To all those separated and divorced...

[sparrow2]

Grateful that if my new husband and I argue, I don't fear that he'll scream in my face, call me swear words, say horrendous things to try to belittle me, punch holes in the wall, leave to go get drunk and make out with a stranger at the bar, or get a gun out and threaten suicide.
We just bicker a bit or walk away and later work it out like normal people, and I'm so thankful for that.

[cant turn back]

It seemed like no matter what I did, it was somehow always taken in a negative light.  Like I was always trying to find a way to fill him up/fix him.  But he was a bottomless pit, I could never get it right.  Everything wrong was always my fault. 
The little mishaps of life, mistakes, things that break, innocent accidents, clumsiness, taking the wrong exit on the highway... my ExH would just lose it.  He could not go with the flow or laugh things off, not EVER.  Which was very stressful... me trying to make sure things don't go wrong.
The other day I spilled some water and just laughed out loud at how funny it was, the circumstances of it.  Was so wonderful that there was nobody yelling or grumpy or judging.  It was a great feeling.
Ugh, I am so glad to no longer be living that existence. 

[Findingmyvoice]

Others have mentioned already but I am thankful for the absence of toxic stress.
Almost no headaches, neck / shoulder / jaw tension, better sleep.
I'm thankful for having a healthy relationship with my kids
I'm thankful for having a healthy relationship with my family
I'm thankful for quiet time
I'm thankful for the absence of chaos, conflicts and drama
I'm thankful for the ability to make my own decisions, spend (or don't spend) money the way I want.
I'm thankful for being able to have flexibility.  I don't have to follow lists, rules, schedules or detailed instructions.
I'm thankful to have my own space, I'm thankful to have a predictable routine and stability.
I'm thankful that I don't have to spend my free time in shopping centers.
I'm thankful that I'm no longer blamed, threatened, insulted and accused.
I'm thankful that I no longer have to hide my thoughts, emotions and actions.
I'm thankful that I no longer feel guilt and shame every day.
I'm thankful that I'm not afraid to open the front door at the end of the day. (Coming in the front door was frowned upon, the dog might bark)  I also never knew what i was coming home to.
I'm thankful that I can open the blinds and let the light in.
I'm thankful that I don't have to sterilize and sanitize, I'm thankful that my home doesn't smell like strong perfumes and air fresheners.
I'm thankful that I don't have to rely on someone that rarely kept their promises.
I'm thankful that I don't have to attempt to parent a grown adult.

[GettingOOTF]

. He could not go with the flow or laugh things off, not EVER.  Which was very stressful...

This was my ex. If he overslept "THE DAY IS RUINED!", anything that was missed or broken or lost was a disaster. There was so much chaos and drama. I was so tense and on edge the entire time. Now when I drop something I clean it up and forget about it.

I also noticed that things were always dropping or being spilt or getting lost when I was married. Now those things almost never happen. My exes big thing was screaming at me about how I never closed the containers and stuff was always falling out of the fridge and spilling. Since he moved out this happens maybe once a year. I also would swear up and down that I closed what ever it was. I honestly think he would loosen the lids on things. I'm so grateful I no longer live with that madness.   

[Liftedfog]

Hot cocoa!  I remember you.  So glad to hear from you and that all is well.  I don't walk on eggshells anymore and I am no longer controlled like an animal. He had isolated me  from my loving family and I am reconnecting with them after ten years of separation and my elderly parents are enjoying their grandchildren. They missed their births and baby years.  I'm still upset over this but I'm looking forward not behind.  He used to say I was nothing without him.  Well I know for a fact that certainly is not true because I'm raising our kids without him wherever he is.  I miss having a family unit with him and our house but i do not miss HIM and what he represented in my life. 

[wasted_tropics]

Still fighting for that divorce, but I've been separated since May of last year. Literally every aspect of my life is better with her not present.

-My girlfriend actually tells me to just chill out and play some video games when I'm stressed(my ex would bully me for being lazy when video games are one of my favorite ways to unwind)

-I'm getting back into martial arts because I no longer am worried about spending too much time at class or after

-I have zero urge to stress eat, and I'm not shamed in weird, oblique ways when I do indulge in something off diet(if I ate junk food at a party or something, my ex would suddenly get weirdly handsy especially with the parts of my body I was most insecure about... squeezing my love handles and shit that I said multiple times I hated)

-Conflict in the home is handled like adults, and crisis responses are saved for true crises without taking anything out on anyone else

-I don't feel used after sex... I had genuinely forgotten what good, fulfilling sex was.

