Someone suggest H is having a MLC....I don't know?

[cat04]

I gave and I gave, I don't think there is much of me left to give, and what was given was discarded like so much trash, and I'm no Jesus Christ.

There is a thing called a losing battle. Unfortunately I'm not the only one that will not come away from this battle, win or lose, undamaged. Our children will too. When they reach adulthood they have the example of their Dad bailing. I cannot teach them how to be husbands or fathers.

Scylla, you are right, you can’t teach your children how to be husbands and fathers. However, you can teach them what it looks like to have love, respect, appreciation and acceptance of another human being. As well as of yourself.

How you handle this, will teach them how to handle this. IF you show them that you are damaged by this and that they SHOULD be damaged by this, then they will be.

IF you show them different, strength, perseverance, healing, then they will learn that there is nothing in this world that we can’t overcome. There may come a point where you show them that sometimes, no matter how hard we try, things do not go the way we want them to, and if you handle that well, they will as well.

The book that you read about the effects of divorce, I read it too. It was very sad and I saw myself in parts of it (I am from a divorced family as well). It was one view. One study, and the common thread that I found in it, was the way that the parents handled things and their relationships or lack of with their children throughout the process and their lives. It doesn't have to be that way.

I am not saying this has not caused my S pain, however, I do not believe for one moment that this is going to scar him forever. It may, hopefully, give him a strength of character that his father did not seem to have. Because I have shown him that. He saw me at my lowest. He saw the devastation that I experienced (he is a teen and very observant). He has also seen how I continue to treat his father with compassion and kindness and caring. He has watched me rebuild myself and that I am so much happier and healthier and relaxed than I was when he was growing up.

As far as how much you gave, and I am not trying to pick on you, we all gave. You are not alone there.

However, did we give in the right way?

I didn’t.

I tried, I did the best with what I knew at the time, but there was so much that I could have done differently as a W. There is so much I could have done differently as a human. I was dealing with my own uneasiness in my own skin, my skewed ideas from my own upbringing as to what a M and family should be, how people should act, and I know that I could have done better.

After the bomb, I fell apart. I felt as you do. As I saw my role in the marital problems, I knew that I had some things to fix. And I gave more. I gave more of myself to me. H noticed the changes. While it didn’t make much of a difference in his crisis (it won’t), it did make a difference in our R. Because I give differently. Most days, we can get along pretty well now.

In my new R, I think I do pretty well most days. I give all of me, there is no hiding. It wasn't even something that I was really aware of because I had been being myself for so long by the time we met. I listen, try to make changes if they are necessary, and I also talk, often very clearly and other times, not so much, but things get worked through eventually. And if he needs to make changes, he does. Compromises. Agreeing to disagree sometimes (not often, but sometimes.) Patience, as much as we can and then more.

No one is asking you to change your core, but you really have to know WHO is at your core before you can say you aren’t going to change it. I thought I knew who was at my core. Boy was I wrong. The person I discovered, buried under a lifetime of stuff, is much more open and fun and willing than I ever would have imagined. And she is simple. And she is very happy with that.

As far as having needs met by others, is that what is important or would you prefer to wait and have those needs met by your H down the road?

I know that he says it is not going to happen, and it may not, but you really don’t know what is to come.

You have to be able to take care of those needs, all of them, even sexual needs, alone before you can adequately have them met by ANYONE else. Women seem to have a harder time with the physical part of it than men. Any book about sexual dysfunction or sexual health will tell you that though. The purely physical part of it, I understand doesn’t necessarily meet the emotional fulfillment that comes with making love with someone, however, it is still a part of loving oneself.

When we can truly love ourselves in all ways, it makes giving of oneself, really easy and natural, and it makes what we get from someone else, that much better. And it doesn’t feel like external validation. It feels like love.