Glad you had a great weekend and things are going well with your girls.
I think you are just going round and round in circles in your head, and trying to find some way to do the impossible, which is hang on to whatever it is you have with your XW in the hopes of it becoming more some day, without risking getting hurt again.
All my life I have dared to go past what is possible.
"To the impossible?" you may ask.
Actually, past that. To the place where the possible and the impossible meet, to become... the possimpible.
Originally Posted By: melissag
If you can figure out how to make this happen, please let me know. I will do it too.
Deal.
Originally Posted By: melissag
The bottom line is, are you willing to risk repeated heartbreak for the possibility that your XW's tide will eventually come all the way to the shore where you are, and stay there?
The bottom line for me is: is it the right thing to do? And also: not doing something I will regret.
Plus, I'm wearing one of those yellow, ducky-shaped inner-tubes around my waist, so if and when the tide actually comes up to me, I'll be sure to float off into the water.
Originally Posted By: melissag
And the problem, of course, is that you have no idea what will happen, so it's kind of a crap shoot.
You are correct, you cannot force her to grow. However, you can tell her that she must address these issues if she wants to have a relationship with you. Or you can just accept that she may well never tackle her issues, and decide whether the person she is now, and the R you have now, is enough for you.
Well she doesn't want a relationship with me now without her issues addressed, and no I will not decide that the person she is now and the R we have now is enough for me. It is not.
Originally Posted By: melissag
And then you need to think about whether it's even possible for her to address these issues when you are around all the time. But it seems to me to figure that out requires you to find out exactly what she means when she says she needs to make sure she is okay on her own. And no, you don't need to make and enforce boundaries for her, but you can make the boundary for you, if you want - that you won't have an R with her unless and until she makes an effort to "fix" herself.
I've already done that. When she first realized she couldn't handle her lifestyle financially back in late October/early November, I was preparing myself to tell her that we couldn't get back together under those circumstances:
I feel like, for all of us, our decisions on how to behave with respect to our WASs are dependent upon how we feel about ourselves and how much we can take. A few weeks ago, it seemed like you were just done. Maybe you are not quite done yet. Not ready to give up. Fair enough. You could always just keep this up until the point where you really are done. But I don't think there is any way to insulate yourself from hurt in the process.
Well that sux. I'll let you know if I figure it out.
I DID feel done. But then I ran a little experiment that showed me I'm not ready for someone else right now, so I can't use that tool to facilitate me moving on. And I also got a kick in the seat of the pants of my morals and values, and that picked me back up again. It woke me back up, so I stood up, went and bought my ducky inner-tube floaty, and am standing on the shore again.
I may never get what I want right now...what I have wanted for the last 2+ years, but I won't surrender. Not like this.
-PM
M:12y - BD:12/11 - D:6/13 - 4Ds
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." -MLK Jr.
