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After things had settled down from d-day, I missed both my wife and the marriage and my memories and hopes and all that. Over a long time I got to the point where I only missed the very early parts of the marriage, but not my wife. Then when I found out she was remarrying, I stopped missing any of it.

Recently I miss her, though. Maybe it's just because the drama is over and she's cooperating with the divorce and with our kid, but I miss having someone who I'm close enough to curl up with and forget about the rest of the world for a while. (My daughter likes to curl up and watch movies, and I'm really thankful I have her, but that's not exactly what I mean. )

I don't have any feelings of wanting my wife back. That's never going to happen. It would never feel the same and I could never trust her.

But I am starting to miss her again.

I miss having someone who I'm close enough to curl up with and forget about the rest of the world for a while.

Wow, way to strike a nerve with me.. I miss those things too

But then I remember what a POS he is and how he treated me. And I know it's the idea of it all that I miss, not him. I really loved married and family life, and I do miss it. But I'm trying to train my brain into thinking that I'm not missing what I had, I'm looking forward to having it again

Right there with you.

I've been having a similar relapse of emotions this last week, completely out of the blue.

Your lucky to have your daughter for company, make the most of her.

At least your divorce is progressing with cooperation. Mine was a struggle and still finances to battle through.

Take it easy, your on a low now but you'll be riding high on a wave again soon enough.

It happens when they are your last point of reference, moreso given we were with them for so long.

I used to miss waking up with a lump in my back. I don't mean that in a raunchy way, it just always made me smile - even when I didn't like him. Hell, even when I loathed him.

In the more recent past I did happen to wake up with a lump in my back. I smiled a fuzzy morning smile for a moment then had to get up and have a hard sob in the bathroom. He wasn't my first lover since DD so it wasn't that - I was caught by the moment and the memory. I was sad then angry at being sad.

I understand friend, I really do. We don't miss them - we miss those moments. Moments we will have again just not with them. We can never have those moments with them again - it would never be the same.

(((PIC)))

I understand this too. It comes in waves with me, I'll be doing pretty well and then a wave of lonely will wash up on the beach and knock me on my butt.

It isn't HIM I miss, it is the "idea" of him. Missing that closeness, that comfort, that "belonging". And I'm looking forward to having that again some day (some day soon-ish, please? )...with someone better!

I think that, at least for me, being 2.5 years out from S, those inevitable emotions of "being alone" surface. I have learned to just let them be and don't force them away, they will leave on their own.

It is perfectly natural to miss sharing your life with someone. I'm guessing you really don't miss her, per se, but more the thought of her. Who you thought she was, who you hoped she would be. We miss the security of the dreams....not really this person that wasn't who we thought.

It is a cycle. The further out you are, the more you recognize the cycle. My IC told me to "cocoon" during those times, treat myself, take care of myself, surround with close friends...and before you know it, the feelings are gone.

Hang in there!!

Its only natural to feel lonely after being with someone for many years. I swear my XWW has out a curse on my love life. Since the D I cant seem to find a long term GF. I get all these half assed short term relationships. A lot has to do with me as I set the bar very high. But there are many times I just want someone to be here with me. My NB aside from relationships is going pretty good. I'm happy with myself for the first time in years. Doing things I enjoy and like. But I would love to have someone to share it with. I'm tired of these 1,2,3 night stands I've been getting myself into. I had an old GF spend the weekend with me a few weeks ago. It felt so nice to wake up with someone. Even something as mundane as watching a movie felt good as she laid on my lap. But like the rest she poofed soon after. And its not like I'm pushing things, I don't. I keep attracting these emotionally unavailable women. And for me its not a sex thing. That I seem to be able to get. Its the intimacy that a relationship brings that I miss greatly. So I do know how you feel. My only advice is to hang in there. Something will come along when the time is right.

For the longest time I thought I missed my xWH. And it would come in waves, where I would vacillate between anger & missing him. And then I would post whiney sad sacky threads on SI bemoaning my fate.

But slowly I started to realize that I was being sloppy in how I identified my feelings. It''s a little like how I mistook codependency for love. I was mistaking loneliness for missing him. I was mistaking frustration for other things in my life as missing him. Basically any mild negative, self punitive feeling I was having I was misinterpreting. Now that''s been a big part of my NB, identifying how I really feel, historically I have been poor at that. And it carried over into this bundle of feelings that I was identifying as missing but in reality was everything from loneliness, to fear, to boredom, to anxiety etc.

One day it dawned on me, I didn''t miss xWH when I was around people I liked. When I was with girlfriends, I didn''t miss him. When I found myself chatting to a guy with potential, I didn''t miss him, when work was interesting, I didn''t miss him. Basically I realized that I had gotten over xWH long before I let myself acknowledge it. I kept myself stuck in negative feelings for far far too long misidentifying what was going on. It wasn''t until I truly said, isn''t it glorious I get to do what I want when I want without havingtoanswer to anyone that I saw how far I''d come. And realized I was free from the abuse that almost ruined my life.

I''d encourage you to constantly challenge yourself by asking, now what am I really feeling here & why. Most of us survived the collapse of our marriage by doing a certain amount of internal rugsweeping & rationalization to avoid going mentally bats (nothing wrong with that, it''s evolutionarily appropriate & key to survival) but once you''re D, it can pay to be a little more honest with yourself about what those feelings really are. And I do suspect - bc you strike me as a contemplative, analytical type - that you''ll find your feelings are much more nuanced that you are giving yourself credit for. And better identification of feelings produces better routes to dealing with them.

[This message edited by cayc at 5:27 AM, June 20th, 2013 (Thursday)]