Opening a savings account. Reviewing my budget. Putting together the child support budget. Pushing my attorney to get things done. Putting together and finalizing a proposal for the negotiation/mediation/arbitration process. The one the attorneys and the parenting coordinator forgot to put together. Researching and locking in a rate for refinancing my mortgage. Researching and calling people to re-do the main floor bathroom. Getting the dumpster taken away. Calculating the amount to go into the new medical flexible spending account. Pushing the attorney to get the health insurance mess fixed from three months ago. Calculating the amount to go into the new dependent care flexible spending account.

Joining Match.com. And answering an ad.

Well, okay, so I disappeared my Match.com membership. I will finish this darned relationship before I start another one.

*mutter*

I'm sick to death of this mess, but Cerri and HoFS are right -- finish one before starting another is the ethical thing to do.

I want, so much, to go dancing. To dance -- not rock'n'roll dancing, but a waltz, a foxtrot, a two-step -- in someone's arms. Someone who isn't ashamed to be with me. Someone to hold hands with, to laugh with, to go home and curl up with. It is an image that haunts me. Just dancing. Laughing, resting my head on someone's shoulder. Getting my aching feet rubbed.

And yet, it's wise to finish the other things first. I've been starting books and not finishing them, and now I have partial knowledge and a lot of unfinished books on my bedside table.

Time to finish the books and the relationship, time to close the parentheses and get things a little cleaner and a little emptier before I start to fill in the lonely edges of my heart.

Wow...Just J, after I've heard your sad story I have to admit that I am impressed with your beautiful soul and strong personality. By reading your story, I could see that you are almost fully recovered on this point from the emotional lost. I don’t know what to say about WP…It is hard to judge someone you hardly know from your stories.
Based on my past experience with the other partners (before my marriage), I believe the time will work for you. You won’t forget but won’t care anymore about WP. Sooner or later, you’ll meet someone who will deserve to take WP’s place in your heart.

And please, don’t you ever say that WP won when you moved out! You are the one who won by showing her all the beauty of your soul and heart. (I hope you understood my English).
<img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />
betrayed lady

It looks like you are going the right direction, you heal a little bit more each day, and week.

I don't think you are "there" yet, but I don't think I am either, so don't be upset about me saying that.

It is important that we do the best we can with what we know. We learn as we go along, and we can improve based on the things we learn. We learn about ourselves, we learn about others - children have a way of accelerating our education. You will know what I mean by now.

I am a little further along than you are, I can tell you that the bumps and pot holes are still in the road, but I must be more used to them now, because they don't seem to bother me quite so much.

Wishing you a little more happy than sad, a little more good than bad.

There are lots of people in the world that care about you - hope you know that.

SS

Thanks for your thoughts and encouragement, Betrayed Lady. As Still Seeking said, I'm not fully healed yet, not all the way "there." But I get closer each day. I suspect that I'll never get all the way there -- how can one ever fully mend from something like this? I'll always be different than who I was, and there will always be some things that trigger intense emotions for me.

This month is a month full of mind traps and horrific memories. I wonder, right now, whether I will ever enjoy spring again. I used to love it, the daffodils and tulips, the cherry blossoms and the vivid green of fresh-budding trees. Now I look at those things, and I remember...

I remember exhaustion, all the way down to my bones.

I remember emotional overload so bad that I literally could not figure out what to do at work.

I remember my colleagues starting to show up in my office, shut the door, and ask what was wrong.

I remember being told, over and over again, that WP didn't want me to be part of her life, her religion, her sexuality, her work, her play, her child.

I remember her telling me that she'd decided many years before that I was not the right person to marry or raise a family with. So all the intervening years when we'd worked to do those things didn't count.

I remember frantically searching this board, looking for something, anything, that would help me save my marriage.

I remember asking the Harleys for help, and being turned down.

I remember turning to Cerri and begging for her help.

I remember being told that I wasn't welcome at dancing anymore.

I remember becoming terrified that I would lose my daughter, and watching that terror made real before my eyes. Not yet -- the worst of the anniversaries are still to come. But they are there, waiting in the midday of this month, in the evening of next month, in the blazing noon of July. I dread the anniversaries of those days.

These things still hurt incredibly badly, even a year later and with all the perspective and understanding that I now have.

And so I must focus on the today instead of on the anniversaries to come.

