Miles to go before I sleep. Or should I say: Miles to go before I can even sleep well!
You can read more about where I'm coming from at: Unbearable Agony
Mentioned to a guy in another post that I am committed to "finding my way home." I have many thoughts and feelings of what that means to me, like "Home is wherever it is most comfortable to be yourself" or "Home is being one with the truth of my Highest Creative Potential." Or in death, it is finally being called Home to my Creator. Ashes to ashes...
And Home is certainly about being real, being me, being true to myself and the people I care about, being honest in my purpose and projection...
But what I really mean when I say I want to go home, is that I want to go home to my WAW who is living with my two kids and now looking for love with OM.
I have decided to start a thread here because I must fully accept that what she and I had is now long-dead and gone and can never be revived...
AND, wonder of wonders, NOR SHOULD IT BE!!! I know this intellectually, but now I must find a way to overcome the cancerous pain that seems to have a death grip on my diaphragm refusing to let me breathe. I know all this intellectually, but now I need to find a way to deal with my feelings about it as well.
I need to feel more like she does.
I am posting here because I need to finally accept that WAW has already moved on. Moved on long ago. And the truth is, we may never again be in a committed, caring, intimate, loving, sexual, relationship with each other.
I NEED TO ACCEPT THIS! It may never happen even if I DB for another 20 years!
I need to accept that possibility and learn to live with the uncertainty of it all. I need to come to terms with how that really feels to me, because only then can I find away to move past it and maybe even let it go completely.
Here's the quick facts...
Together 15 years (1987 - 2002) Looks like an epitaph!
Seperated these past three years.
I began DBing 3 months ago.
Got WAW to agree to counseling with Michelle and I two months ago.
WAW insists all she wants is a friendship and has just started PA with OM.
Me: 41.
Before marriage: Very happy, healthy and wealthy.
After 15 years together ending in seperation / okay let's call it Divorce even though we were never legally married: Very unhappy, busted and broke.
Other details: I PA about 9 years ago, questionably justified, but that's not the point. The issue has always been trust.
WAW: 41.
Before marriage: Believed all she was good for was sex. Zero self-esteem. Play thing for men and women who used her.
After 15 years together ending in seperation / okay let's call it Divorce even though we were never legally married: Very happy with herself, feeling strong and healthy about herself, has become totally independant and wealthy.
Other dteails: At beginning she lied and told me she was dying in order to have a child with me. Now, 18 years later, after doing everything I could to bring true honesty and compassion to our relatiuonship, she has a F***ing PA that just started a few days ago.
This after three years of celibacy for her, and now after getting her to actually enjoy going to counseling with me, (thanks to Michelle) after our third DB session with Michelle, she's out there straddling some...oh man don't even go there. Here's some other details:
2 Kids: D17, S13
Our tumultuous common law marriage lasted 15 years. (1987 - 2002)
She kicked me out of the house she was renting 3 years ago after I had lost all our money trying to make us happy without us ever really being on the same page.
Argh. I'm getting bogged dopwn here and my stomach is killing me again. Need to take a break and will write more later.
"It's not the things that happen to us that matters, its the meaning we give those things that matters."
This thing that happened to me was a doozy, so I came up with a doozy of a meaning.
4 days ago when I saw WAW straddling OM my world dropped away. 4 days ago when WAW learned I was spying on her, her temper went ballistic.
Meanwhile D17 and S13 are caught in the fray again.
Big lesson for me was to be even more respectful of WAW's feelings no matter how much I'm hurting. I neglected to consider her feelings (Oh lookee there. Same thing I've been accusing of her doing to me!) and then WHAMMO! I get to experience the most devastating feelings in my life! Maybe its God's way of helping me appreciate her feelings even more.
For several days I was unable to eat or sleep after seeing her with him, and the pain in my gut was unbearable. Worst pain I have ever felt and for the second time in my life I knew what death could feel like. First time was when wife and I got phone poisoning many years ago. This time was even worse than that.
So then I said okay. If this is what death feels like, than what the hell has died? What the hell is this pain actually trying to tell me, before it runs amok and starts spreading like cancer throughout my life?
And that's when I realized our old relationship is truly dead.
And that's when I realized I was now free to get a BIG life of my own.
Now I can focus way more on me and the kids, have no more fear of my decisons about going dark, dropping ropes, doing 180's, 360's, or even Tony Hawk 940's
Now its all about me and the kids and when and if she's ever ready to join us, we'll just have to see what happens. Either way, time to get back on my horse and ride.
My first step after setting myself free was to make two commitments. One to WAW, one to myself. I then typed out my commitment to her on a credit-card sized piece of paper, signed it, laminated it, and had it delivered to her. She can keep it in her wallet or throw it away. Makes no difference to me. Here is what I wrote on that card:
My Commitment To You.
I have no more need to worry about us. I trust you to find your way because you are the only one who can. From this point forward, you have my word that as long as you will continue with our counseling, and are truly committed to our friendship, then: I am committed to leaving you alone, and giving you the time and space you need, and will stop 'stalking' you or coming by uninvited.
Next, I copied both my commitment to her, and on the flip side, my commitment to myself, then laminated that for me to keep in my wallet.
Here is my commitmnent to myself:
I will respect her space and privacy. I will not go uninvited to her house. I will not chase anyone else away. I will accept her being with other men. I will view her other men as nothing more than symbols of my own previous insecurities. Mere reminders of how much better than that I have become. And for her, I will see them as plastic vibrators used to jolt herself awake. Or as nothing more than hired hands, used to help her find her way home to me and the kids even sooner. From this point forward, best friends and unconditional love no matter what she does. I know the Way and the Light and the Truth and so I will learn to Trust. I will learn to trust in both her and in God, and I know that one day soon she and I will finally be making love for real. When that happens, neither of us will have anything left to fear.
Now any time I get that fatal impulse to...
to...
Ah go ahead and say it...
to SPY on her!!!
...then I will simply take out my laminated card, re-read my commitment to myself, and continue on my way.
Old Goal #1: Move back home with R, M and J under happy, healthy conditions by December 31st, 2005
New Goal #1: Get new neutral place for kids to live by Dec. 1st, 2005
New goal is to arrange it so mom and I swap times at kids place rather than them having to move back and forth between ours. Gives them stability and more time with Dad, gives mom more time to herself. Challenge is getting her to accept it.
Old Goal #1: To buy a family cottage for all of us by March 31st, 2006
New Goal #2: To make love to my wife by March 31st, 2006
New Bonus Goal: To take kids to Hawaii this February.
