I am seeing progress but still things don’t feel right (7th time posting)

[NotHereButHere]

Hello everyone,

I’m posting here again because I am seeing progress in my life around me. I’ve been doing things that I would never have been able to do while in the relationship like scheduling a dentist appointment to fix a broken tooth I’ve had for a few years, spending more time with my kids and they seem to be very happy without her, and taking care of legal issues she was always stopping me from working on. There is actual progress in my life, probably more than I ever made while we were together, but things still don’t seem quite right.

I think I’m adjusting to living outside of the fantasy space we had together. She was very focused on the way things looked, taking good pictures, making sure the house looked clean, and she was very pretty so it was all flashy from the outside looking in. But it is easy to forget or block out how bad things were when she was not putting on a performance.

I do see progress so I’m not completely down and hopeless or anything. I’m just not used to the ability to get bored anymore. Things have settled and I’m not used to things ever settling. I guess it will just take more time and I just need to keep up what I’m doing and the little changes over time will start to have an impact, right now it’s still just all work without the payoff but it will be worth it someday.

Just venting again, this community has helped me a lot over the years.

[hotchip]

I think I’m adjusting to living outside of the fantasy space we had together

One thing that has helped me is the chant or affirmation that reality is more beautiful than memory or fiction. Exiting the fantasy relationship is hard though. Intermittent reinforcement and the high of cyclical crisis/resolution does something to your body. I have felt very detached and flat at times. I hope things get better for you and by the sounds of it/ the progress you are making, they will.

[Pook075]

What you're going through is so common here- everything feels like it's almost perfect, yet there's something missing.  And that's the small voice in the back of our brains reminding us of the good times, which might have been 10-20% of the entire relationship. 

All I'd say is, try to remember the other 80-90% as well.  The good times were good, but the bad times were equally bad and that took up most of the relationship.  It never balanced.