This week, it's a simple negotiation about where DD will be next week, during Passover, Easter, and a work-related trip for me. It's about proposing alternative after alternative and being told no. It's about WP refusing to provide any counterproposals. It's about frustration, about still being last on her priority list, about being treated badly, still, after all this time.

It's about the complete lack of compassion, understanding, or caring from someone I've loved for seventeen years now.

And it's about still loving her, even as I understand that I must continue my slow, steady walk away from her.

It's about how that love is only a source of pain for me, now, and I just want it to go away and stop bothering me.

I hate this. Two years and four months after the very first of the awfulness, and I come back to that simple statement. I hate this.

And I will continue to heal, and continue to live with the slow rebuilding of my life. I am much better than I was last year. Much healthier, much less frightened, much safer. I have been loved and taken care of in ways I never knew I needed and never understood were possible.

And yet what happened to me is still there, burned into my soul and my body. And it will never go away.


Edited to add: Why look. A gross of replies on this thread. How utterly appropriate.

<small>[ April 01, 2004, 03:14 PM: Message edited by: Just J ]</small>

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Just J:
<strong>
And yet what happened to me is still there, burned into my soul and my body. And it will never go away.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">That's right J. And you wouldn't be who you are today without these experiences. Nobody said you are stuck in some kind of painful 'groundhog day'. You're moving forward and even better prepared for the next step you take.

{{{{{j}}}}}


</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"><strong>Edited to add: Why look. A gross of replies on this thread. How utterly appropriate. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Now does that make me, a gross-one? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

HoFS

HoFS,
You always were, so it couldn't MAKE you that.

Ha, I shouldn't say things like that - you may take me seriously.

How are you doing, I haven't seen you on lately.

SS

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by still seeking:
<strong> HoFS,
You always were, so it couldn't MAKE you that.

Ha, I shouldn't say things like that - you may take me seriously.

How are you doing, I haven't seen you on lately.

SS </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"><img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />
Hey SS,
Life, post-divorce has taken a bigger toll on me than expected. Very draining now two months into it. Trying to figure out new living arrnagements, parenting arrangements, etc. Divorce is not the easy solution but it is a door I stepped through and so I'm moving forward.

I'm mostly hanging out over on SYMC now. I can't divide my time up much further. I'm helping the program out and have started baby steps toward mentoring other couples.

Thanks for asking.

HoFS <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" />

No, HoFS, you're not a gross-one. You're one of the very best people I know.

Just J!!!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Razz]" src="images/icons/tongue.gif" />

every great graemlin to you!!!!!!

listen: you WILL love spring again, you will dance again, love again, spin around in happiness again...

no, I am not psychic but you have come so far, under such adverse conditions that I simply KNOW that there are many many fantastic times ahead for you...

strong woman...be serene against the turmoil and bask in the love you have...it is inside you after all...if WS doesn't appreciate it, it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things...

what goes around, comes around...you are sending out love and receiving it too...even though not romantic love yet...

gush gush gush...but you are one of my favorite people!...hope I get to meet you in person one day...actually, I heard today that you've met another of my favorite people and of course, you already met JL...you get around some don't you? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

a big cyber-hug to you...you go smell those flowers and cry to release the bitter memories...spring is beautiful...the renewal of hope...awed

It's been ten days and I finally cried. Tonight by myself, the other night on the phone with a friend. It still hurts and I can't seem to make it stop right now.

I remembered today, as I was staring at the daffodils on the hill in the back, that last year they were the only good thing in an unending stream of horror. I remember staring at them trying to memorize their beauty so I could carry it around with me through the days of utter, unending pain. Somehow, I've brought that pain back to them.

And that reminded me of Eastern philosophies -- that in all creation there is the seed of destruction, in all destruction there is the beginning of creation.

I also remembered what I read recently, about someone who asked a wise man to come up with a simple saying that could express the thought of the imperfection and transience of all states of being. The saying of the wise man was "this too shall pass."

All things pass. All things, whether creation or destruction, marriage or divorce, birth or death. They all pass. Endings begin and beginnings end.

I am at an ending point.

I am not ready for it.

But I am at an ending point of my marriage.

I don't want to end it.

I want it to be reborn like the phoenix someone compared me to.

Then again, my mom says I have a self-deception stroke in my handwriting.

