My First Break, Light Shines Yonder

[Pyrite]

Smothy,

i get unravelled ALL the time. I am having a great day. Wall behind me that is boundary to W is in place. I can peek over without breaking apart. I can see in front of me. I'm controlling me. BUT then "something" happens. it has happened a dozen times before but one e.g. is that a letter arrives adressed to my wife, her maiden name. In the first week after separation she too off her ring, changed her name everywhere, and ordered new business cards.

Then its back to square one for me.

It kills me as well when my W says she is hurting so much. Fine, I can understand that she is, and I played a big part in her making the final decision to walk-away. But she has moved on. On the days when I dont have the girls I am, or have been a wreck. On the days when she doesnt have the girls she is at the movies, or a restaurant, or in bed with OM.

Has she grown as Zeus has discussed. I dont believe so at all - if she had we would not be where we are, she would be whacking me up side the head to grow together. She has compensated/avoided/distracted her way out of it. Do I envy this? superficially - absolutely! Really, no, because when the fog clears those same issues which were an issue for me in the R will still be there. One of the biggies was that I didn't seem to be the person she was in love with so no amount of growing would fix that. Her other issues that could be developed - are they show stoppers, would they cause her future relationships to suffer? STOP!!! WTF am i doing - i'm worried about the possibilities in her R future in 2-3 years time.

Rewind - "It kills me as well when my W says she is hurting so much." I think this is where I need to stop myself. OK it is hurtful for her, not LIKE it is for me, maybe more or less than me, but i'm not in place to help her. she doesn't want me in that place anyway. spitefully, out of anger, i want her to recognise how much she has hurt me and feel how she has let me down. this comes full circle, that was how our M became.

sorry Smothy, this is becoming a cathartic exercise for me. I think after the first time we separated (she left) when we were dating (because I was focused on my study and neglected her) i put the reigns on her. I never had to pull the reigns though because the next few years were great. Then, for whatever reason (babies, project house ,etc), things weren't so great. I felt neglected. leaving was not an option for me, I tried to get through to her (IF ONLY i had've done a better job, tried harder, etc ), so I pulled the reigns and tried to whip her into shape. i got her jumping through some hoops, but ultimately pulled harder and harder on the reigns - until one day they snapped.

so Again, like Zeus' story, FEAR lead me to putting on the reigns and then pulling them until they snapped. Good news for me is that now I am sitting here with broken reigns and I am faced with either going out and getting me some new reigns or abandoning the need for them.

I dont know really how you can judge your progress in terms of NOT letting fear control your life (negatively) without being or putting yourself into that situation. But i think you can realise when that's what you WANT to do and be like. Right now I know that a R is out of the question, with anyone, especially my W, because I am more scared than ever. but i do WANT to not be scared. I would love to be able to honestly say I am not scared of a future in which my W is not part, my family is gone.

Of course, there is one overlying thing (my W) which I can say would alleviate my feeling scared. But I can't change that, or work on that. All I can do is work on the underlying reasons. The things I am telling myself she would give me. Provide those things for myself and maybe I won't be so scared. Then a R would just be like icing on the cake, and not be required to make the cake.