Thank you for your lovely posts Shotgun and JujuB.
My life is still going ahead with everyday activities, but I have put on hold my social life as I'm very tired mentally. Work has been very stressful, so much that I have made aware my boss that I'm considering going part time. Now that is a 180 for me as I have always been brought up with s*#k it up and carry on. Going to last time would mean a loss financially but also a gain to do other things. My ex used to tell me that I was always thinking about the future and now by thinking of going part time I no longer think will i be able to cope financially? What about my retirement fund? I'm no longer worried about that. I no longer live in the future but in the present. Will I go part time? I give myself a couple of months to sleep on it. Another 180 as usually for me it has to be done here and there.
I still have days of ups and downs but I truly believe that I'm past the anger/ unfairness stage of my story. Well there are some days I still wish for revenge! We are only human after all!
My next step is working on deep healing and self-esteem/ confidence. This one is a tuff cookie to crack because I have lived with it for 41 years, and as one said old habits die hard. I'm doing a lot of reading on healing after an affair and all that comes out is to show compassion and understanding towards the unfaithful partner. This is where I'm struggling a lot. I can now clearly see my responsibility in the failure of my marriage, but isn't it too much asking to feel compassion for the unfaithful?. I now see why my ex must have felt unloved ( yes I was distant but also now I was deeply depressed), unwanted ( as he was working 7 days a week I learnt to deal with things on my own so I thought that when he'd come home it would be another worry less to think about!).
According to few articles compassion will accelerate healing, I understand why it might help but like ex I had past issues (now being dealt with one by one) but I didn't chose to cheat. The fact that ex never expressed remorse (even genuine one) doesn't help with me feeling compassionate.
Was reading another article about some separated parents getting presents for exes for Xmas, birthday and father/ mothers'day (which I do for the kids) and I guess I'm grateful that he does the same as his ex never got anything from him. The article was also underlining how important it is to be friendly with ex. Now I'm not too sure about this one as if we had separated amicably it wouldn't been a problem, but the separation was imposed to me by ex. When it comes to the kids we do communicate and show a united front but in all fairness if we didn't have kids together I'd not be in his life. Friends don't treat each other by betraying them. Am I wrong not to be friends with him? As far as I'm concerned he is my kids' father and I don't wish to be his friend as you don't treat friends like he did.
