Walking in Muskeg - Part IV - Squishy Rubber Boots

[Queen_of_Swords]

OK - I understand what you have been getting at for the past few months. You're right - it sux when you realise you've been living in fantasy land for half your adult life.

Fantasyland, maybe not so much. I'd say it's more a realization that I didn't understand fully the "rules" or expectations required of me. I did what I knew how to do, with the tools I had in my arsenal and I thought that was enough.

You have realised that you didn't know him ...? Yeah? So, if you think about it, maybe he had made up the same style of fairytale in his own head up until his revelations of 2 years ago. What's to say that he had made you into a completely different woman in his head - and at some time in his personal development - he's just looked at his life and thought "God, this isn't at all how I thought it was, this isn't what I signed up for".

True. Very likely what happened. Who he married is not who I am now.

Ever since you first started posting here, you've been "threatening" yourself/him/us/the universe that you are "just about done", "can't do this anymore", etc etc .... well what's stopping you? Be done. There's no law against it

Threatening. I suppose you could see it that way. I am so frustrated at this situation. I am thinking though about this whole statement. It will take some time to percolate through the layers.

To be honest - the best thing you could do for yourself is to detach from him and from any "expectations" about rebuilding your relationship. With your attitude and his distance, it's not like there's going to be some miraculous change in circumstances over the next month that's going to make everything better.

Exactly. There is nothing to look forward to here. I guess part of what I've spewed on these boards is a preliminary way to rid myself of expectations at all. Go to a emotional and expectational wasteland, with him as a stranger I may not even care to converse with.

Detaching, "going pitch black", "no-contact" (and there's some good stuff around written by women relationship advisors about "implementing no-contact" (google it) - is for you. It gives you the space and energy to focus on the rest of your life and take your focus off your H. You need to do that Scylla. YOu need to do it for you - but you also need to do it so he can really feel what it's like not having "mother/saviour/superorganiser" Scylla around.

Good point. Up until now I have been available, accomodating, friendly, pleasant, kind and polite.
Being that is the furthest thing from my mind, although out of force of habit I'm still courteous and behave no differently. Even today when he cancelled an arrangement.

He is capable of looking after himself and others.
He's got himself entangled with a couple as a caretaker and emergency contact. The wife in this couple is dying of a terminal illness and progressing quickly. I only know second hand of this. I've never met them.

Is he seeing someone else?

It's possible. I really have no way of knowing unless he becomes indiscreet around the kids.

One last point. Dating. I say go for it, but go for it in a healthy and respectful way. There are lots of traps out there for people reentering the dating lifestyle after a long relationship. My adventures over the past few years have included "separated" men who weren't really separated; divorced men still pining for their WAW; young men, delighted with the opportunity of dating an 'experienced' woman; the list goes on and on - and I could entertain a dinner party with it all night - but the point is, you have to be emotionally very healthy to weed out the toxic men. It's just as easy to create those fairytales in our head of new men, as it was to create them about our old spouse.

So true. I've already seen some evidence of very toxic people and behaviours out there.

There are a couple of bulletin boards around that focus on healthy relationship advice that you should look at. One is Loveshack - a bb for relationship advice for all sorts of situations (there's a board for marriages, one for infidelity, dating and ldr, othermen/otherwomen etc) and I'd also encourage you to google Baggage Reclaim - which is a blog that's updated regularly.

Thanks so much for this information Virgina. I will keep it in mind and poke around. Thanks too for the hugs.

I'm mostly ok. I tend to let out all the intensity of my negative emotions and thoughts are let out here.