Maybell XXXIV: Expecto Patronum!

[Zues126]

Maybell, if you haven't read my post on Pyrite's thread with the number game please do so. It's something I've been trying to put into words for so long.

So many of us LBS's feel this way. We "made some mistakes" in the M but have addressed them and made some changes. Those things we did in the M were "mistakes" that have been addressed, not who we are. Meanwhile the things our WAS does DEFINE them, they are bad people that hurt us and were terrible partners. How could they treat us this way?

After reading my post you'll understand why I feel differently. What our WAS is doing is no different than what we did. Maybe a degree of magnitude, but we are all humans reacting with our own unhappiness, expectations, hurts, reactions. When WAH talks to his friends he probably tells the opposite story about how he can't believe how long he was hurt and how long he put up with it, and how he was just with a defective person. And the truth is if you knew then what you know now you might have treated him differently, and he might have responded differently...maybe even like the H you wanted.

No it's not your fault, but it's not all his either. I don't believe that's true...for EITHER of you. I think it's just a bad dance. The only difference is that he DID make the decision to leave, and what you've been trying to do post BD. You've been trying to grow, he has blamed you and doesn't think he needs to. Even that is simplified, because us LBSs can revert to blaming and denial (as evidenced by how quickly we quit talking about our problems as our WAS's do outrageous things, they make it easy to point the finger). And WAH may have grown a lot in many ways and just isn't sharing all of that with you. It's NOT black and white. It hurts me to see all the judging of our WAS's because it just leads to anger which hurts ourselves, stunts our growth, prevents detachment, and rewrites history in our own ways.

I think if we can go beyond blame, good guys and bad guys, and just see it for what it is, it's easier to forgive and let it go. That in turn leads to detachment, true growth, and the peace that will allow us to be our best selves.