firstwivesworld - When Can I Start My New Life? - Comments

Oh! So positive!

Maya Halpen — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 14:31:29 -0400

Your feedback makes me feel excited and strong, but there is still something holding me back. It's so interesting the breadth of advice we get on this site. Others suggest I shouldn't make a move until I know for certain...and they describe the onset of certainty as something momentous, clear, and life changing. I'm not sure I've ever had an a-ha moment like that. so perhaps it's just not in my constitution as it is in theirs. So it's good to hear the other side, the side that says "go!" In any case, right now I'm going to sit tight a bit longer as I watch things shift between Rob and me. However, I hear you. I'm not going to sit and watch the way the wind blows forever. Thanks!

Time Waits for No One

Wanda Woodard — Tue, 27 May 2008 14:01:28 -0400

Maya, do not wait. If you know that you want to start a life without him, then you must do that. Your independent life will be wonderful, but very scary at first. And lonely. But if you have dreams, you must make them happen. And if he doesn't figure into the equation because A) he will not compromise, yield or bend or B) he is only concerned about his dreams then you must part ways and go pursue what you know is waiting for you out there! Go and get it!

When Can I Start My New Life?

Maya Halpen — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:20:15 -0400

Rob's and my couple's therapist suggested the choice I face isn't between our current relationships on the one hand, and separate futures on the other, but between a new relationship together on the one hand, and separate futures on the other.

Oh, right. I don't have to settle for our relationship status quo; if I choose to stay, it should be for a better, healthier relationship. While this is not earth shattering, it felt new, and gave me pause. I guess I had been in a rut thinking the relationship was unchangeable and therefore doomed. Not so?

After this suggestion, I spent a good day thinking, nah — there's no way Rob can change. And the trauma between us is irrevocable and can't be healed.

But then I thought of all the good changes Rob has already made and decided he would be capable of it. That lasted through a second day. But something still irked me. Even if change for the better were possible between us, I still had misgivings. What were they?

They were my dreams. My dreams of independence, the freedom of living on my own terms — without the guilt and the fighting and the worry — and the pride that would come of humble self-sufficiency.

These dreams of mine are set in the near future; I imagine enjoying this independence while I can still pass for the kind of young that gets away with putting up visitors on a futon rather than in a well-appointed guest room, that travels from hostel to hostel and is not decades older than the other guests.

This is it — I feel I'm in a race against time. Sure, independence at any age will be wonderful, but my particular dreams I want to live out, well, now.

This reminds me of Harry Burns's loving tirade at the end of When Harry Met Sally: "When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."