Boy, this is mentally exhausting. I have never been into drama. My life has been very drama free, but now I am wallowing in drama. I know that my kids need me to fight for our family and my marriage. I ask God for the strength to keep fighting every day.
UC - that's the best post from you I've read so far. Good on you for standing up for yourself in MC. Good on you for moving out on your own terms. I am really happy for you. The new place is a fresh start and it will do wonders for your mental health. Keep at it! You deserve much more and keep working on your personal growth and the world is fully open to you. I really enjoy reading posts when the LBS gets their b@lls back - all genders included in this. But it's especially awesome to see when the LBS is a man because overcoming NGS is a bi$ch, but once you do, there ain't no going back. Well done!
I really appreciate the supportive posts the last couple days from everybody. I do feel more positive about things even in the midst of this emotional chaos.
I'm spending a lot more effort thinking about what I'm going to do in my free time then worrying about my sitch. Went to the store to pick up some materials for an old hobby of mine I'm restarting. I'm excited.
In parallel I won't lie I do think about what to do next in my sitch. I have this incredibly strong urge to keep speaking my mind. I'm still trying to sort out where this is coming from, and make sure it is not holding onto the rope.
Here is my thought process, and maybe you all can tell me what you think:
It seems incredibly unproductive to drift along in a trial separation. If the goal of a separation is to decide whether to divorce or attempt R, then I would be acting incredibly stubborn if I did not spell out what I would like to see in a R. I think I would also be acting incredibly stubborn if I did not address at least some of the past events and my versions of them.
Is asserting my needs and my truth just a version of hanging onto the rope? Or is it part of redefining who I am, that I will not be a silent, passive person, whether or not my W decides to D or R?
I'm feeling strongly like it is me standing up for myself. And note I don't really care about the timing or whether my W has had enough time or space yet. Just last week she was about to force a legal court battle to occur over letting the kids stay at my house. I don't care so much about her needs right now. Perhaps there is some underlying anger driving me to be reactive here? I don't know... honestly I'm just kind of pondering this stuff in the background while I go about my day to day. I'm so relieved emotionally after the escalation of the last several weeks to just be able to have semi-normal days.
In the meantime, joining a Meetup group for an activity tomorrow night.
Sound like you reached the stage that I did. The zero f*cks given stage lol. Good for you. Worry about you and your happiness. Be a good father and enjoy life. There are plenty of women who would fight to stay in your life. My new GF belives that actions are whats important. She shows me im important to her and constantly shows me that she wants to be in my life. Its a truly amazing feeling having someone go all in on gaining your trust and respect. My exww can kiss my @$$ with her blaming. Lol
M:16 T:21 H(me) 38 WW: 38 S11 D16 D19 Red Flags of A: March 2018 ILYBNILWY: August 4, 2018 Moved out of MBR: September 24, 2018 BD/Confirmation of A: October 31, 2018 D Filed: March 27, 2019
Funny Uni. I just had one of those moments last night and this morning with W about blame shaming, gas lighting, never being satisfied, justifying her actions, accepting no responsibility and blaming me for not meeting her needs and demands, not kowtowing to her hissy fits, and calmly but deliberately just blew it all up last night and detonated everything, hit the eject button, blew the bridge and said F@$! It! We are divorcing and I am somewhat relieved.
Never better LH19 never better ;-) Done worrying about the sich, and moving forward. Ready to get this on and get this done. Very relieved. Dont care anymore if I lose her. It's not what I wanted but it's better than being a mental Basket Case for 12 months. Onward and upward towards my new life and my focus on me now and my son
The last few days I feel this intense urge to sprint as fast as possible away from my W. The intensity of this feeling scares me. Grass is greener?
Maybe the vets can help me understand.
I went through such an intense period of soul-searching during the 3 months of limbo that I feel like a changed person. I started off feeling broken, abusive, damaged goods, at fault for everything, desperate to save it all. Now that we are separated, I have tempered the soul-searching quite a bit. I am no longer desperately scrambling. I have grown so much personally, and I understand my issues at such a deeper level than ever before. I am much more in touch with my emotions, and in doing so, I know myself better, and I am able to stand my ground and set boundaries with confidence. I still have a lot of work to do, no doubt. But where I used to feel so unsure, I now feel confident and much more centered.
It all boils down to being in touch with my emotions and not suppressing them. Suppressing emotions allows other people to control and manipulate and walk all over you. Suppressing emotions is what NG's do. I used to struggle to be assertive because I never understood when it was appropriate. I had such self-doubt. When you are in touch with your emotions, that gives you the confidence to be assertive (in a respectful way). It is the biggest lesson I have learned. And it took experiencing daily panic attacks where I thought I was going to have a heart-attack for 3 weeks in April to realize "I will not die if I just sit with this for awhile, I don't need to resolve this emotion right now." Again... I had to go through hell just to get where I am at today, a still fragile but much more healthy person.
I look back at everything that happened with my W. I contributed so much to the failure with my issues and my inability to address them in a healthy way. But my W also contributed. And I'm not sure she can change in a meaningful way. The 3 months of limbo were the culmination of 2-3 years of gradual deterioration, all of which she blames on me. The last year plus I have felt zero emotional support from her. It took the nightmarish hell of 3 months of limbo for me to change. What will be the impetus for her to change? I am so doubtful.
It feels like I've hit a fork in the road. I'm impatient sitting here waiting at the fork.
What I didn't really say explicitly in the post is: I've felt pretty emotionally lonely for the last 2-3 years, and in particular the last year. Now I'm living on my own, a lot of time by myself with no kids. Time alone is great, I'm doing social stuff, hobbies, exercise, etc. But suddenly having this time and space reinforces how awful I felt beforehand.
The scary part of the intensity is I recognize behind all the new-found strength there is fragility - it would be really easy at this time to fall into (or seek) an emotional connection with someone else, when what I really need is to focus 100% on myself and my kids. It would be really easy to think "life is too short" and start moving on a little too quickly, if that makes sense.
