"Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick"

[Old Dog]

Sounds good to me :-)

[Meghan]

The thing about waiting is that you should not be "waiting" even right now.
You should be moving forward.
Living your life "as if", he is never coming back.
Figuring out what that(life) is going to look like.

Thanks for this, Cadet - your posts are incredibly helpful.

[Ggrass]

Yes, gg we are alike. Expect I run my place and work ft. My home clothes have hay in the pockets often. Dog hair never stays on the dog, and I wear black for work! Lol

Lts of white hair here. I got knocked down and kicked by a couple of young horses at the weekend. So I have thigh hematomas! Complete with rainbow colours, lol

Yes I think you are moving on emotionally, but it's a very hard place to Judge how long is fair and if they never come back, will you regret not taking chances to step out and make your sitch better faster as a single person. I swing wildly back and forth, mines still got his ow makes I suspect 9 months all 6 I've been separated for.

I'm not even sure I can get past the a, like I read here from someone else it made me psychically vomit and I still get anxiety twinges. Yet I seem happier and more open.

[artsy]

GG,
If they had died, there wouldn't be the rejection part of the grieving and there would be a definite closure on the R. No "what ifs" about the future.

I have had the same thoughts. I DO NOT want anything to happen to my H, but the pain would definitely be different. (And our egos would be intact).

It's a horribly selfish scenario, but I will admit I've thought the same thing!

[Ggrass]

Also if they died friends am family would still be offering support for a year. After 3 weeks I had one friend, say get the f over it already!

I did not db her, I in my pain ripped her a new one. We have been friends for 30 years, I expected better from her.

[KGirl]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has had the thought cross my mind. Actually, on BD day I said to H "this is worse than if you had died." He was VERY po'd about that. He is one of those people who doesn't like to hypothesize or theorize about bad things happening for fear it will make them more likely to happen. I'm not superstitious in that way but have always respected how he feels about that kind of stuff... until that day. Guess I wasn't feeling very understanding at the time. But yeah, there'd be a finite end. And if that's how things ended (as opposed to the situations we find ourselves in) you'd least know it ended with you both loving each other. Blah.

[GoatGal]

Everything you gals said above is true.

If we were suddenly widowed, there would be ongoing support from family, friends, community.
We could continue to believe the best of them, that our marriages were what we thought they were.
We would not have those awful thoughts stuck in our heads about horrible things they said or did, the OPs...
Then there's the fallout with the children, the shared custody, the lawyers, the money, the fighting.
Of course, there is legal stuff with death as well, and certainly children suffer tremendously. As we would.

But to watch daddy run off with someone not much older than they are, squander the family's resources, and act as though they don't matter anymore.
I don't know which is worse.

And there are the people who try to help us by telling us to move on, who badmouth our Hs, who will never accept him again even if he does come to his senses.

It's embarrassing. My whole town knows he filed, and the word is, I'm a slut.
(Yep. You heard that right.!)
He filed against ME, I'm younger (and better looking ), and I am a competitive dancer and DJ who is out in the evenings dancing with other men.
So you fill in the blanks...

Then there is the bullying with the phones, finances, threats, cajoling.. all the crazy behavior.

There would be none of that.

Most of all, there would be a finite end, as opposed to this limbo.
There would be no need to hang in there and see what happens.
It would be OVER.

I know that losing a spouse is terrible and soul-wrenching.

But somehow I think losing a spouse to this is worse.

That's just me.

---GGG

[GoatGal]

On a lighter note:
Recently H has been giving me detailed accounts of his whereabouts (for reasons I will not speculate about).
Today he's at the dentist (I know because a reminder card came here), and afterwards has a meeting that I'm also aware of.

Yet, as of this morning, his Friday schedule "changed" and now he has "an appointment" about which he will not clarify further.

Hmmmm....Why no info?

Something he doesn't want me to know about, that's why!
He's so secretive about anything pertaining to our R, it would be classic to withhold info about anything "marriage" related.

I wonder---if it's him seeing his shrink again?
Or some new therapist?
(Might be good because after a few sessions with the first one he filed for divorce, saying he was "at peace" with this decision. With not one word of explanation to me.)

Or maybe his lawyer? Not much to be done there in person.

Or he's looking into a hit man and funeral plot for me?

Shopping for a condo?

He's been pretty weird since I really detached (thanks to my pal, Cadet).

I guess if he doesn't show up with a band-aid on his arm from a blood draw, I can assume it's not medical.
He's overdue for some blood-work but he would have told me that at this point.

And no, I don't think it's a new OW or the old one.
He'd come up with something a lot more vague/work related like having to "work late", and I'm sure he wouldn't be planning to come right over here in the early afternoon!
He'd make himself scarce.

So really---I'm not mind-reading...just...musing, waiting to see what happens next!
No expectations, nothing invested in the outcome.

It's like he's an amoeba under my microscope.
Which direction will it move next?

Care to place your bets?


---GGG

[Wonka]

Did you just call H a bloody amoeba, GGG??!! Good call.

[GoatGal]

YES I DID!!!!



Like any good scientist, I observe and document.

I can have a hypothesis, but I can't predict the outcome, nor can I influence the experiment.

So I am wearing my lab coat with "Dr. Gumby GoatGal" embroidered on the pocket.
---GGG