Hidee ho, Sage. Whew, what a lot of work you've done!
Dropping in for a cuppa joe with ya, love the "sayings on your fridge."
So to speak.
I get so much advice and encouragement from you -- the way you share your ups and downs helps me swim through my own, grrrlll. Thanks for your wisdom and for packaging it nicely. (Love your friends who also stop by.)
Been lurking mostly, not posting. But you guys are family to me and help me LIVE MY LIFE well.
I'm not together with my mate and I get a little wistful and envious sometimes of people who are "piecing" -- but then as I read what you all are going through, I wonder if I'd be able to manage that. Learning to trust again. Hard work, daily discipline, very valuable but ouch.
I'm not piecing with my H -- we are living separately -- his terms -- but we ARE healing and in fact have begun a new R. It's not about marriage (he doesn't want to be married to anyone right now) but we are being friends.
My broken heart is mending.
Maybe it's kinda similar whether you get back with your mate or you move on alone. You have to mend your heart and mend your ways no matter what.
I'm changing. Letting go. Got control issues. It's ok, what I've done, but I know better now and can behave differently.
If I fall back wondering "why did he do this to us?" or thinking "I'm old and unattractive" or "I'm just a failure" -- well, then depression ding dongs, suitcase in hand.
But I've read "Feeling Good" (love you, Dr. David Burns) and that book told me such thinking is DISTORTED. That book gave me techniques for talking back to twisted thinking like "now or never, all or nothing, THIS MAN or nobody" or jumping to conclusions like "men are evil porn-obsessed pigs unable to love real women." This thinking might be common and SEEM reasonable but it is distorted and it hurts ME. I gotta tell the truth, get to the truth, and the distortions get me way off track.
Truth is my H fears aging as much as I do, suddenly wanted to UN-MATE and be free to taste MORE YOUTH, and ended our commitment. More truth: I got engulfed in fear (YELP, I'M ALSO GETTING OLD!), tiraded, made angry demands, and showed him only a swollen tomato face and balled up fists. He split? No wonder, honey.
Is he "winning" while I'm "losing" -- no, sad to say he isn't any more successful than (was it) Vasgo De Gama in finding the fountain of youth.
The "Feeling Good" book (love bibliotherapy!) taught me to poke fun at some of the most egregious distortions. So that I can look at my STBX Redhead (skinny, nearsighted, prematurely bald) and see that his horn-dog swaggering might just be a whole lotta posturing and bravado in the face of skull-and-crossbones mortality. It could have nothing to do with disgust toward Bridget, who by the way is still curvatious, sensual and responsive, not dried up & ready for the taxidermist.
Course you could think he's disgusted, the mean cold way he treated his wife, but really, it's HIS PROBLEM -- triggering my problems, yes, but not due to my inadequacy.
Michele's ideas and methods help untangle this mess.
We work on knowing we have OUR OWN ISSUES and we make amends for OUR OWN ERRORS -- and undoubtedly there is healing. Even if our spouses never come home.
I'm gonna feel inadquate when I'm rejected until I solve the basic issue I have with FEELING ADEQUATE FOR LIFE. This is what I gotta work on, with or witout a mate.
This I've learned. Still gotta practice it every day.
So thanks you all. I carry you in my heart. Your humor helps me every day. I walk the walk with yas.
Sorry if this is a hijack. Hug hug hug and lotsa love (and sweet soft breakfast rolls with orange icing),
