I've got 54 days to receive a miracle.

[25yearsmlc]

geez AJ, nice post!^^

My dear Tad
you may forget sometimes, but you do have support to meet some of your needs. Right here. We're trying.

And AJ's right. We HAVE been there. I went on ADs, and I am glad as heck I did.

They helped me Stop the driving & "looping around the freeway" and allowed me to take the exit ramp. I stopped (or lessened) the obessive pointless questions --"what if I do this? What if I say THAT??

What will H do or feel or say and then what do I say or do or feel or think? What's h going to do next? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING??"
and Ad infinitum...(& ad nauseum)

that's why we want to help you get off the freeway, Tad. We want you to take the exit ramp and go to a scenic overlook to see your life...

really see it.

Look at where you were, where you've been and How you got here..
and after all that--ask yourself where you want to go from this day forward...b/c that's the question only you can answer.

Allow me to mix the metaphors one more time, okay?

...imagine your life is a novel.

How's your "life novel" going? How do you feel about the chapter you are IN now? Okay...so

WHO WROTE THIS PRESENT CHAPTER?


WHO WILL WRITE THE REST OF THIS NOVEL??

How about you being the author of your life? Write the rest of this the way you want it to go, with you as the strong hero, et al... AJ and others are correct about how the WAS comes back if and when they do.
As far as I know, of the ones who "really" return, it's after the LBS gets a life and moves on or starts to, and demonstrates who (the LBSer) is inside.
Look TAD, you only have a few options here as an LBSer

The LBSer has no healthy choice but to grow and improve from all this.


In effect-The 3 options for an LBSer to respond to their heartbreak are:

1) wallow in self pity & self loathing and writhe in their pain and agony, circling the freeway asking "why" all the time and of everyone they meet. THey began to look inside the m and then decided they were worthless but ironically they don't
actually change their behavior. Easier to wallow than to change, or so they think.
Their friends tend to drop off after awhile and family members avoid them if they can...it's draining to them. And frustrating. Some friendships end b/c the friend has nothing left to give but the wallower wants more and MORE...

OR the LBSer can

2) wallow in rage and blame and live in their anger, watching as it consumes them more each day til all that's left of them IS the anger. THere is NO introspection here. either they're terrified their bullying or angry ways is the
real reason the spouse left and they can't face that, or they'd simply rather be angry. They are comfortable in their anger and they embrace bitterness...it fuels them.
..sometimes they get dangerous to themselves or others...they get in fights and they also tend to lose friends, drink or use illicit substances, and lose jobs, etc. All that makes them more angry b/c to them, drinking to numb pain is not their fault but still it's the WAS's..even years later they blame others for choices made long ago and still being made by their spouse or themselves...the lousy mc they had (for a month or two) or their former inlaws, or the step kids whom they blame unfairly, or the anger at the OW or OM simply won't fade even as years pass, and blah blah blah...

OR
3) THEY GAL, they own their part, learn from it and move on. They take charge of their own happiness.THEY take up new hobbies and passions and they meet new people and bring new interests and people into their lives...

THEY Learn to be happy with or without spouse.They come to Believe they are going to be fine regardless. THEY COME TO KNOW THIS...they enjoy the GAL. Tad, Detaching from others and learning to live well for YOU, tends to bring happiness into our lives no matter what someone else is doing...and that's just more attractive than the other options.

Of all the LBSers who GAL and detached, a few years later, regardless of what their spouse did, they are happy. Seriously. My biggest regret is all the time wasted on being in options #1 & #2 above and asking pointless questions INSTEAD of creating a new happier life & future for ME and My kids...
when I finally did,

other good things happened. I genuinely came to see the upsides of not having to put h's career first and I came to see my r's with others improve and I felt lucky to have my kids with me and our friends...

I just knew I was going to be better off than h BUT it wasn't a contest. It was just that I came to believe in my heart of hearts, I'd be fine with or without him. H had flaws I could do without. And I was an improved woman, a better catch than before...the man who ended up as my partner would be a lucky man indeed...I came to believe this, than to KNOW it and then to show it, I guess. I mean, a lot of men sure noticed me and I got a lot of attention and then, my h said and did what he needed to do to get me interested again. He courted me and convinced me to give it another try and we entered piecing then...for a long time. THEN we went to Retrovaille and THEN I felt our m had been fully restored...but it's always a work in progress; always needs attention; tending to...

Every single restored m I have seen, here and anywhere, was between

a WAS and an LBSer who GAL and changed themselves. First they changed for real from within. They "got it" inside. Then naturally, the real changes within, manifest outwardly. They become different people with different behavioral choices.

The happy LBSer who GAL and detached, is a happier, wiser person. That attracts lots of other people into their lives --and the healthy LBSer chooses wisely whom to make room for in their new life.

This care used to choose and create a spiritually centered way of life, makes the LBSer even happier. It begets a cycle of loving interaction between the happy LBSer and the world.

who doesn't want to be a part of that?

Good luck.

More of this is within your control than you realize-

everything having to do with YOU is.

Everything else-- you leave in the hands of a loving God.