just some thoughts from B

[AntoniaB]

You are so right, Brooklyn. That's a great way to look at the anger issue.

For me, I really shut the anger off for as long as possible, to the point where my psychiatrist was wanting me to get angry already. She said I was just postponing the inevitable.

I think that in retrospect I was refusing to allow myself to get angry because I was afraid that IF I were angry and IF he "came to his senses" that I'd not be able to take him back. Like I was just supposed to pretend all this dyfunction and betrayal would be water under the bridge and ignore all the issues behind it if he would just DECIDE to choose to be with me.

The problem is that if he had decided to just choose me and I never let myself feel that anger, I'd have taken him right back, and probably the consequences would have been disastrous. Nothing that was a core issue in us would have changed because neither of us would have changed. We'd be the same codependent couple as always.

So I finally let the anger come in. I even said a few choice words to him, and soon after that, it was like I said my piece, and I felt some closure. That acceptance of anger and then the letting go of it when I was ready paved the way for a very welcome feeling of detachment and moving on.

If there is going to be any future with him, I know now that I have to really live as if there isn't. If there is, it needs to be FAR down the road. I've still got growing to do, but as I see it, he is FAR behind me, because he hasn't done one thing to face his fears or demons. He's simply wrapped up in another younger version of me and in pure denial. Until he stops denying that the problem was primarily "us" and that often the problems that contribute to "we" come from "me" first, he is a destructive force in my life.

I didn't realize this until I let that anger in.

Anger doesn't mean we don't love them. It means we are coming to accept that they weren't perfect and had flaws.