25yearsmlc message to peeps

[labug]

How do you bookmark posts that you want to keep and reread? Thanks.

I just bookmark it in my browser.

[Ctflor]

Thanks 25! So much to be learned through your experiences and I appreciate this thread.

I'm totally going through anger and forgiveness right now. Tired of feeling angry, and don't know when I can forgive.

[BklynMom]

I have read your long post twice today and its has so much that I needed to hear. i will reread tomorrow morning before I see H.

I am very capable of being fine and taking care of myself but I know I need to be more than okay. I need to show my H happiness and that is a real challenge.

Thanks again for taking the time.

[25yearsmlc]

Mach -I had a brilliant and HILARIOUS post that died when my battery ran out...damn..., now I will have to be brief (relatively speaking) but you can all rest assured YOU'D have been very amused by my keen wit...

MACH, you asked if it's "funny" to read how we were back then...well certainly we had our moments. But at times I cringe when I read old posts. They sometimse hit me as downright pathetic to think back on.

It's very Hard to see that in others when they remind me of me back then.

you compared us today to us back then...how different we are now.

I prefer to think of it as a ratio. I was me back then, but now I'm MORE ME...


One of my GAL activities was stand up comedy, which I had done 2 years earlier but as things deteriorated in the m, strangely I felt less and less funny.

Thankfully I got to a place emotionally, & had a comedian mentor who got me to remember that universal experiences have the greatest audiences, and who had not had their heart broken? Few among us...(and we hate them).


So renewing my avocation to write/do comedy was part of my GAL, and it really helped. SO VERY therapeutic there will be more mentioned later about how THIS SITE saves senses of humor AND some marriages...)

So I was at The Improv (yes in Hollywood, b/c yes I'm darn funny... and no I don't use the name '25' on stage --but it is catchy)

and things were so bad in my sitch that I literally opened my set by publicly [b]dedicating
"my set tonight - to my soon to be ex h after over 2 decades of marriage...Hey folks , did you know in California if you are divorcing, you cannot bad mouth your former spouse in front of your kids? IT's called "Parental Alienation"...

So apparently,

if you want to call your spouse an "effin' #$%^&@#~!!!",

you have to STAY MARRIED!"...ba dah bum!"

...sigh...Guess I can't ever show THAT tape to h or put it on youtube...but it was a sweet crowd....but maybe even more importantly, it was the start of me learning to laugh again, getting back to who I really was/am. What's the word for mojo for women? Our tubes? You know what I mean.

MACH You said:

There were days when I thought I was gonna die, and there were days when I went outside, and screamed at God to give me more, so that I could find my breaking point.

I suppose I never wanted to reach my breaking point b/c I felt I was on the brink of it so often, but I hear you....I wanted an "OFF" button. A "fast forward" or a sleeping pill to make it go away when i woke up. I felt I was in a whirlpool at times, circling the drain...spiraling and not able to swim OUT of it...dragging me down.

******
In the mornings sometimes, I had forgotten that he was gone, and for a moment I'd feel light again, I was "ME" again. I had energy and bolted upright for MY DAY!

Then the memories would surge in, & w/the surge would come the heavy chains of grief and SORROW and FEAR - landing on my every limb and weighing me down and

I'd feel so much heavier and slower...all day, every day, for so many days...

then I'd have a "day off" of the grief, or some hours while I focussed on something-anything-else.

Though the surge of grief would return, the days off began to last longer or I'd have two days "off", in a row...and I recognized this as something that happened months after my father died.

"Ah, this is what healing is like, just as it begins..."

At my worst, OR how I recall it now, I must have been a real drag...those first weeks and months...the repetitive questioning in my head made ME bored of me!

and in my mind the same thoughts were looping around like a lost speeder driving around the freeway never taking an exit ramp...OMG, GET off the loop, take an exit ramp!!! CHANGE SOMETHING...

AND Stop asking the same Unanswerable questions...

"WHY IS H DOING THIS?? WHY, WHY, WHY? HOW CAN HE DO THIS???"

Mach, a part of me wants to zap back in time 6 years, slap my face and tell myself to "Snap out of it! THIS PAIN IS NOT FATAL AND IT'S NOT ETERNAL!"...but the "end" zone was AND always is somehow within US.

Speaking of the question "WHY?"......
SIDENOTE--
I met a young girl in cancer camp one summer, when I was a teen. She had a scarf on her head to cover her chemo hair...she gave me the best "Why me??" story ever....

She said "I used to ask God, 'why ME, God, why am I sick? Why, God, WHY???' and then I told myself, 'You just are! So go have fun while you feel good!"....and she had a great blast that summer of fun and laughs, and it was her last one on earth...

