SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This is 100% a twisted way of self protection. I'm avoiding vulnerability (With myself and others). Honestly it took a lot to even start this thread. Even amongst all this great conversation, I focused (almost like tunnel vision) on the very few sentences I perceived as negative. If it fit the narrative that I am less than, I used it as confirmation. That's one reason I am slower to respond than in the past. I am trying to process what I am interpreting, versus what is actually trying to be said. I can't let my internal negative voice narrate the awesome helpful thread (helpful to me anyways). I'm happy to report its kind of working. I challenge why I see something as negative, and that's helping me reframe things. Definitely a work in progress.

This is a BIG change Neandrathal. Huge. Good for you!

I respectfully disagree. It almost sounds like the life of a pirate. Pillage a small fishing village, but brush it off because you sailed away. I don't think that was what you meant, I just wanted to make it clear I don't want that to be my mentality anymore. Basically that was how I used to operate.

I do think often when there is an immediate divorce it would be easy just to turn the page and blame it on the relationship or that we were not good for each other.

The other day someone asked if I would have rathered been cheated on than divorced. I said divorced, but part of the reason I am glad he didn't divorce me has nothing to do with being abandoned - it has to do with until I got to a certain place in my work, I probably would have stopped. It's hard to say where that would have been, but he wanted to divorce me a year in and if that happened I don't think I would have come as far as I have. That is a selfish thing to say, but it illustrates how common it would be to just chalk it up to experience and not do the introspection.

That introspection you are doing is everything. It just is. It will make you a better person, father, friend, co-parent, and partner. And, you will reap such rewards in that process.

You are deserving, Neandrathal. Be proud of how far you have come and the vision that you have of who you want to be.

Also, I am glad to see you are running. I have told you that privately. I really do encourage exercise for anyone's healing. It can get you out of some really dark spots - and give you a reminder of just how much tenacity you have.

I am happy for your daughter that she has both parents working to become greater versions of themselves!

I am most comfortable feeling less than.

Well, duh! Join the club! That's what makes it so hard to learn to love oneself. But you're as lovable and as loving as the rest of us. As a human being, you're not less than any of the rest of us.

Congrats on your sobriety. You know better than I do how difficult that is.

*****

The problem with reconnecting intimately (and I'm not talking about sex) with LD is that your history together has created a large set of strong connections in your brains, some of which are unhealthy. It's like an addiction; hell, love may BE an addiction. In any case, you'd both have to be very careful for a long, long time, IMO.

How would building a new connection with LD be different from the new connections people who R make? Well, in fact there may be no significant difference - but my gut says the D makes a big difference. But some D'ed couples reconnect, and some of those reconnect for the long term. No matter what the probabilities say, no one can predict what a specific couple will do.

But that's neither here nor there - it's an opinion with without reliable evidence. What counts now is your continuing to heal yourself. What that brings, you'll have to see.

You've definitely gained some good insights. You're definitely making many good choices.

It's time to see yourself as redeemable. That doesn't mean redeeming yourself will be easy - it just means it's possible. And seeing yourself as redeemable will probably make it more likely you'll keep up the necessary work.

But ... you know ... at least some people here have no doubt that you're redeemable. At least some people here see you as being on the road to redeeming yourself, and we're probably right.

*****

Redeeming yourself - living a good life - doesn't change what you did. It changes what you do and will do.

Glad to hear it . Great job on the sobriety and the exercise and the great overall attitude towards being healthy and mindful.

Im glad your pillaging and wreaking havoc days are over im sure it took alot of strength to break that cycle.

Taking responsibility as a person is important but only so you can move on to a better version of yourself ,not so you can eternally be blamed for the partner you once were.