Feeling lost getting over it and maybe not caring

[SoTorn]

The only way through is through.

[DejaVu6]

Turbine... life is not over! You do not know what it has in store for you down the road if you do the work on yourself. I'm the most non-violent person you will meet but right now I want to hit you over the head with a 2x4! I get it. Being rejected and abandoned by the person you loved most in this world is an awful, awful feeling... I lost both of my parents to cancer and it was horrible watching them slowly being taken away from me. I loved them both beyond measure. But that was NOTHING compared to this. Grief and loss combined with betrayal is the WORST!!! I wouldn't wish this feeling on my worst enemy.

But like it or not, the worst has happened and there is no way to change that. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% what you choose to do about it. A rather famous therapist once said that, no matter what, in any given situation you only ever have four choices. 1. You can change it. 2. You can change how you think about it. 3. You can accept it. 4. You can stay miserable. You know that number 1 is not applicable to this situation...at least you can't change it directly without your W wanting the same... so that one is out. This leaves you with the last three. 2 & 3, I think, can be done in combination which is what DBing and GAL is all about. The last one is still a choice...to stay miserable. Everything that you have posted lately tells me that you are choosing #4! Do you really think that little of yourself?? C'mon man!! No one can make you happy but you. Get busy. Hold your head up high. Forgive yourself for not being perfect and do the work!!! You can do it! You have the power! Save yourself. Chances are you are not going to die from this but if you keep going like this, you aren't going to live either... and for sure your W isn't going to look your way and second guess herself. And she especially won't if she feels like she is single-handedly responsible for your happiness. That is way too much pressure for anyone.

I don't mean to be harsh... I really don't. It just kills me to see you sabotaging yourself in this way. You have to find a way to move forward and create a new life for yourself. Once you do that, you may find that you don't even want your W anymore. Or...she may look your way and start to wonder if she made the right choice. But she won't do that if she looks over and sees you have given up on life. And neither will anyone else. So enough of the pity party. Get up, get moving, add more GAL activities than church and gym and do it wholeheartedly as if you life depends on it. Join a hiking group, learn a new skill, volunteer, meet new people...you don't have to date to do that. Just add some novelty to your life. My H has our kids tonight so I'm going to some sort of Epicure party (has something to do with food). Would a part of me rather stay home, curl up on my couch and think about my family spending time together without me. Yeah...kinda. But I know that will not serve me well in the long run so I am making myself go and I am going to meet some new people and have fun! So there!!! The best revenge is a good life and no one but me is responsible for that!!

Anyway...stepping off of my soapbox now and putting down the 2x4... (((Turbine))) I feel for you. I really do. This is, by far, the most painful process I have ever had to go through. I would love to just skip it altogether. But I can't and neither can you. We have no choice. It is happening and we have to get through it in some way. I, for one, am choosing to make all of this pain worth something. I want to look back a year or two from now and be proud of how I handled myself and even more proud of the person I have become. I have faith that will happen. I have faith that I will be a better, stronger, more confident person who values and pays attention to the people I love in a much more present kind of way. I have faith that there is a better life waiting for me which may or may not include my H or someone new or no one new. So I have to be grateful for this opportunity despite how it came to be. As they say... it is a gift we have been given... but only if we do the work. Do the work Turbine! (((HUGS)))

[Turbine]

I lost my Mom to cancer. Dad to heart failure complicated by his kidneys failing too. Yeah this is worse by far.

Just found out through the Insurance agent the W has a PO Box. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. More secrets and lies.

Yeah, I'm really ticked off. Sent my L a handwritten note by scan to pdf email. I'm done with this garbage. I want her out. Sell the house as is. At a loss. I just sent the mortgage for Jan. I have been paying since June of last year, car insurance, utilities, all of it. Her brother coughs up $350 a month and she gets it every other month. She pays the cell phone bill with it.

She can go choke on her foxtrotting cake. She denies OM. Go. She lied about needing her car key. "Lost it" on a trip to Fl last May. I won't do anything to her stuff. That's pointless. Can't get at what I need to because of her stuff either.

Better?

[Adam04]

I lost my Mom to cancer. Dad to heart failure complicated by his kidneys failing too. Yeah this is worse by far.

Just found out through the Insurance agent the W has a PO Box. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. More secrets and lies.

Yeah, I'm really ticked off. Sent my L a handwritten note by scan to pdf email. I'm done with this garbage. I want her out. Sell the house as is. At a loss. I just sent the mortgage for Jan. I have been paying since June of last year, car insurance, utilities, all of it. Her brother coughs up $350 a month and she gets it every other month. She pays the cell phone bill with it.

She can go choke on her foxtrotting cake. She denies OM. Go. She lied about needing her car key. "Lost it" on a trip to Fl last May. I won't do anything to her stuff. That's pointless. Can't get at what I need to because of her stuff either.

Better?

First, sorry to hear about your mom and dad.

As for better....

IMO, no... you're all over the place, which is understandable but you're swinging from one extreme to the other. You may need some time to cool off and get level headed. It's very hard... I remember my first night after BD, I considered something awful for myself. I was in such a low place. I get the feeling, many of us do, but we are also telling you it gets better if you choose it. I told my W after BD, before I found this place, I would NEVER ALLOW someone to have that kind of power over me ever again. I felt so weak and helpless, I was ashamed at what I had become.

