LBS becomes the WS. The price of peace.

[asitis]

I was replying to Zeus and thought I should include this update here.

Their is a fundamental Buddhist meditation of love and compassion where you one by one bring people into your focus, and meditate on showing them compassion and love. The Buddhist interpretation of love, even romantic love is to unselfishly wish happiness, enlightenment for the other person, and nothing in return. As soon as we have any "requirements" of that person, it is not pure love, it is flawed and doomed to bring misery.

Eventually we can bring every sentient being in the world into this focus. I can include my STBX. Including the OM is a struggle though. So how do you know when it works? How do you know when you have successfully shown compassion and love and wish only for that persons happiness? This is a problem with all meditations.

BUT I have discovered something, it hit me in one go, but the reality was I had to practice this many times to realise it. First of course start with a breathing meditation, and then bring your children into focus. It is so easy to feel pure love for your children. Even if I stop here - I find I am in a beautiful place for hours.

OK - so now hat I really wanted to say - it occurred to me after one of these meditations that I had never focused on myself. And you know what - I finally understand, after 43 years what it means to love yourself.

Hi Py,

I've been catching up on your sitch. Sounds like you've given this some careful thought, and we all need to make decisions that feel right for ourselves.

One quick wrinkle on Metta meditation is that part of the practice of wishing love for those we have problems with is to discover the obstacles to an open heart in us. Then we know where we have to work on ourselves. So, one aspect is aspirational, another is the same as any meditation using a focus, but the last is diagnostic. It is not necessarily strictly speaking for the other person, but to help us not be blocked or triggered by any person that comes into our lives so that we can respond to them as we choose to rather than how our reactive habits goad us into responding.

The one other thing that jumps out to me is including the kids in the calculus of when we are done waiting and give up. It isn't clear whether you would still keep the possibility of R open to your W if she came and asked. That is only the beginning of the process, and it is then that the hard work begins where you both have to heal and see if the trust can be restored with the knowledge you have both gained through this painful process. For me, I know that this will remain a possibility, but only through the process of seeing if we can really work things out will we know if R can be achieved. I will love her regardless. I also know that I want to give it every chance I can for my kids. And I know that this could happen in an R & that they will all be hard work. If the M does end up irrevocably broken, I'll still have a lot of hard work as co-parent for a couple decades plus hard work on any new Rs I get in. I'm therefore much more open to keeping the door open to my W to at least make the effort.

Now in the meantime, the puzzle to me becomes at what point do I move on w/ my life while still leaving that door open a tiny crack? I'm not near there yet, as in my case there are some mixed signs still. I'll also admit that the lack of an A makes my sitch different. There is nothing that says that you have to wait patiently forever in hopes that they'll come back, or that this means the M is truly totally, irreversibly dead when you choose to stop waiting.

So the question then is when have I reached that point. Obviously if I get in a committed R with someone else, I have definitely have to make a choice to leave the old M behind. But short of that, when for me is it OK to move on?

I'm faced with a number of tough questions. Is it fair to get involved with someone else if I am still keeping the door cracked to my W because of the kids & my personal choice based on my beliefs and values? I recognize that temptation of an interesting, attractive, and interested woman will make some kind of calm, well thought out decision in the moment difficult. I don't know how I'll ultimately choose. I'll have to navigate that choice carefully. Even if I'm open about where I'm coming from, is it fair to this other person?

The other tough question is at what point is it OK with me in terms of the status of my M with my W? Is it fine if/when she says she'd like to start dating? When she takes up with someone else? Or only when the D is finalized? Obviously you have reached the point of when she takes up with someone else, and I haven't. I still wonder, and honestly, I haven't come up with an answer.

I recognize that there will be a little part of me that will want to say fine, so will I & we'll see how you like it, if she either says she wants to start dating or takes up with someone else. Again, that doesn't seem fair to anyone I would get involved with, but combine that with some genuine attraction and interest, it will be hard to see through that fog and make a good evaluation.

There are a lot of tough choices for us LBSs. None of this is something we asked for. And ultimately it is up to each of us to decide what the answers are for ourselves and our families.

I'm glad you've given this a lot of thought, and also that you have shared your thinking and provoked the rest of us to think more about those choices for ourselves.