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Post by Sexlessw on Jul 30, 2014 3:59:24 GMT -8
Today, RIGHT NOW, the anger is ebbing. No more ranting, raving, moaning & groaning about THE PAST and "what was done when". Anger tears have been shed. I can't say for certain more anger tears won't be shed when I go back to work. All I have is RIGHT NOW and this minute.
In anger's wake, is sadness. The sadness comes from not being able to be in his presence again. Not being able to get my "hit" when he would talk to me at work or at the gym. Not getting my hit when he said "call me". Not hearing his voice when I called him. Not having the greatest, most intense sex I have had in my life. Those things will be missed.
He will no longer be in my arms. He will no longer be able to beguile me with his eyes. Feeling the hold he had over me. The addiction chemicals which bind are breaking slowly. It's not a clean break. "This thing is slowly tearing me apart...I just want something I could never have."
The love I had for xOM was deep. I know he wasn't the ONE AND ONLY. Yet, he above all others before him fit my attraction parameters to a "T". I told somebody regarding "intoxicating". The word "toxic" is in "intoxicating". Intoxication is poison. Detoxing is taking the poison from your body. It is NOT a cure for the addiction itself.
I'm "losing" what I desired. But I am gaining - not that I lost it entirely - my self respect and re-engaging with my core. My dignity remains intact. He didn't take that from me. I saw a license plate the other day and it said "Pain is temporary. PRIDE IS PERMANENT." I'm kicking the pain, striving towards the pride.
One last rumination, and I'll give this one to Marcel Proust (surprise).: "How have we the heart to go on living. How can we move a finger to preserve ourselves from death, in a world in which love is provoked only by lies - and seeks soley in our need to see our suffering appeased by the person who has made us suffer."
That's the crux isn't it for us? We suffer and wish them to appease our suffering. We want them to love us, to fix us, yet they can't (only we can do that).
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Post by Sexlessw on Jul 31, 2014 3:42:45 GMT -8
I just gave myself a huge wake-up call. Back in March I POSTED NEARLY THE SAME THING on this forum. Started my own thread. Same stuff, different month. What makes this time different?
Let me backtrack. In my March post, I was worried about meeting up with him at the gym. Next day, sure enough, I ran into him at the gym. He saw me, came up and said, "I got your messages and didn't call you back" (litney of excuses as to why he didn't call back). I began to cry AT THE GYM and said, "I thought you didn't want to see me anymore!" Talk about addiction. I ended up calling him that night at his request and he said to me "You need to get control of your emotions." No, at that time I needed to get control of my life and extract myself from him. Yet, I stuck around.
Here I am FOUR MONTHS later crying over the same things! Sadness. Yes, but what have I truly lost? A bit of length & girth? Big deal. I just found out he and another lady at work are "an item". That tears me up, but I knew he was like that before, and he hasn't changed. Guess who has. I have.
I am removing myself from any places they may be. I've decided NOT to transfer job locations. He "wins" if I do that. Since I dumped the things he gave me in March, I don't have anything left to discard. I am seeing him, at long last, as he truly is. Scales off the eyes.
I'm going to be sad, but for how long is questionable. I hope that the posters on this board give me a boost and/or kick in the butt IF I come and start "missing" him. These next few weeks will be the hardest.
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Post by Sexlessw on Aug 1, 2014 3:22:38 GMT -8
Still sad, but not sobbing with fear and "what ifs". How many times can I do that? Truly, I get SICK of crying. You know the phrase, "sick and tired of being sick and tired."
I have the answers this time. There is no more "but but but, he did this that and the other, so I *think* he meant..." The gift (as encrusted with vileness as it is) xOM is giving to me is silence. I will not squander that gift or throw it away. Soon enough the vileness will fall away and I'll be left with something precious - myself and my healing.
More work, less tears.
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Post by Sexlessw on Aug 2, 2014 3:04:49 GMT -8
Lesser sad today (terrible phrase). "No time to wallow in the mire" as Jim Morrison sang.
Why? Last night I edited the "TOW Endings Thread" I'd copied, clipped and pasted from TOW in March. I plan on printing it out. As I re-read the posts (252 pages), I began to gain strength from the poster's words. OWs who had been put through the wringer in EMAs - and emerged stronger, happier and healthier after NC, withdrawal, "ME" work and living again.
As I'm once again extracting myself from xOM, I see it - FINALLY - what a fantasy world/land I was occupying. He may have been single, but he may as well been an MM and me an OW. Unavailble doesn't mean "married". It also means emotionally detached from the self, just plain Narcissistic or Class Alpha Avoidant. Fill in your explaination here____________.
I enabled my own pain. I willingly engaged again and again. True addict in motion, chasing the high. "Hear them say 'you want some more' living on a see-saw." I bargained "I can handle this. Once a month - he seems amenable to that." "Amenable" = self delusional thinking. Five years of it has followed - bouts of NC, calling him, having sex, him not calling me to see how I am (not even calling ME for sex out of the blue), me living in the world of magical thinking, tears, just living for the "hit" we got off of one another. Does the term UNHEALTHY stand out here?
Today I acknowledge the delusion fog is lifting. I can just barely see The Land of Indifference on the horizon. The route I'm taking to The Land of Indifference is a difficult one. It's similiar to the Route I've followed before, yet there are places the road has been washed out. That's okay. I can't get to the Land of Indifference until I walk the rough road. I can't even drive a car there. Yet getting there is the goal and I can see waiting for me.
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Post by Havefaith on Aug 2, 2014 5:48:48 GMT -8
Oh my. This was sobering.
