Moving In

[kat727]

Maybe it should be "I choose me.". When you are in the middle of the field, it is so easy to get lost with all of the emotions flying around. Sure there is some bits of love there but so hard to notice when things have crumbled so much.

I used to be a flight attendant and I remember doing the oxygen demo and always thinking I would put the mask on my child first. It took until my divorce for me to really get it. If you put the mask on your child, great but they can't help you and maybe not even help themselves . Put the mask on yourself, then you can take care of those you need to.

Also good to remember that the relationship between your h and the kids is just that, between them. Let them navigate that. If you step in, chances are your h will say you are putting words in their mouths or you are manipulating them. Just better to not go there from the start.

Blessings, kat

[Underdog]

AD,

I remember having similar musings in the tail end of my 2 year separation/limbo. But then I realized something which helped me finish letting go. At that time, I had 2 close friends who had divorced after long term marriages - and they both reconciled post-D. They are both happily re-married now and I think it's inspirational. Then later on, I met a gal here who became a good friend IRL who also remarried her XH 4 years later. They both grew up, processed stuff, made the changes and now have a soon to be 4 year old daughter.

If you're meant to be together, it will happen. So even a D can't stop that from happening. Trust and believe that there is no such thing as a closed door if he makes his way back to you again some day. But if not, then the converse is true too. Letting go will allow you to invite MORE love in than he is capable of giving. I say to myself, "I don't want the version of him that isn't totally in to me."

It sounds like you're processing that anger properly. That can only happen when you acknowledge it. Personally, I think it's amazing and insightful that you actually can see the cause. I say honor it and hopefully forgive both of you and move forward. Do nice things for yourself to help yourself over the hump.

I'm not one who would say you haven't learned anything or let go. I understand being in limbo. Personally, I think it would have been easier for me if my XH hadn't left me in limbo for so long and was decisive about what he wanted. It's a crappy place to be - I wasn't important enough for him to want to try again, but I wasn't a bad enough option to end things either. As it was, the day we walked into the court house, going through security he mumbled loud enough for me to hear, "This might be the worst thing I've ever done."

I try to be considerate of him and i have no expectation of him. When he acts decently it is such a positive that others tell me aww he still loves you. That is sad to me, that his love was so tepid that just entering my house is what looks like love. I dont read it as love, i read it as trying to be a decent guy in the eyes of his sons.

AD, have you ever considered that your H loves you the best he can? Maybe he just has a fractured heart that can't love the way you do? It sure sounds as though your H has some very deep emotional issues that prevent him from being vulnerable and emotionally honest with others. He, like many of our former spouses here, is emotionally stunted. What makes it even more sad is that they know something isn't right (because they aren't happy - period), but they don't DO anything to figure it out or make things better for themselves. They don't grow, so they wilt.

I used to visualize weeding my flower bed. I had to get rid of the wilted ones to plant seeds for something more beautiful. Some plants just don't thrive...

Hugs,

Betsey

[labug]

((( )))

Yes, I agree with Betsey. He loves you and his kids the only way he knows. This is probably his best. He and your sons will have a R but it may not be what you would like to see their R be.

I'm realizing that my R with my grown sons is going to be very different from what I might have imagined when they were young. But even as I type that, I'm realizing that I really don't know that. Life is full of twists and turns we can only take care of today.

My takeaway is i should have kept out of it, and let h holler from the stove and take it from there. I assumed he had something time sensitive and i got in the middle and shouldnt have. Old habits die hard. But i'm aware and trying to train myself better.

Yes. I often have to remind myself not to insert myself in their (H,Sons) R.

Ad, are you thinking that there must be really something wrong with you to have been in a M with this flawed man?

[oldtimer]

There's little point in ruminating over one's future feelings. We've no idea what they will be.

Try these...

Today I will do the next right thing

Love is consistent with an open future

Today I will own my every choice and every action, they are mine and I will not hold other's accountable for them

Love is not a duty, nor an entitlement. Hearts shrivel from resentments rooted in the beliefs that there is a duty to love or that one is entitled to love from anyone else. Freedom makes space for deep love and intimacy. Today I will expand the space to live more freely and authentically in my life so that I know when I act from love and for love.

