DnJ and May, thank you both so much for your encouraging words.
D, your words are so beautiful and impactful. I have a feeling that you were an amazing man before your wife left, but it certainly appears that this process has brought so much growth and learning opportunities for you. That is my prayer to the universe right now: if this hardship and heartbreak must happen to me, please open me up to all the lessons I have to learn and make me a better person as a result. Let something good come of all of this. Amen.
I swing wildly between wanting things to be different and clinging to hope, and letting go and getting on. I am reliving the trauma through my children's fear and sadness at the moment though, so that process of letting go (of the pain, suffering and heartbreak) is a wound that keeps getting salted. There have been some firsts in the past couple of weeks that are particularly poignant, so that doesn't help either. But I am trying to live each moment and move into a path of healing as best I can.
Unfortunately, things have gotten so untenable in my communication with H, I feel I need to go as NC as I possibly can. A simple conversation about basic un-heated topics turns into accusations of me being aggressive, controlling or manipulative. I don't use the right words, or in the right order, or my tone is not right. I feel like I either need to record our conversations or have someone else present as I truly can't see what I am saying or doing wrong and it is making me feel like I am insane. Is it common for an MLCer to have so much guilt, resentment and anger that they literally cannot even converse with their LBS without it adding to their laundry list of what a terrible person the LBS are? I know that H wants deep down to be friends and have an amicable split where we can spend time together as a family, but that is not possible for me when everything I say and do is construed and constructed to build his narrative of what a wicked person I am.
It is hard to not take that to heart. I want to be open to growth and learning opportunities in this process, I also want to validate and leave some space for us to be good in the future. But I can't control his narrative and that narrative is destroying my self-esteem and self-worth.
Man, this process is hard. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
