Re: Moving past the WAW to a stronger me Pt. 6

[Davide]

Nicole,

Thanks for the comments and questions! Your post made me think and question myself in a really good way.

Yeah. It always seems like nothing happens forever, and then everything happens all at once. Between the dating getting more serious, the job search heating up, the anniversary and W's birthday, the finance and divorce talk and then the R talk it has been draining, and hard to stay centered. The weather around here hasn't helped as it has rained every day for a week straight. I get affected by the weather, to the point that earlier in my life I thought I had seasonal affective disorder and actually bought a sun lamp. Due to the rain (and cold) I haven't been able to ride my bike to work. Thankfully I have been able to keep up with the yoga and been out climbing 3 days this week. I know how important physical exertion is to my GAL.

In terms of my W, I don't know what she knows about my dating life, but I imagine it is very little if anything. I have not talked to her about it, nor have I talked very much at all with our common friends. They don't know that I am seeing anyone at all seriously, just that I am out there. I think her reaction is very much in reaction to my pushing for the D. She has not gone through the grieving process for the relationship like I have, and the finality of the MR which I grieved all summer and early fall, is hitting her hard. She does not want D, and is only willing to do it in order to give me the closure I need.

I don't know if it is a question of being too late. Right now I value myself enough that I know that I deserve to be someone's first choice, that I need someone who is willing and able to choose me. Love is an action and a choice, right? I don't know if the professor I am currently dating is the long term answer, but she wants to be with me and seems emotionally stable and capable of choosing me. My W is not there. She doesn't love herself right now, and can't choose me. Even she recognizes this. It's not a question of sincerity, she has never lacked sincerity, just clarity. She knows that she hasn't grown like I have. I have tried to help her along that path, but ultimately it is a road that she needs to take by herself. I would never rule out the possibility of reconciliation but it would require a) her growing b) her choosing me and not being with another c) me being available. I don't see that coming any time soon since she has so much growth she needs to do. And I'm not going to sit around and wait.

You raise an interesting point about how to avoid falling into the same problems with a future partner. First and foremost, I take a lot of responsibility for the failure of the MR. If I had been the person that I am now over the last two years of the MR I don't think that the MR would have deteriorated to the point it did. I didn't take responsibility for my own happiness, nor did I communicate well, and I had a lot of covert contracts. Those are things that I need to avoid on my own. Secondly, I think part of the problem is that my W was only 23 when we met, 25 when we married. She didn't know what she wanted from life or even who she was, and grew and changed so much over the intervening years. I am definitely now looking for a partner who is more mature and more sure of those things. The other thing to look for on my end is how a future partner views commitment. For me, I made a commitment to be with my W that I was willing to go through anything in order to make it work. My W views commitment in a different way. She sees no point in staying together if we aren't happy. I am willing to deal with unhappiness in order to find a way forward together. I think that I need to find a partner who looks at commitment more like I do. How to suss that out is an open question.