(be prepared for more secrets and lies; expect the worst, but hope for the best. You know when I read that, I picture the worst thing my W could throw at me and I hope that I'll show her the best side of me, unfazed... not that I'm thinking and ruminating about bad things, and then praying that they don't happen to me)

As said just recently:

But like it or not, the worst has happened and there is no way to change that. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% what you choose to do about it.

Turbine, I too really feel for you. I can feel the waves crashing into you and swallowing you whole. I'm sorry you have to go through this... as for if this is the worst of it, there will be other scenarios that will play out. I've read somewhere that this is only the beginning. However, it can be the worst of it if you make it. I hope you catch that. It's what you choose for right now.

I read somewhere, think its a quote or book title, "Holding on is believing in the past, letting go is believing in the future."

I think in your case, because of something you mentioned earlier, which isn't working, as DV6 mentioned, you need to do something -other than- church and spending time with your children to GAL. Church, Children, and gym should be part of your daily life anyways. GO OUT and EXPERIENCE LIFE. It will help you. Believe in God and believe in the process.

I know you don't want to dwell in the pain and you surely don't want to fester in anger. Let those emotions flow through you and turn into positive energy. You have the choice and power to do that... I think your name is fitting for this, you take that negative energy MR TURBINE and you convert it into positive energy. I know you can do it, if you focus and want to do it. You're too focused on wanting your W back... it almost sounds possessive where the hurt is coming from a very selfish place and then to hear that turn to anger so quickly, it's almost frightening. Seriously, I'm a guy reading your posts and I've been worried about you several times. I say this in hopes that you look down and stare into the deep end and turn around, that you'd snap out of it. I wish it would click for you soon so you can find peace of mind.

I also get it about losing someone special, when one spouse loses the other, the surviving spouse loses the will to thrive and survive. I've seen this in death, not divorce.

There is hope for -you-.

[Cadet]

I lost my Mom to cancer. Dad to heart failure complicated by his kidneys failing too. Yeah this is worse by far.

Yeah I lost my mom last year and my father in 2014, and I agree that losing my wife started out much worse than anything else I have ever experienced in life and I have been through a lot.

Some of this is all because of our age and
a natural progression of life.

It can get better and it will once YOU decide to let it get better.
Be open about it and let GO of the expectations.

Life will work out for the best but it is a lot of work by YOU.
It may not be what you are expecting right now but a whole new world of possibilities that YOU get to choose.

I know this is not what you want to hear right now and things often get worse before they get better.

But I am confidant that you will get to choose in the end.

[Turbine]

Thanks for all the 2x4s everyone.

I read somewhere that start your day off with a positive thought even if you are not in that mindset. It can't be more obvious that I am no where near a PMA.

You are right about some of this being tied to age. Loosing parents... not as much a surprise. BD though... one meeting with her and the lawyers. Any progress I made, or thought I made... wiped out in seconds.
This morning again.

I am not real happy with myself either. Be strong, supportive, stoic. So much for those. Can't imagine she sees me as anything other than weak ,needy and pathetic. Scratch that, not happy is a major understatement, more like loathe and even hate myself.

GAL... should be more than church, the gym and my kids. Absolutely. I also have a house that is packed to the rafters. Paperwork that I need to gather and get to my L so she can share with wife's L. A W who wants out and her stack of stuff seems to be breeding. Can't even get to stuff I need to sort out. So much fun.

Kicker is that we can and have worked together like we used to, like we should have and even still could. Can't push that though.

There is a lot I don't want to hear. Absolutes from her, especially negatives. She can just destroy me so easily. Payback for past slights real or not? Mind reading and not useful. I know I did mess up like Super Bowl level mess up. Right now there doesn't seem to be a second season. No trip to Disney.

On a lighter note. Youngest granddaughter is seven months today. W still hasn't informed oldest D about when she might see the baby. That is so on her. That first year goes by and soon they are graduating. I have pictures with her at about three and a half months. Can't replace or get a do over for that. So yeah I am glad I went. Long boring drive with scratched CD book. Tattoo and trip to Canada for church service. Memories that are just mine. *sad* But that is the past and set immutably so.

Am I doing better now compared to the past 36 hours or so? Yes. But I am having to sweep the rubble away and start over.

Thanks again everyone. Lots of reads and not many replies gets me to thinking I am out on point and back up isn't close. Not true but in the dark help could be at your elbow and you never know it.

[Turbine]

Feeling so stuck in place. Dredging up all the old chains to the past. Like a ghost from Dickens...

My DB skills are trashed. How can I get to the place where this doesn't get to me? I woke up at 1 AM and sat in the living room in the dark. W got home at who knows. I was awake until 3. Trying to sort this out. Trying to talk to God. No where what might be considered a prayer... or maybe it was...

I have just shy of 120 hours of vacation time on the books. I don't care... because (all together now) I want to take the time with my wife. My kids are wanting to spend the time with me. Which is great and very considerate. Except...

Maybe not having had many girl friends hasn't exactly developed these skills. Now I am paying for it.

W complaining about money and saying she could have gone with someone with more $$$ hurts still. There are other in her list of short comings. Makes me wonder why I am where I am. Why I am trying so hard.

Time in the gym... will help the body... the mind and my "heart".... have to see.

[SteveLW]

Are you in IC?

[Turbine]

Not other than my DB coach.

[SteveLW]

I'd get into IC. Understandably, just like me after BD, your self-esteem is in the toilet. Get some help to work through all of that.

My other advice is to not settle for an IC that isn't getting it done for you. Give them 2-3 visits tops. Do not be afraid to shop for a good IC.