# How did you learn to let go?



## firefairy (May 21, 2012)

Okay weekend. I spent some time alone on Saturday night and watched movies. It wasn’t so bad being alone with myself. Missed him a bit but kept reminding myself if he was home we would more than likely be either fighting or ignoring each other anyway. I was busy trying to maintain the house and housework by myself but I got through it all and have myself prepared for another week as a single mom.

My problem is letting go of the hope that he will change and try to win me back. I grew up on fairy tales and happily ever after endings. Nothing tugs at my heart more than a hopelessly romantic movie where the guy realizes he had the ‘perfect’ girl and let her go, so he risks it all to win her back. 

The little comments like “we are getting along so much better now that we aren’t living together” or talks about him getting an apartment (hes staying with his mom) and future events that don’t include us together.. still sting!! I know it’s only been a week and I can’t expect all my feelings to be resolved in such a short amount of time. 

I’m trying so hard to be more than reasonable.. joint custody, 50/50 everything. I’m still be encouraging and helping him when he asks for my advice or input. I’ve let him vent to me over the phone. Maybe I’m allowing him to have his cake and eat it too.. or maybe I’m just being me and being a kind and compassionate person. I don’t know.

So my question is.. how did you learn to let go of hope??


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## scottaj74 (Dec 1, 2013)

I to struggle with it big time....my ex left 10 months ago and I still think about it a hundred times a day. I'm DIY, fix it kind of guy. My brain keeps thinking about what went wrong and why. I also want to "go back" and apply my new found knowledge and ideas. I think the big thing is realizing and accepting that you will never know "why?". I too am looking for ideas to let go.


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## billy baru (Sep 23, 2014)

My ETBXW is a serial cheater, so letting go has been relatively "easy". We both agreed when we were first together that infidelity would be the deal breaker & it is.

That being said, the more you involve yourself in life, the less time you have to pine away....

JMHO.


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## Love4Mywife (Aug 25, 2014)

Work on the 180's firefairy.. Get up, get a life (as in get out there and keep the mind occupied), and do the things YOU want to do.. 

As they say, don't believe anything you hear and only 50% of what you see..

Walk, run, gym, fish, see friends whatever!!..

At the end of the day, the 180's may make your partner wonder, and if they don't YOU will be better for it either way..


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## jr92gp (Feb 28, 2014)

Reading and counseling. Reading here on TAM, as well as books suggested through this site has been more helpful to me than individual counseling. YMMV


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## Acoa (Sep 21, 2012)

L4MW has it right. You can't keep caring for and tending to the STBXs needs. You don't have to yell at and hate each other. But your relationship has fundamentally changed. 

Treat him like you would a coworker. So, before doing something for him, ask yourself, "would I do this for a coworker?" If the answer is no, then don't do it. Don't be mean about it, just say you don't have time and he should start taking care of such things himself.


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## NotLikeYou (Aug 30, 2011)

firefairy said:


> So my question is.. how did you learn to let go of hope??


Letting go of Hope was a really difficult situation, and yet once the decision was made, it was over in seconds.

Life wasn't easy in the two-ring circus. Teaching the elephants to walk the tightrope was a difficult and frustrating experience. The elephants didn't enjoy it any more than I did, judging from the amount of poop they released from 50 feet up.

Thank God I was up on the wire with them, and not one of the spotters on the ground.

Hope was the love of my life, my first true love. Short cornflower-colored hair. Eyes the color of a cloudless summer day. Perfect measurements- 42-42-42, packed onto a 4-foot frame, he was the perfect combination of midget, circus clown, and gender-confused that I had always dreamed of.

I thought I was the only one. 

How little I knew about midgets.

I learned to let go of Hope through lies. Through betrayals. I remember laying awake at night, asking myself, "Why? WHY? Why would Hope do those things with the Chess Club? They aren't even good looking! And why honey and feathers? It’s supposed to be TAR and feathers! What's up with THAT?"

I came to realize that I couldn't live with Hope, and that I'd have to live without him. 

And so I carefully laid my plans.

Hope was familiar with the trapeze- the videotape and polaroids proved THAT beyond a doubt.

Things all came together in San Francisco, like two blondes in miniskirts (blondes don’t wear miniskirts in San Francisco because their balls would show).

I knew Hope would be perusing Craigslist, looking to feed his sick obsession. There are a lot of people with money in the Bay Area, and they were always upgrading their furniture. Hope collected Henredon China Cabinets, the tortured bastard.

I placed an ad, offering to sell my Henredon 1950’s Atomic-Era red and white 4-piece china cabinet complete with the original Geiger Counter built into the hutch. I knew he would reply, trying to set up a meet.

