Christmas day

[josephd]

It was a tough day today. I was with my recently seperated partner, her family (and extended) and my daughter. The morning was awesome to see my daughter wake up, as she is just starting to realize what Christmas is all about.

The rest of the day was a real struggle. Being around people who knew that my partner left me, and the situation... it's just so different for me. It hurts being around her, because I want to be with her so bad. It hurts like that first time you had your heart broken... that deep pain you think will never go away. It hurts because I need real daily support to make it through what I am going through... and I simply just don't have that real support. I have some, but it isn't consistent... where someone calls me everyday, lets me know they care, that they are proud of me, that they believe in me, that they want to see me make it through.

I am doing this all alone, I know that in my heart. In that, I mean that this struggle is mine alone to win... and it's so fucking scary. It's so lonely, and it's so hard. I have so many emotions I'm going through right now... and it's hard to even know what the real ones are. I've been doing very well though, no drugs, no drinks, no self-destruction, no worthlessness, no giving up. No giving up. No giving up. No giving up.

This day is just really tough, and I just want the pain to fade away for a while. Just give me a break from it for a week or two.

Joseph

 

[Ivanhoe]

Joseph,

Just read your comments about being alone. Man , do I know that feeling. It wouldn't be completely transferable, however--your situation and mine--but I just wanted to let you know that it wasn't a picnic for me neither.
How did I get through it? One foot in front of the other---at times it was actually just that.
I'm hoping that you've got someone you like for a therapist. You know, someone that you can tell anything to and that someone will help you see that you weren't to blame for any of the pain of your childhood.
I wish you the kind of year that provides you with what you need for 2004. Keep coming here, keep telling your story and hopefully you will feel less and less of the sting of the past.

Peace, strength and courage,

David

 

[theo]

joseph,
my friend, three years ago i was in your position. my significant other seperated from me of her own choice. i am sure there are details that are different from us, but the essential saga of pain is so clearly the same. she left me after seven years of marriage for another one, but one she met over the net and he was a stranger. i know your pain so well, joseph because to me she was my soulmate and when she left and then betrayed me it was almost overwhelming. i say almost because the spiral i went into was only partly due to her abandonment and betrayal. what really almost killed me was the loss of identity. i always defined myself relative to how i related to others...the perfect son, the perfect husband, etc. i was lost for well over a year and kept longing for her to come back. i did not have your strength to stay away from self destructive behavior (alcohol abuse, internet porn, total isolation). it took me a year and a half to come under some kind of balance. for that length of time i was an automaton. it does get better. i could not believe it and i absolutely detested the "one day at a time" litany. it gets better, joseph, i promise. you have so much going for you at the moment in your strength to refrain from the destructive behaviors. i tell you true, that is such a humongous jump ahead in the recovery of this kind of pain. talk with me if you need to, my friend. i have walked that dark road and never thought i would see the light again but i survived her abandonment, betrayal, and the loss of my son. somehow i survived and was then blessed with so much after that. no one can say what will happen in detail, but survival does happen. take care and reach out to me if you need to.

 

[Leosha]

It is strange. You are not doing this alone. But yet, you are doing this alone. Not that you do not have support and others who understand some of what you feel and have been through. But only you can do it for yourself, just as each of us can only do it for ourselves. And yes, that idea gets lonely sometime, and it angers me some, because it should not be responsibility of us to have to 'fix' what we do not break. But, still, it falls to us, individually, whether I like it or not. So yes, I will have hard times also, and bad thoughts and feelings. But, only I can get through that. I am lucky to have support and help of friends, and of wonderful people here. But still, it is on me to do it myself. And I will do it, and I am doing it. I hope that you will continue also, and know that only you can do it, but no, you aren't alone.

Leosha