[Crushed_Dad]

 

totally agree with that sentiment Wasted!! Had a stark reminder of all her BS yesterday when I had the temerity to say our DS was confused... spiteful remarks, abusive text message followed. Should've known better, been so much happier not having to watch my tongue the whole tongue I guess I forgot to put up the defence.

[Bowsy26]

The biggest and most important gratitude I have for leaving my uNPDexh is in how it taught me to take care of myself.  I was scared of living alone, of being totally responsible for my financial and emotional well-being, and I didn't know if I could do it, but I did it.  I learned to stand on my own two feet.

So glad for you, Clara.  I have the same fears. Today I met with a counselor and told him if my fears over actually following through with a divrodce.  I'm happy you out to the other side. 

[katyo]

Thank you for this topic. I have been divorced for almost a year and a half, and I find myself forgetting how bad things actually were with my ex. I am most grateful for the ability to identify and act on my own needs and desires. I never had a choice and always played the secondary character in my ex- husband's life. The posts above about just going to the grocery store and worrying about buying the wrong thing was my daily life. I was screamed at for turning the wrong way on the interstate one time. Screamed at and called horrible names. That is just unbelievable to me now. I am also so grateful to be able to sleep at night. I lived in constant fear of being woken up, sexually coerced or god forbid I slept too long. My health suffered and I lived in a constant state of fear and anxiety. I can sleep now and my home is a quiet haven where I finally feel safe. I am also grateful to be able to try new things, take myself wherever I want to go or just have no agenda at all. I am not being controlled anymore by someone else. The work it took to get here is really hard, but worth everything. I am also eternally grateful for sites like this. These places were my life raft when I was drowning. When I couldn't leave my marriage, I educated myself. That education led to action, so I am so glad we have the language for what we are experiencing and places to go for help.

[Stillirise]

I filed for divorce earlier this month.  This thread in particular was one of my final pushes to just take the leap, instead of waiting for the "right time."  I know I have such a long road ahead.  It is so helpful to read your stories of hope, and not just your struggles.  I am so grateful to each of you. 

[Lucky3]

I am so looking forward to being on the other side.  These posts are so important.   

[sevenyears]

It's hard to remember the good things sometimes, since there is still a lot of crazy and I co-parent with him. Here goes!

What I am most appreciative of is that I can be my own person again and raise my children as I see fit during their weeks with me.

And, then there is everything else that makes leaving worthwhile:

- the freedom to lead my day-to-day life as I please
- the freedom of choice without criticism or needless debates
- the knowledge that I will only enter into a relationship if we are equal partners and that I don't have to play second fiddle to anyone
- the peace of setting my home up that fits my needs and desires, and which I can rearrange any time I want
- the peace from no circular discussions
- the lightness I feel without someone ready to steamroller, dismiss or oppose anything I do or want
- the joy of gardening without being told that I'm killing the plants/trees or whatever
- I can drive a car without criticism
- I can do household chores and tasks, and I can do them on my time (when we were together, we used to argue over who got to do something. He insisted on doing almost everything; it was like I didn't matter).

[blunk]

Yes sevenyears, I had forgotten about the car! I could not do anything right when driving with my BPDxh. I was too slow, drove like an old lady, I should have gone through that yellow light, I should have made that right on red despite the sign saying it wasn't allowed, I never knew where I was going if I didn't go the way that he felt was right (I do admit that I have NO sense of direction, but I am talking about frequently visited locations) usually the way that he determined had the fewest stoplights...even if it involved 37 turns and took twice as long to get there. 

[Whatthehey]

Almost midnight of the one year anniversary since I walked out.  He left for work, I filled the car and picked up the kid, the papers were delivered as he was coming home.  Our divorce finalized this past Jan.  I have been social distancing alone for the month. Two of my three children are not talking to me after siding with their OCPD father.  So many lies he has told . . .

For a moment the past few days, I wanted to go back to him because of my loneliness and the anger/anxiety over my children.

Then I read this and all the memories come flooding back from the past 32 years.

I am grateful I can turn the TV up.
I am grateful that I can cook as I wish without a noncom looking over my shoulder.
I am grateful to do the laundry my way.
I am so very grateful to sleep through the night without a 3am manic "what did you do?" episode
Oi, the driving.  I am so grateful to drive without fear.
I am grateful to live without fear.  My PTSD episodes (seizures) have almost completely disappeared.
I am grateful to site at midnight and type this without worrying if he would find it.