Sometimes the most important question we can ask in a situation, is "WHY?"

but sometimes it's just a useless wasteful thing to ask.SO, LIVE WELL NOW, b/c life is short.

That's WILP# 6 (?)

You also wrote that it never occurred to you that you'd be more enlightened when the "ordeal/adventure" was over than you were before...

Who can ever guess that their darkest hour might lead them to the brightest of days?

You wrote "That only I could define myself through this, and be the person I wanted to be.


THIS IS A GEM^^^^ FOLKS!! Simple in theory, but not easy.

Our happiness always was SOLELY our responsibility. It wasn't fair to lay that on anyone else, EVER. And let's NOT let others dump that on you either.
Thanks Mach.

Aristotle said "happiness is a virtue" for a reason. Yeah - it takes real effort. We do NOT "FIND HAPPINESS" - we CREATE it. Is it worth it? I'd say YES!

And if we were to FIND it, it'd be b/c we searched INSIDE AND OUT and hunted for it..we would not sit and hope that happiness would fall into our laps.
Standing for your marriage does not mean standing still.

It does not work that way...the real journey in life is an inward one. And the DB journey is a scary trip but if you do it as bravely as you can

(with faith that God really does know you-- AND he loves you anyhow!...)


then yeah,

DBers can become more "enlightened", more content, more centered and more loving, loved people.

MACH--okay I'll read some more of my old posts but today I stopped when I was reminded of the funniest people here who helped ME SO MUCH to get through those days...you among them.

Do you recall the group of w's who were LBSers who viewed their MLC h's as guys in a "virtual" parade? (here in DB land)

It was sort of an MLC PARADE and we LBSers sat down to watch...on the "sidewalks" as we imagined them prancing down the streets with their new OWs or OMs and I recall one MLC h's nickname was "PuffDaddy" or Puff for short, & there was Machoman, etc...

we had our imaginary popcorn with margueritas...wore our sunglasses watching DETACHING from the destruction over which we had no control, w/ humor..may as well have a comfy seat and ask the pool boy for a new drink...PARTY!!

I think the "chicas" were Lisette, Baseball Annie, Holly06, me and several others...figgeroni was there too...and the men who were here as LBSers were the "HOT POOL BOYS" who got us our drinks I recall puppy was there, and Was2sad as well.

Thank God for this place and the caring people who made me laugh then.

Those were the best of times; those were the worst of times.

Here's an important topic-my screen name-
I sure did NOT know how long I'd be here, so now the screen name I chose then has little relevance. It was simply that at 25 years, it was blindingly obvious to me that h was having an MLC, or he was on an episode of "Extreme Makeover of an H."

I fear changing the name now, if I keep the same theme...to what? "30YearsBut5YearsAgoHeMLCd" ??

That Just seems a little long...(that's what she said)...ba dah bum!


You wrote this (and I thank you for it)

There is a plethora of information on some really great threads if any of you want to take the time to find these old threads.

Truly amazing works of people that are striving and growing and learning.

That is what I took from 25's old threads. Was that she CHOSE to look inside, to grow and to learn. That she didn't just become the person that she is today. That she chose to ask the hard questions of herself, and was willing to put in the time to do this FOR herself.


Thanks for that. Incidentally I saw my former MC the other day to discuss a family issue with the kids (not the m, thankfully!)

Had not seen him in years. (I think I aged him)...

So we talked about the past and me getting here. And he reminded me that I DID say I wanted to

"do the morally right thing and 'not follow my bliss' b/c at age 90, my 'bliss' will be knowing I did right by my children and marriage." I meant that.

It was flattering (and less crazy than other stuff I said then)

Point is that a lot of WAS can't see that the moral dimensions of their choices now- MAY matter to them later and will be viewed by their children from the child's eyes, not the WASs....

And then some of us, the angry LBSers, get so self righteous and "rightfully angry" (what an odd phrase)

WE don't see how we're going to regret not taking the high road, but we will.

In some ways it's worse for us if we choose that road rage, b/c then the anger we feel consumes us, not them, and it eats us up now and later...

Hence "my" phrase (authored by someone unknown)

"Holding onto anger to hurt someone else - is like lighting yourself on fire to get smoke in their eyes."

That is why we let go of our anger. Not for the WAS, but for US.

And for our children..and our futures. I've never met a happy person who was angry, have you?


LAST POINT of the evening from me...

MACH-I also think that even though it seems that WASs leave LBSers...I now see that my h was not leaving ME or our kids...he was leaving a life that wasn't going the way he thought it ought to. We seemed to be in the way of some unknown goal or place (in his case it was literally a place). or so he thought.

