Adventures in GALing

[AntoniaB]

I haven't updated my own thread in a month, so I'm just here to update:

No interaction with XH and this is the best path for me (and I suspect it is for him too). I have fully let him go to live his life with OW and whatever happens with him happens. Another holiday (Valentine's Day) came and went and he's still not living with her nor engaged to her. She is a very jealous person and doesn't want him having interactions with me, but I don't know how long she'll accept his not making anything more permanent with her. This sort of shows me that XH is really incapable of any kind of deep relationship at this point in his life, and frankly, I'm better off without him if the most he can muster is to be someone's boyfriend.

As for me, I've been back teaching since January and very busy. I still have a lot to do on my book to meet the deadline of June 1, so my weekends tend to be filled with research and writing and the weeks with teaching. I'm not complaining, though. I am spending more time with new friends locally and very grateful for the interaction with them and with my students. I'm grateful for the sabbatical, and I think I like my solitude and spend more time alone than most people are comfortable with, but I really need a decent amount of face-to-face interaction with people to be at my happiest.

I am not dating anyone and not looking. If I by chance met someone terrific and we hit it off, I would not shy away from dating. My path just hasn't crossed with the right person (or persons) and I'm really not bothered by that. I met a woman 2 years ago who went for 9 years post-divorce before she dated anyone, and that used to scare me to death that that would be me. It no longer does, to be honest. I think there is a reason for this: I no longer put romantic relationships as "higher" or "better" than non-romantic relationships.

This was something that was my biggest personal challenge from day one of therapy, my unshakeable belief that of all the types of relationships one can have, that the romantic love relationship with "the soulmate" was the end-all, be-all of life, and that you only "succeed" in life if you have this. I was willing (and did, for a long time) to ignore or place much lesser value on platonic relationships with family and friends while I was married to XH because I just didn't think of them as important as my rel. with him.

Well, the thing is that he abandoned us--and my true friends and my family never abandoned me even when I wasn't the best sister or friend I could be. And that sort of made me see that what I have with other people is just as important as what I have with a romantic partner (or don't). My life is no less successful if I am single.

I feel very good to have dropped the old belief system because I was judging myself by it very harshly. When I stopped seeing romance as better than other types of friendship, I stopped judging myself for having "lost" XH's love. I didn't do anything to lose his love for me. I didn't fail.

On Valentine's Day, I decided to wear my diamond rings again. For good. I see so many women around me--particularly college girls, who are dumped and who retreat into themselves and feel ashamed that they weren't "good enough" to keep the guy around. I see them hide away the gifts they got--or in the case of those divorced, I see them put their diamonds away forever, as if they don't deserve them. I just see such shame. This is absurd. Granted, if you have to sell your rings to pay for a laywer, then do it. Or if you can't look at those rings without losing it, then sure. Put them away.

But when I look at my rings at this point, I see that they represented a time in my life when my XH was loving and true and treated me with dignity and respect. I see a time when XH was a giving person. I don't see OW or the pain he caused me. More than all that, by far, I see my own triumph at surviving this horrible loss and making a much better life for myself, a stronger career, better friendships, significantly better independence and self-sufficiency. THAT is what my rings now represent.

I put them on my right hand, and I have now in place of the "wedding" band the only ring I ever bought myself, which I bought with the first check I earned for royalties for my first book. Above that is my old engagement ring and upside down, my old wedding band. And I know it might sound silly, but when I made the decision to wear these rings in this set, I said "with these rings I wed myself." I can't tell you all how good I feel when I look at my right hand.

I'm a divorcee, but I'm a proud divorcee. I had a great life with this person I used to know, but it's over, and it's just the way it had to be. I wasn't going to grow with him. He wasn't going to grow with me. We had to be apart to learn new things. I have learned a ton, and I can only hope that he is learning something about himself in his new life. I have my doubts--he shows all the signs still of hiding from himself and running. Maybe someday it will end with OW and he'll really examine himself; maybe he will never have the strength. But I pray for him, every day.

As for me, I'm learning that women have every bit as much strength and fortitude as men, and that women don't need a man to find happiness. If that becomes part of their life, then terrific. But to me, that type of relationship no longer is the determiner of whether I am living a good life. What matters to me is if I am embracing what IS in front of me and who is in front of me, and so that's what I'm doing.

I think I want to be a role model now when before I wanted to be a wife. You know, I can affect one person's life, or I can affect LOTS of people's lives. I'd rather affect lots of lives than just one.

So having delivered a "novella" to all of you now, let me sum things up by saying I'm good, I'm really, really good :-)

Thank you all for being part of where I am today.