This Time I'm Really Going To Do It

Ramouth

OMG this is the best post I have read for ages!  It really seems like you are getting there.  Hears hoping things continue to move in the right direction 🤞 

Humdinger1

Utterly wonderful @Watty1

Karmacat

It really sounds like things have turned a corner (thanks to you).  Here's hoping that's true.  Lovely news!

Watty1

it really does feel like things have turned a corner.  I am still so tired and yet not sleeping well but I'm telling myself it is just a trauma reaction and this will pass in time.   

Each day i try to empty one box of stuff I bought back from my rental and tackle a bit of work.   I've managed to unpack clothes and hang them up in a wardrobe and I'm slowly decluttering stuff too at the rate of 1 or 2 items a day if I can.  (Sometimes this just means throwing an empty box away). 

On a joyful note I rode Most Handsome again today and he is still prancing happily and showing no signs of lameness.  The charming cob has a physio session tomorrow and we will see how he does for that.    

Watty1

The last 5 days have passed in a bit of a blur.  Still sleeping badly but finally the sun is shinning..  I've been a bit overwhelmed lately.   The realisation is that I can do anything I want, live anywhere, do anything within reason.  I will still need to work, for a few years yet but there is a big world out there and it seems terrifying to think I can go and be whoever I wish to be now.  There is just me.  I know I have the animals and I would never abandon them but it is odd to look out of the window and think about who and what I want.  And the honest answer is I have no idea.

I feel rootless and ungrounded.

Karmacat

Knowing that you have no idea on how to go forward is a positive in this situation, Watty - you can make it up the way you want it to be.  I know freedom looks scary, but that's what it is - you only have yourself to please, but you've had to fight for your right to exist for so long, that anything beyond that looks too difficult.  Just take your time, maybe have a few low-cost, low-impact experiments, and see how it goes.

Watty1

Today is the day the injunction starts.  At 4 pm.  I have no idea what I am feeling.  So mixed up about this.  Ex has to return the keys before then.  I have no idea if he is in the South East or "up north" with the girlfriend, and i suspect the keys will not be returned.  With this in mind I had a friend change the locks on the patio door and the back door yesterday and as i have to work today I have asked him to go to the locksmiths and purchase a suitable padlock for the back gate.  The one on there was super expensive as it is impervious to bolt croppers (it has a chain of equal strength).  The front door has a really expensive lock but after much research it seems I can change the barrel so I cannot deadlock it from the inside but it cannot be opened from the outside.  There is another deadlock so i think this cheaper option will work.   A new barrel is to be purchased.  And new padlocks and locks for the barns. 

Humdinger1

@Watty1 it is bound to feel odd at first; I remember so well feeling that I was exposing my wounds when I parted from my first husband.   Normal stuff that I was doing alone, at least some of the time, felt like a waking nightmare.   But it improved for me and it will for you too.  Don't pressurise yourself to decide anything...thinking time is never wasted.  Defining yourself as not one half of a couple, even a badly malfunctioning one, is a shock but you will get there, I promise. Doing normal, everyday, even slightly boring stuff helped ground me.  Love Humdinger xx 

ajmoney

Humdinger1 said:

@Watty1 it is bound to feel odd at first; I remember so well feeling that I was exposing my wounds when I parted from my first husband.   Normal stuff that I was doing alone, at least some of the time, felt like a waking nightmare.   But it improved for me and it will for you too.  Don't pressurise yourself to decide anything...thinking time is never wasted.  Defining yourself as not one half of a couple, even a badly malfunctioning one, is a shock but you will get there, I promise. Doing normal, everyday, even slightly boring stuff helped ground me.  Love Humdinger xx 

This has been really helpful for me to read. I have found it tough adapting to being single although according to many websites and forms I am not even that. Instead I am divorced, I don't know how it makes a blind bit of difference, other than making me a statistic! I would like to embrace just being me x

Watty1

It is a whole new way of thinking isn't it?  The Easter weekend stretches out before me and I've no plans.  I was invited to a good friend in Yorkshire for the weekend and I would have loved to go but it just seemed overwhelming to go.    5 animals is a lot to arrange care for.   

It struck me that the one person who has always stepped up and cared for them was the ex when we lived together,  just getting through that thought and the feelings is part of the nightmare.

The final lock was changed, over £200 spent doing that.   Even with the locks changed I was so edgy yesterday evening, not knowing if he would come back or not.  Logically I knew he would not but the rattling in my brain was still there.