OurPath (formerly SSN) Open Forum / The hardest part of wanting to keep my r'ship together...

**Posted by Ellexoh_nz** January 28, 2018 6:35 pm

...is the knowledge it could all be for nothing. Self-doubt
...that 'damp towel' feeling that is my constant companion, the view of those who have already stood where I stand today...the ones who have come out the other side, alone. All these emotions, the stories I read, my day to day battle with what I know, what I wish for, what I dread, the mask I let slip when I'm alone...it's got to make me stronger or destroy me in the process right?
Just my thoughts today, a moment of weakness in a lonely corner of the space I'm in.

Tomorrow I'll be stronger ✊

**Posted by walkbymyself** January 29, 2018 1:14 pm

Oh sweetie, please hang in there. There's no easy out, just try taking it one day at a time.

**Posted by Ellexoh_nz** January 29, 2018 8:22 pm

walkbymyself wrote:
Oh sweetie, please hang in there. There's no easy out, just try taking it one day at a time.

I know this is not going to be easy....one day at a time IS all I can do. But this is so cruel. We're both unhappy,
both want to stay together....I don't trust him, he doesn't fully understand why....I can feel myself edging towards
....something....recognition of the person I don't want to be, and gathering strength for what comes next.

**Posted by walkbymyself** February 3, 2018 8:47 pm

Today feels like my day to be slowly crumbling.

**Posted by Ellexoh_nz** February 3, 2018 11:22 pm

walkbymyself wrote:
Today feels like my day to be slowly crumbling.

Omg.....I've been to the beach and have just seen this. The 'crumbling' days can get pretty tough...
especially when something totally random sets me off, and I'm not strong enough to be together enough
to see/feel/know it's happening. Often...I just have to get through it...knowing I've got to be strong because I'm
doing this for the most part....by myself
Take yourself somewhere you can be by yourself.....or
Go to a place where there are people, and noise, to take your mind off the thoughts in your head.

Hugs

**Posted by Roo** February 7, 2018 3:19 pm

I battle these demons every day, the 'what-if's' and the 'what do I do now's'. These feelings never go away, they are on my mind 24/7. You would think after a year of finding out about his "bisexuality" I would know what to do. I know all our stories are different but yet they are the same. I don't want to be a broken person anymore.

**Posted by Ellexoh_nz** February 7, 2018 4:36 pm

Roo wrote:
I battle these demons every day, the 'what-if's' and the 'what do I do now's'. These feelings never go away, they are on my mind 24/7. You would think after a year of finding out about his "bisexuality" I would know what to do. I know all our stories are different but yet they are the same. I don't want to be a broken person anymore.

Fact is Roo....we're broken and will never be the same. We still deserve to BE whole, but now the ball is in our court, so to speak, and the strength is ours to find..within ourselves.
We've had the very base of all we believed to be true...
snatched from us like a bad magician pulling the cloth from under our table set with the crockery of our life, and
it's all broken, in pieces, on the floor.
So....on the floor amidst those broken pieces is where we must start. And it's us, you, me....who get to choose
exactly what pieces we value enough to keep, to mend, to live with broken. To discard.

We can do it. I never thought, at 59, I'd be in this place, and every day that goes past brings me closer to
the answer xx

**Posted by Ellexoh_nz** February 25, 2018 5:49 pm

I took the first step on the path. A doctor's app for a medical cert, which will help with
an assisted living government benefit, which I'll need to survive on alone.
Then I'll go register as a spouse who MAY need support at some point. Next week....next month....don't know

When I came home from my week away.....he'd brought flowers and put them in vases around the room. All
I could think was "why now...why bother now?"

**Posted by OutofHisCloset** February 25, 2018 10:18 pm

Because, Ellexoh, he's trying to "hoover" you. It's called love bombing. He's frantic because you've been out of his orbit and getting a little perspective outside of the world he's made for you. Mine did this a year ago, when I started seeing a therapist and told him it was because living in his closet was stifling. He said, "what can I do?" as if his sexualty and the way he was handling it weren't the problem, and I said, tongue in cheek, "flowers, chocolates, wine, and a house on the beach." He said, I can't do the last, and the next day I had the other three in my office. But it's not about you, and it's not because he loves you. He trying to protect his closet.
And yes, I'm not supposed to be "lurking" on the "we can make this work" thread, but what you said struck such a chord with me.

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (February 25, 2018 10:20 pm)

**Posted by Ellexoh_nz** February 27, 2018 1:15 pm

OutofHisCloset wrote:
Because, Ellexoh, he's trying to "hoover" you. It's called love bombing. He's frantic because you've been out of his orbit and getting a little perspective outside of the world he's made for you. Mine did this a year ago, when I started seeing a therapist and told him it was because living in his closet was stifling. He said, "what can I do?" as if his sexualty and the way he was handling it weren't the problem, and I said, tongue in cheek, "flowers, chocolates, wine, and a house on the beach." He said, I can't do the last, and the next day I had the other three in my office. But it's not about you, and it's not because he loves you. He trying to protect his closet.
And yes, I'm not supposed to be "lurking" on the "we can make this work" thread, but what you said struck such a chord with me.

I kinda guessed since giving flowers is not something he does....that it was some form of guilt that prefaced the giving of them, but A is the least frantic person I know. When he asks "what can I do" I always respond with "you've done enough" (and he'd never grasp the fact that I shouldn't have to tell him what I want from him...!!)
But.....today I feel.....
....this life of mine is too comfortable. Weighing up leaving the safety of an easy life, even though it no longer resembles the content, loved and stable future of the past...against the struggle and angst of an unknown future, and a government that will try to get me into paid work (to offset any allowance they pay me)...well....I'm leaning towards sticking it out in the hollow shell that my love/life has become til I'm 65 (retirement age) when there'll be
one less financial battle I have to deal with.