Still working through it all

[joeramabeme]

Hi All - Have been wanting to post for awhile now and unable to without the inner critic judging and stopping me.  So I may   a little bit here as I just need to get out of my head.

I am 3 months divorced, 9 months since she left our house after an 11 year marriage, with no children. In Massachusetts, there is a 90 day waiting period before the divorce is considered final; the 90th day was last week.  I hadn't been consciously focused on it but my subconscious was probably aware as last week, I thought perhaps, I would attempt a phone call with her and see if she had any second thoughts.  In Mass. you can go into the courthouse up through the 90th day and say - cancel divorce.  Before calling her to ask, I decided to do the math and see how many days we had to act - in case she said yes - that very day I was going to call was day #91.     I suppose she would have said no anyway.

I went on vacation 2 weeks ago.  Thought it would be good to get away - and it was, but I got emotionally sideswiped - really hard.  Wasn't sure what to do at times and felt deeply sad, anxious, confused and directionless.  She and I had a life dream of having children, it never happened - I kept seeing all these families with children - I felt like an outcast - leprosy - how can a goal that is so easy for so many feel so unattainable for me.  Both of us were 40 years old when we married each other - our first marriages.  I thought we - who talked about our leprosy - were finally going to turn the corner and do what seemed impossible for us up to that point in time.  Family-Home-Average American Life; UGGH!

And I am still mourning and so deeply sad that I still cry about us.  Everyone tells me "let it go" and "move on".  I want to, I think I have been, I am still doing so - what else do I need to do?  I am not sure if I am being a baby - I don't think so - I worked for 20 years at therapy and recovery before I met her - made a lot of progress during those years - she seemed a reasonably healthy person, more so than me in many ways except there was something "not quite right".  Another 10 years. . . gone by.

Other parts of my life are really good.  Job/finance, best ever.  Internal awareness, best ever.  At long last, unshackled from deep childhood trauma - thanks to her persistence that I go to counseling.

So where is she?  She pushed me forward by light years.  I fought for me and us - for our dreams.  I worked my a$$ off to become the man that she wanted and I did a darn good job.  She left me being scared to death of me.  The therapy, recovery, reading, self-reflection . . . where am I now?  My answer is the same place I was 30 years ago with different circumstances and a lot more grey hair: unmarried, outside looking in, wanting a family, being alone.

No one ever promised me a rose garden but then again they didn't promise me a bucket of sh1t either, but that seemed to come through just fine.  I find myself questioning the value of everything.  Yes it could be worst - much worst - but I keep asking; so what?  What does it matter?  Your born, you die and your life is what goes on in between those 2 events.  Is all this self-help really worth it?  Does it lead to anything more than just making the time between life and death a little easier?  I really have come light years from my FOO - I am a virtual yoda relative to their maturity - but so what! 

I have really been asking at a deep level; does any of this even matter?  Why bother?

So what have you all found out about this?

[arjay]

I find myself questioning the value of everything. 

So what have you all found out about this?

Greetings.   I call this place the "now what?" place.  It is the place after the counselling, the understanding, the clarity, the healing, the moving-on.  "Now what am I supposed to do?"  Life can seem bland, devoid of "bright colors", intensity, excitement, etc.

It is life without the drama and can seem almost boring at first.   I found many of the things that once drove me, no longer had much meaning.  There was a depression aspect to it, but there was also this realization that the intensity of the relationship took so much energy, that when I finally came out the other side, I honestly didn't know what to do.

Exploring again was very helpful for me.  I got involved in new things; found new passions; used all that previous emotional energy to explore life again.  Yes I have found the passion for life again. 

Peace

[HurtinNW]

Hi All - Have been wanting to post for awhile now and unable to without the inner critic judging and stopping me.  So I may   a little bit here as I just need to get out of my head.

