Thankful!

[Lonely in SLC]

Wow! I cannot believe that it has been over a year since I last posted. So much has happened since then.

Today is the day after Thanksgiving, and I have so much to be thankful for.

I wanted to get back on here to let everyone know that my ex wife and I are getting back together. We are planning on marrying again in January. I will get back to this part a little bit later.

I cannot begin to describe the help, courage, and inspiration granted to me by reading the difficult situations faced by others here on these forums. I came back to give back.

I know that for me there was nothing more encouraging than reading success stories. I want to add mine, and I hope that sharing my experiences will help others here.

I will be gradually adding more posts that I would describe will fall under one of two categories. The first category will detail my journey over the past year. The second category will be the lessons and thought processes that I learned to help me get to where I am at.

[Cadet]

Looking forward to reading it.

Here is your original thread in newcomers.

http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubb...432#Post2161432

[tori2012]

I look forward to reading this, too. I think we can all learn from what you went through!

[Lonely in SLC]

Thanks Cadet for posting my original thread.

[Lonely in SLC]

One of the most important tips that I can give to everyone is something that I don't believe is emphasized enough. People are attracted to positive, happy people.

Let me say this again. People are attracted to positive, HAPPY individuals. I believe this is one of the main purposes to GAL. I also believe that many people mislabel happiness for Confidence. I would be curious to hear what others think about this.

Anyway, understanding this concept is the easy part. The hard part is applying it in our lives. This is particularly hard during marriage problems, or worse, divorce. For me, self-esteem issues were a big problem. If you read my earlier post, I could not sleep for a couple of months, I could not eat (loosing 40 lbs in the process), and cried numerous times for over a year.

My next posts will explain what helped me.

[Lonely in SLC]

I work in sales, and having a positive attitude is essential to making a living. I had read many books about this topic, and learned to apply them in my personal life.

I read somewhere that the mind is like a fertile field. What is planted will grow, and it does not care what is planted. Negative thoughts are like weeds, there is little work to be done for them to flourish. On the other hand, I nice garden takes hard work, time, and patience.

I began to gather quotes on the importance of controlling what thoughts take root in our minds, because this will eventually lead our lives.

“The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind…” William James

“A man’s life is what his thoughts make of it.” Marcus Arelius
“If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” Jesus Mark 9:23

“If you think in negative terms, you will get negative results. If you think in positive terms, you will get positive results.” Dr. Norman Vincent

So after reading all of this, I set myself a GOAL to think positively.

[tori2012]

THANK you for posting this! I definitely agree with what you've said. My H filed for D about 2 months ago, and I've had a hard time being myself since then, even though my strong beliefs and spirituality (and this board) have helped. It's hard not to cry every day, or to sleep well, but I have such limited contact with my H that he does not see any of this. I've been as nice and happy-sounding as I can. I will see him for lunch soon (first time since our meeting with the L) and I'm planning on being happy and upbeat. I'm also planning on not putting my life on hold for him anymore. My fear is, what if I really move on and he comes back to me in the future? And if I keep the hope, will I be unable to move on and waste my life?

[Lonely in SLC]

Thanks Tori, I am glad this is helping someone. I know exactly it feels to wonder if our paths will cross again at the right time, meaning my Ex and myself. I had some unique circumstances that I was going to share in the future, but now seems like a good time.

I would be very ungrateful to my Heavenly Father if I did not discuss how he has helped me during these difficult times. There are a few things that really stand out beside the normal spiritual comfort.

The first thing is that in my religion, we have the belief that when a man and wife are married in a Temple, that the marriage is sealed for time and eternity. This means that the marriage lasts into the next life if we are faithful in keeping the commandments. This belief was both a blessing and a curse.

We both believed that we would get back together. In my Ex’s mind, this would happen in the next life when we have a better understanding of things. She just did not want to be with me in this life anymore. This dynamic to our relationship I believed helped dramatically with our situation.

The only problem that this belief did cause me was that I had a very hard time moving on, as was suggested by many of my friends and family members. It seemed to make the divorce that much more depressing. There was something I read that really helped me with this.