I am grateful to be myself.

[PeanutButter]

Its very wise to focus on positives and be grateful for those. Sometimes thats hard to do.
I am so sad for you and your sons that they felt they must pick a side. No child of any age should feel like they need to choose between their parents. They WANT and NEED a father AND a mother. Ive often heard it said that in divorce children are the collateral damage.

[Upstream]

Been separated almost 5 yrs, divorced 9 days!

What am I most grateful for?
- Not having to deal with the moodiness. We just never knew, from minute to minute, what his mood would be, and it became a constant vigil, making sure uNPDexh was "okay", because his ensuing silent treatments  or moodiness put an excruciating squeeze on us all, for days at a time!

-  Not having to act happy and calm in front of the kids (when they were little) in order to provide them with meaningful happy afternoons, when in reality, I was feeling crushed inside by uNPDexh behavior!

-  Being able to model healthy ways of dealing with anger and conflict with my two boys, aged 9 and 12 when we separated.

-   Not having to spend days in circular arguments, stuck in cognitive dissonance, confused when I realized that despite him saying  he loved me, all he really wanted was for me not to ever ask for kindness, caring, compromise, fairness.  All my attempts to bring up my concerns ended with him doing clever image management, denials, blame shifting and victim playing.  Don't have to struggle with that contradiction between saying and doing anymore!

-  Sleeping in on the week ends!  (He always got to!)

- Taking naps in the afternoon once in a while! (He took a 20 min - 2 hr nap everyday. Staying up half the night with porn can be exhausting, you know!)

-  Not having to feel that crushed soul feeling all day, all night, under all that I do, like an undergarment that's always there, even when you are laughing and smiling with others, you know that inside, your soul is aching. It took several years for me to be able to truly not feel that pain at the deepest layer of my being. 

-  Not having to do 95% of EVERYTHING next to part time job (housework, childcare, yard maintenance etc) and act like it wasn't strenuous. If I ever said I was tired, or needed help, that only set off his mood swings, which only made things harder for me. I had kids and had to keep things running. If I didn't do it, noone would.

-  The idea that I don't have to spend the rest of my life living like that.

-  Understanding my own value. Others value what I have to give.  And they recoprocate with kindness. Sometimes too, people are kind to me first, just for no reason. and they aren't trying to manipulate me. It's this thing called friendship that I get to enjoy now! (Somehow, it just hardly ever worked out for me to have time alone with a friend, despite uNPDexh promises that he wanted to "support" me🤦🏻‍♀️)

- I get to go grocery shopping without having to say when I'll be back or put up with a poor little abused victim if my trip takes more than 2 hours, even though I've called to let him know!

-  I get to actually decorate the house and can do it without criticism!  Learned how to use a miter saw and put up ceiling and wall moulding in the living room.  🤸‍♂️

-  Sitting in the living room!😎

Upstream

[11JB68]

 
I'm hoping I can find a way to get to that place Upstream

[SomeDayFree]

It's only been 5 days for me, but I think this will be very good for me to make this list...    NOT falling for the hoover this time. 

Thankful *  I can ....

* open my eyes in the morning and not immediately have to go into panic/anxiety mode 
* sit and drink coffee on my patio and look at whatever I want on my phone without being questioned or watched 
* drive my car how I want to drive it and park where I want to park without ASKING first 
* wear whatever I want 
*clean whatever, whenever, however I feel like it   
*stay home from work if I am sick without being accused of things 
*talk to my friends and see my friends ...and I can talk to them and see them whenever I want 
*relax instead of constantly playing detective (I caught him cheating which is why it ended) 
*make plans with family/people and not have to worry what will "happen" the day before or the day of those plans 
*go places without watching him constantly check out other women 
*paint and do other hobbies I was always too stressed out to do 
*relax and not worry about every little thing in the house being how someone else wants it 
*stay up as late as I want to 
*do errands when, in what order, and how I want to...and by MYSELF 
*buy whatever brand or whatever the heck I want at the store without criticism 
*hear myself think and not have to listen to loud stories constantly about him 
*i can read, watch, and research whatever I want to 
*have my own opinion 
*think about how "I" feel about things 
*listen to whatever music I want to without being criticized 
*go on lunch at work and not have to call and sit on the phone with him while he is silent....just so he can listen and make sure I'm not "doing something wrong" 
*have time to myself to make this list 

[GettingOOTF]

I live somewhere with a strict lockdown. I am also high risk so I’ve been observing an even stricter lockdown.

