WH came back. Piecing. Almost at 2 year mark.

[BluWave]

Kevin: "I need to completely detach, and truly forgive. I know the resentment and other negative feelings that have kept me up all night are bad." Kevin, that is a lot of pressure! I think you are setting yourself up for failure. I'm not even sure how anyone could force themselves to do that! My H has been back for a long time--and done almost everything he can--and I am still not able to truly forgive him.

Also, I don't think detachment is something we can "do." I think it is the consequence of doing other things, such as taking care of yourself first, GAL, and doing 180s for yourself. As you begin to find yourself (reattach to a healthy R with the self) then you can begin to detach from an unhealthy R with a codependent M. So give yourself a break. Do the opposite of pressuring yourself to forgive someone that hurt you. Find yourself, mend, heal, love, and value yourself. If you see yourself as worthy of this love, then others will too.

Skm, I have a lot of fear also. Maybe it's just a normal part of being human. It's when fear stops us from moving forward that we need to check ourselves. The entire time H was gone, I was drowning in fear. I had to force myself to do everything--eat, sleep, go to work, think clearly, spend time with kids, etc--and I felt like a shell of a person. Looking back though, I can see that as afraid as I was, I still did it. I kept trying over again each day and that's all I could do.

I still have a lot of fears. The difference now is that I believe that everything will be okay. It may not be the way I want it to be, and things may fall off track, but I know that with or without a man in my life, I will be just fine. I can see now that I wasnt that strong before--I had a very codependent and unhealthy M, so when H left, I was broken. No longer the case because I found myself in this mess. My mother still has not and I can see so clearly now that I don't want to live like that--she needs a man to feel whole. I want my daughters to learn this much earlier in life--they don't need anyone but themselves. I hope now that I am leading by example.

I have noticed that you often wonder if you will be able to forgive be him. Or do you mean have a M with him? In your thread you even pondered that if he came back, could you forgive him and see past what he has done. I used to think the same thoughts. But you know what? It doesn't serve you at all. You have to learn to thought stop and let that go. Why? Because you will never find an answer, you cannot know what is not there. Until he actually comes around and shows you a person worthy of your forgiveness, then how can you answer it? And even in the case of my H--who has come around and done all that he can--I still struggle with it. I am reading a great book on forgiveness and what I am taking away is that you can accept your reality without forgiveness. I think there is far too much pressure (especially in religions) to forgive. Also, it means something different to us all. I personally want to forgive my H--not for him, but for me--however it is taking me a very long time. If he had not come back and shown remorse and asked for forgiveness, then I would it even focus my energy on it. That's me tho.

Blu