I am 3 months divorced, 9 months since she left our house after an 11 year marriage, with no children. In Massachusetts, there is a 90 day waiting period before the divorce is considered final; the 90th day was last week.  I hadn't been consciously focused on it but my subconscious was probably aware as last week, I thought perhaps, I would attempt a phone call with her and see if she had any second thoughts.  In Mass. you can go into the courthouse up through the 90th day and say - cancel divorce.  Before calling her to ask, I decided to do the math and see how many days we had to act - in case she said yes - that very day I was going to call was day #91.     I suppose she would have said no anyway.

I went on vacation 2 weeks ago.  Thought it would be good to get away - and it was, but I got emotionally sideswiped - really hard.  Wasn't sure what to do at times and felt deeply sad, anxious, confused and directionless.  She and I had a life dream of having children, it never happened - I kept seeing all these families with children - I felt like an outcast - leprosy - how can a goal that is so easy for so many feel so unattainable for me.  Both of us were 40 years old when we married each other - our first marriages.  I thought we - who talked about our leprosy - were finally going to turn the corner and do what seemed impossible for us up to that point in time.  Family-Home-Average American Life; UGGH!

And I am still mourning and so deeply sad that I still cry about us.  Everyone tells me "let it go" and "move on".  I want to, I think I have been, I am still doing so - what else do I need to do?  I am not sure if I am being a baby - I don't think so - I worked for 20 years at therapy and recovery before I met her - made a lot of progress during those years - she seemed a reasonably healthy person, more so than me in many ways except there was something "not quite right".  Another 10 years. . . gone by.

Other parts of my life are really good.  Job/finance, best ever.  Internal awareness, best ever.  At long last, unshackled from deep childhood trauma - thanks to her persistence that I go to counseling.

So where is she?  She pushed me forward by light years.  I fought for me and us - for our dreams.  I worked my a$$ off to become the man that she wanted and I did a darn good job.  She left me being scared to death of me.  The therapy, recovery, reading, self-reflection . . . where am I now?  My answer is the same place I was 30 years ago with different circumstances and a lot more grey hair: unmarried, outside looking in, wanting a family, being alone.

No one ever promised me a rose garden but then again they didn't promise me a bucket of sh1t either, but that seemed to come through just fine.  I find myself questioning the value of everything.  Yes it could be worst - much worst - but I keep asking; so what?  What does it matter?  Your born, you die and your life is what goes on in between those 2 events.  Is all this self-help really worth it?  Does it lead to anything more than just making the time between life and death a little easier?  I really have come light years from my FOO - I am a virtual yoda relative to their maturity - but so what! 

I have really been asking at a deep level; does any of this even matter?  Why bother?

So what have you all found out about this?

What do you want for the future? It's never too late to have a family. You may not be able to have biological kids, but there are other ways to find family, like marrying a woman with kids, or fostering, or adopting. Or just making a sense of family with a loving partner and a circle of good friends.

I've gotten the good advice here to imagine what will fulfill me, make me happy, and try to take steps in that direction. It's hard. I'm 48 and I struggle with the worry I will always be alone, not get the emotional connection and intimacy I long for, and like you, a sense of family. 

Would it feel worth bothering to you if you felt confident you could find what you are looking for?

[valet]

Hey joe, I think arjay makes a really good point.

Greetings.   I call this place the "now what?" place.  It is the place after the counselling, the understanding, the clarity, the healing, the moving-on.  "Now what am I supposed to do?"  Life can seem bland, devoid of "bright colors", intensity, excitement, etc.

I've been here before... .and I'm kind of here now. It sucks, that feeling where you're just like 'i don't feel excited about anything like i used to.'

But really, the antidote is kind of packed in that mentality. It's self-defeating. Go out and do stuff, see your friends, make mistakes. Do whatever it takes.

I find that when I'm feeling empty like that it only takes a few small steps to get back to 'normal'. Granted, it seems impossible at the time, but not everything is always going to be easy.

Going through this is exhausting and it's really hard to sustain that kind of attention to detail about ourselves. At a certain point, however, we don't have to be so conscious about it. Test yourself; see how much you've learned.

Do something fun!