In January I saw that the virus would inevitably hit here. I stocked up on a few months worth of groceries, I’d recently finished a major renovation on my home  I couldn’t have done done either of these things with my ex as we never had any money.

He had hoarding tendencies. We lived surrounded by clutter. You had to move stuff off the counters to cook. Piles of junk all over the floor. Stuff falling out of closets. I have spent the last few years decluttering. My space, though small, is calm, open and always neat and clean. I have around a quarter of what I had when my ex lived here.

This time has been stressful. I’m working from home and my job means that this period is even busier than usual given what I do and what is going on. I’m very active and I travel a lot. My life has completely changed. It’s been hard adjusting but nothing compared to how it would have been with my ex.

If he were still here he’d be going out and engaging in high risk behaviors while at the same time controlling every single one of my movements and behaviors out of “concern” for me “I’m just worried about you” would be his justification for a million little abuses.

If I’m feeling overwhelmed I can cry, be upset or have a day to do nothing. With my ex I wasn’t able to even think about expressing a negative emotion.

He would stay up most of the night watching loud movies with all the lights on so I never got a good nights sleep. I was exhausted for work every day. I can only imagine how bad it would be if we were both here together in the apartment with no escape to work for me.

I go through periods where I really don’t think about my ex but since lockdown I have been grateful every single day that we aren’t together.

I have saved so much money as I can’t go anywhere. My ex would have spent that online on more junk.

I am in awesome shape. I’ve used this time to workout and cook nutritious meals. With my ex I was always exhausted, there was no space for a workout mat and he cooked super high calorie meals that he would bully me into eating. I lost a ton of weight when I left simply by not having him stand over me while I ate.

While I’m worried and stressed it’s a surface worry. Deep down I feel calm, confident about my future and rested. It was such chaos with my ex. I’m a little shocked at how well I’m handling all of this. When bad things happen now I work through them. My ex would be screaming and expecting the worst over every tiny thing.

I’m not sharing my space with someone who criticizes my every move. Everything I did was “wrong”. How I brushed my teeth, how I lay in bed when I was asleep, how I spoke to people, how I dressed, how I did my job, how I put things away in the fridge. It was relentless.

I’m excelling at my job. I’ve used this massive change to pitch new projects and ideas, every single one has been signed off on. When I was married I did the bare minimum and that was a challenge for me. I expect to see a big bump in my compensation at the end of this year. That will go in my savings. When I was married the more money I made the more my ex would spend on junk. We never had money in the bank and were often overdrawn with maxed out cards. I haven’t paid a penny in interest in years since I left and paid of all the debt we (he) accumulated.

I spend this extra time reading, working on my yard, catching up with friends, spending time with my animals, doing yoga, going for long bike rides and generally not having to worry about a single thing.

None of this would be possible if I was still married to my ex. In fact he has started trying to harass me again so I know nothing has changed with him.

I do not have the words to articulate how awful this time would be with him and how awful I would feel but I know those who have left will know how bad it was and the different between then and now. 

[heron]

I'm so glad to see this! I'm doing an exercise from a book where I write down everything I look forward to when I think of leaving, and what I feel afraid about that makes me want to stay. And I wanted ideas for what to look forward to and leaving a PD partner. Here were some of my ideas:

Being able to travel for business and fun.
Being my best self and growing my career without feeling guilty that it bothers her.
Be able to move to a different state or country.
Being able to get rid of most of my possessions and live in a more minimal way, to focus on what really matters to me. Which is not kitchen gadgets.
peace and tranquility instead of daily fear and anxiety. Having a home where I feel safe.
Being able to have friends and actually hang out with them occasionally and not be afraid that she won't like them or she'll feel jealous of them or she'll worry I'm flirting or she'll feel she's not getting attention or...
Relax and play sometimes without feeling guilty.
No pets! Finally!
Not be constantly scared that my kids will get yelled at.
Be able to make mistakes without being criticized.
Be able to make decisions without thinking will it scare her? Bother her? Trigger her? (Usually, yes)
No that no one will call me names and say I'm worthless, well except maybe internet haters.
Not have to hide my thoughts and feelings.
The possibility of having real love with a partner who accepts me, wants the best for me, and respects me. Rather than constantly trying to control me due to her own fears.
opening my eyes in the morning and feeling peace, and not being on edge knowing borrowed time until she wakes up.
Make plans without worrying about whether she'll cancel cause drama not feel good that day etc