I understand that my goal is to get to the place where I don't feel things like anger or depression, but I'm also of the mind that I NEED to feel these things right now. I spent the first two months of this trying everything in my power to convince myself that this thing with OM wouldn't last and that my W would ultimately come back to me in the end. Hope was the only thing driving me. At that time, I was too traumatized to even consider the notion that this might just be the end.
In a lot of ways, that hope was a kind of life-ring that I could cling to so that I didn't get emotionally destroyed. Something I could focus on so that I didn't go insane or implode with depression... But now I have to let go of that ring. She might not end up with OM (in fact, the chances of that seem more unlikely than ever), but she might also leave me for good in the end. The grieving process has begun for me. Once that process is over, I imagine I'll be readier to get out and GAL like a bull. Right now, the GAL-ing comes in waves...
As to your final question, I just want to spend this time trying to be as happy and fulfilled as possible on my own. Once I totally detach from my W and whatever rollercoaster she's on, I feel that I'll be freer to really look at what I want out of life. To see WHO I AM, IN AND OF MYSELF...to even be FULFILLED by myself, no one else required... I am not yet there. I am nowhere close to that...but it is my goal to ultimately make it there.
I also want to spend this time really looking at the mistakes I've made in the past, learning from them, then shaping my future behavior accordingly. A lot of times during our R, I would just try to forget about those mistakes or spend insane amounts of energy trying to defend/minimize them... Now I'm in a place where I can reconcile those poor choices and make better ones.
On a side note: I was in Barnes and Noble, browsing through books about surviving infidelity. One of them mentioned the book "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl. I had already ready the book once, but perhaps I was not in a place to truly absorb the message that it brought. After seeing the book mentioned and realizing that it absolutely pertained to my situation (and really, ANY painful situation), my memories of Frankl's story keep coming back to my mind, especially on a long walk I had today.
Basically, it's one of the most inspiring stories I've ever read. This man lost everything and everyone he held dear in the Holocaust. He lost his wife...his mother and father...and pretty much his entire family... He was also subjected to the cruelest treatments in a concentration camp including starvation and rampant beatings. Yet through all of this pain and suffering, he still realized that one could survive such suffering if a person found that there was meaning to be found in it.
I feel as though we are all finding this lesson ourselves on our own journeys...that through our pain and suffering, there may still be much meaning, growth, and opportunity that may be discovered through our endurance of it.
but I'm also of the mind that I NEED to feel these things right now.
Then feel it.
Do it.
Until you don't want to anymore.
Until it doesn't serve you anymore.
Originally Posted By: West
I feel that I'll be freer to really look at what I want out of life. To see WHO I AM, IN AND OF MYSELF...to even be FULFILLED by myself, no one else required
This is a good goal West.
It is a process and we are here to help along the way.
Keep steppin'
My goal is to some day be the person my dog thinks I am
Thanks very much to you, CS, Made, 25, Julz, and Chaos. This has been one hell of a journey, and I doubt I would have made it as well as I have so far without you guys. Good to know there's a place on the Internet where everybody knows what you're going through and knows lots of great advice for getting by and getting better.
News of my life: I got about three very brief e-mails from my W, all of them concerning the fact that she got on her own car insurance policy, which means I'm left to take care of my car insurance payments myself. Before this, I had transferred money every month into her bank account so she could have the payments automatically deducted (her account was our old joint account). She also changed the password for me and said that she thought that I could change my policy somehow to get lower payments.
Her e-mails were basically friendly but devoid of emotion. On the first one, she wrote, "Hope everything is going well." I replied back in kind: "I appreciate letting me know about everything." I gave her my bank account number so she could give me back the money that I had given her this month for the payment.
Not sure what any of this means, really. I'm guessing that she's doing everything that she can to make the separation more final. Possibly even lining up her ducks for a D. I guess we'll see.
As for me, I'm reading a book about rumination by Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, who I imagine is the leading expert on the subject. So far, it's been very enlightening. It makes it very clear that if you're constantly thinking about negative things, you will feel negative. So I'm trying to stay positive and keep that PMA going at all times! I feel better already, really.
