What to do 4

[DnJ]

Hello Mike

Perhaps my inability to forget about the om is my biggest obstacle.

An obstacle is trying to forget that. You cannot forget that. Forgetting is not the answer. Accepting is.

Lots of people mix up accepting and/or forgiving with condoning or allowing. Acceptance, like all the other stuff, is for you. It’s your emotional state and mindset.

Focus on you, GAL, and such, is not to promote forgetting. It’s for allowing time for one to find their emotional stability and accept things.

It’s hard to live her through “finding herself” when that seems to involve her wanting to love someone else. I know the answer is he is only a symptom. It’s difficult still to believe that.

You bet. A most difficult path to walk.

I’d say W is more driven than wants. Her “wanting to love someone else”, is your interpretation of things.

I don’t understand the mlc, if that’s what’s up, mindset because I’m not the one in the midst it.

Full blown MLC or more life transition, her mindset is different than your’s. She feels confused and is grasping at straws, running. And yet not too.

She doesn’t want to break the family, have an affair, and so on. She is feeling lost and looking for some kind of answer. She needs, time and space to find those. Pressure just diminishes her view of certain possibilities and leaves things like OM and other pressure-free options.

To be clear, she has plenty of pressure in her head and heart right now. More than enough. That’s why we don’t add to it. Her emotions are cranked to eleven. It’s not that she doesn’t care about your feelings, it’s that she cannot handle anyone else’s feelings on top of her own.

And yes, other people, spending, drinking, drugs, and so on, are just symptoms - running behaviours of emotional turmoil.

I’ve accepted that it’s not fair, who said life was fair.

Yes, life ain’t fair.

You know that. You haven’t accepted that, yet.

…not sure what I feel like I am. 10 months in and I mostly feel stunned about it all.

Grief is not a linear process. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Between the start (denial) and the completion (acceptance) one can bounce around and usually does. That being said, there is a general overarching path which does pretty much follow the five stages in order.

I would figure you are partly doing as Mach suggested, pushing some hurts away. I also figure that indifference is starting to take hold.

When something reminds me I sort of feel like I did in the beginning. Maybe? Does that make sense? I need to fix that.

That makes sense. Indifference, any stage really, comes about slowly. There are not well defined delimitations between stages, they are more nebulous in nature.

By the way, “fixing”. Nope, less fixing more accepting. A different mindset for most guys.

Back to grief. New facets of one’s situation come to fore as one is ready to see them. New emotions emerge, feelings that one could not handle before, and therefore were hidden away in denial. That places one in several stages simultaneously. Newer items and feelings stirring up anger and such, and older more processed feelings stirring up depression.

Bargaining is interesting, and where I think you mostly are. To me, it looks like you are exiting bargaining. That last stage of trying to feel the “old” normal, to hang on to what once was, before dipping into the depression and emotional realization of what is. Perfectly fine and healthy by the way, and a needed step towards acceptance.

I think at times I “forget” momentarily what’s going on. She’s home, more affectionate than ever sometimes, and we are just together so much that things feel normal.

Yep.

I dreaded her coming home from work. I dreaded being home in the evening with her. I just didn’t want to be around her. I felt terrible about it. I also wanted to sleep alone but didn’t tell her that. I got up once and slept on the sofa. Told her I couldn’t sleep and wanted to watch tv. She asked recently if I wanted to have sex and I declined. Not out of anger or spite, I just didn’t want to. I don’t feel as strongly at the moment. Maybe the dread was wanting to avoid something in me I am struggling with. I don’t know. I find myself wondering what it would be like if she would leave again. It doesn’t seem so bad sometimes.

As indifference takes hold, other feelings - like dread, temptations, etc - will loom much larger against the void. Their apparent size is an illusion. Indifference is a feeling and will unwind.

Dig deep Mike and keeping walking the path. You’ve used that gift of time wisely. You’ve strengthened, altered, crafted, and organized your beliefs and convictions. Look to your intellect and values for life’s headings, not your apparent and/or absent feelings - for those are fleeting.

You ARE a different kind of DBer in that she is there and says that she wants to work on things....

Your story reminds me of the movie Fireproof in a lot of ways. It is based on a theory called the Love Dare, and I am wondering if that wouldn't be advantageous for you to do....

Mike, is your heart still soft and squishy? Or did you allow it harden?

Lovingly let go. Time and space. Lead. Be the lighthouse.

D