From Survivng to Thriving & backslides in between.

[AntoniaB]

Kimmerz I'm totally feeling the same thing and have been meaning to post. It's still a rollercoaster, just not a very violent one anymore. In 2010 my Christmas was horrific--last year it was I guess "defiant" more than anything as I was in this "erase all evidence of XH mode" and just try to pretend he didn't exist because I was processing the death of my pet. Now this year, I'm like you, really kind of excited for the holidays, and sort of being really full-on with work I have to complete so I can get a week or two of nothing but vacation and holiday shopping and time with family and friends.

But XH has crept back into my heart, very stealthily, and I have no clue why. (since we aren't in contact). I got out decorations and found this little boot his mom gave me when we got married that I vowed I'd NEVER put out again, and there it is, on my entertainment center. I put the ornament on the tree of the married kitties that I gave him as a wedding present (we were married 12/21). I vowed I'd never put that out again. Now I did put the boot along with 2 things that remind me of my last 2 cats to pass, so in a way that's my area of "things that are no more that I want to remember." But still. Where last year I had to put these things away, now I'm back to wanting them out.

I even contemplated putting a picture of us back up. I didn't.

I don't know what to make of this. I can't say it's oppressive loneliness, because I've grown to value my solitude and my freedom to do what I want and live the way I want and answer only to myself. I don't need him anymore. All the panic I ever felt about taking care of myself or my cats or my home or whatever is gone. Now any time something happens I just deal with it. I don't even get that feeling anymore of "you left me to deal with all this alone, wah wah wah!" I just handle it all.

On a logical level I don't want him back because I don't think we are right for one another anymore and I don't see how the new me could ever live with any version of him. I've been telling myself for what comes to years now that I'm better off without him. I've PROVEN to myself that I am in a ton of ways.

And yet.

I feel like in my heart I'm STILL on some obscure level tied to him, standing even. Not that I wouldn't follow a new relationship to see where it went if I met someone I liked. I would. But I'm afraid to say that I feel like unless someone else comes into my life who trounces my XH in every way, I will always, and forever, love him the most.

It has taken me a long time to admit that, and it scares me to admit it, because it feels like a backslide. I don't want to backslide after all this progress. I feel like what I've been coming to in my mind, this knowledge that yes, I do want him back on some level, is a dangerous thing to play around with.

I don't think it's just the holidays. I think that in general I spend an enormous amount of time "running" from this reality, and when things wind down and I get less busy, that's when I can see the truth, and the truth is that I do feel that there is a grievous "wrong" in the universe that needs to be set right, and the only way that can happen is for my XH to "wake up" and reconcile with me, and I know logically that it is likely never to happen.


So I don't know if this is some strange level of acceptance/forgiveness of his acts, or if it's a major backslide that I have to come back from. I just know that it's been eating at me and I guess it's best to get it out in the open.

So thanks for posting the topic. We can survive and thrive but on some level we still feel that thread of connection and maybe we have to accept it will never, ever go away, and just learn to live with it, even if we are the only one holding onto the thread.