"I enabled my own pain ... true addict in motion ... chasing the high ... once a month ... self delusional ... magical thinking ... living for the hit"
Guilty as charged to all of the above. And speaking of sobering, I was reading a book wherein the author described/explained "pathological relationships" and, oh, how I recognized myself and POA -- here is an excerpt.
"Pathologically therapeutic relationship (feeds the addiction/pathology) -- the benefit to both was that the relationship provided a release. The unwritten agreement was that they would continue to cooperate for each other's benefit. Thus the pathology of each was played out in a controlled setting under fairly clear rules. The 'game' worked so well, however, that each continued to endure the extreme suffering, and they did not move on in their development as individuals...In order to progress beyond this development-arrest period..." [author then goes into therapeutic methods which includes rejecting early programming/thinking]
I do not need a 'pathologically therapeutic relationship' with POA. I need a healthy therapeutic relationship with myself (via counseling, recovery tools, and prayer, prayer, prayer).
Thanks for sharing and showing me (us) we are not alone on the route to the "Land of Indifference" and Healthy Recovery!
HaveFaith
From Susan . . . I started out as as a victim. This became my image of myself and it replaced my lost self-esteem and my core identify. When I left home I was no longer a victim, but I kept making choices that put me the position of being a victim. I married a man who abused me. This went on for so long that I think I became addicted to the pain and self-pity. I think I used this to get attention and to be noticed. I ignored opportunities to get help until I had a nervous breakdown and when I got out the hospital went to AA. When I did my fourth step the spell was broken. I could see how I contributed to all the trauma that occurred when I left home. I began to change. I no longer like being a victim. That is the old me.
PS. I got an angry letter once from a woman who said I was blaming the victim when I suggested we have a small part in our own misery some of the time. But this is what AA taught me. So think what you want and please don't accuse me letting abusers off the hook or blaming the victim. There are plenty of times we are victims like when we have cancer or something. But we need to separate the real victimization from the stuff we subject ourselves too.
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Post by Sexlessw on Aug 15, 2014 14:54:31 GMT -8
HaveFaith:
I am coming back way late to your comment. Which book did you quote from?
The definition of game (from where I can't remember - Brenda Schaefer? Pia Mellody? Robin Norwood?) which I use is "Games are structured ways of interacting where both parties avoid intimacy".
Thank you for your follow up. I can't comment to the "victim" portion - I try to "own" my own participation and change my behavior. It's that progress not perfection I strive for.
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Post by Sexlessw on Aug 23, 2019 2:21:31 GMT -8
lostkate(stbFoundKate):
Thanks for pointing this nearly ANCIENT thread out to me. I was in a state 5 years ago. Today he's not even part of my life. We live two miles away from one another. I have seen him ONE TIME driving since we both left our jobs in April which was the last time I visited him.
Looking back, let me put my "shudda wudda cudda" hat on - I should have transferred job locations in December 2014/January 2015. I'd still have my job if I did.
I'd like to write a separate post about the abrupt, mainly painless end to the relationship. I have to sort my thoughts because he's like the sharkanado - he may just resurface from the skies one day and start chomping on me.
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RoseNadler
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 1,103
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Post by RoseNadler on Aug 23, 2019 11:28:21 GMT -8
We put so much into this addiction, and we lose so much. It really is a life-threatening and life-damaging addiction.
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Post by Sexlessw on Aug 25, 2019 2:52:46 GMT -8
lostkate(stbFoundKate):
That's one of Howard Halpern's aphorisms. "People can die from this addiction. Do you want to be one of them?"
That's why those of us who recognize the addiction are taking steps to change our lives. Again with my "doing the HARD work" meme.
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Post by Sexlessw on Oct 14, 2019 3:06:43 GMT -8
Oh boy, I need to put the "E" in THE END of my EMA. It's been running around my head HOW I wanted to post about it and WHERE on the board. I'm like Katy Perry - "I'm wide awake". Reading the above, where I was in summer 2014 with xOM - and today where I almost feel NOTHING for him. It's been a process - and the EMA has come to its conclusion at long last.
I'll get along to writing about the end of my EMA - it's something that I've wanted to do for the past few months. This morning, I feel like posting/responding to my own post which Rose Nadler resurrected.
There's a long, seemingly wandering paragraph from Marcel Proust - surprise! and not from "In Search of Lost Time". It's from an much shorter earlier work, "Pleasures and Regrets". I'm going to paraphrase it. Marcel Proust wrote exactly the essense of my EMA with Aspen, the xOM.
Somebody who we have had a "great and unhappy love", who has "made us suffer", has soon become "dead to us" after all the ups and downs. "We still love them and for a long while we are still under their irresistible spell of their charm that survives them and keeps us returning to...their graves." Then we realize, we don't feel too much anymore for that person who, at one time, we put up with ALOT. We realize that, in the ending, the person is "now powerless to cause us even the shadow of a pain or a joy."
I have to quote this one directly because THIS is what has been going through my mind (same paragraph!): "After having held her as the only precious thing in all the world, after having rtoxiced her, after having despised her, now we can barely distinguish her features with the eyes of memory, dimmed from having gazed on them too fixedly and too long."
The final two sentences is how I now feel about xOM: "Only from the heights of forgiveness does she appear in her true light, the one who was more than dead to us after having BEEN OUR ENTIRE LIFE. We only knew that she DID NOT RETURN our LOVE. Now we understand that she gave us her TRUE FRIENDSHIP."
Aspen could only give me so much, and I could only give Aspen so much. We both gave each other our "true friendship" and that is why, I am not broken by the end. Ultimately, I ACCEPTED what we could both give and no longer lived in "If ONLY!" and "WHAT IF" and FUTURE DELUSION lands.
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