Whoa, I'm not suffering much anymore! Now what?!?

[Bob723]

This has definitely been a deeply devastating voyage as being loving and loyal to the partner God gave you has always meant the world to me, but I've been shown I am here to choose my path, not anyone else's. Thanks for the support through the good and bad.

PS- just got back from our hike. We are all tired and it is naptime. Then dinner, a movie, and some free time. Church in the AM with my friend's family, then a little breakfast as a group. There have been some spats, but it's all good

Hello There Z.

I feel the exact same way you described above. Devastating voyage, interesting way of putting it. Somehow, you must be really good at remembering that you are here to choose your own path. I know you have your rough times, but you always seem to bounce back quicky and are in a much better place than you were in the beginning. I think that has a lot to do with it.

I hope you had fun on your hike -- if you're all tired I take it you did.

Keep your chin up, Zues!

Bob

[Joe46]

Zues, I hope you had a fun hike! Hope your day with your kids was as enjoyable as mine.

[Zues126]

First church trip with kids today. They were sponges and had a great time.

I had two breakthroughs in the service. I'll save one for the moment, but the one I share has to do with what I'll be able to bring to my next M.

See, there are many things that I won't be able to bring. I won't be able to offer my virginity. I won't be able to offer my heart for the first time. I won't be able to make my future wife my first Mrs. Zues. I won't be able to have our first children together. And I won't be able to love with the blind devotion, trust, and faith that I had in my first M. I won't be able to give her my entire life together, as I've already walked a number of miles.

But then it hit me. I will be able to offer her a mature love. A love that has learned boundaries. A love that has learned to tend to myself, so that I can be a pillar of strength to her, instead of a bundle of anxious needs. A love that understands it takes more than positive intentions, but rather skills, sacrifice, and hard work to maintain itself. And a love that knows just how precious it is to share a life long commitment together.

I do grieve for what has been lost. It is beyond replacement. But I celebrate the fact that though there are many things I won't be able to offer to my future W, I will be ready to be a partner that she can count on to not just stick around, but to hold hands as we walk the rest of the path in front of us.

[Bob723]

But then it hit me. I will be able to offer her a mature love. A love that has learned boundaries. A love that has learned to tend to myself, so that I can be a pillar of strength to her, instead of a bundle of anxious needs. A love that understands it takes more than positive intentions, but rather skills, sacrifice, and hard work to maintain itself. And a love that knows just how precious it is to share a life long commitment together.

I do grieve for what has been lost. It is beyond replacement. But I celebrate the fact that though there are many things I won't be able to offer to my future W, I will be ready to be a partner that she can count on to not just stick around, but to hold hands as we walk the rest of the path in front of us.

Hi Zues,

Well said - very inspirational!

Bob

[Zues126]

Thanks Bob.

The other take away today was straight from the sermon, but it was one part that was really impactful to me:

LOVE NOTICES

The sermon was about how when Jesus asked to sum up all the hundreds of lessons about how God wanted us to live, the one he recapped was to "Love God, and love our neighbors as ourselves". Of all the things we are to do, that was what he chose to bring up when asked for a "cliff notes" version of how to live.

But it went on to discuss that for us to love our neighbors, we have to have the right vision. If we look at each other as inconveniences, as interruptions to our life, etc, then we won't be able to love each other because we will overlook the pain they are in, the needs they have.

I think of how many LBS's say they never knew their spouse was unhappy, or they didn't realize how deeply they wounded their partner. Instead of being resentful we didn't get more notice, I think we have to be accountable that we weren't in as truly loving a place as a M requires. It's not enough to simply love someone when we feel like it, or when the situation beats us over the head. To love our partner it means to make it a lifelong mission to understand their needs, how they feel loved, what their priorities are, and then despite our differences make the sacrifices necessary to validate and fulfill our partner lovingly.

In fact, that was the other part. The first was "Love Notices". The last was "Love Sacrifices".

