Becoming Patient Man III - Moving Forward

[PatientMan]

This is my 4th thread (you can see a snapshot of my timeline in my sig). Thanks to all who have kept up with me and especially to those who have offered words of support, encouragement, and advice. It has truly been invaluable.

Previous threads:
1: Thanks
2: Becoming Patient Man
3: Becoming Patient Man II - Still En-Route, Post-D

In the latter part of my week off I came to some difficult realizations. Bluntly: she isn’t someone I want to be with right now.

• I DON’T want to be with someone who starts a relationship with another man while she is still married.
• I DON’T want to be with someone who starts a relationship with a MARRIED man, potentially breaking up a second family.
• I DON’T want to be someone who lies, deceives, and sneaks around – and is seemingly okay with it.

I realized that she just isn’t the person I fell in love with and loved with all my heart for so many years. She just isn’t. I believe her when she says she has changed into someone else because she is acting like someone else.

So I realized that I’m in love with a memory.

This version of her that I see before me is just a cheap facsimile of the woman I fell in love with. At first glance she looks the same as the original, but upon closer inspection it’s quite clear that she isn’t.

The irony is that I convinced her of the same. That I had changed into someone else and the me she fell in love with was never coming back. I convinced her of that and she allowed herself to be convinced of that. The difference is, the real me was trapped inside and wanted out, it just took something as ground shaking as the BD to make it happen.

Now, I’m not absolving my responsibility in creating who she is today, I’m just acknowledging what reality is: she isn’t somebody who I can be with. Not like this.

The OM that she fell for almost two years ago, he has some similarities to me. But I chose not to befriend this person long before that because I could see serious character flaws in him and I don’t associate myself with those types of people. He’s a weak man, a poor father and role model, and when the you know what hits the fan, he is worried about one thing and one thing only: numero uno. He will do whatever it takes to save his own hide when times get tough. I just don’t respect someone like that, and that is what I thought of him BEFORE I found out he was sneaking around with my wife.

So if she is attracted to him? Then yeah, if that is what she is looking for in a man, then she is definitely not going to be looking to me. I could name a bunch of other stuff where I’m a better catch than him, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter for me healing and I don’t think she’s seeing him anyway.

One of the biggest things that bothered me throughout this whole ordeal was that she “just couldn’t” open herself up to me again. She “just couldn’t” take that wall down that she has erected between us. And obviously she doesn’t have a wall up for every man because she was involved with another. The wall is just for me, and that stings. She acknowledges my changes, she admits that I’m better, but she “just can’t” turn the feelings back on and open herself up to me. She can’t or won’t or both.

But then I think about who she is now, and somehow I’m okay with it. She isn’t someone who I want to be with anyway. I can’t trust her and she hasn’t worked on rebuilding that trust with me.

So now, all of a sudden, since I see her differently, I’m able to focus on moving forward. I know I still have a lot of hurt in my future. I think it’s natural and I’m expecting it. But if she is unwilling to change, then I am moving forward. I guess it kinda sux that it took this for me to be able to pick myself up, dust myself off, and start journeying again, but it’s my reality and I’m going to make the best of it.

-PM