how do i keep my hope alive?

[trytryagain]

had a good cry this afternoon...for no real reason. still haven't talked to my H, was just really missing him today. instead of sitting through it alone, though, i called my sister and just cried on the phone to her until i was done. felt good to get it out and not feel alone.

my heart is heavy today, but...one foot in front of the other. soldiering on.

[Onthemountaintop]

I get the rough day stuff - for me I drove to a provincial park and stood on a cliff smelling the fresh air for 2 hours.

Who knows what will happen next...but it won't happen better or faster by imploding~nothing wrong with using your sister's love.

[Vulcanized]

thanks, ruined. i haven't really had much contact with this guy, mostly because i know i am not ready for anything more than a fling, and i don't want him to be a fling. although now that i've emailed with him a few times and run into him, i find myself thinking about him A LOT, and now it's almost like i've shifted my obsessing over my H to obsessing over this guy. he (OM) hasn't returned an email i sent him the other day, so i'm trying to take what i've learned here and not let him control my emotional state.

You'll know when you are ready for anything. I do think that your first time at bat [the general you, not just you specifically] is meant to be more fling than R. But that's just my opinion.

If you feel like your obsessing over OM, then that is probably a strong indicator that you aren't ready yet. Or, that was how I felt about my OM. Too much, too soon = I shouldn't be doing this yet.

there are a lot of other fish in the sea, sure. i liked my fish just fine, but that's not the hand i've been dealt at the moment. i never thought i'd be looking at other fish again. other fish come with their own fishy issues and problems, no amount of shiny new-ness will ever make me forget that. hopefully i will get to a point in the next few weeks/months where i am ready to approach this, but i'm not pushing myself. OM extended an open ended invite for lunch that i know i want to take him up on...but not now while i'm still such a mess.

Know what you mean. And it is a good idea to wait until you think you may be ready. If you're feeling a mess, it's hard to imagine not messing up someone else's life. Again, just speaking from my own recent personal experience.

i haven't even signed a separation agreement at this point, and my H moved out just 3 months ago. that said, in my state, we're only 3 months shy of being eligible for filing for an uncontested D. in my mind, i'm still married, and though i'm interested in this guy...i struggle within myself at the idea of being with this guy, when i also want to DB and stand behind the vows that i made only 2.5 years ago.

That's been a rough one for me. Want to save M, yet ... here I am (was) w/OM. I do think it is good to have interest/attraction in OM, as it shows a modicum of hope for the future. Sort of much as I love H, want M, well, if it doesn't work out, there are other options available. It's a weird dichotomy.

early on, i was worried H was going to start dating or at least sleeping with other people, because, well, that's what guys do. i didn't even blink when a guy friend said to me earlier this week to just assume that my H had already done that (slept with someone)...so i think it's a good sign that i'm not throwing myself out there in an effort to "keep up" with what i think my H is doing.

Keeping up/getting revenge/whatever you want to call it: bad idea. Unfair to the OP, and selling yourself short, imo. In my sitch, (sexual) tension w/OM had been afoot since Nov., about the same time I could no longer deny to myself that H was sleeping w/OW. Still, waited 4 months until I was ready to sexual w/someone. Still felt guilty, though. More proof that I'm not ready yet.

I wouldn't say it's unreasonable to assume your H has/is sexually involved. If nothing else, you won't be blindsided & devastated if you find that to be the case. You have to do what you feel is best for you, when you feel it is best for you. Regardless of what H is doing. You are both in different places, so what is right for you may be [is?] radically different than what is right for him.

Hope that is helpful. (((tta)))

[trytryagain]

thanks for the helpful and thoughtful words, ruined. it hurts thinking that my H is potentially sexually involved with someone else when we haven't even signed anything and his reasoning behind our separation has never been that he wanted to see someone else...but i realise that his actions are beyond my control and i can't let myself waste energy on worrying about it. i'm dealing with things my way, he needs to deal with things his way.

i have actually hooked up with 2 people since being separated (i haven't slept with anyone, just fooled around - ha! i feel like a teenager saying that!), and like you, i felt horribly guilty, which tells me i'm not ready for that yet. the attention and flirting is nice, and certainly distracts me, but...right now my focus is me moving forward, and i don't want to move forward with a guilty conscience, no matter WHAT my H is doing or not doing.

i certainly don't want to pull this OM into the drama of my life right now...i had hoped we could exchange friendly emails from time to time, but even that he seems unresponsive to. i think he is cautious about getting wrapped up in my drama, so i can respect that and not approach him until i know i'm ready. i just hope he isn't married and has 3 children by then.

i'm hopeful this week will be better than the one before it...this burden in my heart is getting hard to carry around!

[Onthemountaintop]

Burdens don't go away on their own - they need to be carried to wherever they are going. I don't think you're going to get there until the D either ends or H moves back.

In the meantime, GAL isn't about hooking up. You've got a lot of emotions to handle as it is, and I understand opening up options, just be careful TTA...

