Eating Life with a Big Spoon

[HaWho]

Well, I am free to find someone else and so are you. (We're lucky this way as still in some countries in this world women have very few liberties. I can't even imagine not being able to drive a car or leave the house without a male!!)

As for having someone who loves me and supports me fully? I think my h had shown himself to be that. He did stand by me in my depression and that must have been hard. (Although if we are keeping a score card, let me just pencil in that what I am doing with his depression is waaayyy harder. LOL!)

I've known him for almost 20 years now. As hard as the last few years have been, ultimately, it's still just a blip in our time together. He slipped into anger/denial around 2012. The last 2 years of his crisis were particularly hard and painful. (The first two years of his crisis were just very confusing and stressful.) So for 2 years out of 20, it's been bad. That's pretty good!

The way I look at it, it's kind of like looking at the lines in a tree trunk. You can see a tree has lived hundreds of years and that 10 of them were made difficult due to drought. But the tree lives on and grows taller.

Does this mean I'll still be here 5 or 8 years from now? Who knows?!? I have learned to let that kind of thinking go. I think about time in much smaller chunks now.

Personally, even if my h filed right now, I wouldn't change my life too much. I would not date and I would not introduce my kids to anyone. I think that would really confuse my kids. It would take them years and years to heal. I guess I could date secretly in years to come but that's not fair to the person I would be seeing.

The question of courage is an interesting one. It also takes tremendous courage to stand by someone as he falls apart, without letting it destroy you or your kids.

We're all here to support you no matter what. Before you do anything though, just slow down and read a lot about MLC and the impact of divorce on kids so that you make a decision from a place of knowledge and not a rash decision. I know impacts of divorce is what motivated MWD to write DB and DR.

I am not trying to push you one way or the other. As I said this is a supportive group. But I am saying you don't need to make a decision today or tomorrow and you really should not make a decision with reading a lot first. This way, you can have a clear conscience with whatever decision you do make.

Let me know if you have any other questions!