I tried, I changed, but still am getting divorced!

[newmama]

Gatsby--good taste! BUt we better not go out looking for guys together! We might fight over them! (lol!)

Romeo-no such thing as too many movies...have you heard of "movie therapy?" it's real! look it up!

Just came back from my therapist and want to post this before I work out....

OK so I wanted to feel at peace with the fact that I am letting go and dropping the rope. Here was his take based on my questions:

1)AT THIS POINT, even if I was able to talk stbxh into dropping the divorce, and doing something to get him to decide to come back, it wouldn't be in my best interest because HE didn't come back on his own...he is unstable enough to be easily swayed to go back to OW and give me a false reconciliation. My IC put it like this: if he is able to divorce me while feeling major doubts and is uncertain, then that shows me he is not emotionally secure (at this time or maybe never) to handle R at this point. Made sense!!!!!

2)If I were to let stbxh know that "who knows, if we are both available in the future, maybe we could reconcile" then that wouldn't be a good idea. He would think "newmama will always be there." It behooves me emotionally (for myself) and strategically to not let him know. Continue letting my actions speak for themselves....I am actually detaching and it is helping me.

3)he said that something major like a BIG BLOW UP or an explosion in their relationship could happen and it is plausible that it could cause stbxh to come to his senses. But we can't predict when and how so it's best for me to just move forward with detaching.

4)when I said I was worried about not being able to love stbxh again, he said the feeling of love is the "romantic love" that goes away in 3-4 years. He said that after that, love is am action, a commitment, an intuitive act, a choice, a comforting feeling...so we can love if we want to. (take THAT, WASs!)

5)when I said maybe I was wrong about my judgment of character and that scares me....he said part of picking a mate is just luck. He said people really do change and they are unpredictable.


6)he told me people who come through divorce and are resilient are able to take it as "an opportunity to grow and change" and use the time to improve themselves. (Sound familiar? Thanks MWD!!)

7)I asked him about handling S' first birthday tomorrow. (OMG this exact time last year I was in my hospital gown, waiting for the foley bulb and pitocin!)Well he told me that I can always say "in the future, I would like to acknowledge S' birthday together, but this year it is too raw. I hope you understand."
But he said ultimately to follow my gut.

8)He did warn me that stepfamilies always have problems. It's hard. It's stressful (not every minute!). He wasn't sugar coating it. (but it made me feel good thinking that stbxh and OW will have problems, even though they aren't married right now)

OK well I do feel good. I confess (NO 2x4s!!!) that I still had a 2% doubt about not talking to stbxh more about his uncertainty. I had a fear of doing permanent damage to any option for R in the future, not that I want that today or this summer for that matter.My IC told me IT WAS NORMAL to still hold on to some hope as the ship goes down....meaning that I can detach successfully and still want to R in the back of my mind but that it will shrink as time goes on. He said that if stbxh does come crawling back, it may be too late because I could already be happily involved in another relationship.