I no longer believe that maybe there is a miracle out there for me.

I no longer believe that the woman I loved so much is even alive.

Sometimes the aliens stay, and the one you loved disappears forever.

Sometimes you're the bug.

I should sleep rather than writing this angst-filled-stream-of-consciousness ramble.

I should cry some more.

I should pick up the baby's room and hope that her afghan carries a hint of her baby shampoo scent.

I should not even try to find a hint of WP's scent. It's too far gone.

There are a lot of triggers this week and next week. WP was away a year ago today, with "friends" in Idaho who were willing to support her... and encourage her to leave me based solely on her story of how awful I was.

I dunno. Maybe I was awful. I certainly have the capacity for it. But I don't think I was. Devastated? Begging and pleading? Yes, all of those. But awful? Controlling, as she said I was? Nah. I don't think so.

And nothing has changed. WP sent me a "you should be nice to me because I'm being nice to you" message last week. And yet nothing has changed -- she still puts OM ahead of our DD's best interests. She still lies. She still doesn't listen or acknowlege my points of view. She still has to be told by "authority" figures other than me that yes, J is actually right about that and would you please stop doing it?

I wrote back and said I'd love to talk about improving things and when she's ready to take action to make that happen, I'm ready.

She didn't reply, of course.

I'm so tired of the bull, so tired of not being able to get her out of my head, so tired of doing the fricking right and noble thing.

I'm just tired beyond where I ought to be posting.

So I'm going to stop, because one thing I -have- learned is to stop when I'm tired.

Tempting though it is, occasionally, to call WP and tell her what I think of her actions, I don't.

Yay me. The good and right thing to do. Again. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="images/icons/mad.gif" />

Very pain filled, yet eloquent words. And though it is no consolation, there will be other flowers that brighten your horizons, and new scents that linger. But this piece of our heart that were hers, and your Ds, will forever be changed. And maybe that is not such a bad thing. Maybe the trick is to REMEMBER...rather than forget.

And, you did do the right thing. Be somehow comforted in that. :-)

I'm so tired of the bull, so tired of not being able to get her out of my head, so tired of doing the fricking right and noble thing.

Doing the right and noble thing is the only way - you already know that. I admit, sometimes it seems so - so...hard. And that's an understatement.

That's the only thing I can support you in, and it's why I support you. Please don't think it isn't working. It is working for YOU - and we can see it in how you progress.

I know you care about other people, remember that some other people care about you too.

SS

OK JJ,

Time to straighten up the act here. You know what is coming right? Well, I am not so sure you do. I have a strong suspicion that the best of your life is ahead of you, just as the last 17 years have been a hunt for something that apparently was NOT there.

I don't know if this is going to be comforting to you, but it is time to stop grieving and a time to start moving along. You are a very bright, very strong, very good looking young woman, and while I have never seen you cry, I am sure it is NOT the best projection of who you are.

It is time to replan your life. It is time to go out and see what is there, who is there. If I recall correctly you actually have twice as large a selection to consider than most of us. Perhaps I am wrong, and then you just have the same odds as anyone else. But, JJ it is time. You have grieved, you have struggled, you have experienced some very hard things. Yet, you are still standing, you still have the tools of a mature woman (brains, looks, personality, everything). I realize you are in someways grieving your youth, but you are still young. You are not just mature and young. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" /> So, I suspect that any choices you make in your life will be much better, and more joyful for you.

Time to try life out again and make situations that require choices.

I know I am treading on a very sensitive time to you, and I realize I am not coming across as very sensitive, but I will leave that to you. I think you need to realize how much you have learned, how much you have changed, how much you have to offer and quit squandering it on the past. She may change her mind, she may not. You have no influence in that regard. But, you have choices to make about your future and who and what will be in it. Get with it JJ.

You are good enough in all respects to make your life good and yourself happy. Please think about this. I hate to see good talent squandered. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

God Bless,

JL

Just J-

I'm sitting here reading your post, and I'm shaking my head in wonder...

This is not an ending...it's your new beginning.

I sat and thought about the things you said about this time of your life leaving it's memory imprinted on your soul and I remembered how I felt similarly a few months back.

I can tell you that through much contemplation, prayer, reading, and posts here, I've arrived at a place of understading. Now that I'm here, the emotional pull from everything that has happened has lost it's effect on me. I truly believe that you will get there too, but it does take time.

