Oh so my point on the contrast above was this....clearly I am a well-liked person in a lot of ways. I'm not snobby or mean or people wouldn't be inviting me to sit with them at an event or acting so interested (and of course I do the same with them). I feel like I have a lot going for me and I work so hard and have for so long to prove myself professionallly and to be a good friend and daughter and all that and I STILL feel like a damn failure, because I got dumped so royally.
It's like what XH did to me despite my being in more ways than I was not, a GOOD wife, the woman that ALL our male friends said, "I'm not getting married unless I can find a wife as cool as Antonia", well no matter what I do, ever, I will never be able to live down the shame of what he did IN MY OWN HEAD, and of course I always wonder are others thinking this of me too who know what he did.
There is a short story by Katherine Anne Porter called "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" which I can tell you I will NOT teach anymore, about this woman who has a very full life and a husband and kids, but on her deathbed, the last thing she remembers is that she was left at the altar. It's a heartbreaking story. Her last words are "I'll never forgive it" or something to that effect. The jilting destroys her.
I live in fear that that will be me, that despite whatever good I do, it will be the last thing I remember. I know that people say this is a choice we make. I am trying so hard to choose "correctly" and it's not working.
Maybe it's just too early. 17 months...maybe it's too early.
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
OK - what i meant about death is that we need to find mechanisms for coping with the loss. And death is an analogous loss.
The reason we think betrayal is worse than death is that we haven't yet forgiven the betrayer [and it is a big forgive, I know]. Until you can forgive your h, you really aren't ready imo for a relationship. How will you know you aren't paying your h back.
And on the wonderful wife angle, one of the reasons they leave [so a therapist friend told me] is that they don't measure up, and feel inadequate. Hence the needy affair down. That and a lot of other stuff.
I also lost my mother during all of this, but losing a parent, while painful, is in the natural order of things. Betrayal, and death of spouse at a relatively young age isn't, nor is losing a child. This is all painful stuff, that runs against what we feel life 'ought' to be like.
A new relationship won't put things right - rational;y you know this, emotionally your words tell me you think it will.
Nothing can put it right, in the sense we want, which is for it not to have happened. But it has and we have to recover. The ones that come back have their set of problems and the ones that don't, another, but all of us have to find ways to forgive this tremendous hurt and move on.
Oh wow, I'm sorry you lost your mother too in this mess. Gosh once you hit 40 loss just seems to be everywhere. I swear I lived in fantasyland till 40. Nothing ever went "wrong" or if it did go wrong, it was such small potatoes.
I'm actually worried about my BIL as he lost his mom last week and also his sister 2 years ago, and his rel. with my sister has always been strained as he is much like my XH as far as depression or low self-esteem that he refuses to really get help for. I worry about him descending into MLC, although obviously if he does I can help her.
Interestingly both my sisters have said that soon "my time" in this dark place will be over and that "they know" I will need to help them, because they know something is coming for them, they don't know what it is, but what happened to me shattered this illusion my parents worked SO hard to build around us that if we just worked hard enough at everything we did, we'd never ever fail and life would always be wonderful.
So I guess it's not just me dealing with the shattering of my belief system or the old illusions, it's my whole family, but I'm the only one getting "help" for it while they are all just walking around shell-shocked and in disbelief.
The reason I meantion new rel. being helpful is that I feel like I have a lot of self-confidence in my work/brain/abilities, and when I focus on those things, I very much feel "over" the loss of XH and like I've moved on and accepted I am better off without him. HOWEVER, the worth as a woman "sexually" was only ever validated by XH, and so I feel like until a man who I find acceptable gives me that type of validation, I will always revert in my mind to "needing" XH to approve me in that way. And a few friends have also said that if I just had a successful date where someone expressed desire for me, whether I acted on it or rejected it, that that would be the one thing to get me "over" XH and accepting that there were other fish in the sea.
It's like I believe I can do most anything I set my mind to, but if you ask me "Antonia can you attract another man now that XH is gone, a man you yourself would find interesting and smart and attractive", my answer would be a resounding "No, I cannot."
Does that make sense?
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
I think that we are not ready yet. I find fault ( or maybe excuses ) in every men that approaches me. It's really easy, almost natural. I think once XH's book is 100% closed , by me, is when i'll be able to let someonelse in.
The reason I meantion new rel. being helpful is that I feel like I have a lot of self-confidence in my work/brain/abilities, and when I focus on those things, I very much feel "over" the loss of XH and like I've moved on and accepted I am better off without him. HOWEVER, the worth as a woman "sexually" was only ever validated by XH, and so I feel like until a man who I find acceptable gives me that type of validation, I will always revert in my mind to "needing" XH to approve me in that way. And a few friends have also said that if I just had a successful date where someone expressed desire for me, whether I acted on it or rejected it, that that would be the one thing to get me "over" XH and accepting that there were other fish in the sea.
It's like I believe I can do most anything I set my mind to, but if you ask me "Antonia can you attract another man now that XH is gone, a man you yourself would find interesting and smart and attractive", my answer would be a resounding "No, I cannot."
Does that make sense?
This makes perfect sense to me, yes, but that doesn't make it OK! What I think you are saying, decoding it unkindly, if you like, is that other people can validate you externally [work etc], and you can also validate yourself there too - I am not saying it is all about others - you have a voice here, clearly. But sexually, it is hard to feel attractive if the person we loved and desired the most has changed their mind.
If meeting someone else it what it takes, OK, but it means you will still be dependent on someone else's approval. We really need to be able to self validate here too.
You're right about that. I just have to figure out a way to hug myself and hold my own hand ;-) No really I'm not sure how to pull this off. I feel a lot more inwardly sexy and confident than I ever have, mainly because of all the ways I've grown or become self-sufficient and because I basically have decided to stop being angry that I'm a curvy person with some extra weight and start to dress to enhance my assets instead of hiding in clothes too big for me, and I will go places and sit with people or up front instead of hiding in the back...all my "wallflower" tendencies are either gone or I push them away...and that makes me feel really good about myself, even sexually. But since the only people who notice and compliment are women, I start to wonder if this is all in my head and I really am a trainwreck in those areas.
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
And THAT is the mantra I'm telling myself hearafter till the right one comes along, ha ha!!
I was reading an article that said that for most women dating online, the most attractive quality about a man's profile is confidence, that confidence without being cocky can trump average or poor looks any day; conversely, LOW on the list for men reading profiles of women is seeing them being confident. Most men online are threatened by this. What they tend to want, and the women whose profiles are hit on the most, are women who talk about how happy they are but who reflect a bit of neediness.
Now see, I'm not going to lie to get attention. I don't think "happiness" is the end all, be all anymore. I think peacefulness, or being able to handle problems ok, or yes, confidence in yourself/career/aspirations is the most important thing. And accd. to that one study, anyway, the very things that are important to me turn men dating online away, but they attract women; hence, this is why I have no trouble getting compliments from complete strangers as long as they are women ;-)
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
The thing is that you are not 'most women', and you will not necessarily attract 'most men'. You sound as if you want someone pretty special, and you know, they might even have half a brain, and go for confidence!
