PP 2.0 - PigPen & The WAW (7)

[PigPen]

Had an interesting day yesterday, working on the back end of my relationship knowledge. As I'd written about a few weeks back, I sat down yesterday with an ex girlfriend. I was with this woman for five years, had an amicable split and we've been friends since. We only run into each other once a year or so but everything's cordial and well. I know her husband and have met her kids so there's nothing weird to this story.

My goal with meeting with her was to find out what was hardest about being in relationship with me.

She told me that she thought she would live her life coming second to my "to do" list. That when I was sitting next to her, I wasn't there but was thinking about my next job, project, school subject etc. At the time, I was going to grad school at night and working full time so it was a unique time in my life.

However, I remember telling her that if she hung on, my life wouldn't be like this forever. But when I got married, I had just opened up a full time business, then quickly opened a second company, then a third company as well as doing freelance work. My wife's biggest complaint was that I was never present. Low and behold I told her that my life wouldn't be like this forever and that she should just hang on.

Although both my W and this ex said they admired my work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit, neither of them felt like I could turn it off at the end of the day. Thus the need to turn it off with substances.

This is something I am working on with an IC, the insecurity that lies beneath the desire to overachieve. It was beautiful to hear this from this ex, and then to make the connection again from my marriage and realize that I have complete control over this moving forward.

Since getting sober I've gotten much more satisfaction out of my life, and trust me, I'm not "achieving" anything of real value right now. I'm not making money or producing anything or building a company, I'm simply existing and enjoying it. I don't plan on recovering from a D forever and will get back to swinging for the fences soon enough, but with only one bat, and a lot of built in down time between innings.

I'm very fortunate that this woman would meet with me and was honest with me. She also added that even though she was engaged only a few months after our split, she still thought about me every day for almost two year while questioning whether leaving was the right decision or not. I had always felt that she left and I was never thought of again, same with my current STXW.

Eye opening experience and extremely valuable.

PP