WAS or WHAT 11

[roist]

Thanks FY. Great to hear from you. Wise words as usual.

Bttrfly, also good conseil. am thinking about it..... was already, but appreciate your input

Gerda, thank you for taking the time to write your long reply. Appreciate it, even if you did mix up the signature with that of foreveryoung! I am glad you can see how going through your experience has strengthened and improved you. I can see that too in myself. My despair as you call it comes from living a half-marriage. We live as a married couple in most aspects without the affection and support that should be there. I can understand her checking out and don't begrudge her doing that. It's the living with a HUGE WHITE ELEPHANT as if everything is normal that is not sitting well with me.

At the moment I have stepped further along my path of "not like this". Life is full of so much more that I am no longer interested in sharing poor interactions. I prefer go off and do something more fulfilling. So yes I am still GALing, moreso than ever! And as I distance myself, I have noticed that she follows/approaches. I am curious to where this is heading, and imagine well that she will initiate a R chat in the coming months. Probably not an ILY chat but to constate I am distant or some other poor behaviour. I have not spoken to her, because I feel she isn't ready to HEAR me, but think she isgetting there.

I am still standing because I believe in her potential and in our potential. In one of Michelles books she outlines a couple who see only the faults and errors of their spouse. The H outlines all he finds wrong with his W, as she did too, but ends up admitting that he has stayed because he believed in their potential to refind what they once had. That resonates with me. Whereas we are not in a very good place at the moment, there are signs that I am right to believe in that potential. So i inactively stand.

Best wishes fellow standers and crisis survivors.