[joeramabeme]

Thanks Arjay, Hurtin and Valet;

Yes, I suppose there is a certain adrenaline come-down from the whole experience.  Having taken some time away from posting every day, or at least every week, has given me a little room to stop hyper-focusing on BPD traits and symptoms.  While that focus has been incredibly helpful in releasing me from one part of the conundrum, it also kept me a little over-focused and glossing over the bigger picture. 

With a more detached perspective, the issue I am acutely feeling is that I had spent many years in recovery, self-help, meditation, yoga etc. to build a healthy enough self to have my own family.  As weird as this may sound to some on our board; my ex took all the pre-built parts and broken pieces of who I was and helped me to assemble them in a way that showed me how to be the man that I was capable of being; fully alive and believing in my self as someone who is totally capable of fulfilling my goals.  My life radically changed for the better - even with the BPD traits.  After her work was completed, instead of walking through the door of success with me, she left.  It is like she fixed me in a way that I could not and other professionals could not.  She knew what I needed and had the know-how to impart it to me.  I was always under the impression that she was not just fixing me but rather, fixing me for us.  This was not the case, or, perhaps was the case but she got scared of, or did not like, the fixed-person I became.  Or . . . I don't know . . . it all gets very confusing for me at this point.  She told me she was never happy and that I was dishonest, untrustworthy and have no integrity.  There is no way for me to really know what she was thinking other than she could not trust me.

The best analogy to summarize all this that I can think of is; you spend your whole life preparing for and undertaking a series of difficult challenges that lead to finding a key that fits into the door of your dreams, after 30 years and passing those challenges, you find the key, and when you open the door, the room is empty.  What a massive let down.  I haven't a clue how to move from standing at the doorway - mouth ajar and heart on the floor.

I am doing what is healthy and right for me at the moment, but see no purpose to all I have done to this point in my life.  It all feels so delusional now.  And like many others here, my ex, who I thought shared in my understanding of the dream and the effort required, has left and seemingly has no interest in talking with me, knowing me or even remembering me.  It all just feels like a cruel hoax and has shifted my proverbial house off its foundation of beliefs.  God, life, marriage and family - Not what I thought of it all before this.

So, yes, that is pretty intense and I am walking around like a yoke-less egg.  Moreover, I feel estranged from my own sense of understanding that she has BPD; when I am the one who believes they benefited so much from our marriage and am still feeling so lost now.

I do appreciate the thoughtful replies and suppose that I am back to a place where I can envision having lessons and experiences to share with others; which is what I intend to do.

Thanks all for listening, responding and helping make this board a place where some of the deepest hurts can be expressed in a safe and affirming environment. 

JRB

[Grey Kitty]

I'm a year and a half separated from a ~25 year marriage, over a year since my wife gave up on reconciliation, and so did I. (She had some second thoughts after that, but I wasn't interested in her half-way measures), and a few months into sorting out the nitty gritty details of division of assets. (We've been at least civil the whole time of the split)

I think the process of getting over this kind of loss has a lot of layers, and you will be surprised by some of them when you find them.

If it takes you a bit longer to find your direction going forward at this point, that doesn't seem like a surprise... .I'm not doing all that well at finding new directions myself, especially at that point where I feel like I've made it through a long corridor, opened the door at the end and see wide open space and many possible directions to choose from.

[joeramabeme]

I'm a year and a half separated from a ~25 year marriage, over a year since my wife gave up on reconciliation, and so did I. (She had some second thoughts after that, but I wasn't interested in her half-way measures), and a few months into sorting out the nitty gritty details of division of assets. (We've been at least civil the whole time of the split)

I think the process of getting over this kind of loss has a lot of layers, and you will be surprised by some of them when you find them.

If it takes you a bit longer to find your direction going forward at this point, that doesn't seem like a surprise... .I'm not doing all that well at finding new directions myself, especially at that point where I feel like I've made it through a long corridor, opened the door at the end and see wide open space and many possible directions to choose from.

Hey GK, I don't think I have ever heard any f the details of your story.  25 years is a very long time and I can hardly fathom that a "new direction" is a large task when you have been going the same way for so long. 

Thanks for telling me about that, it is good to know some of the details of our Senior members stories.