Heartbroken and Despondent?

[DifRent]

Wow mustardseed... just read through your posts, and yes, we do have similar tales. I would like to encourage you as a first-year teacher, though. Few jobs are harder, and you are never given the support you need. I was a teacher and a principal myself, and I have a free teacher stress management program I developed last year that you might find helpful. Google Campus Coaches and check it out. You can always fill out the contact us form for more info.

As for my situation this morning, the W has a busy schedule outside the home office, which is good. It means I don't have to come up with places to go and be just to avoid her today, and I can have a little peace in the house for a while. The kids are going to start packing for their move and go to the apartment to do some cleaning this afternoon. I have an interview this afternoon, too... so that's got me focused on something potentially positive today.

I want a much simpler life than the life I've been living with my W, who I now see has complicated things to the point that it's almost impossible not to stress in this home. I realized how much I really don't like real estate and should never have been working the business with her - it's almost like my desire to live in a tiny house is a kind of rebellion!

But, with the kids moving out, I have a whole new opportunity to design a whole new life for me. That's what I'm dreaming of today: living quietly in a small home filled with sunlight and surrounded by trees, my days filled with satisfying paid and volunteer work, spiritually enriching activities, tending my garden and cultivating deeper friendships... and enjoying a genuine inner peace. No rat race for me. She can keep it.

If she ever wants to come back to me, it would have to be on those terms, on my terms. And only after a very long process of reconciliation. I am getting more and more okay with that every day, realizing that the pangs of sadness I feel are for the woman she used to be (or maybe still is under this facade of cold selfishness), and times we'll never get back again.

It's time to move forward, and if we are meant to be, her genuine self will have to love my genuine self. It's possible, but it's not my focus now. My focus is on building the life I want to live for me, not for her or for us.

At least those are my thoughts this morning. The roller coaster is a wild ride, and I could be in a darker place later. But I'm grateful, right now, for the hope.