Of Men or of Angels

[AntoniaB]

TG I haven't written too often to you but I've been reading everything and one thing you said really stuck out to me as far as a reason you are hurting and a reason that maybe you are finding it hard to "walk away".

You said, "A void.

And that is just sharing your life with someone."

The reason that I clung so long to hanging on emotionally to my XH when every iota of hope in resurrecting anything GOOD was lost was because I had it in my head that my life would be a void/have a void if I did not have him or a partner in it. Almost a year of therapy and some very hard work and soul-searching has taught me that this is a belief that was destroying me because it was keeping me stuck in the place of pain and regret. It was also making it so that in my head, I could not simply "go on" without XH or else if I did, I'd be giving in to that void and saying "alright, now I'm alone, so that's a WORSE place to be than waiting for him to come back so we can share our life again.

The fear of this void and the belief that it HAD to be filled for me to experience happiness or peace also made me feel pressure to find someone else, so I started to actively think about how I could meet someone/where I could find someone.

So if a belief you have is destroying you, you get rid of the belief and you are free. There is no reason to have the "belief" that we have to have a lover/romantic partner in our life or else there is a void. That's something we may have been taught over the years and it's a reason that people marry when they shouldn't or stay together when it's not working or put up with an absurd amount of emotional abuse to stay together.

There are other things that fill the void. There are other relationships we have with both ourselves and others that are NOT of that kind of romantic/sexual/intimate nature but of other types of intimacy that DO allow us to share.

When I made the decision to say it was ok for me to have those other relationships now and perhaps in my future and to LET GO of the one I wanted but couldn't have, I was able to emotionally detach from XH. This was a landmark for me. It didn't happen overnight, it sort of came to me over a week or so of time about a month or so ago, and since then I have entirely embraced the idea of letting him go not just physically but emotionally.

If you tell yourself that you must have her or someone else to share your life with or you have a void, you will be stuck until you can get rid of the power of that belief over yourself.