Thank you. Sometimes I feel like I am tough as nails, sometimes I think of myself as emotionally weak when it comes to them. I have managed as long as I have in the way that I have from kind of not thinking of the reality of how we got where we are. I used to think I had to give myself exposure therapy to become numb to things. My IC assured me that I do not, why torture myself? This is why I block every ex boyfriend. Don’t want to see a thing so that I don’t have to feel like pain. But I guess seeing this triggered the pain I manage to avoid .
Dawn, I imagine stepmother if is very difficult . I experienced somewhat of that twice. I do know that loving a kid that has a mom and dad already like a child of your own is rewarding and difficult. I felt and still feel the loss so hard of M’s son.
My pain and the difficult in this certainly is from her being the OW. For her robbing me of the chance to even get to be a family with my ex and my child. For knowingly dating a married man with a baby on the way. We can all say that if it wasn’t her, it would have been someone else. But the truth is , it was wrong. Horribly wrong. And even if he was a bad person of cheating, maybe I would have had some more time with family. Not struggling as a new mother completely on my own. Because I know my ex would have never left if someone else was in the picture. Not that would have been healthy. But we didn’t even get a chance. What they did affected my life greatly as a mother, as a person, in my career. They seriously rocked my world in a bad way.
Anyways. Luckily, I’m over the feelings I got when I saw what I did. They are fleeting these days and I’m able to feel and move on from it.
Most people get the chance to love again after something like this and be in a relationship and truly get the feeling they knew it all happened for a reason. I never got that. I actually have had to deal with my pain without another relationship. Not many have had to get deep in my pain before someone else came along and lessened it. It’s been all my work. For many many years. I have some added harder layers to my work, but I’m managing. I do hope the future holds good things for me. I’m just trying to make it through each day right now and try to find a little joy. Which I do.