Today I will take care of myself and find a way to be good to another.

[ces67]

I was trying to figure out how to make a roller coaster with an arrow saying "you are here". But I'm just not that creative with the keyboard.

Anyway, it seems another reminder that our sitch's (and life) is a roller coaster and these emotions will ebb & flow.

I have no doubt that you'll work through them, own them, learn from them and move forward. Sometimes the process is just tiring.

(((((Ad)))))

[JustStunned]

For a long time mine was “Everybody’s breathing, Nobody’s bleeding” I am trying to include “My turn”

Try and remember their crises are theirs to solve. Try and remember a lack of planning on their part does not constitute a crisis on your part.

I acknowledge these are cliché’s and I believe I am paraphrasing. I believe it is best to let people learn their own lessons and a voice from my past reminds me from time to time the lessons best learned are those that are most painful. I know it is difficult to do, I really do.

[adinva]

Awesome. That was good help, thanks!

The one that spoke to me today was "today I will own my every choice." That's good because I get in a bad spot feeling buffetted by events outside my control. I have a lot more control than that would suggest, because I control my every choice and I can make lots of choices around every event that happens to me. Good one.

Bug, yes there was something seriously wrong with me that I picked H for an H. I was raised to expect nothing from my loved ones, to be very uncomfortable with expressions of love, to feel no needs, to be completely self sufficient because loved ones would only let me down if I needed them. I was not particularly emotionally grown up, and H was in my comfort zone because he wasn't either. I knew that going in but I was very naive and thought I could fix my own problems and that he'd fix his, and that it was just a maturity issue that would resolve with time. I thought I knew better because I had relied on my wits up til then and they served me well. I thought I could get by without outside help. I thought I was emotionally strong and could take on anything life could dish out. I thought my h was flawed but he was mine and he was too cheap and lazy to ever cheat on me or divorce me.

So yeah, it takes a messed up person to match themselves up with an emotional abuser.

I got better.

[adinva]

Whether H loves me in the only way he can or whether he does not love me at all and hasn't for a long time, which he was quite articulate and consistent about, is anyone's guess. I take him at his word because his words match the actions I have seen.

That's not to say he'll always be that way, but the way that he is being, is not loving. It's civil. Calling it loving is absurd to me.

Whether he loves his kids is harder to call. He feels an obligation to "love" his kids, as in "of course I love my kids" and he shows up for them and appears to care what they think of him. In that case I would call that love. A limited kind of love, stunted, but loving. I believe that.

[labug]

Bug, yes there was something seriously wrong with me that I picked H for an H. I was raised to expect nothing from my loved ones, to be very uncomfortable with expressions of love, to feel no needs, to be completely self sufficient because loved ones would only let me down if I needed them. I was not particularly emotionally grown up, and H was in my comfort zone because he wasn't either. I knew that going in but I was very naive and thought I could fix my own problems and that he'd fix his, and that it was just a maturity issue that would resolve with time. I thought I knew better because I had relied on my wits up til then and they served me well. I thought I could get by without outside help. I thought I was emotionally strong and could take on anything life could dish out. I thought my h was flawed but he was mine and he was too cheap and lazy to ever cheat on me or divorce me.

So yeah, it takes a messed up person to match themselves up with an emotional abuser.

I got better.

I wasn't asking that as an accusation, it was more a realization that you might be blaming yourself for choosing your H. I think my phrasing was inartful

I know you got better.

[adinva]

No, i understood what you were saying i think. I dont think there is something wrong with me (present tense) because i picked h. But i am making darn sure that wont be a pattern and i dont blame myself at all for having been who i was then.

If i hadnt married him and he hadnt left i might not have ever known that something was wrong with me, it just might have all had to happen in the order it did.

I think your wording is something ive seen elsewhere when women marry abusers or addicts, who may wrongly blame themselves, but the difference is in finding and healing the damage that was certainly there.