Been here 5 years and a new tough situation

[AntoniaB]

WP I am soooooo glad I could help!! I know what you mean about how the only people who get it are people here. I think especially when we are still hurting years down the road, you just get this look from people like "can't you just get over it" if you have a bad day or even a few bad hours, and only people here understand that.

This is off topic but I have to thank you as well for something you did for me without knowing it. The person I met last week, the very normal ray of sunshine guy who is kind of the person I dreamed of having a relationship with from the time I was in college (and the type I thought I was getting with my XH but did not), has 2 children, 5 and 8 years old. Our initial meeting was like love at first sight, just instant unbelievable chemistry on all fronts. I've never experienced anything like it. Since then he's been pretty much MIA other than an email about how much he's trying to play catch up with work and his kids since he got back from our conference. I was really starting to think I dreamed up the whole connection and then one of my friends said "do not underestimate the connection he has with his children. You can't push him or he will run because no man close to his kids wants someone to start competing for attention."

Then I read your post above about Easter and your kids and such, and you know, I get it. Being someone who never had kids, holidays sometimes just fly by with me. But just reading the way you talk about Easter and how important this is to your kids, I bet you this guy's head is there right now, as it should be.

My XH put me on a pedestal above all else. Not just because we didn't have kids, but because he didn't have any other interests but me. He gave me quite the diva complex, until he decided I wasn't his diva anymore and left me for another one. I had nothing left and had to rebuild my shattered self-esteem. This man I just met clearly won't put a woman on a pedestal, which is what I LIKE about him. He has a lot of other things going on, which is healthy.

It sounds like you're healthy in that sense too. I think the last piece of the puzzle for you is the detachment from her, and I think in a few days this incident will feel very much "over" and you'll bounce back.

One of the things this guy I met said to me that reminds me of you is he said his XW was a very cynical, negative person who just brought him down a lot. She resented his successes and wanted him to hate his job. He said he'd get home from work only to hear her constantly vent, and he'd be happy and feel he had to hide his happiness. Eventually it erupted and he said they ended the marriage because "no kids should have to watch that go on every day, what kind of role model for marriage is that?" (I don't know if there were other factors in his break up.) In fact he and I commented we must have been married to the same person because our exes had such similar traits.

See you sound so positive about your life in general, that I think you have to hold on to that and say that you are worth more than someone who is so messed up, and SO ARE YOUR KIDS. In a perfect world these people would get their acts together, but it's not a perfect world, and maybe they can't.

Anyway I'm rambling but your post today really struck a chord with me because it's only over the last week or so that I've really come to the place where I actually made the decision to drop the rope to my ex. It happened like a week ago, I did a little ceremony with candles, sort of symbolic, asking the universe to accept that I did my best, I love him with all my heart and always will, but I deserve better, whether "better" is being single yet also detached from him or a relationship with someone more stable and suited to me. And since then a weight really lifted. I guess it was time, and I feel very detached from him now. He's off in la la land, and I send him good thoughts, and I hope he heals, but he's just not going to tie me down anymore emotionally.

So I hope you can reach this place if you are ready, and again thanks for what you wrote about your kids above, because it gave me insight into how a father that I just met thinks, and I want to treat him with respect and compassion, and your post put me in the right frame of mind to do that.