Hazed said:
That does make sense. It's pretty admirable to me that you planned all of that out just to get more grip on your life back. Do you feel like keeping it this way helps you much? I wonder when reading it, if you never feel like you want to share something but have no one to share it with. I assume that's where your new wife comes in though? Then everything would work out.
Did you find it difficult to stick to your personal reform for as long as you did?
I discovered something about the success of personal reform that was, I don't know, maybe one of the negatives? This happened after being with my wife, then girlfriend, for about 6 months. I hope this doesn't sound icky to you, or anyone else reading this, but we are deeply in love. It wasn't until her, that I experienced love like this....so there was some learning involved here. OK, I was married for 23 years, I didn't even 'like' my ex wife yet I told her I loved her. After our separation, I went "girling" as they say in the old-west, and dated all kinds of women. One was much younger, 15 years - blonde and pretty..and I was with her for 3 years. Told her I loved her, and I did... didn't work out, and the woman I'm now with, works with me and had a crush on me the entire time. Since she's so pretty, and was married, I always never considered her as anything other than a friend. She told me so many personal things about herself, and volunteered as one of my several 'parent-volunteers' with my area youth projects. My son tells me he always knew she liked me, said it was obvious, yet I never saw it. Probably because I never thought someone like her, would be interested in someone like myself.
Anyway, she shared about her marriage alot. Her husband ignored her, never worked, and was very demeaning. I used to try to give her advice on how to approach him, engage him. I tried to help her, and her husband I used to like...he helped volunteer as well. Later on, she disclosed how afraid of him she was, showed me some bruising on her arms. At that point, she shared how she was trying to leave him..even in counseling, the counselor made it clear to him, your wife has had enough.
Sorry for all this extra history, I have a bad habit of doing that. To sum it up, I helped her get an order of protection, and then became her advocate. During this time, it came out about her feelings for me, but never wanted to ruin our friendship by disclosing them. So many instances she shared with me, and then I remembered.....
Back to the point, I love and adore her and who she is. Sweet, nurturing, affectionate, not to mention she's absolutely beautiful - all lady. We talk for hours and hours, even still three years into the relationship. So why was I being hurt, deeply hurt by her occasionally. Being in love, for real, is different than the supposed 'love' in past relationships. I learned that my life systems from personal reform put me on an auto-pilot. I had ways of doing things, ways of communicating that made me successful in all the strategic boundary compartments. So much did I (and still do) rely on these systems, because they protect me from failure, that with this girl, I wasn't using life systems...I was being open, which led to triggers that had been buried. It hit me probably at the third real conflict between us, another misunderstanding, where I realized I had triggers that caused pain, which was unrelated to her... When you are really in love with someone, I wonder if this is what happens, to everyone. Thus after all that hard work in personal reform, I found that being with her, taught me something about myself that I would NEVER have learned without her and this loving relationship.
One thing else I learned about true love..... I had feelings I never experienced before, but knew exactly what they were. I also compare this relationship with my previous ones and they are not even in the same stadium. Like comparing baseball to football....this relationship has things in it, that didn't exist before. My "life systems" were ongoing in all the previous ones, not here. I didn't need them.
Did I find it hard to stick to this when I started the ball rolling? Not at all, it became my whole life. I was so desperate for help, and I found it. I learned that when someone needs help bad enough, and is willing to do anything to get it, they WILL find help. Sometimes in unusual places. My sources for knowledge and help came from unusual, and unique places. The funny thing about this, when I began, it was like a 1000 piece puzzle. A bit overwhelming. Yet as I proceeded to fix things, I discovered how certain problems fixed themselves as I fixed seemingly unrelated issues. The more I progressed, the faster things fixed and re calibrated in my favor.
I learned a hell of alot about other people, insight on things that other people don't have, all by working on myself. Weird, but true.
And you're right about wanting to share this. I discovered life wasn't as complicated as I once thought. And that's why I started a new community youth program. I took kids, and placed them in various environments, and taught them life systems using community service projects. I'm not a volunteer or community person at heart, but they were the easiest means to an end to provide a "problem solving" environment. It worked too, my son was embedded in the program growing up, and gave me feedback from the kids. "Dad, they're learning exactly what you wanted them to learn."
I ended the project a couple years ago, because I wanted to focus on this relationship. For the first time in my entire life, I am happy. I want to give this woman the best life I can possibly give her. I am grateful that she loves me and that I lived to experience what it's like to have real love, and to be in love.
Without personal reform however, I have told her she would have not liked, nor respected me. So, yet here is another reward for all of that work.
Thank you for such a thoughtful piece of feedback.