Joe, it's hard to imagine that I could be ahead of anyone else! I feel like I'm at the bottom! But I still appreciate your encouragement. Yes, I'm moving forward by planning a move to another city and getting ready to find a new job which I hope will help.
Right now every day is a bad day, but I did find one friend in Canada who is getting divorced and she said she'll visit me in April. I'm thankful for that!
I think about Iraq and Afghanistan a lot. You probably don't miss it wherever you were in either place but I do. There was a mission to be fulfilled and I was so focused on that. I wasn't married and didn't have a child back then so I didn't know what I was missing....I just worked all the time and loved it and then met my husband there.
Yes it helps posting on this board although the faceless, anonymous nature of it isn't ideal. I wish they'd allow for a more personal feel to a board where people are in such need for support.
You're right that DB is about helping ourselves too. I don't think any of us turn to it for that purpose, and that's not our goal when we start with it. But it does help us to see that feeling sorry for ourselves won't help.
I'm sure your wife is crazy to leave you. I, on the other hand, could have done better as wife. I am making progress on changing my thought patterns and behaviors that pushed my husband away, like having to be so focused on rules, safety, and hygiene all the time and being too uptight.
Thanks for your encouragement regarding my daughter. She keeps telling me it's better without her father around and that she loves going out with me alone. She doesn't know any better, but I guess she remembers the months before my husband left and knows they were bad. I try with all my strength to do fun stuff with her every day, take her out and make sure we're exercising and doing educational things. Sometimes I still have tears in my eyes and I just tell her I miss her father but I'm happy to have her.
I'll send a subsequent message with another update for everyone.
