still waiting

[25yearsmlc]

PS the punched in the gut feeling is due to the disconnect between seeing someone you thought you knew and realizing he is not that person.

I get it.^^^ And yes, it stinks.


It's not about ego,

maybe yes, maybe no, maybe partly. The thing is, you are allowed to have an ego. Some of it might not be "admirable" but some of it comes with self respect, and there is a fine line between the two.

I find that if you can remove the ego part of it for even a few minutes and look as realistically as you can, in the moment, at who your h appears to be now, (based on his present day actions and words), it helps to see and eventually believe, that you are not losing very much after all.

B/C the man you thought he was, is no longer there. You lost "him" awhile ago so the grief is real - but it's over something that is not a recent loss.
You just became aware of it recently.

Sort of like finding out your h died, two years ago. You're still very sad and shocked but then you realize,

"oh wait, all is not lost. I've actually been doing alright these past 2 years when I did not know he has passed away, so maybe I have not lost as much of my LIFE (and all I believed he meant to me and represented) as I thought. Maybe I'll be just fine without him..."

( I don't know if ^^^ that analogy helps, but I can hope.)

but it has a lot to do with processing the sadness that comes with the loss of illusion.

"loss of illusion..." AMEN to that. Thing is, it was an illusion sure, but it was one yo were counting on and you did not know it was an illusion when you were relying on it. So there's been a shift under your feet and it does take a major adjustment.

My therapist told me to tell the kids nothing about divorce unless they asked and even then, Not to say "yes we are divorcing" as long as there was a chance you would not. Unless I was "truly certain", that it was good to hold onto hope.

If my d's asked if we were divorcing, I'd say "I sure hope not, b/c I really loved your dad and we are working on things", or something along those lines. I also asked each daughter what their biggest concern was about the marital situation and for both of them, it was "not to move again". (We had been a military family and moving was frequent and more difficult as the kids got older. A lot more difficult). I DID reassure them that we (as in me and them) would not move until at least the older d had finished high school, which was 2 years later. That was my internal timeline and I knew that my limbo would end one way or another by then.

No, I didn't tell h that. It was for me to know and to tell myself that no matter what, this would Not go on forever...I only filed for a sep when I worried that h would mortgage our home for his "heroes" ideas for "investing" on the tundra.

So we wouldn't lose the house. About 2 years ago, (maybe 4 years after we left Alaska the 2nd time), H said he was so "glad WE did not sell our house for those guys", and I honestly don't think he recalls why HE could not sell (my name is on the house and our assets were frozen by the separation agreement. (So, oops.) But it does show how unaware he was/is about what happened and why.

I said nothing then, b/c sometimes that's the most loving thing to say.

I think you're doing well. Truly. Keep on posting, and keep on...keeping on