I know what you mean about overanalyzing everything. I'm bad about that, but I'm trying to make a conscious effort to get better. I know I need to just let stuff go, say what I think and move on. I'm working on it. I think the main thing I learned from my divorce, well, actually I already knew it but the divorce hammered it home, is that I'm a work in progress. When I was married, I was a work in progress unto myself, but also a work in progress as a part of a couple. Now, I'm back to just being a work in progress unto myself and I'm ok with that. I'm happier than I have been in a long time.
I can also identify with what you said about hearing OW on the radio and feeling nothing. In the early days of my divorce, when I would happen across a pic of xh and his ow on facebook, it would just tear me up. Now, don't care. I just feel nothing. It's almost like he's a stranger to me. It's kind of weird but at the same time, kind of nice.
Yup, I totally get that, I know how that *feels* in the very core of my being.
I think you were a lot more self aware than me during your M though. I sort of knew that I was a work in progress unto myself, but I didn't realise at all that I was a work in progress as part of a couple as well.
I think that I didn't allow myself to become/be everything that I wanted to be (or would have liked to have been). And yes, that's me taking responsibility for that part of it.
Part of the reason was that it was easier for me to just let H be in the limelight, as it were. For many reasons, including his own personality and his job too.
And part of the reason was that I sensed a little jealousy on his part, if I did a bit *too* well, particularly in the same area that he worked in. So I kept my head down. And worked on other things, mostly unrelated to his own area of work.
I think he started off being proud of what I was doing and achieving (talking about the very early days of our R and M here). And then he just stopped being proud, or better, withdrew slightly to focus on his own life/work. And wasn't really much interested in what I was doing.
Part of that, I think, is my fault. My own personality is to be extremely low key and modest about my achievements. And other people take their cue from how you behave yourself, right? So a bit of that whole behaviour on his part is my responsibility.
What to do about that in future? I'm learning to be a little bit more 'just let what I do and my achievements speak for themselves' and not downplay them. Not be arrogant about them, for sure, but certainly not downplay them as I probably was doing quite a lot before.
I remember people that I met (mostly H's work colleagues) being really surprised when they found out what else I did in life.
Anyway, I can apply that to everything to do with myself, I think. Learn to inhabit my space a bit more, literally and metaphorically.
