Re: So it was finalized (what now?) harmonix321: [quote author=dumpling link=topic=23030.msg213826#msg213826 date=1135354809">
harmonix,
the thought of never again hearing from my husband kills me, too. but contact does me more harm than good. maybe as you begin to heal you will be able to have positive contact with her. i wish you the best.
d
[/quote">
Hmm... good idea... keep any contact on a positive level, IF it happens. I think that will be my New Year's Resolution... that and finding a girlfriend.
Re: So it was finalized (what now?) harmonix321: Then again... I've tried that before. And I failed spectactularly. I think I am recognizing a pattern.
Re: So it was finalized (what now?) flowersdirtandgardengirl: Harm,
I know this inner dialogue so friggin well. When my ex left I couldn't fathom:
1) Why he left
2) That he HAD left and how
3) Ever not loving him with every cell in my body
4) Sleeping
5) Eating
6) Laughing
7) Not talking to him daily, nonetheless ever again
For me, this loss of love in my life was only compounded by the fact that he was my greatest friend, that not only had I lost my heart but I had lost all the joy that he brought into it. We shared a huge network of mutual friends. We had a rich and full life. I had signed on without ever questioning or looking back. He had not. So, when the end came and after the visceral shock of it had passed (many months in the making) the thing I found myself returning to time and time again was "how could he have thrown away our friendship"? As shocking as it was to face that he no longer loved me, it was twice worse to face that he loved me so little as to relinguish everything we once had as friends. So I did the following:
1) Implemented no contact with him in hopes that it would make him realize his mistake and come running back to me. It did not.
2) Dug up lots of dirt that I rationalized at the time was "helping me process and come to terms". It did not. All it did was engender more pain and anxiety and weight loss and insomnia.
3) Asked everyone who had ever been in a similar situation what the statistical probability was that he would redeem himself in a reasonable enough period of time so that I could take him back without looking like too much a of cad.
4) Waited for phone calls that never came, letters that never arrived, his face at my door that never materialized, a level of regret or remorse or sorrow or an apology that never occured.
In a different thread you maintained that we have little (at best) control over our emotions, that the most we can hope to control is the outcome of our actions. I agree with this entirely, having only recently weathered the inclemency this emotional firestorm. The choice I made was to keep my emotions to myself, to shore them up into my own private life and to fight tooth and nail from revealing anymore to him than I already had about the level of pain and anguish this had rendered in me. I felt exactly like you do right now. I could not imagine not having him in my life, not having his friendship at the very least. In the very beginning it would have taken so little from him to keep me in love, to have kept me on his side, always in the periphery of my life.
But, I think you might find as time goes on that new feelings come to light, new levels of emotion and anger breach the surface with a force you could never have imagined. If I have any advice right now it is to record what you are feeling in this moment because there will come a time when you will have a rage and a fury like no other. And if you really do wish to preserve this friendship with this person in some far-away time in your life, you will need to remember the good times. Because soon will you likely be incensed and the actions of this person will leave you winded and incredulous. There will likely come a time when the weight of this pain and its process will far out-mass even the best of times with her and you will find yourself wondering how you ever could have loved some one so much who ended up proving to be so little. So, write it all down now, while it's still fresh and intact. Then, in the near-away, far-away future you can decide which one prevails.
Just my two cents.
~gg
