New to DB

[bustingout]

I cannot believe how much love and support I feel after reading these posts from you all...bustorama, jks, Brit45, ukva, 25, jack 3 beans...thank you...thank you. Every single one of you have given me so much to think about and so much to actually hold on to...the here and NOW, my ability to control what I CAN control...myself, my happiness, the happiness of my children. I have been sitting here at my kitchen table for over an hour just thinking about what all of you had said.... Just thinking..and trying to be real with myself. To find solutions within myself.
Jks- I agree, this advice is AWESOME. I need to figure out what I need to do to GAL. Its funny (not haha) how after all the years of being M we need to figure out what it means to GAL. What does that mean to me outside of my kids and M? I don’t know yet. But want to figure it out. And thank you for the link. I will go through it.

Bustorama-thank you for finding my thread  I understand what you are saying about rejecting the S that has had an A and getting ahead of them on the curve. Indeed I have been playing catch up with the emotional blows given over the past two years. But you have made me think...maybe I was the first to actually deliver the first ‘bomb’, in my role in the breakdown of out M. Shortly after the birth of my second child (4 years ago), I became depressed. All the baggage I brought into the M came out...my fear of losing my H (my parents divorced badly and I was always determined NOT to let it happen to me...my worst fear), my insecurities of being too fat, too unattractive, wondering if I was being a good mother...I wanted to CONTROL everything and it resulted in me becoming jealous, withdrawn, critical, negative, patronizing...etc.etc. I didn’t listen to him anymore, I blamed him for all my pain and anger and frustration. I took my M and my H for granted and treated him like a punching bag for my emotions. I thought I was OWED happiness. Fear was my motivator. And instead of seeing him as my equal, as a man that was going though his own pain, with his own baggage, I pushed and pushed. In my heart I wanted nothing else than to have a safe, secure and happy H and family, I wanted to be his light and love and support (how could that have happened when I was miserable and scared and pushing him into a corner –she says in hindsight). And its comforting to know that the ‘gloating’ is only a facade (not that I am saying the pain by the facade is comforting)

So 25, yes, the EA/A is actually the symptom of other underlying problems. And when H left, it was the ‘bomb’ for me. I was so wrapped up in my own misery that I thought it was coming out of nowhere (it kind of was because my H is not a talker...so he actually didn’t express anything before the bomb). Anyway, I want to say I can/have forgiven. I can forgive. I can let go of that pain because it is not where I want to live anymore. I lived with it for so long since childhood, the pain of not having my father around, the emptiness, etc and I don’t want to live there anymore. I can even forgive OW. I have in fact. CHANGE IS NECESSARY. Change I CAN CONTROL (because for so long so many years, i felt I had no control over the emotions I was feeling as a result of OTHER PEOPLE’S decisions). I want to find my happiness. I want to be that person for myself and for my children. And i see what you mean about the techniques being the same whether its MLC or not. The cause is not the driving force, its the goal. And thank you for your story. I relate because my parents had a BAD divorce. I did not see forgiveness, love or respect. And yes, that came with me into my M.

Brit45 for the past 1.5 years since he left (his bomb to me), I started to wake up. I saw what I had become and didn’t like it. I think I had started to learn and grow within myself but I KEPT HANGING ON TO HIM. I kept trying to talk about R. I kept living in the misery of being a LBS. I played the victim and did not ‘act as if’. I thought if I acted ‘real’ and shared all my pain and misery and told him all the ‘changes’ I was making he would ‘see’. He didn’t see. He went further away. I SUFFOCATED him. I think I understand the ‘act as if’ now. Its not bitchiness. Its not mean. Its acting as if I am already in the place I want to be. With or without him. I agree that I was looking for a quick fix. But a quick fix is just a band aid on a gaping wound right now. And no one can heal that wound but me. Happiness is from within I realise now. Not from another. So I need to dig my heels into this. And my R now has to be with DB.