Look it is okay to get pissed off at your H. The issue I see is that you continue to respond to him in a manner that has an EXPECTATION that...
1) He gives a chit and will respond the way you want him to 2) Your response will wake his as* up 3) Your response will guilt his as* to come home
Honestly, TAMF....if he text why respond. Ask yourself what you hoped to accomplish with your response.
Next time - do better.
Eric
"The difficulties of Life are intended to make us BETTER,not bitter". "Fear is a prison, where you are the jailer. FREE YOURSELF!" "Life is usually all about how you handle Plan B." - Jack3Beans
Tamf, you have had tough but terrific advice. Do you honestly believe it is worse for you than the rest of the good people here???
Anyway, if you are a screaming extrovert you might like to read some of Dorothy Rowe's work. She believes that while all of us are by nature either introvert or extrovert, our task as we mature is to develop the other side of us. SO introverts need to develop their extrovert side, and extroverts vice versa. Sounds like you are resisting this with all your might!! As so many old timers have said - this is our chance to change and to grow.
If you go on doing the same you go on getting the same. Do you really and truly want to spend the rest of your life ruled by your sex drive??
I can say that I am finding a huge amount of happiness alone. I'm finding it with friends, yes, but I also really love that I can sit and read at night before I go to bed and no one's complaining about the light being on :-)
Yeah I'm not saying that I need a man to be happy, I'm just saying that I understand it if TAMF wants/yearns for someone to look her way and validate her self-esteem about her attractiveness. That's all. If the only man who ever says you're beautiful or notices you in that way for 20 years was your husband, I think when he suddenly says "nope, I feel nothing towards you" or "I don't think of you romantically anymore" you suddenly feel, in a word, ugly. And I think it makes perfect sense if you want to get some kind of external validation of that. It's normal, at least according to this book Eric told me to read. It can help you with getting your self-esteem back. But it's just a small part of your self-esteem. The larger part is achieved in countless other ways.
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
Wow my response was to a whole bunch of posts ago. Now I've read the rest of the thread and want to say: PEI "get rid of the buttons" is brilliant and that's going to stick with me.
I noticed that you hate the idea of the desert island because you need people--and "old me" loved the idea of the desert island because I liked being alone!!! Then I read what Beatrice said and it makes perfect sense: when I have gone out and just been more open to people (honestly people what I call flirting, if you could see me, would not look like flirting at all but just normal friendliness, that's how backward I am), that's a stretch for me that I am learning to like. Becoming more extroverted.
So for you, TAMF, if every fiber of you is hating the idea of introversion, maybe it would help to resist your extroverted urges here and there and do the opposite.
I think this brings us more in balance.
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
Do I go out and flirt, yes! Does it mean anything to me other than innocent fun, no! Would I take anyone home with me, no!
sarahani ... and others,
I'm gonna have to call you on this too ... anyone surprised???
Of course it means more to you than innocent fun. It is ego and esteem boosting, it makes you feel girly and feminine and attractive and sexy. It reaffirms that you are NOT that <fill in the blank with whatever horrid words your particular MLCer used> person that your WAS turned away from. It reminds you that you ARE lovable, you ARE attractive, you ARE ....
But how do you feel without all the external reenforcements? When you are at home and the lights are out and the kids are sleeping and the TVs off ... in the quiet ... all by yourself ...
Do you wonder if you'd been a better a spouse would he have stayed? Do you think if you'd been sexier, prettier, a better cook, a better a housekeeper, thinner, taller, more fun ... whatever ... that then he would have stayed? Do you believe that he never loved you? That it was your fault? Do you want him back even if he hasn't done the work? Do you wonder why this is happening TO you?
Tell me ... what do you think in those really quiet, dark times ... what do you see when you look, really look, into that mirror then ...
This isn't about sex. You want a pat on the back because you're not sleeping with random men? You're not gonna get one from me. Because we're talking about so much more than that.
Esteem. SELF esteem. This isn't easy stuff ... and lord knows I still struggle too ... always checking myself, owning my choices and seeing them for what it is. You guys think I'm honest on here ... you should see what I say to myself. And when I screw up, I call in reenforcments, and trust me when I tell ya I have some tough cookies helping me stay accountable ... to ME.
Now don't get me wrong. I don't believe for a second that we are meant to be alone. I think that one of the reasons we NEED to be alone is so that we become our true selves, our most authentic and whole selves ... in order to be able to share that with someone else. Someone also healthy. Someone who also doesn't NEED us but WANTS us. And I agree with Eric, alone isn't necessarily a timeframe or a physical thing (actually lets be honest, that was mine E, where's my nickle???) ... it's an emotional place. And therefore if we are emotionally invested and undetached from someone else then no, IMO, we are not alone. How long does it take? As long as it takes. No longer, no shorter. Some move through it faster than others, some try to race through it, some try to skip it ... but it is what is it.
Unless we REALLY know ourselves ... our wants, desires, demons, faults, insecurities, fears and boundaries ... how can we know what our partner looks like? If we haven't truly accepted and learned to love ourselves, learned to forgive ourselves and taken responsibility for our lives, our happiness ... how can we share?
