hope456 - he filed, what now?

[hope456]

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hope456 - accepting my new reality

Still finding myself very prone to tears tonight. Tried to take a long bath to relax, but it isn't so relaxing when you are sobbing non-stop.

[CS000]

I'm so sorry...take care of yourself and your in my thoughts.

[Georgiabelle]

Hi Hope,

I just wanted to say I can relate to the tears today. I've shed a few myself. It's difficult to relate to that search for the ever elusive happiness. It always makes me sad when people don't realize the external things can't sustain happiness. However, that cannot be told as people must learn that for themselves. Some never learn that.

Hang in there!

[claire7]

Hang in there hope. You are going to be ok. The only way through this is through it... But you'll look back and see how strong and resilient you've been.

[hope456]

Thanks Claire, GB, and CSan. I appreciate your support.

I'm feeling very stuck. I want my M to work. I've tried to convince myself that I would be OK reconciling after a D, but I'm not sure that I would. In many ways, I feel like going through with a D would mean that this relationship really is done. I don't know how I would ever trust my H not to do this again if he actually goes through with it. I mean, really, how do I know that he truly means his vows the second time around? They obviously didn't mean enough to him this time.

I also look at stories of others who have about the same timeline as me and they seem so much stronger and seem to have fewer backslides and it makes me wonder if I'm not really as committed to this as I want to believe. I've never thought of myself as weak, but I'm really feeling that way lately. I can't visualize a future where this doesn't feel painful and wrong and not meant to be.

[hope456]

To add to my feelings of failure, I feel like I'm failing at DBing.

[Thornton]

Hope,

This isn't your fault. YOU have been the one standing for your marriage, how does that make you a failure? You can't control what your WAH does or doesn't do. YOU are a great woman, your H would be a fool to go through with this.

I know it feels final, but there is a lot of DB'ing to do. Don't lose focus now.

[lost18]

I have only read bits and pieces of your story and can relate to how you are feeling. I said something similar about feeling weak and was asked this question: If your best friend was the one telling this story would you think she was weak?? I'm sure you wouldn't! Quit beating yourself up over how you feel and where you think you "should" be emotionally! You are you, stop comparing yourself to anyone else, you are a work in progress like we all are, one day at time.

You might not want to reconcile if the D becomes final, but that is for you to decide if that happens. You can't worry about that now. Focus on you and your D7...that is what is important right now.

I should really take my own advice!

[labug]

Hope you're living in the future a lot. Today is all you have so keep your focus there.

Have a couple of goals for the day and work toward them. Start tomorrow the same way.

You judge yourself very harshly, why is that? Would you judge your D in the same way? Speak to, and of yourself as kindly as you would to and of her.

There are very few things in life we actually control. You can't control your H, it's unfair to fault yourself completely for something that has other actors.

You can take 100% responsibility for your 50%, no more, no less.

So what are your goals for today?

[KGirl]

Hope -
When I start to think about how other people on this site seem stronger/happier/more positive/etc., I now think to myself "keep in mind the population you're looking at!" It's going to be a little skewed because everyone on here is taking the time and effort to follow DB and take the onus, rather than blame everything on their partner and go nuts. I mean, think of what we COULD be doing instead - keying their car, filing as soon as they said they didn't want to be M anymore, blasting them on facebook, trying to make their lives miserable, etc. But we're not. When I talk with people at work or my IC about what I am doing and my internal thought process, they generally say that they are amazed I am handling this so well... even though it really doesn't FEEL like I'm handling it well. And, as I've been recently told on here, comparing yourself to others doesn't help - there will always be people in a better situation, and there will always be people in a worse situation. This is going to take time. It s*cks. Someday (or so I hear from my D'ed friends!) it will feel better. But it does s*ck right now. I hate it too. I hate that my H doesn't want to put in the effort when I feel that the things he's unhappy about could be resolved with some counseling or conversation. But he won't, and I can't make him.

What I was trying to articulate in a prev. post but labug did much better is this: "it's unfair to fault yourself completely for something that has other actors."

You can certainly tell yourself "Right now, I don't really feel like reconciling after D," knowing that that's how you feel at this point in time. It might change if you D. It might not. No if-then decisions need to be made right now. An interesting anecdote I read in a book the other day about a W whose H had an affair - she said that when she drops an M&M on a relatively clean floor, she has no problem picking it up and eating it right away. The 5 second rule applies. But if she were to drop a piece of broiled fish on that same floor, she wouldn't pick it up and eat it - something about that piece of fish has changed now and it's not the same. She felt like her H was that piece of fish after his PA. We don't know yet if our H's are M&M's or pieces of fish, I guess, is what I was going for here but there's really not much point in dwelling on it until if or when they actually would WANT to reconcile. Otherwise it's just all conjecture right now. That was hard for me, though. What I ended up doing instead of thinking about it all the time and swirling arond in my head was telling myself "OK, so what would you need from him if he were to come back? Make your list, then put it aside. You know where it is if you need it." Then I don't have to think about it anymore. It's kind of like how some people write a to-do list for the next day before going to bed, otherwise they have trouble sleeping because they keep thinking about what they need to do.

I've been pretty stuck in the "why not just end this right now? how would I ever be able to trust him again if he DID come around?" mindset lately. A book that helped me was "I love you, but I don't trust you." While I'm not in a place to implement it, just reading it gave me some things to think about re: trusting someone again after they've betrayed you and steps you and the other person can take to rebuild that trust and overcome the hurt. It also gave me some insight into what lead to all this in the first place.