Blinded by his pathological need to amass furniture he would never fill with China, he agreed to meet me up on the high wire at the circus to complete the deal. 

That evening at 6 PM, Hope climbed unwittingly to his doom. Since he was extremely near-sighted, he mistook Bessie the pachyderm for his erstwhile seller. And he was so focused that he never heard me climbing up behind him.

He and Bessie both started out onto the wire, and he was almost halfway out before he realized that Bessie was an elephant, and couldn’t possibly have placed the ad on Craigslist because, really, how would an elephant use the keyboard?

Finally, the little appliance-sized 10-watt lightbulb went off over Hope’s head. He turned and started walking back to the platform, but I was waiting. 

We looked at each other, neither of us speaking. Me, because I had a sore throat, him, because he was wearing his favorite ball-gag. The entire relationship, all those sleepless nights, all the sleepless days, several of the sleepless evenings, and at least one of the sleepless afternoons, passed in front of my eyes.

I felt a tear slide down my cheek as I untied the rope, and I watched gravity do what it does in situations like that. He fell so slowly. So slowly.

I’m not sure what I expected would happen.

Hope seemed strangely at peace, probably because he knew the safety net below him would catch him and bounce him almost as high as he had fallen from. 

We had both forgotten about Bessie, falling towards the safety net ass-first.

There’s a video on Youtube of an elephant sitting on a guy, and his head ending up in the bad place. Now imagine a smaller man, a bigger elephant, and the laws of physics acting to unite them in roughly the same way only faster. 

That’s how I learned to let go of Hope.

Even now, months later, sometimes as I lay awake at night, I hear the elephants trumpeting in the distance as they roam through the hills west of town. Their bleats ride into my room on the evening breeze, and I can almost hear them say 

“Geez, NotLikeYou, what a terrible thing to happen to old Bessie.”

And then I fall asleep, and dream of midgets, and elephants, and playing chess with scantily-clad sheep, but I don’t ever dream of Hope any more. And that’s a good thing.


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## lancaster (Dec 2, 2013)

Firefly I read your post and it is very sad. I fear my stbx will be dealing with feelings similar to those you have expressed here. I feel for you both. It will probably take time more than anything else to overcome the end of your relationship. I wish you all the best and try to be good to yourself.


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## Regretf (Oct 13, 2014)

firefairy said:


> Okay weekend. I spent some time alone on Saturday night and watched movies. It wasn’t so bad being alone with myself. Missed him a bit but kept reminding myself if he was home we would more than likely be either fighting or ignoring each other anyway. I was busy trying to maintain the house and housework by myself but I got through it all and have myself prepared for another week as a single mom.
> 
> My problem is letting go of the hope that he will change and try to win me back. I grew up on fairy tales and happily ever after endings. Nothing tugs at my heart more than a hopelessly romantic movie where the guy realizes he had the ‘perfect’ girl and let her go, so he risks it all to win her back.
> 
> ...


I hopemy wife feels like you do, somehow doubt it. I haven't lost hope, i want to believe that deep down inside there's a part of her that wants this to work out in the end, as hard is it looks right now.


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## Kevinb (Jan 8, 2012)

Sometimes, hope is what keeps you going. I'm 10 months into separation, she's bought a new home near her parents and the kids 7 & 10 are with her. I hear that there is a an African American military guy coming to stay with her for a week and he will be sleeping in her bed...I heard this from my kids. I can't tell you how much this hurts...but I still hope...


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## Dollystanford (Mar 14, 2012)

I lost the desire to hope when I realised he would rather be spending his time talking to random girls on the internet than me. I'm nobody's second choice. The decision to file was hard but once made there was no going back. 

But then I was unhappy in the last few years of my marriage so it's easy not to hope for something that made you miserable. I reconnected with friends and enjoyed the peace and independence

A week is a very short space of time - don't expect too much too soon


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## Kevinb (Jan 8, 2012)

Thanks Dolly, I pick my kids up tomorrow for the weekend so I guess she can enjoy the weekend with this guy. I can't believe that after only 4 months of leaving our home she is bringing a guy the kids have never met into her bed. It makes me sad as I always figured we we'd be back together at some point....( I know what everyone is thinking...dillusional thinking)...sorry for hijacking this thread. Yeah, I still have hope


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## synthetic (Jan 5, 2012)

I socialized with other women and realized almost all of them were kinder, more honest and less volatile than my ex. I also figured, most of them wouldn't have the capability or knowledge to abuse me like the ex did. That's how I started 'wanting' to let go. Completely letting go takes time and there's absolutely no way around it.


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