Thank you Perna. It was both surprising and heartening that someone DID read my long long post. And thoughtfully too. You hit some big nails on their big stupid heads, I must say.
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Perna said:
"I would look at what you want and are doing for you, rather than looking so much over the fence speculating on what your husband may be doing. You might want to look toward yourself instead of stay tangled in what is happening in the relationship all the time."
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You are right! Completely. I am gazing over that fence all the time, and wondering, wondering. The only way I can stop is to turn away from it completely, pretend it and and the field on the other side of it don't even exist. To continue the metaphor. I can't keep it and myself, my own pasture, so to speak, in view at the same time. Somehow the whole of my life containing my husband our 'our' life together, and my own life now, without him in it, have become two separate things. I know why this is and am proof that one can be intellectually smart and emotionally a total dumb-***. I know that my biggest fear is that if I look to myself, at myself, I will find nothing there. Nothing to keep me occupied for long. I know this is ridiculous but don't feel it. I've had this feeling for the whole of the past year; that if I take my eye off the relationship it will somehow vanish. That I have to protect it against what I don't know. That I could only flourish and follow my own path if the love was there for me to look back at and wave to. Like kids do when they are playing and want their mums nearby to watch them and admire them. If I pretend it doesn't even exist (the relationship) it's easier to get on with things. Hardly anyone in my life would guess I'm upset at all, to look at me.
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Perna said:
"It sound a little like that might be what your husband is trying to do, make himself whole within himself so then he can reassess the relationship and see if he thinks the two of you will be able to make another go of it or not."
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Yes, that's exactly what he's doing. Exactly. I can understand it, I really can, but still resent it when I see him and he tells me what he's been doing. I suppose I want him to be pining for me, not making plans which don't include me. He misses me in some ways of course, but he is staying determinedly on the road he's taken.
And there I go again, figuring him out instead of myself. I guess this is the pattern, and it's hard to break the habit of years. You're also right, Perna, that a relationship can't make one whole and that's exactly what I've allowed myself to believe for years - sort of. In a romantic way.
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Perna said:
"Another thing is that mending takes time. You said you had been arguing for a year before he left, it could take that long or even longer to sort that out again.°
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Good point. God, I feel tired just thinking about it.
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Perna said:
"There aren't any maps or books on how to mend, how to make a life for one's self."
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How strange, the whole time I've been thinking how we are in uncharted territory, in a new land with no maps. How to feel, think, behave in this situation.
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Perna said:
"I don't know if it would help but having a longer view instead of anticipating something "happening", relaxing a bit and learning to take the situation in stride, working with it as it unfolds slowly, might be a bit more comfortable for you?"
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I've never been the slightest bit good at taking the longer view. This is a hard situation to begin learning it in. I even tried yoga and meditation recently! I tried it with an earnestness that made me laugh at myself even as I was doing it. Impatient, high energy, overgrown child insisting she bloody relax - or else!
I need a mantra, or something. Something that helps me when he tells me about something that interests him and he is following up on, something that helps me not to feel that as a sort of rejection but to be able to rejoice for him and reciprocate with my own cool thing. I know this.
Thank you, really, for reading my post and answering so insightfully.
Do please write more, if you want.
Best, StingInTheTail