Yesterday was the second anniversary of my Dday.
Life these days, although I have my ups and downs, is good. In fact, the last few months have been great. I have been present for my kids in a way I could not be before now. I feel happiness and a lightness I haven't felt in years, if ever. I actually sing in the kitchen again, something I hadn't had the energy to do in a very long time. I considered posting this in the Reconciliation forum, because I am in R; but decided against it. I decided to post here because the hope I have for my future and the happiness I feel today has a lot less to do with the fact that I am reconciling and a lot more to do with the hard, hard work I have put in over the last two years.
I could have done this work if we divorced, although truthfully I'm not sure I would have had the same incentive to do so. It would have been very easy to pick up, dust off, and leave that loser in the mess he created. But then I never would have figured out why I married a loser like that in the first place, which I needed to do.
So, for all of you feeling hopeless today, I just wanted to give you some hope for finding a place of peace and happiness. Maybe not every day, but enough. For me, the formula was IC, lots and lots of IC, endless reading, and a conscious shift from focusing on all of the ways and whys my WH was so messed up, to focusing on myself and why I put up with it for so long. Why I didn't believe I deserved better, why I accepted so little. I looked at what I brought to the table, not just in my marriage, but in my life. I looked at my relationships with friends and family, and thought hard about the limitations I put on those relationships through my own behavior. I decided I wanted better and more intimate relationships, and I set about learning how to do that. I learned to truly accept the limitations of others and stop wishing they were something more than they could be. All of this was hard, and painful, and at times frustrating. Yet, as I stand here today, every single bit of it was absolutely worth it. I gave myself and my children a gift of a better and happier future.
I do not know whether I will divorce my WH. He is also working hard on himself and our marriage, and that keeps me here for now. It may not ultimately be enough; but I won't regret a moment I spent over these last two years even if I end up leaving. I won't regret it even though I spent about 6 months in false R and tried to fix us and him myself, while my WH continued to TT and fantasize about other women. Those 6 months led me to my rock bottom. I exhausted myself, and as a mega driven, type A personality, that was hard to do. It was from that place that I entered IC, and started looking inward. From that moment on I stopped waiting on him, and stopped letting his actions dictate my choices.
So there it is, my offering of hope; and it is there for all of us whether we divorce or reconcile, whether we are a BS or WS.