So again, to tether in to my previous post...I hope for all of you and for myself that as we walk forward we'll all be not just acknowledging our partners needs when they scream at the top of their lungs and then debating, minimizing, dismissing, or making begrudging token gestures...but instead that we first NOTICE, then SACRIFICE, so we can fill our partners with love the way we commit to when we walk the aisle.

[Fogg]

I had two breakthroughs in the service. I'll save one for the moment, but the one I share has to do with what I'll be able to bring to my next M.

See, there are many things that I won't be able to bring. I won't be able to offer my virginity. I won't be able to offer my heart for the first time. I won't be able to make my future wife my first Mrs. Zues. I won't be able to have our first children together. And I won't be able to love with the blind devotion, trust, and faith that I had in my first M. I won't be able to give her my entire life together, as I've already walked a number of miles.

But then it hit me. I will be able to offer her a mature love. A love that has learned boundaries. A love that has learned to tend to myself, so that I can be a pillar of strength to her, instead of a bundle of anxious needs. A love that understands it takes more than positive intentions, but rather skills, sacrifice, and hard work to maintain itself. And a love that knows just how precious it is to share a life long commitment together.

The first part of that made me a bit anxious thinking about for the first time. Something I haven't really considered before. The second part had excellent points that made up for it. Very intersecting.

I also took away something from my churches sermon today that caught me off guard. The idea was about sin and what we were holding onto instead of trusting God with. The series was titled "Mirror, mirror" and the pastor asked us to take a hard look into the mirror at ourselves and what we may be hiding from Jesus, to look at our sins and what we don't trust. First thought was W listening also and the sermon telling her to "look into the mirror at your sins".

Then I realized I haven't been trusting God with this situation, that I don't trust him to bring me through it with W at the end. But, that's what I want, not what I need. I basically prayed to give me what I need through this and let me become the person I should be. With W, with someone else, or alone. Trust that regardless I will be OK.

[claire7]

Zeus and Fogg, these are both beautiful posts that show incredible growth and courage and strength. Thank you for being willing to share these thoughts.

[Zues126]

Now I've got you you son of a b1tch!!!

This is pretty raw for me and may resemble stuff I've talked about before, but I want to put it out there. This has been a thought that's teaching me how to grow.

The title comes from another book about interpersonal games, and it seemed appropriate. For the first time I TRULY understood what 25 talks about with forgiveness and letting go of score keeping.

First the easy part. I realize that for a long time (it's faded for the most part) I was repressing some really dark thoughts about my STBX. At least part of me was craving the day we'd be back together so she could pay for what she did. This is the controlling, angry, destructive part of me. And while it doesn't define me, I at least want to talk about what some of those desires look like:

Someday you're going to want what you lost, and when you do:
You're going to be accountable for what you put me through.
You're going to see where you were wrong.
You're going to sign an oath in blood saying you'll never do it again!

What I've learned from 25 and from common sense is that if you ever do R with your WAS, that just won't happen. The reality is that they won't ever understand what the LBS went through, and they won't remember much of what they did because it didn't hurt them like it hurt us. So they may have remorse, but if we are looking for understanding and apologies (at best) or revenge at worst, it can't happen. Score keeping will destroy it before it begins. Beyond that, there are no guarantees, that's not how life works. It's up to us to decide to build a good M FROM THIS DAY FORWARD, find forgiveness and trust, or not.

What I realized today is that while I don't harbor those feelings much for STBX...I DO for my future partner. I referred to the "police interrogation". I was serious. I have the desire to REALLY get my grips in my next woman to make sure I have her under control in several ways.

I want to make sure she doesn't go into the fog and become a WAS
I want to make sure she doesn't force me to live a sex starved marriage
Both are equally horrifying thoughts.

It has taken me some time to start to accept some hard lessons in life. I can DB all day long, but my next woman may become a WAS. I can DB all day long, my next woman may "starve" me sexually (the thought of which still feels gut wrenching).

