Vapo said it in a very succinct manner. That's what I w as trying to say (he used medical references too, and I'm the nurse)
I hope I didn't come off as insensitive, and if I did, I am sorry. I can sympathize as in my last relationship ended when we had a great R. Circumstances in which we know the pain would be much greater in the future.
You are not mourning not only one lost love but two. That is extremely difficult. But I know when you get through this there is a lot of gifts on the other side.
And if you are meant to be with either of them down the line, you will be. I truly believe in that.
You come from a good place. Now is the time to get to know more about yourself as someone not in a relationship. get to know you. Fall in love with yourself without having another half and you will be ready one day to add to your life.
If I'm doing the right thing, why does it feel wrong? If I'm doing the healthy thing, why does it hurt? If I'm trying to heal, why do I feel more broken? If I'm trying to protect someone from me, then why did I hurt them?
My advice? GAL, GAL, GAL.
When you least feel like it is the time when it is the most important. You need some time to really date yourself and focus on your wellbeing.
For me, what worked best was setting some goals and looking in on them weekly to see how I was doing. Goals for parenting, for treating my ex, for GAL, for 'cleaning up my side of the street', etc, etc. Setting a plan for a couple weeks at a time and trying to stick to it.
"My answer was, "have you ever said 'I would give ANYTHING for just one more day?' Well I'd give anything for just one more day with my family. No matter how much this hurts, no matter how much this sets me back, no matter what it costs me, I want this."
EastTN it's as if you took the words right out of my mouth. but it's draining. it's exhausting. Yet the alternative means feeling lonely, feeling you missed an opportunity... am I close?
As to options: Isn't E where you aren't sure if M is over even if others say GF might be a better fit?
If you really are over M I would suggest end that part and tell GF that if she is there in a few months you would love to get to know her.
But who am I to give advice... I seem to have similar inner turmoil without a GF involved. And part of me wants someone else but it wouldn't be fair to that other person (and to myself).
If I'm doing the right thing, why does it feel wrong? If I'm doing the healthy thing, why does it hurt? If I'm trying to heal, why do I feel more broken? If I'm trying to protect someone from me, then why did I hurt them?
I love Ginger's response, spot-on! The "wrong" thing was rushing into another relationship before you were ready. You ended it, but there's collateral damage because you started it in the first place. THAT is why it feels wrong, because you hurt someone. And you hurt yourself. Healing from that takes time.
As I said up above, I did the same thing. Rushed into an R too soon. It was a year post-BD for me, but that was too soon. A lot of the problem with DB'ing is we want so bad to be over BD and over our broken marriages that we convince ourselves we're better even when we're not. GIVE YOURSELF THE GIFT OF TIME.
GF sent me a text tearing me a new a--hole last night. She tells me just how badly I have hurt her, in no uncertain terms. After that, it can be generally summed up as "you are unhealthy because you do not want to be healthy. You are unhappy because you do not want to be happy. You are afraid because of what you allowed other people do to you. You have everything you SAY you want staring you in the face, and you are running away from it. You already know HOW to be the man you want to be, so BE THAT MAN."
She also points out, as many of you did, that I am ALLOWING W to manipulate me.
I can't disagree with anything she said.
I said earlier that I hated that I was the WAS. I question that premise, now, though. W is no LBS. W is a WW. One who is showing no REAL signs of change, only enough to keep me hooked and get what she wants. I question even if she is non-functionally depressed, as that has become her excuse de jure of why everything is my fault ("you made me choose when I had no ability to function") and something thrown in my face whenever I questioned any of her actions.
I'm Deciding. This is Over. I choose for it to be Over. I refuse to give W the power to hurt me anymore. I refuse to allow myself to be manipulated anymore. I choose to give up hope for the continued existence of my family unit.
Saying those words fills me with fear. But it's less fear than I already felt.
Not going back to GF. At least not yet. I need to not be full of fear. I need to be sure that I want that for the right reasons. But both my head and my heart are telling me that's where I belong. When I'm ready, if I'm lucky, maybe she'll still want me.
