Job knows her stuff.... In crisis, they become someone we no longer know. They are motivated only by what is in it for them, and what they believe will make them feel better.
It took me so long to wrap my head around this. Here they are, one day treating us as we knew them, then seemingly out of the blue, they become a complete stranger. It still baffles me.
It feels counterintuitive to let go. It can be done lovingly. Letting go isn't necessarily giving up hope. It's leaving him to his journey, so he can learn what he missed long before you were in the picture.
There are several reasons for going NC, dark and dim...leaving him to his journey.
One, he needs the space to figure himself out. He can not do it if he is constantly looking over his shoulder at you. He has to do this completely on his own.
Two, he is in crisis, and he associates his pain with the life he had with you. Whether or not your M was perfect is irrelevant. It is simply how he views it right now. He can not look inward yet, and until he can and does, you will be the main object from which he needs to distance. Contact with him reminds him of his pain, and triggers his irrational urge to keep running. For now. He has to exhaust all other possibilities before he looks at himself. It will be a long time.
Three, his crisis is still very early. This is a long, tough, road, Gwen. It's best for you to not see all he is doing right now. They do some bizarre stuff, and if a R is possible in the future, the less you see and know, the less you will have in your memory to have to sort through. That's my opinion....some believe they want to know all. To me, nothing good can come from that.
Four, yeah, it kind of is fancy talk for leave them be and get on with your life. Getting on with your life doesn't have to mean you move on with someone new, it means you choose to live for YOU, regardless of him. Life is too precious to be wasted. Make a bucket list of things you have always wanted to do, and DO them. You will not regret it, whether he comes through his tunnel or not.
Mine is so deep in the tunnel. Whether he ever comes out, no one knows. I've been almost completely NC with him since before Thanksgiving. I kept thinking last summer, that I could keep him in my peripheral vision. That didn't serve me well. So, I have let him go.
I'm almost certain, as strange as this may sound, that one day, even years or decades from now, my H will regret all he has done. I believe he loves me. I believe he will want me back, but will not necessarily have the courage to face it all.
I also believe it will go to D. This fact used to send me into a panic. Now, it means almost nothing. I feel I am already D, so it changes nothing.
Even if it does, no one knows what will happen down the road. Marriages have been known to go all the way to D, and then reconcile.
Time will tell. Live, Gwen. Learn about you. Love you even more than you did before.
