So people wear rose colored glasses to maintain control?. Of what? Doesn't sound healthy
So you for an example. You were in a sex starved marriage for most of your life. Your W pretty much gave up on making herself attractive for you after you were married. It got so bad you signed up for Ashley Madison. She had at least one EA and pretty much discarded you when her kids that you raised were old enough. Having you believing this was all your fault because you were sex starved and signed up for Ashely Madison but didn't actually go through with it. Yet you waited two plus years for her to comeback. Why? Your brain has convinced itself that getting W back, or getting W to apologize and declare a desire to have you back is the very best and fastest way to restore your feeling of being in control.
With the benefit of time and distance, you now realize that's what it's really all about, it's about regaining the ability to feel in control of your life and your future. It really has very little to do with W or who she is as a person, she's a lever to get you what you want, but that's really just an illusion.
How do you really get control back?
1) Set goals for yourself and hit them. (Get in shape, do an improvement project around the house, learn to play an instrument)
2) Interact with others. Volunteer, join a club, a little positive validation from other humans will do wonders
3) Talk to a therapist. You have a lot of feelings to work through, keep walking the road.
The number one challenge people have on DB is that they WANT to pursue because they want their control back, so despite knowing they shouldn't, they invent viable excuses to justify it to themselves and then do it anyway. That's why you were doing the holidays and that's why you were doing the lunches.
