[HeartTattoo]

It looks like my last thread is locked & archived. It's all old-timer stuff anyway, so I'll just drop in here for my annual review.

Son#1 was talking to me the other day about “feeling some kind of way” about some things in his life, including that Son #2 is soon to move 1000 miles away. Yeah, I’m feeling “some kind of way” too.

I see once again that it happens every year: thoughts of H increase & are more nostalgic & I’m more sad about the whole damn thing than usual heading into December & as Christmas preparations begin. The phrase “You should be here” keeps popping into my thoughts as Son#1 helps me with the tree & we gather as a family. “You should be here” when the boys are tinkering with their cars or needing support, or having complicated memories of the man I & they trusted with our whole being & who betrayed us all with his shattered integrity, his lies, & his emotional emptiness. “You should be here” but you are utterly unable to “be here”. I’m pretty sure you can’t even “be” in your own life. That sort of true “being” is shut up tight in some deeply hidden compartment. Looking at that is not something someone like you can do.

So it’s Christmas with memories of our last one together, then BD January, & our wedding anniversary in February. But by then the constant memories are losing strength & I’m back to the reality of grief that never ends, but does fade with the detachment I’ve developed from the only man I have ever loved, from the love I never doubted until the moment of BD, & from the future I expected to share with him. Spring is almost around the corner & I’ll plant seeds & grow flowers & walk my dog & love my people & know that they love me back. The ones who are able anyway.

[xyzcf]

So it’s Christmas with memories of our last one together, then BD January, & our wedding anniversary in February. But by then the constant memories are losing strength & I’m back to the reality of grief that never ends, but does fade with the detachment I’ve developed from the only man I have ever loved, from the love I never doubted until the moment of BD, & from the future I expected to share with him. Spring is almost around the corner & I’ll plant seeds & grow flowers & walk my dog & love my people & know that they love me back. The ones who are able anyway.

Thank you HeartTattoo for your honesty. For some of us, there is a never going to be a time when we can say that it doesn't matter anymore, or that we do not think about them (every day in my case). We are grateful for the healing, for the lives wh have built, even perhaps grateful for the love that we once shared...because many people have never experienced that kind of love.

This crisis is far reaching in it's destruction, not just of our marriage but also of our family and extended family and mutual friends. I am not the same woman I was, and the new people in my life don't have access to the women I once was...and yes, I do prefer the old her. I know I would have changed over the years, but not in this way (lack of trust being a major thing and fear that anything bad can happen and that life is not in my control).

Each situation follows a different path. I enjoy time spent with him as a family...so we do spend Christmas and take our daughter and SIL on vacation, together...we are still a family. He texts me pretty well weekly, I recently was with him for a surgery (this is my third time being with him for surgery) and when I am signing the paperwork and it asks me my relationship to the patient I wrote "family member"......it's kind of by chance that it has turned out this way because  many MLCer's just disappear.

Each scenario has it's pros and cons....most of my friends look at me as though I have two heads when they hear about a trip we are going on or my being there for his surgery....and it isn't easy either way, contact/no contact....one is not better than another.

Do your boys have a relationship with their dad?

Glad to see you coming back and sharing your journey. I too feel great sadness that in our "golden years" we are not sharing a life together.

Spring is almost around the corner & I’ll plant seeds & grow flowers & walk my dog & love my people & know that they love me back

I love this, growing plants, seeing the flowers bloom brings me great peace. I don't have a dog anymore and I really miss that but find I need the freedom to travel and have enough responsibilities that now is not the time for me to get a pup.

Glad to hear from you! Take care.