[trytryagain]

thanks, OTM. those hookups were only twice and only one time each. i'm not making it a habit.

i spoke with my L this morning, she spoke with my SIL, who is a lawyer and who helped my H draft up a separation agreement (in an effort to reduce lawyer fees for us both). apparently, she called my SIL (who i love very much) an idiot, which of course did not go over well with my SIL or my H. so there was that fire to put out. i spoke on the phone with my H, it's apparent that he has checked out of the idea of any reconciliation between us.

i got the "two people can love each other very much but that doesn't mean they have a healthy marriage" speech. he wants to end this as "amicably" as possible so we can just walk away. unscathed, right? just pat ourselves on the back and say, oh well, we tried? after our phone conversation i got a very tender "i don't want things to be this way and i want us to still respect each other so let's please meet on the middle on the terms of this agreement" email from him. yeah. otherwise known as "please don't make me cosign a loan with my parents so that i can continue to live in my apartment, on my own, with my car, and my motorcycle and go on with my life like you never existed."

i was about to leave work early so i could go home and cry and be upset. then i remembered that my H is not responsible for my emotional state and that i have vowed to stop placing my personal happiness in things outside of my control. but that doesn't mean that i won't go cry in the bathroom.

[Onthemountaintop]

i got the "two people can love each other very much but that doesn't mean they have a healthy marriage" speech.

I got that speech,too -- from my IC. She said that I would have to evaluate if the R is healthy based on our M dynamic.

I responded that I would when I was sure that I really had tried and given both of us time to improve. Then, my W re-engaged that dynamic by telling me she was going to need months of sleeping with the kids instead of me. While she has backed down, I have not yet and I am living partly separated.

The emotions tear the heart, don't they? But, after the cry, get back up. He's angry and saying things to get things the way he thinks would be most fair, not most kind.

[Vulcanized]

thanks for the helpful and thoughtful words, ruined. it hurts thinking that my H is potentially sexually involved with someone else when we haven't even signed anything and his reasoning behind our separation has never been that he wanted to see someone else...but i realise that his actions are beyond my control and i can't let myself waste energy on worrying about it. i'm dealing with things my way, he needs to deal with things his way.

Exactly. Despite that knowledge, the heart kicks, screams & fights it. It kills me that my H decided that I was going to be celebate, but he sure wasn't.

i have actually hooked up with 2 people since being separated (i haven't slept with anyone, just fooled around - ha! i feel like a teenager saying that!), and like you, i felt horribly guilty, which tells me i'm not ready for that yet. the attention and flirting is nice, and certainly distracts me, but...right now my focus is me moving forward, and i don't want to move forward with a guilty conscience, no matter WHAT my H is doing or not doing.

I second that!

i certainly don't want to pull this OM into the drama of my life right now...i had hoped we could exchange friendly emails from time to time, but even that he seems unresponsive to. i think he is cautious about getting wrapped up in my drama, so i can respect that and not approach him until i know i'm ready. i just hope he isn't married and has 3 children by then.

That is all you can do. It is unfair & unreasonable to expect OM to deal w/all our drama/baggage/crazy, etc. Stinks, but the song remains the same.

i'm hopeful this week will be better than the one before it...this burden in my heart is getting hard to carry around!

It will. Every new day gets you closer to being healed. Every new day, the load lightens.

[trytryagain]

yesterday was a hard day...between my L calling my SIL an idiot and having to calm both my SIL and H down about that, the back and forth with my H on some financial aspects of our separation agreement, and crying on the phone to my parents about how overwhelmed i'm feeling...it was a really draining day for me.

i keep hoping, maybe tomorrow will be better, maybe tomorrow will be ok and i won't hurt this much. but as soon as my eyes opened this morning, i was hit with the pain like a ton of bricks. i talked to my H for a long time on the phone yesterday and he was so angry that things weren't going his way. so angry that i wouldn't just sign the agreement as is and let him keep his motorcycle, and our debt in my name. to be fair, i was very upset that my L had talked to my SIL like that on the phone (my SIL is a lawyer, too), but my H said he's gone from hurt and sad to upset and DISGUSTED at how things have progressed.

i think i'm perfectly within my rights to seek counsel before signing ANYTHING and i would be an IDIOT not to. my L looked at the agreement, made some suggestions that act in my best interest, and H threw a fit that i would come back to him with "demands." he said things like, i don't want to hate you, i want to at least walk away from this with respect for you...as if me making sure that HIS motorcycle doesn't put ME in financial jeopardy is my way of sticking it to him?? he says he understands that i have to look out for myself, but he thinks he's been so fair and honorable in offering me what he's offered me, since he is "in between jobs" right now (translation: he QUIT his job).

it's enough to make me want to throw my hands up and tell him to go to hell. although i guess that wouldn't be very "me" and i know i'd regret something like that. i wanted to say a hundred times to him yesterday, why should i have to pay for a choice that YOU made, why should i be the one left hanging when YOU wanted to walk away? but i didn't. i didn't react. i did cry a lot. talking to him is too hard. i can't hear his voice without crying.

it's been almost exactly a month since i've seen him, sat next to him, touched him, wiped away his tears. and now HE is disgusted with ME. makes total sense, right?

here's to tuesday not sucking as much as monday...

[Onthemountaintop]

That sounds so tough.

Is there an active way for you to communicate what you're thinking to him without judgement "you did..." comments? Something that could tell him you don't want to see him hurt and want a healthy marriage with him or whatever you're thinking.