" I think I can honestly say that I DON'T CARE if he's not happy with me. I no longer feel guilty about that. I will never breach my boundaries again, and if that means we never have sex again, then it's his problem. My trying to solve his problems creates problems for ME.
Trying to interact with my H in an intimate way is toxic for me. I refuse to be that stupid again. Call it me enforcing boundaries. I can be cordial, I can be respectful, because that is who I am. But we will not SHARE a life together. At this point, it would literally take a miracle."
This is great, so great :-) !! It may not feel like it, but this is HUGE progress for yourself.
[And, only as a side-benefit, it also gives your M its best chance for morphing into something that might be a good part of your life, or for becoming something that *clearly*, from a detached, non-fear, non-pain driven place, does not fit into your life. The brackets here are very intentional. Making this the goal takes the focus of YOU.]
OK, now, NEW book recommendation, and it may seem paradoxical, but it isn't once you grasp what the book is about: Passionate Marriage.
Passionate Marriage is all about individuation, about you being a whole happy person regardless of your spouse. It is about setting and enforcing boundaries that WORK FOR YOU. It is about detachment, about not being enmeshed. It is about making space for genuine intimacy and NOT accepting parts of relationships that are damaging to you. It is NOT a how-to-hot-sex book, AT ALL. I actually got it after I filed for D SOLELY to work on MYSELF.