My choice in reading this book by Nolen-Hoeksema was a great idea. Basically, it has pinpointed what has been my problem for over five years now: rumination and negative thought spirals. (I used to label it as OCD, and for a while it was on a very-OCD level, but "rumination" is really what was at the heart of it.) I knew a lot of this already, but it helped a lot to read a book entirely devoted to the subject. The fact that I found most interesting is that rumination seems to be most prevalent in younger society. Older generations (those born before the 1960s) don't seem to understand the point of it. Why think about your problems over and over again incessantly? Why not just do what you can and leave it at that? I have met many elderly people who have survived all kinds of traumas and heartaches in their lives, yet still seem so positive and happy in the moment. This lack of negative thinking, I believe, is why.
So the combination of reading this book and reading a post that 25 made on MTS' thread about not focusing so much on your S hit me in a flash today. I finally and truly realized that the more that I kept thinking about my W and all the pain that my sitch was causing me, the more I would keep holding onto that pain. I realized that I was tired of living that kind of life. The same goes for anything else that goes wrong, really -- if something bothers me, I have the right not to think about it. I'll just do the best I can, then move on. Right now, I want to focus on being happy and fulfilled all by myself.
As for GAL-ing, it's slow-going, but I'm getting there. I'm becoming very accustomed to keeping myself busy. I've been reading books, watching movies and listening to music checked out from the library, exercising, and most importantly, writing. I wrote 1000 words a day for three days straight, which is good progress. I plan to do another 1000 tonight. I have been putting elements of my own life into my fiction -- I'm writing a fictional story about a man who is struggling with his wife's infidelity. Rather than keeping me mired, it's strangely cathartic to put all this in a fictional setting. And it makes for great inspiration, too.
I have not had a huge desire to connect with other people for months because of the pain of my sitch, but now that I'm cleaning up my thought processes, I'm enjoying being more social now. I'm actually trying to positively communicate with the people that I help at my bank (I'm a teller). All of these changes are being made a little bit at a time, but the important thing is that they ARE BEING MADE.
I feel like I've changed so much in the last three months, and I know that I'll keep on changing for the best as time goes on. What's weird is that I never would have changed in this fashion had my W and I kept going on the way we had, but I guess that's what big, crappy events invariably do to people: make them stronger, better, and wiser. We'll see how it plays out.
What's weird is that I never would have changed in this fashion had my W and I kept going on the way we had, but I guess that's what big, crappy events invariably do to people: make them stronger, better, and wiser. We'll see how it plays out.
What happens after a wild fire? New growth.
Be thankful for change. If you can get to the point where you ACCEPT this ultimate rejection, you actually GROW to never allow this to take place in YOUR life again. You validate her feelings, you find YOUR boundaries, and you never live in the past. It's all about saving yourself and letting go of the uncontrollable.
Regardless of past mistakes on your part or her, you START now and move forward always doing things differently. Most importantly for you.
Thanks for the words, Faith. Something you've said has been on my mind off and on for a while now: for me to "grow to never allow this to take place in [my] life again." They are wise words. However, this experience with my W may forever affect my trust in having an R with someone else in the future. Her A was the one thing I thought that she was never capable of, and yet she did it. How will I ever know that a future partner won't do the same thing? I imagine that we're all in that boat, unfortunately.
Having thought about it, I believe that my "double-checking" with my W about if she wanted to legally S or not was probably a bad idea. It seemed like no big deal at the time, and I did not write the e-mail in an aggressive or wordy manner, but looking back, it seems like I may have applied just the tiniest hint of pressure. It might have spooked her away. The important thing for me to remember is the notion of doing a 180: me backing off from her has yielded positive results. Moving toward her in any way will probably blow up in my face.
However, as a result of my new ways of thinking, I feel better than I have in months. It's really very simple: the more you think about something, the bigger it gets in your mind. And the bigger it gets, the more power it has over you. So I'm done allowing my W to have all of this power over me and my emotions. Or allowing anything else in my life that power, either.