There is no "strategy" that will change this. In the past I've wondered where these thoughts came from. Thoughts of "marrying down", finding a woman that depended on me financially, finding a woman that had so many problems she depended on my emotionally...all so I had control and could protect myself from these consequences. That doesn't work. That's what I tried to do in my M, and no matter how dependent she was, it didn't stop her from leaving. Control doesn't work.

I am SO working on letting go of that and trusting. I still can't picture myself trusting my needs to someone else. The terror of going through that rejection is still overpowering. Not trying to go on a tangent, but there's a reason many men like me turned to porn. It is so hard to open up with my needs, trust them to another person, and then have them diminished. Just as it's hard to make a life long commitment to someone, then have them tear apart a family.

But what's great about this is I can see clearly where I need to continue to grow. I need to accept that my next M will have times I am rejected. It may lead to her walking away.

Sometimes I think I'm trying to become such a relationship expert I can find a way to avoid those realities. But really I need to accept that I will likely experience much more pain again in the future, whether in one of those two forms or another I can't anticipate.

The questions are am I brave enough to put my heart out there anyway? Can I be healthy enough to put my best self forward so my needs and behavior are reasonable? And am I able to be satisfied with a M that still brings a lot of pain, and not grow resentment because it's not the paradise I feel entitled to because of the work I'm doing?

As I type this I am doing just fine. I have faith that this part of me can grow stronger, and the fearful/controlling part of me can lessen it's grip. And I do believe that with the right caution I can avoid a terrible mismatch. But I also believe I can accept reality, and learn to appreciate even a flawed M, that can be unfulfilling at times. There's more to a M than good times, no matter how many R books we read. I will find my strength in the path I walk, and not the rewards I receive. Although I do think it's fair to long for those good times as well.

[SunnyB]

Zues, I do think you'll find the right woman, who matches you intellectually and in the bedroom, and that you'll open up to her and be vulnerable because you are well aware that's necessary. I know you won't settle for someone you can control because what fun is that? I can well imagine the woman you need, there just aren't many of them in your age category, dear. It takes most of us a lot longer to figure those things out.

[Pyrite]

The questions are am I brave enough to put my heart out there anyway? Can I be healthy enough to put my best self forward so my needs and behavior are reasonable? And am I able to be satisfied with a M that still brings a lot of pain, and not grow resentment because it's not the paradise I feel entitled to because of the work I'm doing?

Scary. I commented before re: knowing when you were ready and NEVER feeling ready. I don't feel like I could handle it at all ATM, but do imagine what it will be like.

R with the W, I envisage the same things - payback time, being one of them. I think I have also commented to you before that the reality is ANY future R is likely to be with a woman as flawed as your W, or your former self. She might be a former WW, she might even be a really cunning WW in the throes, she probably won't be a DB'ed, continually growing woman (unless you start up that dating agency ).

For me, I feel it is summed up in "continually" growing. Which hopefully means that I don't need to be 100% "fixed" before I engage in another R. I will probably be waiting forever if that is the case. I also suffer from the same problem you have talked about before that I have always been anxious with women, transitioning from friends to romance. Now it is likely to be infinitely harder .

Your comments about controlling your next R to avoid the same outcome. This is like the "personality/personality disorder" discussion. I am scared that I will even be preachy in my next R, or try to bring her up to speed on how to ....... But, i am quietly confident that these thing will settle. I have to consciously work on these things. What you are talking about is still around the corner for me, but in general I can see from things that have already happened. They gradually become part of who you are, settled.

Then I hope we can just enjoy everything else. I think Sunny is right. There is an age restriction to this. The odds of finding "that" woman are already slim, the odds of finding one that has outlived her years and become that woman....... I experience a "good sadness" sometimes. If my W had've walked with me then maybe we could have experienced this together and "that" woman would be my W. But as we ave all noted .... "rock bottom and then on your own".

Best o luck wrestling that SOB.