Thanks so much, friends, for your kind words and encouragement. I do feel good about my decision, that I was at a place where I could recognize all of the motivations and feelings that went along with it, but have enough distance to know that ultimately I was really making it for me. All of you have helped me along to this point, and I am so grateful.
Originally Posted by DnJ
However, that is a cheese-less tunnel. Acceptance, aside from accepting the way things are, includes accepting your feelings.
I miss J. Every. Single. Day. And I live and love my life. One can do both. Along with holding themselves and others accountable. Being responsible. Having integrity. And so on. Life is not simple, and is, at the same time.
Originally Posted by Sage4
I know intellectually that I have to move on with my life, find the best path forward for myself, regardless of H's role in it. And that is my primary fuel at the moment. So the hope element may just be something I have to learn to live with; it waxes when he is 'nice' and wanes when he turns back inward. My growth: moving on to my best self cannot be dependent on the feelings of another human.
DnJ, thank you, as always, for sharing your thoughts and your feelings here too. Your response and Sage's words too got me thinking about how maybe the next part of my path is learning to live with hope, to accept that it is. To accept that I still miss H and love him, and also I am living my life. Does this hurt sometimes, is there sadness alongside the contentment? Oh yeah. I don't think I can avoid it. I have to instead accept it.
Because the opposite--not feeling any sadness--is hard to imagine. I keep asking myself, how can you really love someone and then, one year, just not love them any more? I mean, obviously, this happens, but it hasn't happened to me. As hard as this is, I don't want to feel nothing.
H continues to be conversational, friendly, and today was cleaning his room and brought me an old notebook of his, from around the time we moved here together but before we were married. That notebook used to live in the living room, and shortly after BD I flipped through it and found a letter that he'd been writing to a friend before we were married, all about how well I understood him and how he was so happy to be with me. So that memory hurt. Then H showed me a funny drawing in it, that's all. It brought me right back to that time period, though, before we were M, to all that was then, and as soon as he left the room I was crying. It feels like he has no trouble bringing up stuff that happened in our past, like it's all a slightly fond, distant memory. Like since he's moved on completely, these memories or references are not fraught at all. Like he assumes I'm on the same page, fine with being friends and roommates and wanting nothing more. But for me, all these little references are kind of gutting, all the more because from what I see, they don't carry the same (any) emotional weight for him. It hits me all over again: he doesn't love me. And then my reaction highlights the fact that we seem to be in very different places. I start questioning again--how can he move on so quickly? What if he never really loved me? But I felt it--I saw it. Then how can it just disappear? How can 17 years just be all in the past, no big deal? MLC or not, maybe the simple answer is he loved me once and just doesn't love me anymore. But how can that be? ...
And I'm stuck in this particular little circle. I can acknowledge the pain and sadness, that it's just there, alongside everything else. But it's also just so dang hard to love this person and enjoy his company now but see the contrast between how he interacts with me, how I interact with him, and how I feel inside.
Two other things come to mind, though. One is that I was listening to an interview with a writer I love the other day, and she said, it often seems to be that people who are married the longest are psychologists or therapists or people who study human nature in some capacity, because they understand that at some point in any relationship you are probably going to believe you married the wrong person, but that doesn't mean it's true.
And also my friend who likes to say that in a long relationship or marriage, you probably won't feel like you're in love forever, but you have to recognize that feelings change all the time, and that doesn't mean you should base your decisions on them. (Is she quoting DnJ? LOL.) You may feel like you don't love your S for a year, but that doesn't mean that love won't return.
I've never had trouble finding love for H, even if some days I don't like him much, you know? Not in our M and not now. I know that is a strength of mine even though it hurts.
