Letting go, finally

[JGuy]

I find it hard to post to you knowing that you seem to look for offence where there really isn't any If you read Sottos post to you , she states how's it her humble opinion because when you r not agreed with or validated it seems to take it as an attack on you and we have to stress that it's not

I am concerned about this dynamic, Rd. I am open to learning from these challenges in communication with you and seeing how it reflects some things about myself that need healing. I wouldn't say that I take offense, but I am definitely triggered when my experience of you is that I feel the opposite of validation. It pokes at one of my open wounds. I appreciate your efforts to be more sensitive, so thank you. I'm willing to try and own my part in this, as hard as that might be. I believe that while there may be lots of misinterpretations going on, your advice also contains some nuggets of truth which are helpful. Here's an example of one that was helpful:

Your friendship with OW is born from a place where your emotionally unstable due to your Ws affairs You flip from wanting M to not wanting M and I completely understand but you have never given yourself a chance to relax back.

I totally agree about the need to give myself a chance to relax back. I have been getting the sense that I need that and hearing you say it makes me more certain that this is indeed the path I must follow. Only once I can heal my wounds, build a new sense of self worth, etc will I be a better man when it comes to relationships. I have started down this path but it feels like I have a long ways to go. Regardless of whether or not I save my M, this path of personal growth needs to be my priority.

Your interactions with IC and the Shaman were at completel odds with each other yet when I pointed this out you ignored it because it didn't suit you or you didn't agree but I was going on your info so I can't see how you wouldn't agree

What are you referring to here, Rd? The advice I got from two different ICs and the shamanic healer were very aligned. They all say that I need to value myself more and not give so much of myself away so easily in relationships. At one point you seemed to suggest that their advice contradicted the fact that I am not very good at empathy, which I have been recognizing on my own. I don't see this as a contradiction, though. I think both are true and part of the same root issue. I need to become more in touch with my heart so that I can validate emotions better in general. That applies both to validating myself and others. This is super hard for Enneagram type 5's like myself, who are notoriously cerebral and easily overwhelmed by the irrational nature of emotions. Does this address what you were getting at? If not, perhaps you can elaborate on what you're trying to point out here.

I thought your admission recently that once you started to GAL and care less about the outcome of the M and more about you , as advised from day one on your thread ,was very mature and showed that you were maybe seening that some advice on here that you argued with at the start , you could now see was some what right.

I understood that advice from the beginning. I wasn't arguing with the fact that GALing would be good for me, I was arguing with the fact that it would be good to try and force it when I just wasn't there yet. I was still in shock in the beginning and in retrospect, I think I just had to come through that stage naturally before I started feeling the impulse to GAL. I wouldn't still be here if I didn't feel I was getting some value from the advice, but things aren't so black-and-white. I have to sift through the advice to figure out what is right for me and when is the right time for me to apply it. That doesn't mean I'm rejecting the advice.