My BD was over two years ago. It's been quite a road. I invite you to look up my original thread and read through my first 3-6 months. I'm glad I was posting. I might have blocked it out if I didn't have a record of it.
I haven't been posting on newcomers or these forums much lately for a couple of reasons. One is that as this crisis fades from the forefront of my life I don't share this in common with the other posters on this forum. And without this common ground I have realized how different I am, and while I don't feel I 'don't fit in', I just seem to beat to a different drum. But the other reason is that I often question my own well intentioned 'advice' to newcomers. Talking about what I went through, what I learned, etc, it doesn't change the fact you will have to go through what you go through, you will have to learn your own lessons, etc. Can anything I do actually help you through these troubled times? Will you be supported through your loss? Will you feel understood and validated when the woman that vowed to love you is making you the villain of her life story? Will something I say help you see something in a way that will help you avoid making destructive decisions in your life? I really wonder.
But I do think so. This forum was a tremendous help to me. I can tell you that this last two years of my life has been tougher than the other 35 put together. Posting about what I was going through was one of the things that kept me sane. And the advice from others was helpful for all of the reasons above. Not because others were wise and I was the bumbling apprentice, but because after you read a few hundred threads you see patterns, and you can start to see how the decisions you make today play out in the future, and how people's lives change.
Why the long preamble? Well, partly to introduce myself, and so you don't think I'm just hopping on this thread to throw stones, or to join what can seem like a chorus of criticism for being who you are. I feel like I have some things in common with you. I have always been very driven, tremendously successful professionally. I am a competitor, top pool player, competing in national and international tournaments, and a top 50 US player (or thereabouts, the rankings are kind of obscure). I am a perfectionist, I strive hard, I am very sensitive, and I swear that when the lord was passing out emotions, mine are stronger than those around me, because they are so intense it's just not possible that others can feel things as strongly as I do or they couldn't do or say some of the things they do that cause so much hurt.
Yup, those powerful emotions. I didn't know how to handle them. For 25 years I thought I had it figured out. I just told them to F off. I buried them. I played pool. I dissociated. I didn't need them. I would just focus on being the best in the world. Why not? What good were they? All they did was hurt. I learned that when I focused on a shot in front of me, everything else went away, and that I felt relief, just being in the moment, the pleasure of shooting one good shot. The emotions caused me pain, I walled it all off, turned all that pain into fire in my belly, and pursued perfection. I was going to be the best pool player in the world, and nothing else mattered. When they got too strong to wall off I'd think of ending it all, only to regroup and vow to be stronger. Well, long story longer, in the middle of this I decided to try to live a 'normal' life and get married, and needless to say that didn't work. I won't get started on that right now. I'll just say that bomb drop was soul shattering.
My biggest mission the last 24 months has been to learn to live WITH my emotions. For so, so long I didn't. I hated them, I resented them, I denied them. I tried to control them. I tried to transcend them. I tried to decide them. Making decisions about how I believed I wanted to feel, telling myself that's how I felt because that's how the person I wish I was ought to feel. Using twisted logic. "There's no reason in suffering over a woman that left me, that doesn't help, so I'll just be ok with it". LOL. Sure, if you take a razor and cut your mind apart from your heart and soul, twist things around enough, you can do almost anything.
But it didn't work out too well. Oh, I denied it. After all, I was tremendously successful. I told IC I wasn't crazy or delusional, it wasn't like I invented the fact that I had been promoted 4 times in 5 years, or that I had won all of those tournaments or money matches. IC replied "yeah, but you also haven't invented the fact that your W is divorcing you and that you have thought about suicide daily over the last few years". Good point he made. In the end I realized that I was suffering, that I didn't have the relationship I wanted. While I was very competent and gifted, I also see that me doing things my way wasn't getting me what I wanted.
What I thought I was doing was controlling my emotions. What actually happened was they were controlling me. Another funny IC exchange, my IC told me fear controlled my life. I laughed, I told him that I was fearless. I put myself out of my comfort zone every day. I am in a corporate sales world that is overridden with stress and anxiety. I gamble for so much money we don't count it, we weigh it, and there are big crowds watching my every move and betting on the outcome. I love looking fear dead in the eye and seeing who flinches first. I told this to IC, and he said "Like I said, fear controls you. I didn't say you ran from it. But you have contorted your entire life to face down fear again, and again, and again, as if these victories would rid you of that demon". Darn it. Guy is smart. And the same way fear controlled me when I thought I was controlling it, so too did so many other emotions.
I realized that if I am to have the life I want I have to learn to live with my emotions. Shoot. Those darn things. But if I don't, it won't work. Sure, I can blame women for being too entitled to appreciate a good man, I can blame God for making a world that doesn't work the way I wish it did. But ultimately I'm the one that suffers. Learning to live with my emotions was a doozy, I have an addict mentality from day one, I am used to controlling, distorting, avoiding, medicating, and so many other things to avoid them. But I have learned that letting them have their way with me isn't giving them control, it is actually taking control back.
IC told me it was like a board room where *I* am the decision maker. On the panel there are different people, different voices. There is fear, there is anger, there is logic, there is selfishness, whatever. Each has a voice. My job is to be able to hear all of their voices, then ultimately make the decision that is best for the company of me. But I need to hear all of those voices to make informed decisions, and I can't give any one of them control either directly (making decisions strictly out of fear, anger, pain, etc) or indirectly (letting them overpower me or me making decisions contrarily trying to overpower them).
So these days I tell myself not to use emotions as a compass to guide my life as they are inconsistent and unreliable, and not to use my thoughts to guide my life as they are usually just rationalizations that are reactions to those emotions. Instead I try to think of my core values and beliefs, and follow those to make my decisions. I believe I need to be a good father to my children. I believe I want to live in a way that when I look back I will be proud of. I believe I want to do what I can to make others that bump into me a little better off for the experience. Etc. I trust that if I strive to do those things, well, in the end it will all be ok. I don't know about happy, I think happiness is overrated but that's another rant for another day.
I see a lot in common with you. And reading others' advice and your reaction is hard. It's like watching someone that is drunk trying to get their keys back from their friend, insisting they can drive. My man, if you drink a 12 pack there is no shame in being drunk. That is a natural reaction, not a judgment on your ability to drive in general. Likewise when you go through BD, it WILL screw up your emotions, on top of some already questionable emotional management attitudes and skills that might have contributed to this situation. I am not faulting you for not being perfect, because no one is. But it is your job to understand that you are not in total control right now. The humility to be broken will allow you to be the person you want to be and grow into a strong man that is rewarded with the life you want. The insistence that you can manage it all and lead through because 'you got this', that is reckless. That is what we are trying to tell you. Maybe it is necessary. Maybe you haven't really hit 'rock bottom'. But when you do, when you truly reach the end of this idea that you have it all under control and surrender, please know that isn't the end. It's the beginning. It doesn't mean you are wrong now. It just means you are human. We're all right there with you my man. Keep posting, keep striving. Take care.
PS- here is what got me through my darkest hours in life. When the time comes all looks black please remember we care for you.
When you expect it least, the ego, declared dead, will surge into your mind, and in an instant you will seem so far removed from Tao as heaven from earth.
Has it ever happened to you? Don't despair. Let it go. Do what comes next.
Accepting failure is a humbling experience akin to enlightenment. In an instant you will discover that heaven and earth are one and that you have never been separated from Tao.
The Taoist sage lives in harmony with failure and never fails.
Me:38 XW:38 T:11 years M:8 years Kids: S14, D11, D7 BD/Move out day: 6/17/14, D final Dec 15
