I think a huge part of the reason I am the way I am is because I've learned to love through the hard stuff my entire life. I learned that you will not always like the person you love. You will not always love the person you love in the same way. That you will both change, and hopefully grow, and the best you can both do is wait for the other person to catch up or at the very least be willing to be supportive during that time. You will get hurt, and frustrated, and sometimes even apathetic in your relationship but if you always choose to turn inward instead of outward things will fall back into place, maybe not the the same order, but back into stead foundation.
This is beautiful, wayfarer. Thank you for writing this! I feel all of this deeply. I too have examples of 30+ year marriages in my family, and it's true that H maybe didn't have that same example of love. I didn't realize I had all these beliefs about what love is until BD and this whole experience. I mean, I did on a surface level, but in the last two years I've had the opportunity to really examine and articulate them to myself.
H's birthday was this week, and I woke up this weekend just feeling like, how great that I still choose to love--it's my superpower! I don't need H to love me back; my love just is. For a while I wanted to fight this, because to still love him is often painful. I've been having these waves of acceptance in the last month or so, just really embracing that love and seeing it as a good quality, like you say, WF, rather than wanting to change it.
Originally Posted by DnJ
H has, and has not, moved on from these memories. He is emotionally running and keeping ahead of them. When he tires, when he is at rest, especially at night laying in bed in the dark, his demons come out to play and torment.
Running requires a lot of emotional investment in maintaining his fantasy reality. His lack of apparent emotional weight to stimulus and memory is real and not. He really cannot face that he might be wrong, so he portrays the facade you see. Fate and life’s events will continue to steer and alter his path, it is up to him when/if he will yield and look within.
Thanks for these reminders, D, for telling me about MLC again! It is always helpful. I do believe there is a difference between moving on from memories and running to stay ahead of them. My IC would point out that H has always had this avoidant behavior, but it is just more apparent and externalized now. I believe H is running to stay ahead of memories, yet apparently I have to keep testing this belief because the carefree-ness he projects is so convincing. But also maybe there is that aspect that WF writes about, that he doesn't know how to love through the hard times. The thing is, I thought he did--why would I have married him otherwise?
That weekend wave of accepting and feeling proud of my ability to love? It has been replaced with a deep sadness all week. H has been mostly gone since last week, though I did have to email him the monthly bill email and I wished him a happy birthday, and he said thanks.
It used to be that his being gone for days at a time meant a break from his potential monstering, and it felt freeing, I could relax. Now that he's pleasant to be around, it's a reminder of how much I miss our R. I miss present H's company, too. Hi, again, grief! Such a weight.
WF, reading your post I was also remembering (a long time ago) when you'd talked about being friends with your H, and there was that DB post you shared of the guy who stayed friends with his wife after she left him. I realized because of decisions I've made on how to respond to H all along, I'm kind of in a weird friend-ish zone with him. I mean, I didn't create this, but my decisions made it possible for H to make certain decisions to respond kindly to me as well. My choices have paved the way for this, in part, and it's a sad place to be sometimes, a difficult place, but also maybe an okay place for now.
It's a little weird to be almost at 2 years post-BD and to still have the love I do for H. Sometimes I feel like I haven't successfully "moved on." Our M is over and I still love him. I don't want to date. I still live with him (or he still lives with me). But also, oh yeah, we're not D yet, because he still hasn't moved it along, so even if I wanted to date, I'd wait until that was official. Some of the stuff posted in DnJ's thread was already on my mind. Am I missing out on other love and companionship because of my choices? Life is short. Knowing that doesn't change how I feel about H or dating right now though.
