RealityTrip is back from her voyage into "Me" Land

[RealityTrip]

(((Wonka))) Thanks friend. I know I need to sit on it and get W through this recovery. It's tough to balance my ultimate goal of taking care of me and being here for her while she goes through this.

xAP sent W a private FB message yesterday. It read "How are you doing?" W got upset. Or acted upset. Apologizing over and over to me. I just let it go at this point. I told her she can't control what xAP does. Inside I'm thinking... "Well, you started it. You never should have called her to tell her about surgery because you thought she "deserved" to know."

W messeged her back, "I am doing well. You are sweet to check on me but we agreed that you would not try to contact me."

Again, W's choice. I thought she should have ignored it. But I don't offer advice or try to reason with her anymore in regards to the A or the xAP. Sometimes I feel like I'm standing in a dark room with W waiting for her to find the light switch.

JOURNAL:
I have had the misfortune of having a third person in my marriage. The dreaded AP/xAP. I am processing some of the affects of that. Outside of my W and my marriage, the xAP was a close friend. So lucky me... even more to process.

Just after BD, my self esteem took a nose dive. "why her? she's better than me?" all of that natural comparison junk that I eventually got over. I got stronger. I remembered who RT is and there's no doubt, hands down, I am in a different league. So after I got back to that point, I got angry. So angry. Dreaming of stabbing xAP in the eyes with icepicks angry. Oh... I prayed. I gave her to God. I tried to meditate and envision light surrounding her and fulfilling her so she would no longer be a destructive force in other people's lives. Yada, yada, yada... (I stunk at that. It always ended in an icepick ) But now, I have moved in to residual anger/pity for my ex-friend.

W just made one of the biggest decisions of her life. To end years of chronic pain and undergo a major orthapedic surgery. Something she has been terrified of doing. But I have to say, if the tables were turned, and I had been the one who received a phonecall from W the day before surgery as an afterthought, or if I had been the one that was NOT chosen to be by her side when she went through this... I would have KNOWN. I would have known that her decision to be with AP was final. I would not have had my mother, my best friend, and least of all myself, reach out to W.

So I feel genuine pity for her. I'm starting to see exactly how low her self-esteem must have been and still be. To be the other woman for 2.8 years. To never be "enough" to get W to end her marriage. To not be the person that W wanted to nurse her and care for her at the biggest moment of her life.

I imagine that xAP/ex-friend experiences that same low self-esteem that I did. That she is angry with me for not giving up on my M and handing over my W. That she compares herself to me and icepicks my eyes. But in her version of this tortuous cycle of self-destruction, unlike me, she has not gotten stronger. She has not found her self-worth and placed taking care of herself as a priority. So I pity her.

But always with an icepick in my back pocket... just in case.