What do YOU enjoy doing with your time that you havent been able to do during your M?
What do YOU want from life?
What can YOU do for yourself to make yourself the best man and husband you can be?
by the way, if your wife tells you to stop reading those books because she is not coming back, SMILE and say 'i know. Im reading them so my next wife will have the perfect husband'. Let her wonder how that could be, and how someone else will reap the rewards of the growth you are undertaking as a result of the pain she is causing you.
I think focusing on myself is the hardest thing to do. In part, because I believe my wife may have felt I focused too much on myself (especially my career). What I have wanted more than anything these last few years was children/family. I also wanted more quality time with my wife, including travel and sharing some of the happy places I have been and seen. For some reason my wife believes I feel differently, but I didn't feel like I was missing something because I was married. Now my career means so little to me. All the things that fill our house and seemed so important now seem superficial and empty. I have reached out to work friends and old friends, but everyone is too busy with their own lives, children, and family that I just don't fit in. My immediate family is so self absorbed over the death of my father that they don't want to hear about my troubles.
If there is one saving grace, it is my aunt. We were never really close until all this began. She has always made herself available, listened to me, and provided support. She understands better than anyone else I know what I am going through. Her husband/my uncle went through a MLC and had a PA. He thought things were greener elsewhere. She was devastated in a way I am only beginning to understand. She spent YEARS rebuilding herself. She delayed it as long as possible, but they did get a divorce. However, the story does have a happy ending. The day the divorce was finalized, it finally dawned on my uncle what he had done and what a terrible mistake he had made. It wasn't long before he started to reach out to her. They wrote each other for months and then started spending time together. Five years after their divorce was finalized, they remarried. Their marriage has been solid ever since. My aunt calls the while thing the "crazy years." She is strong and confident enough now to share her experience with me as I go through this personal hell.
