Trying to detach from WTF world

[Treasur]

25 - yup, it's like Alice in Wonderland, isn't it? And some of my thinking about it made me a bit loopy at times.

1) the gross injustice of it, AND the irony/insanity that h sees himself as the hero & me as the villain. IDK if my H sees me as the villain. Don't think he sees himself as the hero, maybe OW is the heroine? I think he sees himself as broken, trapped and a victim. And yup, the unfairness of it is hard to take so I've been training myself to let go of my own belief that acting 'well' inspires others to do the same!

2) what was real/fake, and when? This drove me crazy and ripped my guts out. I treasured our M and my H, and it felt like someone had erased 20 years of my own reality. That I decided to fight for. I know in the calmest bit of my heart that my H loved me deeply. I know our M wasn't perfect but it was real...until it wasn't. It is not rational to think that someone can fake that for so long, and I certainly wasn't faking it. So I decided to just say that my memories and opinion was enough for me. In more recent times, yes, there is a bit of me that wants to know what/when...and feels angry that perhaps while I thought it was 'just' a MH issue, that may always have been a smokescreen for it really being just the A with OW cliche. That I was worrying about him killing himself while he was worrying about getting laid! That I was a fool. But then I think, after 19 years of love when I had no prior reason to doubt his love or fidelity, it's reasonable to have thought the best of my H first. I was wrong, but it was reasonable and what I would have hoped he would have done for me.

3) how much cognitive dissonance/dishonesty existed on the spouse's part, Gah, no idea...lots? I've seen some weird stuff from him at the beginning when we were still in contact...enough to see that he wasn't 'normal' either for him or 'normal' people. It's hard to do but I've had to accept a) IDK and b) best starting place is probably the believe nothing they say/50% of what they do thing. Even now in the legal process, I see silly lies, memory issues etc. I suspect he doesn't know either.

4) me trying to improve as a person "anyhow", yup, there is a 5 year old bit of me that wants to stamp my foot at this! And a wiser bit that knows that I wasn't entirely happy with my life pre-BD and that it isn't a coincidence that the situation is forcing me to look at what I want and who I want to be now. But it's hard and sometimes I do resent it.

5) while also secretly hoping to win the "pick me" dance, that we simultaneously know we should not have to compete in!! Not sure this is where I am now, but I was. And it was a bit weird because I've never felt that since losing my first love as a teenager! Hmm, hubris! M makes things different, I think, that mix of love and obligation and practical entanglement. Of course I do hate the OW a bit...being human and all..but I don't feel 'in competition' or that she is more than a symptom, even if he decides to stick with her. Knowing my H, he will just be trying to delegate his 'fixing' to someone else and another person's lifestyle...epic MLC fail of course but not my monkey as someone else said. I'm at that funny LBS stage now where I truly love the core of my H but accept I don't know who he is now (and don't much like what I see!). When I accept my old M is dead, assume he won't want to try to make a new one because he isn't brave enough, and I'm not sure if I have enough energy or belief in him to want to do the hard work anyway. Odd place to be. Only got there in the last month or so, so not sure where I'll go with it. Right now, I don't feel 'pick me'...

6) not waiting around for them to "get it/see the light/do the right thing" and accepting that for the foreseeable future, my h $ucks as a father and is gone as my h. Standing vs waiting is a funny line, isn't it? Hope vs acceptance. Figuring out what you CAN do vs the things you CAN'T. And the MLC timescales are a killer for me...I read some stories about people piecing after 3 years, and then going through BD2? I barely survived this...yay, well done me!...the idea of doing it again is horrific. I read somewhere, maybe Mach1 posed it (he asks some REALLY good questions)...Would you go through hell to get to your H/W on the other side? My answer was 'yes' and I do feel I have done that. Would you go through hell if you didn't know they would be waiting on the other side? Not sure.

7) learning to embrace the upsides of the situation and discovering what I - 25 - want in life. Feeling better, too. How? It's such a long tough road that I think it's hard to see the progress you make. Or to feel anything other than irritatingly Pollyanna-ish as you look at the upsides. Or figuring out what you want in the middle of the storm when all the things you want you can't have. I have made progress from 20 months ago, some good, some not, but things are not the same. Pollyanna stuff? Tough to see the upsides of losing my whole family simultaneously, but there are some. My H didn't kill himself which was a real possibility in the first 6 months, would have left me with much of the same rubble but no hope for him at all. (Mind you, would have had the insurance and no D paperwork!). I could have died, came close a couple of times, and then I would never know how the story unfolds. We don't have kids which must be unbearably hard. Having a Vanisher does make day to day detachment easier and keeps some of the WTF reality away, but it also makes it harder to let go of your mental picture of the H you knew. I do like my new little house by the sea though! I think the hardest thing is figuring out what you really want when you're surrounded by things you don't want screaming for your attention. Hence, the time being a gift saying, I guess. Still figuring that out but it has moved to the centre of my screen whereas for over a year, my H and my bewilderment were at the centre.