I can tell you Not to take it personally and I mean it...but you'd say at the time, "how can I not?" There's the rub.

Alas, the Achilles heel...a beautiful kind young woman asked me once, THE question--

"25, if I'm so great, then how can my mate-the one who knows me the best, LEAVE ME? If I'm so wonderful, how can he stop loving me?"

(Indeed? We don't know "how" they can; we only know they apparently can.)

Her fear was what we all fear, i.e., that down deep, truly deep down, we are NOT so wonderful. We fear we are unlovable.

This is a lie. Wherever it came from or is coming into your head now, do not believe it. It is a lie. A falsehood to explain the act of another.

And somehow we have to get it through our heads and hearts (and my adage applies--where the head goes, the heart will follow...eventually)

that it is NOT about a WAS rejecting us, but about them still seeking what they have not found.

In the face of that, all you can do is your best. That translates into the only real choice you have...

to BRAVELY look within and take that inward journey of faith in yourself and in God if you are a believer, become your best self, believe that best self exists-

figure out HOW to become that person "only a fool would leave' and yes that has to be your best self b/c the fact that you don't look like Catherine Zeta Jones is irrelevant since your partner ONCE found you attractive, and unless you once did look like her, get real!

So be real about this. YOUR BEST SELF is lovable and worthy of good treatment...(but yeah, do the job and get there)

So if you are up for it, DO the following:

pick yourself up, dust yourself off and move in forward motion...learn to be happy and show others that you know how. It's attractive as hell but

of course that's NOT the point is it...?? Well??

PS*****


OKAY so clearly this is not a linear piece but I hope you'll bear with me...

thanks for listening and MACH--very stimulating comments as usual.

((( !! )))

[kolja]

"b/c at age 90, my 'bliss' will be knowing I did right by my children and marriage."

I love this line. We don't have children, but still I think it captures, in a way I couldn't figure out the words for, why I didn't just roll over and say "well, OK, I guess that's that then" when my wife said she wanted a divorce. The best I could come up with for searching for, finding, and jumping into things like Divorce Busting was "I want to be able to look at myself and know I did everything I could." But to me, that carries an implicit assumption that nothing will save the marriage and is subliminally negative - and I never felt 100% comfortable with it. Of course, all of us in my position (new to the 'scene') have to be intellectually aware of the possibility that we may not be able to salvage the marriage - but your turn of phrase, in it's open-endedness, doesn't carry the same subliminal negativity for me. In its open-endedness, it's more simple - and more profound.

[rickb89]

How do you bookmark posts that you want to keep and reread? Thanks.

You can use the watch lists to track certain posts or users.

If you edit the "users watch list" it can help you to search for any user on DB.

Then you can click on their name, show all posts, and sort by topics.

25 had more topics in piecing that you can look up by the above method but I only linked the ones in MLC.

Thanks Cadet!!!!!!

[rickb89]

How do you bookmark posts that you want to keep and reread? Thanks.

I just bookmark it in my browser.

Aaah I see... thanks labug!!!

[rickb89]

I have read your long post twice today and its has so much that I needed to hear. i will reread tomorrow morning before I see H.

I am very capable of being fine and taking care of myself but I know I need to be more than okay. I need to show my H happiness and that is a real challenge.

Thanks again for taking the time.

Brklyn - I really think you can do this. I'm sending good vibes to you each day! Take the pain, be strong (you are), trust the divine, you're not alone.

[rickb89]

25 - your post yesterday to Mach is so incredible. I saved it because I want to read it over and over.

I would do almost anything to get hold of a video of you doing standup!

SIAS compared you to The Oracle in a previous post. I couldn't agree more if by that he meant The Oracle in The Matrix. I really feel like the bomb dropping was my version of taking "the red pill" and following it down the rabbit hole. God, did I need to wake up!

I've been reading your old posts and it helps so much to see that you were exactly where we are now, and managed to evolve so much.

_____________________________________________________________\
Unfortunately no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

me - 53, her - 45, married - 24 yrs
bomb - March 2011
sons - 24,21,13

[Autumn Leaves]

I also think that even though it seems that WASs leave LBSers...I now see that my h was not leaving ME or our kids...he was leaving a life that wasn't going the way he thought it ought to. We seemed to be in the way of some unknown goal or place (in his case it was literally a place). or so he thought.

This makes so much sense and I am so glad you broke it down like this, it may help a lot of people. I know that it helps me. My H pretty much said this to me. He has said "this can't be all there is to life" and "I am living groundhog day"

I have to realize that only he can do his work. I need to do mine.