Following Suggestions

[mtbooke]

I intend to learn from others who have what I want.

I read Recovering From a Relationship Breakup

Summary:

Detach I have ended all communications. I am participating in Al-Anon, I am reaching out to others, I pray for the obsession to be removed. I visualize and vocalize releasing my attachments to BPD women and being released from their attachments to me.

grieve I allow myself to cry, to hurt, to feel whatever I need to feel to heal. I am willing to go through the stages of grief.

post mortem, It is important to me that as I examine the past that I focus on my part.

process abandonment anxiety, WOW I have been clean and sober for many years, but I am romanticizing being high on whatever in order to get out of this anxiety and pain.

betrayal trauma.  CORE ISSUE! Betrayal and abandonment are incapacitating to me. So why have I have so often chosen to attempt relationships with women who can not bond emotionally and stably?

divorce recovery After 28 years of marriage where I did not trust my wife completely I told her that I had reached a place of complete trust in her because she had always been there for me. Two weeks later she left me for a woman without even saying goodbye. After 4 days she came back and said she had made a huge mistake and ask for forgiveness. We did therapy. I told her that the abandonment and betrayal had almost killed me and that I could not immediate return to complete trust. She made amends every day of two years. On an anniversary morning I asked her if she wanted to do anything special and she replied "Yes, file for divorce."

(to be continued)

[Mutt]

It sounds like your ready to dig in and do the work. My advice is to stay away from booze and drugs.

You had a long history with your ex with broken trust and abandonment issues. She was invalidating with her words to file for divorce out of the blue.

Are you seeing a T aside from AL-Anon? What's your support network like with family and friends?