Hold, you are showing some growth and I congratulate you. Keep working on yourself and someday you'll be the kind of person that you want to be. But, you will need to work on it every day and be like the shark, constantly moving forward. Okay, I'll let someone else let loose the the lawyer/shark comparisons!

D. Seabird, I am curious now as to why you were attracted to your XW at the beginning?

I have very little feelings of any kind left for my XW. In fact, I'm close to forgiveness. She is still extremely difficult to deal with, but I have some strategies for doing so now and have learned hot to deal with her abundant passive-aggressive tendencies. To this day I feel her continued diagnosis is BPD. Her family elevates dysfunction to a new level. Her backside looked very wide last year the last time I saw her. Her hair has always been thin and takes an extraordinary amount of work and product to produce an acceptable result. She will no doubt be bald before me. I do not miss the bathroom door covered in a thick layer of hairspray and dust. My house is nicer, cleaner, and far more organized.

Think about what I said earlier about my personal success being the best revenge. Just what kind of revenge is my personal success? My idea is the motivation to live better without her than I ever did with her. Our circles don't currently cross but if she heard somehow that I was doing very well in my life without her, would I pause to gloat? Maybe.