Taking time away from W has proven to be a good decision. I feel like I am able to detach, able to figure out my own way in the world. I'm not constantly bombarded by messages that I might read as positive or hopeful, not forced to undergo emotional agony as she shreds our marriage to bits at every MC meeting. In short, I've been able to heal and I feel stronger every day.
It was a very difficult decision to make and it isn't like I was "fed up" and wanted no contact. My heart is still on autopilot and wants to spend time with the "her" that was, but that person is gone. The counter-intuitive decision to have zero contact was the right decision.
I embarked on the dating website thing and I'm finding it stressful. Juggling too many pseudo-conversations with people I'm not terribly interested in. For whatever reason, I find myself thinking most about an old friend who I've been in touch with for the last few months and who has been incredibly supportive... but communication with her is infrequent and she lives in another part of the country. She went through something similar and gets what I'm experiencing.
I spent the weekend packing up W's stuff and putting it in the attic. It feels like losing a loved one (I guess, in most every sense, it is like that). I remember the good times but they feel more and more distant like a dream you can just catch a glimpse of after you wake. I wonder when they will slip away. I find my feelings very hurt by gifts that I gave her over the years that she abandoned here. Things I scrimped and saved for, sentimental things, all just left like junk. In some ways, that makes it harder than when someone dies - W made a decision to leave this stuff. I know it is just material stuff, but it is emotional nonetheless.
Still, I don't think I'll regret moving her stuff into the attic in the same way that I haven't regretted this "no contact" time. I'm finding some much needed peace and that will be what gets me through the rest of this mess. ____________________________ "In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer." -- Albert Camus
Me:39 WAW:38 M:9 T:19, No Kids EA/PA with co-worker:9/24, ILYBINILWY, S:9/25 EA/PA ongoing, MC 9/30-1/10 No contact 1/10 - present
