I love you stayed, you're why I still lurk here... And I really only contribute when I feel I can offer a perspective that might help. I love all the positive endings, and that is the other small reason I come back--I love when a stander wins.
But there is a difference between being "stuck" and standing still. Stuck is ruminating. Stuck is what happens when you are so focused on reading the last chapters of your life that you stop writing the new ones. Standing still is closing the old book and contemplating the new one. It is sitting with the story board in your head and sketching out potential stories, imagining the characters and plot lines until you finally settle on a direction--perhaps only to come back in a year or two to do it all over. It is like meditation, it is NOT inaction or inactivity, it is a positive rejuvenating state. And it CAN include standing, or moving forward, and moving forward is not always done in a positive way, either.
It was important to me to point out though that judging those who heal faster may not be appropriate if done from a standing perspective. I have known many LBS IRL now, only a few who have stood, none with a successful R. But, those who never think to stand heal much faster. If you look at it from a victim perspective, the anger sets in right away and the boiling hatred they are allowed, and even encouraged to feel, from society-at-large, gives them the fuel to fix stuff faster. They never spend time reading the old chapters, they move on. And while it is true, you must heal and you must clean up the mess of your M, a healthy new partner CAN actually HELP you do that. And, it is also possible that two very unhealthy broken people can join together and heal each other--I have seen that, also--that is my story, basically.
But, my real point was that focusing on where your MLCer is in the process, or where you are, in your own process is ruminating, it is not living. Of course we all do, to a certain extent and sometimes, it's healthy. But it is far more productive to have goals and benchmarks than to meander aimlessly. I am a planner, by nature, by training, and very competitive, always. I never felt that way in my M and never with friends, but when he became the enemy, damn if every competitive cell in my body didn't wake up and say "you will win over my dead body." And I almost gave him that, too, the closest I ever came to suicide. But hell no. The healthiest thing I did was set goals for myself. And I'll be damned if I haven't kept every single one, including now, as I come up on my five year mark, I am mostly financially stable in a job I love. I had to rewrite my story a few times, it took a few plot twists I didn't expect, but I write it, every day.
And if I had been focused on him, I would still be watching him twist in the wind. He STILL does bizarre things and I KNOW his M is not all he thought it would be. It actually looks a lot like ours did--the life he didn't want! But what I have not allowed myself to do is think that every positive interaction, or touch-n-go, or moment of clarity is a sign he is emerging from the tunnel. I understand even less now than I did on BD, but I do know myself a LOT better and I am happy in my new skin... Being and LBS is like having dermabrasion of your psyche--painfully laser off the outer layers, so the foundation can regenerate itself. Anyway, killing time, I also tend to lurk here when I procrastinate at work... Love and light, ll
The best thing about banging your head against the wall for so long is that it feels so good when you finally stop...
BD 1/16/10
D Final 7/21/11
exH married OW the next week and moved across the country to be with her...
LL CHOSE to live happily ever after...
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LBS STAGES 2