Travelingsolo, 

All I can do is accept the fact that a personality disordered (covert/shy narcissist) intentionally deceived me and robbed me of my only chance to marry and have children and cherish family memories with an honest man. He robbed me of my one and only chance to live 38 years of my life making decisions that were based on truth. He also robbed me of most of my social life.  

What he has given me is a scary, uncertain future to face alone in my 60s while trying to recover from CPTSD.  All I can hope for is that I can remain healthy enough and live long enough to feel joy, peace, love, and contentment in my life again.  I hope that for you and everyone like us.

To me this is a mental health issue far more than a sexuality issue.  Seems that most of us eventually come to the realization that our spouses have personality disorders and do not feel empathy/remorse/guilt the way that we do.  They pathologically use others to meet their needs.

I think there are different forms of forgiveness.  One is where you release the other person from any bit of them owing you a debt.  What they've done has been forgotten in how you continue to deal with them - you no longer hold active anger and resentment toward them for their wrongful action.  It doesn't mean that you let them back into the position of favor they used to have.  It merely means their slate is wiped clean of the blemish.  To me, that requires the participation of the one who wronged you.  It requires acknowledgment on their part for the wrongdoing, and it requires repentance.  In most of our situations, we never get this.  So this kind of forgiveness isn't attainable.

But there is another form in my mind - and it's more like an extreme form of acceptance.  It's embracing that the situation is what it is, it can't be changed or undone, and it's in the past. The reason for it having happened doesn't matter - it won't change the outcome.  It's deciding to move forward without all the answers - because the answers won't change the situation.  It's like breathing out all the pain and the pent up agony and saying "I don't want to hold these anymore - they're hindering me".  THAT is the kind of forgiveness that we can expect to come to here.  And it's usually reached by us only when we're tired of carrying the weigh of something that has no purpose anymore, but is weighing us down from reaching our next destination.

Think of it as having been ousted from our homes - we are refugees who need to cross into another land to be safe.  We start out by choosing to take a car load of our most important possessions.  We will do anything to keep these things - we cannot go on without our most prized possessions - they represent our memories and accomplishments.  We have a RIGHT to them - we cannot envision ourselves being happy without them.  Only as time goes on, we run out of gas, and we can no longer drive all these things around.  So we start selling the possessions off - in order to get gas to keep moving with the things we still have.  Until eventually, we're only down to the car.  We have nothing left to sell for gas - we only have our lives.  It is then that we sell the car itself - or even just walk away from it after it runs out of gas.  We can keep going on foot, but keeping the car requires too much work.  And without all those possessions, we have no reason to keep the car.  It turns out that in the end, all we have is ourselves, and it is enough.  We only want to cross into the land of safety and progress.

Kel