I will be going on a tangent. It was a crushing blow to me when my wife gave me the ILYBNILWY speech. I was dumb, and never viewed love as a living thing. My mind could not grasp this, and it was devastating for me.

But then I read the part in DB about how I was somehow able to make my wife fall in love with me once, and that it is not impossible to do it again. In fact, I had the upper tract on how to do this because I was the only one that she had married. The next important thing to learn was to focus on ENJOYING this journey of wooing over my Ex again. This whole thought process definitely helped.

This leads me to the next spiritual moment that gave me hope. I was attending church on Easter Sunday in 2011. This was during the time that my Ex HATED me and everything about me!!! . I believe there are many out there that know what I am talking about. It is when some sort of alien has replaced the once lovable spouse with something that is no longer recognizable as being human anymore.

Anyway, as always during Easter, there were talks about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and how important it is to us. And then it hit me. Love is a living thing. The love between myself and my Ex was dead. But just as miraculous was the resurrection of Jesus Christ; that is bringing life back from the dead; so too could my dead marriage be resurrected through His help. This was my candle that I looked to whenever I felt like the darkness was going to overcome me.

The last thing that helped was an answer to a prayer back in June of 2011. The divorce was nearing a finish, and I had to make a few decisions that would possible affect my life forever. My Ex was asking for full physical custody, joint custody on everything else. I had every right to fight, and to fight hard for joint physical custody. While praying about this, I received a strong answer that I cannot explain. I was told to show Charity towards my Ex.

I do not suggest this for anyone. But I did allow the Ex to have the full physical custody. To her credit, she never used the kids as a pawn, and I could see them whenever I wanted; which turned out to be more than 50% of the time anyways. It came down to receiving more child support money for her.

There are other examples that I will discuss later on where I helped her. When we were starting to get back together, one of things she mentioned was how noble I was for some of the things that I did for her. Sometimes, you just have to follow that sixth sense when you receive an answer to a prayer.

Earlier I stated that the decisions I made regarding my divorce might not be for everyone. I do suggest that you listen to and to act upon any spiritual promptings sent your way. Everyone’s circumstances are unique.

[newman7977]

Lonely,

First of, congrats on your resurrected love. I read your sitch and thanks for sharing. It helps to know that there's hope.

Maybe when you get a chance, take a look at my sitch. I'm at the newcomers section. At this point in my sitch I feel like I should initiate the separation. I feel like my W feels stuck with me in the M.

She's the typical WAS and the scripts that goes with it. I remember your Ws list and one of them is divorce. Did your time apart helped? What about the OM? I strongly believe the sitch won't improve until OM leaves and EA fog lifts that's why I think I have to let my W go on her path.

I believe my W still in a heavy EA fog. She says she wants to feel the love for me like before but the feelings have not come back and she doesn't know how to get them back either.

Thanks again lonely.

Newman

[tori2012]

Lonely, thank you for your post. I read it carefully and thought about how I can apply what you said to my sitch.

I'd already decided to just give all my love and compassion to my H during this process. Our last couple of conversations have been good. I felt more comfortable, and so did he. We're going to see each other on Monday after 2 months. Last time we saw each other was at the first meeting with the L.

My decision now is, do I continue this "friendship" path even when the D is final (which might take longer than I thought, since he hasn't done anything about it after he filed) or stop all contact with him and move on with my life? I know staying in touch won't let me move on emotionally.

I feel that my H and I are meant to be together, but he doesn't feel this way. When I told him I felt we were soulmates, he said he didn't feel the same. He's said he's checked out, that he doesn't even want to think about how our M could've improved. He's focused on "dating" other women, which your W didn't do, right? Plus this decision took him about 2 years to make, while it seems that you and your W got D really quickly (which didn't allow for a lot of reflection.) My H seems to be very happy with his "single" life, partying every night, and doing whatever he wants. He's spiritual but confused at this level too. He's confused about everything. Also, we don't have children, so there's no excuses to see each other once the D is final...

What do you think? How are our sitch's different?