Finish the books that you've started, then put them away. Those flowers are very symbolicof who you are and right now, JUST j is being prepared for her blossoming. Any time I have had a big breakthrough I usually have a period of greif like you are now feeling. It will be wonderful, but you have to get through this feeling today.

You are so wonderful! You have to realize that you are't defined by having a person hold you or want to be in your bed. You have to be fulfilled in your heart and soul on your own. Once you're there, and you reach understanding, then no one will ever be able to hurt you like this again.

There are so many "deep" words of wisdom that ii wish I could put into your head by osmosis. unfortunately, I'm not that talented! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

The next time you go into the city, please let me know. I would love to hook up with you andshare some of what I'm thinking with you...

you are loved.

edited to add:
I sent an email to you but I neglected to tell you that it was from gwk...

kim

<small>[ April 13, 2004, 11:03 AM: Message edited by: God-within-kily ]</small>

I keep trying to reply to this, to thank everyone and to respond to JL in detail.... and for one reason or another, I keep stopping.

SO I'm not going to respond to JL in detail and will instead say: 2x4 taken. Thank you sir, may I have another? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

And yet... and yet.

And yet that's not where I am headed, or at least not -quite- yet.

This pain, this unpleasantly familiar pain, is another stage of grieving. These days, it comes in occasional waves, rather than in a raging flood. When it comes, it washes over me and I sob.... and then it flows away again.

This week it flowed over me and away again on Tuesday. WP saw it, saw the pain on my face and in my voice. All I said was, "I miss you."

Because it was true in that moment, and was the closest expression of me that I could come to.

She read it in the 2am text message about a feverish baby and a request to have lunch.

She saw it in my tear-filled eyes yesterday, when she let me know that I won't be seeing her grandmother again -- and when someone's 94 years old, there isn't a lot of time for things to change for the better.

She also saw me smiling and happy. Three interactions that show the grieving... and in the last two weeks, four times as many that many that show only the happiness and pleasure that I get from seeing DD.

It's a decent mix.

And in my grieving, there is a question. What will I do now?

I told Penny a couple of weeks ago that if I had the reserves, I would be able to seduce WP. Not sexually, emotionally. I would be able to recreate the intimacy, the sense of protection, the sense of joy in each other.

It would take a long, long time.

I could do it.

If I wanted to.

Is this how I should spend the next seven months, when I am not allowed to marry and neither is she? Should I spend a year on it, making it my Plan X?

Or shall I spend the energy elsewhere, on people who are more likely to be good for me?

Or shall I sit down with her, one last face-to-face meeting, and .........

......... and here again I got interrupted and almost didn't finish this. But I will finish it.

Shall I sit down with her, one last face-to-face meeting, and just say, "I miss you. I don't want this divorce. Isn't there a way we can rebuild our family? What would that take? What would you be willing to do?" And from what she says, either work with her or not at all on this thing that was once a family?

I don't know. I just don't know which path I'll take.

I know that I don't have to decide this instant. I know that I can put off this decision forever if I so choose. I need to think and pray and meditate on this one a lot.

I dunno what to say.

((((((((JJ)))))))))

dewt

Sent this day to my wayward, maybe STBX, partner.

-----------------------------------------------

Heya --

[My attorney] just let me know that [her attorney] sent her your financial proposal. I've asked her not to send it to me yet. I'd like to be able to talk without having that rolling around in the back of my head.

The article that [friend] sent [for both of us to read] talked about reconciliation in a way that I've been trying to express for quite a while. I would like to make things right, to have a relationship with you that's good for both of us, for DD, and for all the other people who are affected by the hurt that's between us. Could we get a sitter for a couple of hours this weekend and sit down to talk, maybe over lunch or coffee?

Just J

-----------------------------------------------

One last refusal to wave the white flag. One last, gentle, quiet request. Can we not do this with love?

I'll let y'all know what happens.

At times we are called just to speak our hearts...

no matter how received...

It is perhaps the speaking of what needs to be said...regardless of the outcome....that frees us to move in some direction......

prayers to you justJ....

ark

Well done-

I'm praying for you.

I'll continue my email tonight. I'm sorry that I left you hanging at such a critical moment...

Good news though, I received 3 job offers.

My slump is ending.

Hugs your way-