Becoming PatientMan II - Still En-Route, Post-D

[PatientMan]

PM....

This probably won't be the 2x4 you were looking for from me...

When I read that, for a couple minutes, I felt all of that pain in you coming out. I felt the fear that you have, and I HATED that when I went through it.

It brought up some old memories within me, and I would assume it will do the same to every person that reads it.


I'm also having a hard time figuring you out. When you post to others, you have this confidence about you, and you always say something that makes me think, so I know you do the same with the poster you are trying to reach.

Yet when I read your thread, I see a different guy. A guy who is confused, and is really struggling hard to find peace with what has happened.

I think that is accurate.

So where do you go from here ? What is it exactly that you are trying to get from that letter ???

I wanted her to know how I felt before we went our separate ways. What you all see here from me - all this indecisiveness, fear, and lack of confidence - she doesn't and hasn't seen that. At least since I started DB'ing.

When I read it, I see an exorbitant amount of guilt thrown out there....

As in guilt towards her or me? Because last night it was communicated as my failing, not hers. Essentially I said, "You're so freakin' awesome that I can't get past you with you around all the time, so I need space."

I see a very clingy, un-confident man, trying to talk his way out of something he acted his way into.

Is that who you want to be ???

Of course not, but I don't think it came across that way based on how things transpired last night. With her I do FEEL clingy and un-confident, but I don't show it. I'm very confident that my non-confidence doesn't show.

I see a man, that is looking toward another person, for his answers...

Yes, I've always used her to validate myself. I think we talked about it previously. I realize it isn't healthy and I'm working on it.

I read a man, that is trying to define himself, by what he wears on his left ring finger...

Is that what really defines you ???

It SHOULDN'T, but it did. I don't want to get off on a tangent, but the only thing I ever wanted was her. Now I know that *I* have to define me, and I have to learn to be who I am supposed to be. I pray for that every day - that I become who He intends me to be.

I see a guy, who is trying to be a victim of what has happened to him,

I can't tell you what you see, but I can assure you this is not the case. I have beaten myself up far too much - and continue to do so - for the role I played in the demise of my marriage.

We both made mistakes, but I made the first one. My marriage is no more because of me, even if she is the one who handled the legality of it.

and not trying to embrace what the future could possibly bring, but living in what has happened , and taking a fatalistic view of his future...

This I will agree that I am guilty of. I am having trouble being optimistic about the future. I am having trouble because she really was up on that pedestal so much higher than anything or anyone else that it's taken so long for my mind to bring her down, and it's still a fight to bring her down to the same level of everyone else.

So, yes, in my brain I am non-actively thinking that I lost the only thing I ever actually wanted and I'll never have something so great. I am trying to be optimistic about the future, but I am having trouble focusing on making my future great instead of living in the past. I'll quote Ray LaMontagne: "I never learned to count my blessings, I choose instead to dwell in my disasters."

I WANT to be optimistic about the future - I really do. But when I see her it just reminds me of what I want, but can't have. And maybe that isn't fair to her, but I've got to get to a point where *I'm* healthy. Otherwise I can't be everything I need to be and should be for others. If the cabin loses air pressure, put your own oxygen mask on first, right?

It's been 19 months. I need to get healthy. I was messed up for a long time, and I'm still pretty messed up because of all this, but it's a different kind of messed up and I'm working on it.

Is your life really over now ???

That's what it feels like, but of course I know the correct answer. It feels like my old life is over and I need to figure out how to start a new one. It feels segmented, not continuous (if that makes sense).

I see a guy, who no matter how loud he screams that he wants this drama over, that also knows, this letter will create more, and possibly create a doubt in her mind, and force her to come to you for support, or better yet, open her eyes and make her see how big of a mistake she is making...

I want her to come to me for support, but I want a relationship, not a "used-ship" as sandi2 put it. In time, as we've had some time apart, I don't know what I'll want. That's kind of why I felt the need to say how I felt last night, because after last night I don't know what's going to become of me. I might be a different person with different feelings...I really don't know. But I knew who I was last night, and as of right then, when I said "space starts now", I still loved her. And I wanted her to know because I think at times she doubted it.

I have seen you around Crimson's threads recently, and even pasting things on your thread, from his.

To simplify the theme that you have embraced the most... here...

When has your EX, ever really lost you ?

So why would she come looking for you, when she knows EXACTLY where you are ???

That's what I'm working on now.

At what point, will she finally lose you enough to look for you ???

Only time will tell. And the clock started last night.

Tick-tock.

-PM