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Like many others, I am grateful for this community.  I am grateful that I have access to others committed to healing. I believe that survival is first, but we must recover. For me that takes studying...how do I work? How does he work?  How do normal relationships work? What does a really good relationship look like?
I am grateful that I am 62 and here is no societal pressure to be a couple or stigma in being single.
Still, I am sharing responsibility for an elderly man who has no family with my ex. This is the last frontier of interaction. I have slowly moved farther and farther away. I can see how people in a relationship who try to end it abruptly could have moments or days when they wonder if they should go back. This slow way reinforces every step away by letting me look over my shoulder and see the reality of what I left.

It's the end of a busy month.  I have been around people every day.  There has been no chance for the quiet isolation and down time that I need for recovery.  Today, coming onto this post "Feeling Yes and No", is very important.  I feel shaky (as described in the book, Waking the Tiger) and withdrawn, discovering another significant piece of the puzzle for healthy living.  Do I know what "yes" and "no" feel like? Whoops! Missed that lesson.  There is a disconnect between the mind and the body.  My mind gives one answer and my body another. If my mind always controls, no wonder I feel pain in my body.
I feel embarrassed about not communicating with myself.  Time to insert the little head with the spinning things  Oh, my! What a visual!   That must be "no."  This one must be "yes."   Now...into isolation mode to study what they feel like in my body.  Thank you.

Thank you, Cat.  This is what I was hoping for in joining.  Self referencing - yes!  I have been studying for two and a half years but have not come across this in this exact form.  The first book I read was Waking the Tiger.  It was given to both my ex-husband and I by our counselor.  I read it, he probably didn't...but he hid it from me so I bought my own copy.
Now when I make my to do lists, I too will write into them the self affirmations that you describe.
M wants to take H to the eye doctor.
M wants her cats to have their supplements.
...M wants to go swimming!
I threw in that last one because when I make the list your way, it becomes easier to see how much I am still living for others needs and how much or little I am giving myself.
Thank you again.  I will be having a much better day because of this.
M
ps Thank you all for the little icons.  I feel like starting every post with this , and ending every post with this  .  I hope they come through.

I am doing fine in redesigning my life although I have no idea how long it will actually take.  Everything had already been compartmentalized.  I left an emotional war zone in his home and came to a safe house (my own home). I described myself to my therapist as a terrorized, insomniac with chronic diarrhea. I had multiple safety plans.

Although it was not easy financially, I did have the ability to do it.  I am left with angry family members who put up with his rages and antagonistic behavior for years. I am left with a strong but injured adult daughter (he is her step father).  I am left with friends who do not understand why it is not fully over.

I do not tell them that I believe that would be dangerous if I made changes any more rapidly than I am doing now. I do not try to explain why I see him as broken doll that nobody wants to play with.

I have no ability to backslide, I don't have the strength to do it again. I do hope to share part of this path with others who need no further explanation than their own experience.  ...and I do have lots of C-PTSD symptoms.   Thank you for being here.

Good morning. I am glad to be here. 
I am a woman in my sixties who has divorced after 24 years (plus five years in a relationship with him before marriage).  I am committed to healing. The path that I have chosen has been delicate and compassionate extrication from the relationship.  I remain in therapy. I am making good progress, yet the journey seems to be one of a thousand miles.
I became aware of my partner's way of seeing and dealing with the world very slowly.  I fully "knew" him long before I had any names to go with the awareness.  Still, I thought I could manage. I was wrong.
When the stress in my life outside of the relationship mounted, his behavior became exaggerated to the point that I felt physically threatened. That also made me afraid to leave in addition to struggling with what felt like being physically and emotionally glued to him. At the same time, I was telling my therapist what was happening in my relationship (after twenty years of telling no one).  As I heard the true words come out of my mouth, reason and self respect required me to take responsible action.  That was against everything that my heart and body wanted to do.  Fortunately, I had become a master (through this experience) of the mind body split and I began to use that to my advantage.
Not knowing anything, I began to take one step at a time in the direction that I had chosen.  I began by telling him that we had to separate.  After two and a half years, we are divorced.  I see him now once a week and share custody of one cat. We share care of an elderly, terminal friend who has no family.  We have no financial ties.
Slowly decreasing every aspect of our relationship has allowed me to continue to face and deal with my own part in all of this.  It has required me to stay focused and on course with no back sliding.  It has kept me safe as in that old adage, "keep your friends close and your enemies closer."  It has allowed me to forgive myself for abandoning someone who has created a very lonely world for himself. It has allowed me to come face to face with the details of his orientation to the world from the objective place of the outside instead of from the inner circle where I could get no perspective on what was actually happening.
I am not recommending this approach.  I am only reporting my path to you. I respect any road out and I have compassion for any who find no road out.


M