Anything left to salvage? - or where from here?

[Psych77]

Thanks for sticking with me, guys. I really look forward to hearing your replies - they are so affirming and friendly.

I am finally starting to feel like I am really separating. It is one thing to make the decision that you are going to detach yourself, and another to feel yourself detaching. I am actually starting to get a little excited about starting up my own life! W doesn't want me to say "boo" to her, that's fine. It was only added stress for me to try to negotiate civil interactions with her, anyway. I have six people in that house who love me, and I love them. I will spend my time with them, and just stay out of W's way. If, after some time of us being out of each other's lives, we start to like each other again, so be it. If not...oh, well. The only thing I know for sure it this - what there is between us now, I don't want! So, I'm staying away from it.

Going back to karate tonight. Sometimes I don't look forward to it...I am sooooooo out of shape, I have forgotten most of my karate, and I end up winded at the end of the class. But I know that when I am depressed I always want to do what is comfortable more than what makes me happy, and usually those two are not the same thing. So, if I just schedule particular nights of the week that I go regularly, I can usually keep myself going, even when I don't feel like it...at first.

At work someone gave me a gift card to the Outback for "Doctor's Day" (ummm, technically, I am a clinical nurse specialist, but they didn't care). So, maybe one of these nights I will treat myself to dinner out and a movie. I haven't been out to a movie in the theater in literally years.

I feel a little ambivalent, because at this point I really don't feel like I am DBing for the M, but really just for myself. I have been miserable for the last year...depressed and anxious almost constantly. Down inside I still really love W, but at this point being around her is only painful for me. Sometimes I feel a little guilty about this feeling like I am giving up.

Still, if there were to be a reconciliation at this point, it couldn't be rekindling what was already there. We would really have to start from scratch. So maybe it's better for me to just regard it as over. Allow us to both rebuild ourselves and see if something happens down the road.

My efforts to GAL are by necessity pretty small right now. I want to spend lots of time with the kids - I need to be near them, and they need closeness to their parents during this time. Important to GAL, but that doesn't justify distancing from the kids.

Have a good weekend, everybody!