New Year, New Life (19 months)

[adinva]

FloydMan, if what you are doing feels like giving up to you, then don't do it.

To me, I'm still 100% working on my marriage. I'm working on it by feeling legitimate anger that my h has left me and his kids, and moving on from that anger in order to be a positive role model for how you deal when life doesn't turn out the way you wanted. I'm working on it, by respecting my H enough to think he really does want a divorce, and to respond carefully and authentically to his separation agreement (still working on my response actually). I'm working on my marriage by learning what it is to live in my own house and clean it up how I want it and set my own rules about where things go in it. I'm working on my marriage to remove the suffocation that was probably in my own head in the first place and to see my H as a fellow human who was sharing my space, not a monster who was constricting me.

I'm working on my marriage by getting ready to restrict my expenses, and budget, and live within tighter means so that my H can have the separate household he wants.

I'm working on my marriage by having a fantastic life, playing guitar, meeting new friends, sharing joys and sorrows with the people who've become close to me through this situation. By learning that I weigh what I weigh irregardless of my H, and have muscles irregardless, and function as an adult irregardless, and in this way learned to detach a lot of my day-to-day being and emotions from whatever I was decoding from his behavior toward me. I learned that codependent is a word that described me even though I didn't know what it meant.

I'm working on my marriage by accepting my H's decision, holding my head up, and preparing for a fantastic life without him. No bitterness, if I can help it.

I'm working on my marriage by really and truly not giving a single ounce of care to what my H is doing right now, who he's with, why he's there, or what he wants me to think about it. I'm way too busy, first of all, but I also know this is not a productive place to put my energy. I'm working on me, and in doing so I'm working on my marriage.

I would like, with every fiber of my being, to be able to say one day that we made it through hard times and stayed together. I am trying very hard not to do anything that would prevent that from happening. But I have no choice right now but to act as though that is not going to happen. I don't have a crystal ball, but our odds were not good right from the beginning. They're still not good. It is just not in my power to make this relationship come back.

I'm fully prepared to sell our house if needed, to make a clean break and show H that we are completely dissolved from each other. I won't like it, and I'm sure the selling of it will stir up lots of memories and regrets. But when it all boils down, it's the people that matter, and I'll still be me and still have my kids, and my dogs, and we'll have a good time in our new littler house somewhere. We'll be ok.

I don't see at all that I've given up. I haven't admitted defeat. I'm just learning that this isn't a war and no one's going to win it. The only winning is enjoying life and making the best of it.