Holding onto anger to punish someone else, is like lighting yourself on fire to get smoke in their eyes ~ 25yearsmlc
I don't think you need a man to be happy. I think you would love to have a relationship that is satisfying in all aspects of life. It is human nature for us to feel this way. Heck, I know I don't need a man for happiness, but like you I would like to have a man for a good satisfying relationship.
I THINK about sex all the time too. Which is funny, this is one of my H complaints about me. He said I never wanted to have sex. Which is crazy because we had sex all the time and it was great!!
Lorie W47 H48 D16 M20 H gone 11/9/10 lives w/OW
When you forgive,you heal. When you let go,you grow. When you cry to God, you surrender. When you love unconditionally, you show others Christ's love.
Do I go out and flirt, yes! Does it mean anything to me other than innocent fun, no! Would I take anyone home with me, no!
sarahani ... and others,
I'm gonna have to call you on this too ... anyone surprised???
Of course it means more to you than innocent fun. It is ego and esteem boosting, it makes you feel girly and feminine and attractive and sexy. It reaffirms that you are NOT that <fill in the blank with whatever horrid words your particular MLCer used> person that your WAS turned away from. It reminds you that you ARE lovable, you ARE attractive, you ARE ....
But how do you feel without all the external reenforcements? When you are at home and the lights are out and the kids are sleeping and the TVs off ... in the quiet ... all by yourself ...
Do you wonder if you'd been a better a spouse would he have stayed? Do you think if you'd been sexier, prettier, a better cook, a better a housekeeper, thinner, taller, more fun ... whatever ... that then he would have stayed? Do you believe that he never loved you? That it was your fault? Do you want him back even if he hasn't done the work? Do you wonder why this is happening TO you?
Tell me ... what do you think in those really quiet, dark times ... what do you see when you look, really look, into that mirror then ...
This isn't about sex. You want a pat on the back because you're not sleeping with random men? You're not gonna get one from me. Because we're talking about so much more than that.
Esteem. SELF esteem. This isn't easy stuff ... and lord knows I still struggle too ... always checking myself, owning my choices and seeing them for what it is. You guys think I'm honest on here ... you should see what I say to myself. And when I screw up, I call in reenforcments, and trust me when I tell ya I have some tough cookies helping me stay accountable ... to ME.
Now don't get me wrong. I don't believe for a second that we are meant to be alone. I think that one of the reasons we NEED to be alone is so that we become our true selves, our most authentic and whole selves ... in order to be able to share that with someone else. Someone also healthy. Someone who also doesn't NEED us but WANTS us. And I agree with Eric, alone isn't necessarily a timeframe or a physical thing (actually lets be honest, that was mine E, where's my nickle???) ... it's an emotional place. And therefore if we are emotionally invested and undetached from someone else then no, IMO, we are not alone. How long does it take? As long as it takes. No longer, no shorter. Some move through it faster than others, some try to race through it, some try to skip it ... but it is what is it.
Unless we REALLY know ourselves ... our wants, desires, demons, faults, insecurities, fears and boundaries ... how can we know what our partner looks like? If we haven't truly accepted and learned to love ourselves, learned to forgive ourselves and taken responsibility for our lives, our happiness ... how can we share?
now you have me crying again. this is all so hard. i know you all are going through the same thing I am and you all understand more than you ever wanted to. I guess I am going through a very confused phase - thinking I am strong - but knowing I am weak, defensive.
I am going to print this email out and keep it under my pillow. Thanks PEI for pushing me and trying to help me realize the work i have yet to do.
TAMF m:41 xh:41 T: 20 M: 15 D: 16 D: 14 Bomb dropped: 7/3/10 separated: 7/15/10 H moved in to new apt. with OW: 7/1/11 divorced: 8/26/12
PEI, you have me crying too now. I came on here to hopefully read some things to help discourage me from texting H. I wanted to tell him this is it, I’m throwing in the towel, I’m done, and I can’t deal with this pain anymore! All this to get a reaction from him because I don’t get anything…nothing really. Deep down inside this isn’t the truth but I felt I needed to hear something from him probably some reassurance but I know it wasn’t going to happen.
Now, about the questions you asked that’s what made me cry because often those are the questions I ask myself and as of yet I’m trying to figure the answers out.
I don’t have anybody that I can really talk to about this because everyone’s response is he is an a$$ and he doesn’t deserve us. Thank you for giving me a wake-up call so to speak.
Me:32 H:32 M:9 T:15 D:4 S:2 OW/PA: JANUARY 10 ILYBINILWY AUGUST 10 Goes and Comes July/September Moves out September Sep. since Sept.
"The Journey from Abandonment to Healing" by Susan Anderson.
This book REALLY had an impact on my thinking. I got over a huge hump by reading this and considering everything in it. Eric recommended it (thank you!!!) and it has been a very important book to me.
It doesn't focus a lot on "why they left." It focuses on YOU throughout, on what you are going through and how it affects you physically and emotionally and what YOU can do to help yourself and be kinder to yourself.
I think when you are several months post-bomb you have to try to get off the "why did he/she leave" and "what did I do wrong" and be more present-minded, and this book is all about that.
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
