Hi stuck
I kind of feel cautiously optimistic although I have good days and bad days. It doesn't help that I have to be in touch with X on a daily basis and if I'm tired or bored, I still have the ability to feel crushed by texts or communication that seems a bit offhand, and on a high if I feel 'connected' again. We've got a lot of shared history and we'll always be in each other's lives. I've had to learn to manage that, whilst trying to separate all that from my emotions and my own life. I discussed these text messages with my counsellor and what they had come to represent for me....intimacy, closeness, that feeling of being special. We talked about how if I got a message from anyone else, even people I love dearly, I have no emotional reaction yet these messages from this particular person suddenly got totally into my head and my heart. They started to underpin everything else in my life, and it was so dangerous as my mood started to feel very reliant on them.
I've tried to invest more of my emotion into my marriage and work on that and I'm very conscious these days of trying to do the right thing. That can be quite tiring. I didn't give my relationship any thought for years as it was so easy and loving and I didn't have a sense that my emotional needs weren't being met...we were too busy with practical stuff...getting married, buying a house, having babies etc. I reached a real blip once all that was sorted and started to feel really restless. My DH is lovely and kind but he doesn't do emotional stuff easily and I loved that feeling of being so emotionally close to someone else. Looking back, it was only ever going to end badly but at the time I was totally caught up in this crazy addictive cycle of sharing my feelings and emotions with someone who I felt connected to. I'm trying to do the right thing these days even if it isn't always the short-term, thrill-seeking fun thing!
I've tried to make some changes to my life and shake things up a bit and do some volunteering, try some new hobbies. I'm at my happiest when I'm busy and seeing friends as then the whole thing fades a bit. When I have too much thinking time I tend to remember ruminate and spend way too much time pondering why I got in such a muddle. I think about X a lot and the closeness we have, but less in an infatuated way now, and more trying to make sense of why this happened and what I can do to keep on the straight and narrow emotionally from now on!
I remember saying to my counsellor that I was feeling so guilty as I'd wanted these years to be totally dedicated to my husband and children, and she said how life just doesn't work like that...you can't say 'for x years I'm going to be really happy and focused on my family' and how difficult/complex emotions can take over. She said it's all a journey and the key thing is to try and learn from the difficult bits. I'm trying!! Xx