IW - Thanks for the reply. Sometimes I find myself riffing off your responses because you always kickstart interesting new thoughts for me.
I can't imagine what you have gone through with PTSD. You are tackling a lot all at once - your upbringing, your military experiences, your MR. I have incredible respect for how you are managing your struggle... it is not easy.
I think you are right about the impact of emotional scars affecting the connections we seek in our lives. In my case, and I say this with some shame, I'm pretty sure I "accepted" previous romantic relationships mostly on the basis that the girl liked me. That female acceptance mattered a lot. My W felt different when we met, we were very good friends for awhile, and the connection ran deeper. But I recognize I fell into the same pattern of feeling inferior, and going down that NG path which leads to emotional distance.
Anyways I've been thinking a lot lately about one thing that you mentioned: Connection.
Humans are tribal creatures. We want to connect. Combine the American nuclear family ideal with NGS and you have a lot of H's like myself closing off their lives. We lose connection. We center our entire lives around our family and house and our W and kids. We shut out our friendships, our outside world, our masculinity, our individuality. It's no wonder our own W's find us emotionally distant and dull, while at the same time we try harder and harder and harder to please.
I find myself craving connection. Not a partner necessarily (I was confused about this a couple weeks ago). I talk to strangers. I text friends more. I go out and do more things. I live more deliberately -- meaning I don't feel like every day is life or death, but I have turned off auto-pilot as much as I can. It's a more mindful way to live. Life feels like a place of abundance for the most part.
And then I think of my kids, and how I miss them, and how I worry we are already drifting apart. And I can't feel anything other than deep sorrow about it right now. I have them this weekend, and I am going to live it to the fullest with them. Adjusting to single fatherhood is going to take time, and it's really something I am struggling with. I feel shut out of their lives sometimes... but that's a very passive, victim-like role to take.
