Learning, Growing, Healing

[Treasur]

I get you Brubeck. The most important thing you said though is that "I don't want to hurt her myself." Tbh, I would struggle to see how I could hurt my H more than he has hurt himself. He has made a huge mess in his own life. Will he ever repair that? No idea. I'd guess a lot of people would find it easier to persuade themselves that either they had no choice or keep telling themselves that new life/spouse/persona is so brilliant that it was worth it.

I think we want to see more of a train wreck (albeit one where we are safely stood to one side with a cup of coffee!) for two reasons. The first is about wanting to be proven right, I guess, to be validated that it wasn't a good thing, that it wasn't our fault, that destruction is not the route to a good life. Probably a bit self-serving....I don't know if my H will look back in years to come and see this as a great positive turn in his life. I suppose I just believe that good things don't come from such a dark place but I could be wrong. Maybe OW is a rare jewel and he will be ecstatically happy and a great H with a great new life who sees our 18 years as a terrible diversion from the person he was meant to be. No idea.

The second reason is perhaps a bit more healthy and loving. We see someone we care about in chaos and self-destruction and we believe that they have to hit rock bottom to ever heal and be healthy again. Whether with us or not. We love them enough that we want better for them than they are currently creating for themselves. We have no idea how much worse it will need to get, but we want them to be whole and healthy again. So far, the things that they have lost and destroyed have obviously not been enough to get to that place and that's hard to understand.

The bit of me that loves the H I knew knows that he would not have woken up one morning and said 'New life goals, I know...destroy my M, distress everyone who cares about me, take ADs and hang around with psychiatrists, go back on all my old values and beliefs, put on 3 stone, make myself bankrupt and homeless. Sounds great, where's my notebook to make an action plan!" I'd like my beloved to reach a place of peace and joy and health again, and looking as objectively as I can from the outside, this isn't it. But it is out of my hands and I may never know what happens to him.