Divorce and Acceptance part 5

[Pax_luv]

Hellloooo friends. Been a long while since I’ve posted.

Its been 5 years now since the ex and I separated. 5! It blows my mind to think that we’ve been apart longer than we were married (and no, I’m still not officially divorced).

5 years later and I feel good. I genuinely feel gratitude and appreciation for the life that I’ve built over the years. It’s a good life, but it definitely took time and effort to get here.

I’m reflecting on this because I had an interaction with an old neighbor today. I was dropping off my pup at my old house and the neighbor was taking his walk. I hadn’t seen him in years and I was surprised that he remembered me. He stopped to say hello, we had a moment of brief chit chat and then he put his hand over his mouth as if to whisper something and said, “we miss you.” It was the sweetest thing. Sometimes I feel like my neighborhood thinks I’m Cruella DeVille or something based on whatever narrative ex gives. (Our private road leaves a lot of room for nosy neighbors with lots of opinions). It just felt nice to be remembered. As I drove off, I got upset. I guess I’m still not over the fact that I was tossed aside and forced to build a new life, while the ex got to carry on as usual. That part still stings a lot. I didn’t want to give up the life I had. I kind of abandoned those around me.

This is another thing I learned about d-b’ing and the LRT- which I implemented right away. It doesn’t lend itself to closure. Not necessarily with ex...but with everything. When we separated, i immediately went dark. Our lives where so enmeshed that I went dark on all levels- relatives, friends, neighbors... etc. There was no good bye to the inlaws, no official good byes to the friends. Well, there was one friend whom I specifically told I needed to step back from because she was too close to ex and she was sharing stories with me. I was so committed to LRT that over time I was dark for so long and ex twisted the narrative so much that I really did become the villain. Somehow, the story reflected me as being the one who abandoned things and then was trying to be greedy with money.

Anyway, all of that was really hard to reconcile in my mind for a long time. And while I’ve struggled with that... I think I’ve gotten to a place where I’m ok that I didn’t get that closure, even though I really wish I could have maintained a relationship with my niece and nephew!
And meh... I’m definitely ok with not having closure with wx. Actually I have all the closure I need from that.

Well, that’s all I got. Life continues to move forward and I just keep trying to be the best pax I can be. Also, I absolutely can not wait for this divorce to be finalized so I can officially close this chapter. Hopefully it really is just a few more months of this.