PERSONAL GROWTH

Although I am 3 years out from discovery, I still have my days. My down days are different now though. They are not about Wayne or his behavior anymore, they are not even about him relapsing. Truthfully, I can not even remember the last time I felt hurt, angry or upset about his issues, in fact we can even both laugh at times about it. My down days now are more about my own stuff. Me, Myself and I. I must say I do not like it.

I have days where I do not feel like I am a good partner, or even want to be. I have days where I do not feel like I am a good mother or grandmother, friend or even family member. I have days where I can not get out of my head how I allowed so many negative people and other things into my life, not just Wayne. Days where I want to just get in my car and hit the freeway, start a new life some where else away from everyone. This has become my new roller coaster or maybe its the merry go round now. My problems, my pain, my anger, is not about or with Wayne or anyone else, they are with ME. Honestly it was easier when they were about Wayne or someone else in my life, at least I had them to blame.

Someone asked me the other day if I thought I was on the right path, I had to take pause and think about that for a moment, I guess we never truly know if we are or not, only time will tell.

The battle I have with myself can be overwhelming at times. Since my discovery of Wayne’s issues, I have found there were many others in my life that brought me a lot of pain and turmoil, yet I always allowed them to remain in my life. I found when I looked around me that I could accept negative stuff anytime, yet when someone tried to offer me something positive, I would reject it, even a simple little compliment. So many things about me I am now facing. What is that called, “Oh yeah, Personal Growth.” Wow this is hard to face.

Its not funny, but in some ways it is, I thought once Wayne got better, or at least figured out he needed help and started working on himself that it would all just get better, that sure turned out to be a joke on me. Who knew that I had so many issues.

I have always lived my life with a moral compass, with high expectations on my integrity. I always tried to be the good daughter, sister, wife, mother and friend, always forgiving and loving, always there to give a hand or shoulder. I lived for my family and friends. My dreams were simple. Believing that when I got to my age of 52, I would have this close, wonderful family and honest true friendships. Hoping to be remembered some day when I was laid to rest, that I was a valuable asset in the life’s of those I loved and even others. Now I see that I was a resentful, frustrated, hurt, used and abused woman, who just sat back and let others walk on her. A woman, who did not set boundaries or even accountability to what others did or said about her. Where forgiveness was something just given, not something earned. I have now learned the hard way, that others can not respect us if we do not respect ourselves and how could I have possibly respected myself when I was allowing so many to use and abuse me. Although I thought I did, I had no true Joy or Peace, I sure could fake it though. I always saw myself having this God given Spirit that was flying high, now I realize, I never had the wind to fly at all.

This journey is long, its hard and it is extremely painful and just when you think you are starting to get beyond it or starting to feel better, it can blow up again. That is exactly what happened to me and not one person told me to prepare myself for it. To prepare for the time when I would have to stop looking at Wayne’s issues, damage, infidelities, etc., and start looking at my own Soul, my own damage, my own issues. With God’s hands on me, I can tell you, this is horribly painful, extremely scary, and so much harder than dealing with Wayne’s betrayals, his hurtful words. I have been betraying myself for years and every word Wayne or anyone else in my life, ever said about me, I had been saying to myself for years, unconsciously.

Years, I recognize now, I have been telling myself, I was not worthy or good enough for anyone or anything. So instead of searching for why I felt like this, I just ignored it and did everything I could to be accepted by anyone and everyone, than on the back side of that I resented it. I resented doing everything for everyone, being the fixer, the forgiver, the loving one, the one always there, when no one was truly there for me. When ever I needed forgiveness, I had to earn my forgiveness, no one ever just handed me forgiveness.

I guess, what I am trying to share with you, is that this journey of discovery we are on, if you really do the work, somewhere in all the pain, you will find that the true discovery is not about your spouse, but a much greater discovery. The discovery of YOU.

When I was told that to remain together Wayne and I would both have to change, I thought it was a joke. I am a good person, I could never do the things he did, nor could I ever hurt someone like he did, I was not the one with the horrible issues, Wayne was the one who needed to work on his issues and change, not me. No doubt Wayne had major issues, but WOW was I shocked to really see I had some major issues as well.

On my down, bad days now, I realize for me to be a good partner, I have to be a healthy partner and that takes a lot of work, hard, exhausting work, changing my thought process and my old habits of allowing negativity into my life, in any form and there are days where I just do not want to do it, days when I just go back to “I do not deserve better”, “I am not worth putting all this work into.” but mostly, “Its not worth it.” I am telling myself that I am not worth it, that negative thought process that got me here to start with. Constantly needing to remind myself that I am worth it and so much more, continually overriding the negatives with positives. This is unbelievably hard for me to do.

Now that I am at this stage of my life journey and I realize the exhausting work and pain that goes into changing your inner self, your thought process, setting those boundaries and the accountability that has to go with the new boundaries, being honest and totally transparent with who I am, (no faking my emotions or feelings) and I am not just talking about with Wayne, but with everything in my life. Finding out for my self that the journey into self discovery is a very scary, painful and an extremely hard process. HOW CAN I NOT GIVE WAYNE THE GRACE AND LOVE FOR DOING THE WORK HIMSELF. HOW CAN I CONDEMN HIM, WHEN HE IS SO WILLING AND HE SO WANTS TO DO EVERYTHING HE CAN TO MAKE HIS LIFE BETTER, WHEN HE IS WORKING SO HARD TO CHANGE HIS INNER SELF. I know his struggles now.

I do not know what my future has in store but I know as long as I stay focused on my own personal struggles, as long as I remain always looking into the mirror of my life and continue to do every thing necessary to create more positives in my life while removing the negatives, I can acheive a GREAT LIFE.

What more could anyone ask for than a Great life, one that consist of love and respect for yourself.