Hanging on/The Long Haul #9

[WCW]

THANK YOU, Opti! That's the point I am trying to get across, I've been looking at baby steps for so long, but the baby never walks, just plops back down on it's diaper full of sh!t. Maybe it is me, it is my fault. I've been told before that whenever it starts happening and getting closer that I shut him off (Kiwi, are you jumping in here to give me perspective?). I don't want to do that, but what is different this time for ME is that I am not going to hold my breath for the next baby step. I/ME/this person I am is going to keep walking ahead, making plans for this weekened, for next month, for the summer. H can come along, but I'm not waiting around and I'm not dragging him with me. He has to be a willing partner. I think this is what I've been missing for so long, that I finally have to move ahead with me/my life, and find my happiness. I don't plan to and am not trying to shut him out, but I can't make him come with me to find happiness. In fact, he went and found his somewhere else. So maybe that's just it, we won't have happiness together as a married couple, and I'm finally understanding.

I also know that it is easy to sit and say this now, because he still comes home every night, he still helps around here, he does help financially. When/if that changes, I will be devasted, for a while. I know it, I love the man I married, I wish I had him back. I will always love that man, but he doesn't exist anymore, and will never exist in the same capacity. I wish I had the man I had before he hurt me so bad that I don't know if I can recover from that, and he doesn't even know it or care enough to ask about it.

I spent the last months of 2005 feeling so sure that as soon as the holidays were over H would be gone. He is still here. Does that mean we will grow old together? No. But it taught me that I don't want to sit around and wait for it to happpen if it does. I was miserable, I was consumed by what might happen, and it didn't. I started 2006 at a party by myself, because H wouldn't come with me. While it wasn't what I preferred to do, it also felt like a weight I wasn't dragging anymore. And I've kept going.

What can I do to bring H back to me? nothing. He has to come back on his own. And he has a lot of bridges to build to get back, to get me back.

Sound pretty tough, don't I? I wonder what I will do if he ever initiates a hug again.

I read a lot on this board, probably too much. Some folks have become friends, and a very close friend that I cherish. But I try hard to remember that my ride is not the same as everyone else, not to get sucked in by what someone else is saying. One of my goals used to be to be a DB Success Story. I don't know anymore if I can make it. Have I lost my passion for saving my marriage? or just redirected it to saving myself. I think saving myself is a good step in any direction.