Whenever I feel down like this I remind myself that this must happen for me to grow as a person. I've become so much better in every single way since this all started. Yes, I wish I could have my w back because how amazing would that be? I'm this awesome person now and if I had the woman of my dreams on top of that? But like you said, you can only control you.
Someone wrote this to me early on but I would go through this all over again if it meant I would grow into the person I am today. And this is all in just the past 3-4 months. Imagine where we will be in a year or two from now if we learn from it and see it as an opportunity rather than something negative?
You can do this! You will get through this!
I appreciate the reply, thank you.
I do recognize that as a result of this, I'm taking a very hard look (and addressing) my NMMNG issues, my integrity, and other things that contributed to the difficulties in the MR. I have no doubt that for my next relationship, I'll be a stronger and more emotionally healthy partner. I doubt I'd have had those awakenings without a BD and without being forced to address them.
I can't change history, so for as much as I'd like to say that I wish I'd had read NMMNG six months ago, that's just wishful thinking. I do believe that if things move to D, I'll always look at my MR as a failure, a person I loved deeply but wasn't emotionally complete enough to make it work. That's a painful lesson, but it won't kill me.
What little optimism I do have is buoyed by the fact that there *are* people who have reconciled and pieced things together; both here and in my social group. I simply need to find the balance between maintaining that hope/standing up for the MR and detaching.
