You're seeing that I can't be perfect enough. I see truth in that, but I don't know why or where. I have repressed feelings, but I'm not sure what feelings I'm locking in. I want to expose those feelings and deal with them once and for all, I'm just not sure how to do it.

Who am I being perfect for? I don't know. I just read TadPole's post that he just found out his XW is getting married. It made me very uncomfortable and that makes me think I'm still holding on to hope that one day my W will come back. I have a lot of things in my favor, but I'm thinking my skin is much thinner and transparent than I had thought.

I was further un-nerved when I got an email from the insurance company to call them. My W is speeding full steam ahead and there appears to have been a change to the account that indicates a change in marital status.

I keep reading the same stuff over and over again about us being in control of ourselves. That we dictate our own happiness and that our MLC spouse has no feelings for us - well nothing along the lines of the way we feel about them. Like everything else I encounter, it seems I have to find something inside that flips my internal switch. I hear everyone in these forums, both new posters and veterans, but what seems so simple a concept, is so hard to really get. Make myself happy, I'm still letting my W dictate how I feel every hour of every day. I pray every day for guidance. Right now I'm a leaf in the wind, but I want to stop and plant roots.

I'm not looking for another W, I'm looking for someone that I can talk too and not think about my W. I think that realistically I'm desperate to meet anyone that doesn't know either of us so I can just be me, but with no disclaimers about what's happened in my life recently.

I've learned through paying attention to various events throughout my life that if you're looking for something, you'll never find it and anything worth finding will find you. That doesn't just apply to people relationships, but everything in life. It's okay to work hard for what you want, but if it doesn't happen for you, chances are it wasn't meant to be.

I've lived with that mantra over the last year, realizing I had forgotten it over the years. I don't want to "find" anybody, but it would be nice to be someone who was found. It's hard even now to let go of any hope that we'll find each other again, my W and I. I look back on my life with her, and what I've been able to accomplish since MLC and I often find myself wondering if I "was" found - by my W and not the other way around.

So I constantly ponder, are we meant to be? Am I really the best equipped to become the person my W was destined to be with and if so, is all this a predetermined course that I must travel if we're going to be together? I know that my actions are speaking louder than words and everything I do or say will make/break any future. She says she deserves to be happy and that she isn't getting any younger, so what happens when she finally realizes that she's not turning back the clock at all like she thinks she is.

So where is my hope coming from? I can't tell if it's superficial or just plain denial. I'm thinking denial, but then maybe that's why I'm more desperate than I lead on to meet new people. I don't know that I'll have the answers I'm looking for until I can at least change course at least a fraction of an inch. I'm hoping then that I'll truly understand how easy it really is to dictate my own level of happiness.

I really want so bad to let go, because I fear the possibility of my W telling me she's getting married. And that tells me I haven't let go and that I'm still holding onto a pipe dream.