Gerda, you hit the nail on the head again with your wisdom. Don't engage with crazy (loved the Ophelia reference).
DnJ, you are helping me see the difference between friends and friendly, among your other sage advice.
Scout and Wooba, thanks for expanding on the parallel parenting discussion. Things can start out as one path and morph in the future. But for now, I need to protect myself above all else. I am less afraid of parallel parenting the more I read your perspectives and experiences.
LH, you are right on all your points. My actions ARE confusing for H, although it took you saying that for me to really understand it, so thank you. I need to get consistent in my actions for ME. As a side effect, it may clear up that confusion for H.
And I also agree with your comments about moving to MLC forum. I do believe H is going through an MLC and the perspective from this side helps me understand the 'script' coming from him-- and externalize it so that *I* can heal. I deeply admire long-term standers on this forum, but I know in my heart that I will move on before too long.
WF, your advice as per usual, is spot on. Your experience with parallel parenting, self-preservation, not being responsible for someone else's feelings, friendly not friends (and how hard that is when you love someone) just hit all the right buttons at this moment.
Ginger, yes! I can 'stand' for the time being, but I know if the D goes through I will move on and date. And that in the meantime, they both look the same anyway.
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I am moving to a place where self-love is more important than love for or from H. Right now, H is not here to save me, protect me or love me in the way I want to be loved. Only I can save myself and I can't save myself when I am trying to save others.
I am also coming to terms that not only do I not want to be with someone who doesn't want to be with me, but I also don't want to even be around anyone who doesn't desire my company or treat me with basic respect, kindness and regard. I have enough healing and growing to do at the moment to be swept up in the tornado of someone else's projections.
I read some super old posts here by Robx and Gucci Loafer, who took a fairly hard-line approach towards their WAS and dropping the rope. Although not all the advice resonates with me and my situation, it did help me to define my need to move on emotionally and has helped me begin to craft my own roadmap towards truly dropping the rope. If you're interested in reading the threads, this one was particularly helpful for me:
I have taken some small steps towards reclaiming my sense of sanity. I am learning more about parallel parenting and am warming to that approach. It has been about a week so far and honestly it is better than I thought it would be.
I am examining my 'triggers' and how they inform my actions. For example, my house is more messy than it has been in a long time. I don't really care (it's clean enough to be healthy and dirty enough to be happy!) my children are creative and active and they don't care, I was doing it to absolve myself of my H's mean comment about me being messy, which he recently reiterated and it kind of made me snap inside. Letting go of caring what he thinks around this is a big step for me.
Instead of keeping a perfectly clean house, I have gone on walks with friends, spent an hour each night playing games with the kids and prioritized getting really good sleep each night (going to bed with the kids rather than staying up and cleaning once they go to bed).
Thanks for being my sounding boards, dear friends!