EastTN it's as if you took the words right out of my mouth. but it's draining. it's exhausting. Yet the alternative means feeling lonely, feeling you missed an opportunity... am I close?
It was draining and exhausting. I won't do it again. But I got it, and I'm keeping it locked away in my head and heart forever. I'll take it.
Quote:
As to options: Isn't E where you aren't sure if M is over even if others say GF might be a better fit?
I gave that one a LOT of thought. "Better fit" doesn't work for me. We don't (or shouldn't!) choose to leave a relationship for another based on the idea of trading up. That's how at least half of us ended up on this site to start with! Not being sure I was done was based on a few different premises: 1. Still love W. 2. (Laboring under delusion that?) W still loved me. 3. W appeared to want to try to fix things. 4. I thought I could do the work. 5. If 1-4 were valid, that was the correct path.
GF actually told me that if I could fix M, then that was the right thing to do, regardless of any feelings either of us had.
1 is something I've chosen to try to stop. 2 appears to have been nothing more than a tactic on W's part. 3 appears to have been false. 4 is something I have come to the conclusion will kill me--possibly literally. 5 is moot at this point.
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But who am I to give advice... I seem to have similar inner turmoil without a GF involved. And part of me wants someone else but it wouldn't be fair to that other person (and to myself).
You keep saying the two of us are pretty similar. There are a couple of people here that I REALLY want to see turn things around, and you're one of them. Hang in there. If you want it, and think it can be fixed from your side, then don't give up, and don't complicate it.
The funny part is that I don't feel sad. Or angry. I feel like this is the last push I needed to walk away from this. That she'll never be able to get that kind of emotion out of me again, which means there's no way she can control me (except D, but L says that's not going to happen).
Originally Posted By: EastTN from 5/5
I truly don't want her back.
Originally Posted By: EastTN from 5/24
The conclusions we've come to though are that this really is over.
Originally Posted By: EastTN from 6/20
I'm Deciding. This is Over. I choose for it to be Over.
Words.....are words.
Im not saying you dont have the right attitude.
But at some point, your actions need to match your words.
But at some point, your actions need to match your words.
Yes. I thought long and hard about that. That I've said this before. That I've said a LOT of things before and changed my mind.
I hit a bad place this weekend. I realized that I don't have anything left, no margin for error. If I let this drag on anymore, I'm in serious danger of losing my mental health, and won't have the ability to care for D. The stark parallels to my past tell me where I'm going, and I'm never going back to that place inside me.
It is at this point that I lose everything if I don't drop this rope. Am I strong enough? I don't know, but I'm going to find out.
GF is stronger, smarter, and more mature than I am. She's fine with giving me time, but "taking a break" and "time" mean exactly that. I'm not allowed to talk to her until I figure my stuff out and decide what I actually want.
The way she phrased it was something along the lines of "You know I love you, you know I want you, but I'm not going to let you do to me what other people have done and are doing to you."
I keep hearing from you guys that "broken attracts broken" but that sure as hell sounds like a strong, healthy boundary to me! I will reiterate my question: why am I walking away from this? I don't want to. At all! I don't want a band-aid, either. I had a friend actually yell at me about this yesterday, asking me what the hell I thought I was doing walking away from this, because from where SHE was sitting, this looked real.
I haven't given up on GAL activities. I still play soccer. I'm still losing weight, even if my pace has slowed a bit (at about 80 lbs). I took another cooking class (with GF--seemed like a double win, great date AND something that improved me!)
I'm still trying to be the best EastTN I can be. Being a good dad. I've been a lousy boyfriend for the last week, but my problems are soluble. I know what to work on, and even HOW to work on it. I'm still afraid of that work, but I have one hell of a reason to do it (being whole for my daughter).
I've gotten advice to "date myself." Well, he and I are already pretty damned intimate. I've been living inside my head for my whole life. It's a rare day when I don't understand myself. Brutal shocks like I've suffered this year always make me loopy, but I recover pretty quickly. If I can face my fear, and face my pain, then I'm on the right path.
That's what's missing. Acceptance. I've said it over and over but haven't accepted it. Not really. Vapo called me out on that months ago. I haven't really accepted things yet.
