Thank you all for stopping by. Hope you had a wonderful day.
I got to spend it with my son and my sister, her h and my amazing niece and nephew. They are all the family I have, but, I couldnt ask for any better. We had a ball!
It's funny but even after all this time - there is a moment on holidays when I look around and feel the loss. It is fleeting, but, there nonetheless. I think it is more about the fact that my son has to choose who to spend the day with and I sometimes wonder what he is feeling.
My xh texted me wishing me a Happy Easter, which he has been doing a bit more lately on holidays. Who knows why? Doesnt really matter.
"The difficulties of Life are intended to make us BETTER,not bitter". "Fear is a prison, where you are the jailer. FREE YOURSELF!" "Life is usually all about how you handle Plan B." - Jack3Beans
Happy Easter, Eric, my friend. Hope you had a great one.
And to all those on here who celebrate it, hope yours were good.
A couple of things I wanted to share if I may.
I was married a long time before the bomb. We were young when we started dating.
I realize now so many things. It's funny how clear things become after.
He did some terrible things during all this. And truthfully, the least of which was the affair. That was a wish to go back in time to his first real love and to relive his youth. And while I dont fully understand it, it is not the thing that continues to hurt me.
Dont get me wrong, that is a terrible thing, to cheat on your spouse. And it broke my heart and hurt me to my core. i am not in anyway minimizing its affect on me. It was like a long deep knife in my back. It made me feel so badly about myself.
I guess it is a different kind of hurt than the calculating things that he did to ruin me financially and how much he hurt our son that leaves the most scars.
He had to really think it through and do things in specific ways that required he really think about them before actually putting it into action.
I forgave him a long time ago. He knows it. He doesnt understand why I did. It doesnt really matter if he does or not.
When I see my xh, he is a shell of a man. When he smiles, it doesnt reach his eyes. There is no laughter, no lightness about him. He still looks confused, lost. As far as I know, after the initial ow, there has been no one else.
And I think about how much he lost in the search for happiness and I feel so sorry for him that he never looked inside to find it.
I know that those were his actions and he has to own them. But, the only one who can judge is Him. It is not in my hands.
I still wish my xh finds his way. No longer does that wish include me, but, I do hope he finds a way to some happiness.
UW, Sharing your experiences, thoughts, and feelings is truly inspirational.
To know that it is possible to rise above all the hurt and devastation gives me hope.
And it's not like the hope that H and I will reconcile - that's different.
It's the hope that I'm going to be at peace with all of this someday.
You say when you see your XH now, he is a shell of a man. I remember that during the bomb, one of the things my H yelled at me was "I feel like a shell of a person!" Those were his exact words.
I also remember during the bargaining stage of my journey, I would pray and beg to God for H's fog to lift, for us to be a couple and a family again.
Now I pray that he makes it through no matter what, whether he and I are together or not. I don't want him to spend the rest of his life in emotional hell. I love him enough to want him to find happiness again.
I just wish it wasn't at the expense of our M and our family.
You have been through so much, endured so much - I am sorry for all that your x did to you and your son.
Glad you're here
Bomb January 2012 - doesn't feel the same about me
~ "There is nothing love cannot face; there is no limit to its faith, hope, and endurance."
T, you brought me to tears with your words. Thank you.
I know, without a doubt, that you will be at peace one day, whether with your h or not. You're a class act, my friend.
I loved my xh very much. And with that love, came the wish that he find his way. I wished him well on his life's journey and still do. But as you, I wish it wasnt at the expense of his family.
I have been through a lot, it's true. And I still struggle in a lot of ways. But there are those who have suffered so much more.
As for being here, I would not have made it through this had it not been for some very special people here. I vowed to pay it forward, so I try.
And I guess that I'm just trying to contribute to the belief that people can look inside and save themselves.
But my real hope is that maybe it allows someone to know that they are heard and understood and that they are not alone.
I honestly don't know how a person could get through this without support. It is unimaginable.
And trying to explain the whole MLC thing to people, well, you really do have to see it to believe it. And even then, it's hard to believe!
I guess I still wonder, is there such a thing as a happy ending? I mean, I know I'll be okay, my kids will be okay, I can take care of them and love them and live my life.
But will my heart ever truly be happy? Will it ever not hurt? Some days I just don't know.
Bomb January 2012 - doesn't feel the same about me
~ "There is nothing love cannot face; there is no limit to its faith, hope, and endurance."
T, I do believe we can be happy after all this. But we will not ever be the same. In some ways, at least for me, that is a good thing as I changed in some really positive ways.
But, to be honest, it has also changed my views on love and committment. I hope one day that I will feel differently, I am just not completely there yet.
As I said to Bea, my xh was such a huge part of my life's story. He was a huge part of what I thought my future was going to look like.
I could not be with him as he is now. But that doesnt stop me from remembering who he once was and feeling a bit sad about it.
It doesnt stop me from looking at my son, who was so angry that his father left, that he put a huge tattoo on his arm from a song about a Captain who was away at sea and who left his children. It is basically an f u to his dad, which breaks my heart.
It doesnt stop me from looking around at the holidays and feeling the loss.
But it also doesnt stop me from having hope that one day I will find happiness with someone who loves me for who I am.
It doesnt stop me from being at peace that I loved with all my heart, so much that I let him go.
It doesnt stop me from believing that I deserve happiness and peace.
So, T, will you ever truly be happy? I have great hope that you will be. Will it ever not hurt? In time, the hurt is like a healed scar. Still there under the surface, but, no longer searing pain.
We just do the best we can in this life. And maybe, if we are very lucky, happiness and peace comes from knowing we did.
I will jump in here - for many years I doubted if I would ever recover and be happy, truly happy. And I am but in a different way from how I used to feel.
The only way I can describe it, for me, is that when you are little your idea of a perfect day is often a particular thing - different for all of us, but not something that we would necessarily want to do now! And our tastes change too as we get older. I no longer want to be a horse, which was my greatest ambition when I was 7!
Well finding new happiness is like that. I have truly learned that happiness really is the gift we give ourselves, but we can't force it. We can only plant the seed and nurture it. patience and time, and you will get there, but it won't, in all probability be what you think.
For some of us it is a new relationship, but with a very different person than our xh, others remain alone, but enjoy the positives of the single life (and there are many!)
We cherish our friends, develop good judgements about people, and take up new activites. Our life fills up and the hurt heals, The prospect of the rest of my life alone no longer worries me. I cannot stress enough the importance of time in all of this.
