the typical DB stuff, but have you tried talking about the books you've read, like little one-liners? If he is ready to bolt, then he can see you change. If he's bolted, as long as you aren't pursing, I can't help think that something needs to find its way in his lap. At the same time, I know that if you give it to him like "here, read this" he'll probably say that he is tired of R work. He just wants it to work, I think.

Something like what you said, "i just feel like i've been given the secrets to living happily ever after and i am able to see how so much of my behavior, no matter how benign i thought it was, felt to him like criticism, judgment and resentment" in might let him know that you're changing, even though he can't see it.

I wouldn't mind a peace prize...can you get my wife to work as hard as you are on my M and I'll nominate you back?