A new perspective???

[AntoniaB]

IB I fluctuate between being angry at XH prancing around with a carefree life with OW and being sad and hurt that he's doing it, but in both cases, yeah, I'm deeply affected by what he's "doing" and frankly I don't even know at all--my friend who is still connected to him on fb only says he just posts that he is "drinking, fishing, and following OW around watching her sing."

I don't know why it all matters to me, and then I get upset at myself for being upset. I was doing some reading and basically read that this means I'm not "accepting" of my current life--that when I get angry at him for leaving me to take care of a property and a home and all our pets, that what that says is that I don't accept my life and want him to drop what he's doing and save me from this existence and go back to sharing the "burdens." I suspect that's what you're feeling too.

It's tough because you start thinking, would I have gotten into this, that, and the other in the first place if I had known I'd be doing it all alone? Would I have all these pets? No. Would I have this huge property? No. Can I get rid of the pets or move? Yeah. But I don't want to. I shouldn't "have" to just because he lost his mind and betrayed me.

So see, I sort of got an easier lifestyle because HE was choosing to be in it. Now he's choosing not to. What I'm angry about is that I see him denying me "easier." My friend said the other day that I am so geographically isolated from everyone so I'm SO alone so much. And then I thought, well, I moved here 23 years ago. With him. How was I supposed to know that one day, he'd leave me alone here? And my job and its security is here. I can't just leave to make it easier.

So I think we have to look at this more as being widowed. Had we lost our spouses to death, we'd also be stuck out here having to pick up all these pieces by ourselves. Sure we'd get angry over it, but we'd probably be angry at God, not at our spouses, because we'd think well, our spouses didn't CHOOSE to leave us with all this.

Somehow knowing they CHOSE to leave us with all this is the part we can't accept.

From what I read, the more we get used to our "new" lives thrust upon us, the more that we will not resent them for what appears to be their living it up. And every time I think about these people choosing to hurt us, I just try to tell myself there is a greater reason at work for all this happening.

I hope that you have a good week. I've really struggled in the past month and so much of what I'm feeling is exactly what you're articulating, and I thought I was "done" with all this and I suspect you thought you would be too by now. I think we are both terrible perfectionists and really far too hard on ourselves and it's too early for us to be out of the woods. One day at a time.