SS, undoubtedly this is very hard, but I KNOW you'll come out of this! I get that it takes a lot of emotional energy to get out and socialize with other people, but it's important to do it anyway.

Think of your emotional energy as a muscle. When you use a muscle a certain way all the time, it gets very good at that one movement but not very good at anything else. Making that muscle to something different is awkward, difficult, and oftentimes painful. But eventually, you train the muscle in a new way and it is no longer painful.

If you look at your emotional energy like that, then it makes sense that what you've always been doing was comfortable and natural. Now that you're trying to do something different, your emotional energy is rebelling because it's hard work to change, especially something that has been part of your life for so long. But once you get through it, once you train your emotional energy to do something different, it won't be so hard, and will even start to feel good and natural. But like exercise, it's not easy and not something you can do once or twice. It has to be a daily thing.

The thing is, you shouldn't even want your H back right now. You did not have a healthy M. I think he was not a good H to you. Sometimes you even see that yourself, I think. Use this time to retrain your emotional energy and your thought processes. Take advantage of every social opportunity to exercise a new way. And when you do good, then you need to really, REALLY commend yourself. Because you will deserve it.

I wish I could flip a switch in you and have you do a 180 across the board. Think of Olivia Newton-John in grease. smile I believe your H is using you as a cushion for himself right now, keeping you handy so he can bounce off you whenever it gets tough for him. I think you should go dark for a while, and stop being his "friend" through this. He should have to eat the poison apple alone.

Me:49 WAW H:59
T:19.5 M:19
S:13