Thanks Sara, Jim, KML, and Cherry! Sorry to respond late. It's been an exceptionally busy week with some professional activities I took on and with some visitors from out-of-town.
I'll probably move in April or May. It will be very difficult to do it sooner than that. Fortunately I can probably call up old contacts and find a job through word-of-mouth but I feel strongly about moving first and making sure my daughter is ok before I start a new job. I'm still open to doing short-term contracts after the holidays and will possibly take on one or two for financial reasons....my husband isn't paying off my credit card as he agreed and I don't want to wait for him. I've always paid off the full balance every month and still have a perfect credit score which is about the only thing in my entire life that's perfect at the moment. I can't let that slip.
I'm trying my best to see myself as alone and to imagine the future as just me, without a partner. This is my worst nightmare but I'm trying to get used to it. KML, what you say about the girls in college is definitely true and that men do like women who they have to pursue. I used to be that way and guess what? I had many great men after me! How many do I have now? Zero. Of course it's because I'm married and older and not in the market and everything now is different.
The greatest struggle for me right now is being positive. I feel negative thoughts are invading my mind faster than I can manage them. I see myself and my situation as complicated because more than anything I'd love to be married in the future and share life with someone else. All around me I see happy couples everywhere. I took my daughter to the local botanical garden last week for the Christmas lights and I was the absolute only single woman there. It seemed like literally every couple was holding hands and in a dream-like state. I cried the entire time as I pushed my daughter in her stroller and kept wiping away tears as I tried to point out special things to her.
I still wake up in the mornings feeling like I'm living a nightmare even though this has been going on for years. I believe I have to take these huge, giant leaps to start a new life that are so monumental that I can't imagine how I'll pull it off.
But one thing that really bothers me about my mindset is how I just don't believe I'll find anyone else. I can't even imagine loving another man. There's only been about five in my whole life that even appealed to me. I guess I'm very specific. I also am super conservative and never dated. I had one long-term relationship that started out as friends and then met my husband who I didn't date because he's Muslim. In the US it's very normal to jump into a sex-before-marriage relationship but I don't want that and don't think I'll ever be open to it. On the other hand, I can't imagine meeting anyone new and marrying them quickly because I don't want to make another mistake. So who will really want a 40+ year old woman who doesn't show physical affection and who has a young kid? And if there is anyone like that, would I even like them? I just can't imagine there being anyone...I can't feel that hope or optimism. I feel totally lost trying to ever date because I don't want that...I don't know how to do it and obviously I don't fit into American society. I fit much, much better into the conservative Middle Eastern society. There everything makes sense to me. There I feel I could meet someone, but guess what? Being divorced with a child in that part of the world is a very bad thing. Very few men would want someone like that and any man in his 40's who's single in that part of the world is a risk because the vast majority marry young and stay married for life.
That is a long complicated explanation but that's an example of how I feel self-defeating and I know this is wrong but can't really figure out how to open my mind and change. What if I really wish to find a new husband but just can't follow the normal process? In these moments I'd do anything to have just a practical arrangement with my current husband where we can live together even without love just have some sense of stability.
I am seeing a counselor but I guess I haven't focused much yet on future issues, mainly the current issue of my health and coping with my husband being gone. I guess I need to schedule more sessions to find out why I can't be more positive.
I am on the other hand very busy with social and professional activities and with my daughter - my husband see's that I'm always busy and knows I'm planning to move but he doesn't care. DB isn't working for us. The only odd comment from my husband was the one where he said "I'll work on everything when I do x, y, z." That's what he's been saying for years but he never works on anything. I forget what the x, y, z was last week. I think just his house and his current work schedule. He also said "I'm not thinking about divorce right now." So like PsySara says I guess he's happy having the best of both worlds - a family nearby as Plan B and all the freedom in the world to date whoever he's dating now and enjoy his life as a single man. I guess only when I move and file for divorce will he stop to think about his life without my daughter and I.
Anyway, I hope we all get through this and still have lives left to live. It'd be so great for anything good to happen at the start of 2018. I wish you all a peaceful and reflective end-of-2017.
