Of Men or of Angels

[AntoniaB]

The part Eric saya about being cleansed, not burned, above, is exactly what I went through a few days ago. It was excruciating, the point I came to just this week, and that point was that I finally let go of the idealization of my marriage and the idealization of my XH. I had been living with this idea for so long that if he just would come out of his MLC and return to "who he was before he snapped", that he and I could rebuild something. But it finally hit me this week that I have already changed so much from who I was and my needs or ideas about relationships are SO different, and he and I are on much more divergent paths now than ever.

When you said you are not going on this path again and that your W has the residual issues from childhood, that struck a chord in me, because this week I realized that my XH's problems to some extent have ALWAYS been with him and are very much a part of who he is. And I knew about them and I married him anyway. Just as he knew about mine and married me anyway. And we had an amazing love for a long time even with that codependency floating around on the periphery, until the codependency became the marriage. And he abandoned our marriage because he was dying inside, and until I lost everything I had, I didn't realize I was dying inside too. I am reborn as this very different person now, and for all that pain, I am a better person and broke so many of my old patterns.

But he and I are fundamentally different. He lacks the open-mindedness I have always had to treatment types or to opening up to others. He lacks my optimism. This is in his core. I'm not saying he can't get his head right; I did. I WANT him to get his head right, for him. I want him to be happy. But I guess I know that even if he were to come back some day, that I'd be coaching him through recovery and putting in far more than 50% to try to fix him, because he won't trust anyone else enough to let them in to help.

My reading of what you've said here is that you are finally allowing yourself the space to grasp that you are a better man without her and that you don't want to keep holding on to her because she is still so far from recovery. That you've perhaps let her go physically through distance/detachment, but that now you're letting go EMOTIONALLY. And yes, that is AS bad if not more so than the day you learned of the affair. I said the same thing in my thread the other day. It's very bad because it's you choosing to "walk away" from her.

The night that I came to my epiphany about severing my emotional tie (in my own mind of course) to my XH, I wrote this poem, and I sobbed and sobbed through it. I felt like I was tearing my own heart out. But this is what came out:

Phantom Heart
By Susan Redington Bobby 8/31/11


A phantom limb tingles after it is gone
Defined by its presence, not its emptiness
An occupied void
A paradox.

You are my phantom heart.
You no longer beat in time with me.
You are a second off.
Sometimes you are behind me
Other times ahead
No longer in harmony.

Your signal is dying.
You grow dimmer.
I could resuscitate you.

“Daisy….daisy…”
“Give…….me……your…..answer…………do”

It hurts.
It really hurts.
It rends my soul.

I pull your plug.

___________________________________.


Yes, that is sad beyond recognition.

But isn't that the meaning of GAL? Just because you choose to emotionally detach, with love in your heart, are you really walking away from the possibility, however remote, down the line, that you may reconcile? NO.

You don't know what the future holds for either of you.

You don't know if she will come to a point where she slays her dragons or not. You have gone through an amazing transformation. She might as well. But maybe her only chance is for you to walk away. Totally, utterly, completely.

You can remain cordial; you can remain connected. You can remain friends on some level. But YOUR emotional tie to her is now severed. But it's to the woman she is now and WAS. You don't know if you may be tied to her in the future because she, like you, can change.

What I see you doing is truly embracing the idea that YOU have moved on and that YOU must take care of yourself. I see you having broken any tendencies to codependency and not wanting to allow yourself to let them creep up again out of love for her, because you love her so unconditionally you are willing to fully let her go.

I know this is so hard, and I don't mean to bring my story so much into my post above, but it's the only way I can think of to say that I feel like you and I went through something very similar this week and I think it's a good thing in terms of YOUR development as a person.

And YOU were reborn this week, while you recognize that she has not been...yet...if ever. And that's ok.

You are giving her the space she needs to find that path. This is the greatest gift that you could ever give her AND yourself.

Something always has to die for new life to sprout.