Through the World Barefooted -- Gerda's LBS Guide

[Gerda]

In hindsight I think that my own ex worked very hard for quite a lot of years being the person she thought she should be / wanted to be and buried the person that she was. Even with her so-called MLC - in her case - I don't think she ever did become that person.

I think this is my H exactly. I didn't realize that when this all started. As is obvious from my first four years of posts. I thought I was waiting for the real H to come back, a great man, kind, good father, ethical, faithful.

Now I am starting to think that he was trying to be those things and it never felt like it fit.

I on the other hand, though certainly very damaged from my own screwed up upbringing, was confident, had many talents I was using in my work, was vibrant in so many ways -- and I let all those things fall away, trying to be what I thought a good wife was, a surrender that wasn't about love but just about suppressing my own gifts because I felt unworthy and never thought that H should put aside anything so that I could try to realize any of the path I had been on before him.

I have mentioned this before but before I had faith I remember asking him about his faith once and he said that he really needed it, that I had no idea how bad he was. I thought he was just expressing some kind of Catholic guilt. Now I think of that and shiver. Now he is that bad and says he is finally being himself. I still believe he had a mental break that was MLC, I just think that the machine was already very broken. He could have healed himself through family life and self-giving love, but it didn't go that way. I think in all our cases, we could have healed each other's wounds, like that book by Harville Hendricks says. But the MLC plus demons was too strong. Even when I think of what my H is doing now, I was thinking that even if he wasn't that happy in his marriage, he always loved having a home, a place, and I would have taken him back until maybe a year ago. I was waiting until then. The last year I have been asking God for permission not to wait for him anymore and never to have to consider that again. Now he is running from place to place and saying he has nowhere to live -- just now he is heading to one of the world's COVID epicenters to live with his parents for a month because he says he has no money but won't settle even at 50-50 with me, keeps saying he doesn't believe the documentation or the appraisal. So he could actually have part of the equity now and set up a life for himself but he just keeps litigating and running, it's so weird. He is totally uncomfortable in any identity. He left his own country as a young child, escaping with his parents and never seeing his grandparents anymore, coming to this country with no money and his parents always at work. I think the attachment disorder was overwhelming, and then exacerbated by a lot of abuse, alcoholism, etc.

All of that said, this last week my D11 was with him in the state in which he lives now, the longest she was ever away. I was worried about her but tried to just use my days well, and every night took bike rides to the river and sat there looking at the sunset and watching the world grow dark and thinking thinking thinking. I feel like I am on a precipice now of letting something go. It will be much easier when this @#(@#@*#(& divorce is over but I start to imagine -- what would it feel like if I didn't think about the past anymore, no matter how bad it was or how many mistakes I made or how my kids are suffering -- what if I just started now, this is day one. I might only be half way through my life, if I am lucky. Even a part of that is a long time of wonderful things to see and do, even if pain and suffering comes and goes. And it's a lot of time to be a light to others and see the world, at least post-Covid. I still wake up in terror and grief a lot of the time, but for one thing H would never know that, I am pretty confident now in the divorce proceedings as my own lawyer, even if I am a little scared of our very unfair and possibly evil judge -- and for another, I think I am finally seeing an opening to seeing my life as just beginning. I don't know if I would ever consider having a man in my life in a real way, but everything else is wide open!