I had a great Labor Day weekend - spent a day boating with friends in Michigan, another day catching up with another good friend and then did some retail therapy and worked on getting ready to move. The goal was to keep myself busy because Ex-L took the girls out of town for the weekend. It was weird not having them at home at night ... and being away from them that long. Monday morning was a little rough for me but I was able to drag myself out of it.

I've been doing a ton of ready on co-dependency and narcissism in relationships. I find a ton of similarities in my marriage, and am starting to realize how manipulated I was (and still am) and how this all was inevitable. I'm also trying to pull myself out of the victimization I feel - I need to get strong but I do feel like "why me?" a lot. That's the perfect spot for a narcissist to have you pushed down to. It's also hard to know the person that you loved could/would do all of this - and in the end not really love you anyways. Or maybe they loved you but not in the way you need them to. Not in a way that is healthy. And especially since this is has been a pattern in our relationship, this would happen to me over and over in our relationship. I'll never be "enough" for her. And that's not something that's my fault or that I can control. No one will ever be "enough" for her.

As a codependent, I have a LOT of work to do internally. My self-confidence is gone, my personal self-worth is out the door, my faith in the future is diminished. I'm at a low-point, and I'll never be able to attract all of the good things I want in my life if I can't mirror the good that's already inside of me. I have a lot of work to do to pull her back out. And I'm working on what that looks like - right now I'm just trying to stay busy. Filling up my calendar, connecting with old friends, doing stuff I've never done before. It's not really "fulfilling" stuff as it is "busy" stuff.

To say I'm terrified of life without Ex-L is an understatement. That's part of the co-dependency ... not having faith in myself to provide for myself and be by myself and be ok without her. All stuff that is untrue - I can provide for myself (heck, I provided for our whole family for a long time!), I'm totally ok being by myself and being single, and I'll absolutely be ok without her - I've actually done it before. But I still have that twinge of doubt and that's because I lack self-confidence in myself. I need to learn to be my biggest cheerleader. I'm working on that. I'm sad for myself a lot - sad that I don't have that internal "I'm better than this!" attitude. Sad that I need someone else to validate my self-worth. Sad that I'm not confident in who I am.

I also have a lot of anger, though. I mean - Ex-L left me when I was at my lowest point. My self-esteem was garbage because I was post-partum and alone A LOT. I was isolated and felt just drained. I had no time or motivation to work on myself. And I only had her and myself to lean on. And instead of supporting me or helping me out of that dark hole, she left me. She cheated on me. She gave up on me and left me in that dark place. Who does that? See - and the anger rises up. Ugh!

Trapped

Sometimes I feel trapped in my own mind. I'll be fine one minute and then doing something completely crazy and obsessive the next. The heart apparently has no shame when it's broken. I just don't feel like myself. I feel trapped in feeling like crap. I feel sad that I'm so dependent on the love of someone else to validate my worth. My counselor mentioned codependency and suggested I read up on it. She recommended a book called Codependent: No More that I downloaded to my Kindle yesterday and am already 22% of the way through (isn't it funny that because of ereaders it's measured in percentage and not pages). 

The book focuses on the partners of alcoholics aka codependents. People that have had mental and emotional implications from living with and loving someone that's been an alcoholic. The unique thing is that codependents go through their experience sober. So it has long-term effects just as much as alcoholism has on the alcoholic. A person can also be codependent stemming from other traumas, and even parental relationships. Part of the reason why I'm so desperate for Ex-L to love me and put all of my worth in her hands stems from the relationship I had with my mother growing up. When I was 5 she handed me over to my dad because she wanted more of a social life and couldn't care for me the way my dad and his parents could. I saw her only on weekends and even then she passed me over for her second ex-husband. I was never good enough for her. The last time I told her I loved her was when I was 6. We've had a strained relationship ever since. I feel like I barely know her. 

And so I know I search for that love from relationships, and I take break-ups especially hard because I feel like it's that mother-rejection all over again. I'm not good enough, I'm not worthy, I'm not loveable. And although that's all not true - it's so hard-wired in my head that it's hard to get past those thoughts. They well up deep within me. It sometimes feels like my life is ruined or that I'll never find love again - that my future is over because this one person cannot/does not love me any more. I know it's ridiculous. I went through a super hard break up before and found Ex-L a few years after - so I know it's all possible. But I'm also terrified to be caught in another relationship that's toxic like this one. At least I know what to expect being with her.

And then part of me is just sad. Sad at this is what my life is and that the happy future that I pictured with her and our children will not happen - at least not together. And that makes me angry. If anyone has advice on when this will start to subside - I'd love to hear it. I worry that this panic and this feeling will last forever.