The journey begins

[ClingingToHope]

Releasing is hard. It will take time, a lot of it. You know the battle, a negative thought pops into your head and you try to replace it with a positive thought.

I keep telling myself that the next R is going to be soooo much better than the one with STBXW. It was a struggle from Day 1 in terms of how much affection she showed. She's just not an affectionate person and ALL of my other major relationships were better in that respect. I was always kind of guessing what was going on in her mind.

A lot of what I had with STBXW was infatuation. I never thought I'd be with her and when we ended up together I was going to make it work no matter what. That didn't work.

HEY, now on to the GREAT news. I was cleaning my uncle's pool last night and he was asking how things were going. I told him I was kind of stuck until the D is done and the house is sold before I could move out of the townhouse.

He said the house next to him will be available in September. It's perfect. My cousin lives two houses down. The house for rent is owned by my grandmother's best friend who has known me since birth.

I called her this morning. She told me to contact the property management company. I did and the house is only $61 more a month than I pay now. I may have some increased costs -- water and garbage costs. But still I had given up hope finding anything appropriate in my price range.

This is the best thing to happen to me since finding the church singles group in April. I could see me staying there long term.

[ClingingToHope]

Mishka, a forgiveness journal. The book has questions at the end of each chapter it wants you to answer. I'm considering starting a new thread and posting my answers here.

If I get the house, that may be the impetus for a new thread.

[mishka422]

I assumed it was probably something like that. I have done several books like that and the quesions at the end of the chapter are very helpful.

[ClingingToHope]

Amazing how up I can be up and then down. I was feeling great all day about the house. Then it started to get close to having to pick up the girls and see STBXW and my chest started to tighten up.

Does that ever go away?

So I go to get the girls and D11 comes to the door and forgot something so she goes back inside. STBXW steps out of the door with some papers. It's the flyer for the house and she starts showing it to me and saying the photos came out pretty good and the first open house is next week and ...

And I took a couple of steps back and said "I don't care."

She looked at me and waived her arms and said "what do you want? For us to end up bankrupt?"

There were a lot of things I wanted to say to that. Instead I just stared at her for a few moments and said "Is D7 ready?"

The girls finally came out and we headed to the car and she asked when I'd have them back. I said 9ish and drove away.

I don't know what the DB rules are for that interaction. I'm trying to forgive but I'm not there yet. I would love to sell the house -- together -- and get our dream home. But right now, the best I can do is not yell at her.

[NoLongerHere]

Amazing how up I can be up and then down. I was feeling great all day about the house. Then it started to get close to having to pick up the girls and see STBXW and my chest started to tighten up.

Does that ever go away?

I can relate.

I'm trying to forgive but I'm not there yet. ... But right now, the best I can do is not yell at her.

I can relate to that too.

[ClingingToHope]

I just don't understand myself sometimes.

Here's my weekend -- Friday I am going to a co-dependency class Friday night to see if that helps. I have been invited to watch a band play by a cute neighbor who I've known for 20 something years -- she turned me down back when I was 19.

Saturday, golf with a coworker, then over to a friend's house for a cookout, then out with my church singles group -- including hopefully both 31 and 35.

Sunday? Church, rest and clean for the arrival of the girls for our last week of summer vacation together.

In fact, when I woke up this morning I thought about my life right now. I have tax issues to clean up, a home sale process to go through, a divorce case to finish, a house (hopefully) to move into, a career to get going again, finances to rebuild, two girls to raise 40 percent of the time and a heart to heal.

Adding a new person to the mix would really complicate things -- but I haven't broken the addiction to being in a relationship. I see couples together and my view of myself is that I'm defective.

I finally got through to a friend of mine who is a pastor and a very, very, very busy person so we don't get to talk often. After going through the developments of the past three weeks I told him I worry that I'll never be "right" or "whole" again.

I base that on the fact I still have deep feelings for my very first girlfriend and pretty strong feelings for my college girlfriend. The difference is I rarely see the first GF and the college GF lives in Florida, though she's a FB friend.

He said I'm a deep lover and that's not a bad thing, but it means I can't forget, I have to learn to let go -- and I haven't done that yet.

I feel weak. It definitely detracted from the night with the girls. We did get some swimming in and it was still great being with them. But I definitely was giving off some sad vibes.

Tough, tough times right now.

[awest1217]

You have a busy weekend planned and the codependence class should be very helpful because you are right, you need to heal before moving on to another R.

Have fun this weekend and get a little rest before the girls come next week.

[ClingingToHope]

I've started a new thread. This one was too mopey.

You'll find it as "You can't have everything, where would you put it?"