Dealing with the reality of separation

[Denver_2010]

I've heard this from a few different DB'ers that I began here with ... divorce will not bring you closure. Only when your heart and mind have healed will you have closure. That doesn't happen with a piece of paper.

I guess my rationale is that if I am not divorced, there will always be this lingering feeling that something miraculous will happen and my wife will come back to me. That there will be just enough false hope in the back of my mind to make me fall hard every once in a while when I realize that she isn't coming back. My heart and mind will heal and then some little thing that happens will make me think that there is a chance and then I will hear that she is so happy with the OM and I will come crashing back down and have to heal all over again. The piece of paper doesn't heal my heart and mind and I get that it doesn't give me closure, but it might let me actually heal and get on with my life. Yes I understand the irony, that is what DBing is supposed to do for me anyway. But this is involuntary false hope. I can detach all I want but when a thought like that enters my head, it is very hard to ignore.

I often felt like that as well. I just know from my close group of friends from this board, the BITS, that the D did not bring them what you think that it will. That hope was still there months after the D was final. That hope was still dashed months after the D was final. It didn't go away with the piece of paper.

I haven't gone through it though.