I'm more or less just journaling here...

Thanks, red vette. I know he's won. That's half my problem.

I am very lonely and alone. I honestly feel as though I am unable to be strong again, this cloud over my life just won't go away.

I can even identify most triggers when I backslide like this. Our 25th anniversary is coming up, this house situation is stressful, and the idea I may need to file Chapter 7 is contributing to it. The phone call I had with the ex yesterday did not help. I can tell in his voice and in his demeanor that he himself hurts like hell on the inside and yet I cannot overcome my resentment and just listen to him any longer. To do some means in someway I am validating him hurting me more. So when he does attempt to communicate with me, I do my damnedest to shut him up.

The dynamic in our relationship caused me to dislike myself intensely. I got no positive affirmation in that dynamic, I found myself questioning everything about myself, and every vulnerability I had was exposed and I felt threatened. It was a vicious cycle of control and power struggles. Our relationship was not built on that... it was built on mutual respect and a lot of love.

I feel like a failure in a lot of ways...

Like vette says... I want to be strong and prove the ex he's dead wrong about me. But, more than that... I want to prove myself I'm a good, kind, decent person. And in some sick and weird way, I still need the ex to remind me of that. I just feel like he threw me away and didn't regret what he lost... me, his daughters (he has no relationship with 3 of 4 of them), and is so lost in his fantasy world. He retreated in to a world that no one can reach him.

I feel in a lot of ways that I am grieving a death. The anger, the denial, the bargaining... all of the cycles that Elisabeth Kubler Ross wrote about so many years ago. I remember feeling a lot of these things when my father passed away many years ago. But, then... I was able to accept my father's death. There was a long period of his illness and hospitalizations, and I had the opportunity to say goodbye to him in my own way and in my own time. I was able to grieve without this psychotic situation around me. And... funny thing about all of that was... my father died at what I then considered the worst time of my life. I had just moved 200 miles away to be with my ex and family, I had our third daughter and she was hospitalized with menigitis at just a few days of age, my ex lost his job and we lost our medical benefits, we had to file Chapter 13 due to medical expenses surrounding our daughter's birth and hospitalizations, and my father died. The moment my daughter was released from the hospital, I was driving 200 miles in order to attend my father's passing and funeral.

Now... I do not know if I have the strength I did in my late 20s. I have gone through a lot of loss and change within the past two years. The death of a marriage, an empty nest, financial changes that are difficult if not impossible to get through, the loss of a home, a move, and loss of an extended family -- my in-laws. I miss them a lot, but resolved to stay away from them, not to communicate directly with them in case my ex needed someone to talk to. Last I hear, he hasn't really talked much to them except to beg his dad for a loan. I have my ways of passing information to and from them, and I think they understand my position and that I do not want to hurt them or ignore them... but I do not feel comfortable participating in their lives or as part of their family right now.

It's taking me forever to write this now... I need to get to a few other tasks. I have a hard time concentrating on a lot of things any longer. And it's holding me back, and now I have to pay attention to a kitten my daughter brought home...