Just some general thoughts here from my time here. Calibri is giving you some excellent questions/things to ponder, and I see you are giving them some good neuron time. I relate to you and your sitch, though my stbxw was/is in mid-life crisis with a lot of other things going on, there is the common theme of her needing to accomplish something on her own. And given your background, you know something of duty and honor.
Mine did it at 45, after 24 years together, there may be a blessing in that your W is doing it now, I'm thinking it may be easier to start over at 28 than 50, but maybe not, idk.
I initially came to DB looking for how to save my M, what I discovered is that I needed to save myself first.
This is tough stuff.
But, an amazing opportunity for you to make this one of many defining moments of your life. I know you are familiar with the Stockdale Paradox and the main tenet:
Quote:
This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
Those brutal facts not only include the spouse, the M, but also ourselves.
Know this: No one is ever 100% responsible for the problems in the relationship. It takes 2 to have a healthy relationship, and the responsibility is split 50/50.
You mission here is to figure out and own your 50%. Her 50% is on her.
A healthy, self-aware spouse would have said, "Hey T, I don't think this is working for me, we should get MC and work through it".
But she didn't.
We all, everyone, do the best we can with what we know at the time.
The best use of our time here, imo, is to learn better, so we do better. And I believe that requires digging into ourselves, facing our own bad habits, the why's of what motivates us, what our fears are, and the underlying ROOT FEAR that generates those fears, which influence our decisions and behaviors.
This journey that W has set you on, can be the one of the most rewarding, defining times of your life, IF you do the work and make it so.
As painful, soul crushing, as my stbxw's MLC was for me, I wouldn't trade the growth and man I have become for anything. I truly am grateful for her MLC and for her leaving, NOW. When I first started on this journey, I wouldn't have believed I would EVER think that.
Believe, KNOW, that if you do the work, regardless of whether your M is saved, you will be successful.
I see strength, class, honor and dignity in you, that is what resonates with me.
Take the "red pill" and dig into yourself, you'll thank yourself later, trust me.
Be sure to be good to yourself and get in some GAL and let the sitch be put on the back-burner every now and then. You do need R&R to be your best.
You got this...
Make a great weekend!
In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. - Albert Camus
Uncertainty is the very condition which impels people to unfold their powers.-Eric Fromm
