Sanderika and Cas, you are getting some good advice here. GAG's posts about the nuerological aspects of psychotherapy are fascinating, and helpful, and they are consistent with the writing in Journey from Abandonment to Healing' about what happens to us when they leave.
I have been reflecting some more on why I think we have to drop the rope and go dark, for our own sakes. Firstly it should not be simply as a reaction. It has to be a 'take a deep breath and do this'. Now I agree about all the deep emotional and psychological things that are almost certainly going on with our h's. . But, and it is a big but, until we fully drop the rope, and face our life without our h's we remain essentially the same person we were. Yes, we have been through h*ll but we remain attached to the idea of our marriage, in some way. Otherwise we would not still be putting up with this terrible behavour. Actions are very important as an indicator of a person's state, and for whatever reason our h's are still in lalaland.
Part of our journey is changing, and while we emotionally hang on to our h's in any way, we do not fully make the huge life transitioning change that their leaving started to propel us into. The fully letting go has been strange, lonely and scary. I have been very very dark before, but I never fully let go. Now I believe I have, and I feel different, after a few months of it. Much much better, in a way I didn't expect.
We don't have to be mean, we don't have to stop loving them, but I think in order to change in the way we need to, we have to let go. Until we do everything for our own sakes, and stop being around for them, trying to support, fix, sympathise, empathise, all the reasons we give to ourselves, we remain part of the problem, in a strange way, not part of the solution. We think we are part of the solution. We aren't. It isn't our fault, it is the way they are currently.
They may never come out of it, and we need to live our lives fully. Interestingly, since I dropped the rope I have been much more content to be on my own. I don't want a new relationship, I don't want my old marriage. I just want to be the person I now am, and get to know them fully. I can now see how very messed up my h is, and how impossible a relationship would be until he fixes himself, and even then . . . Hmmm.
