Re: missing the good part. The devil replays the videos to keep you from healing by making you refuse to believe the reality of the bad treatment. It's the brain that is telling you what you are not getting- love.

Getting out of the obsession stage can be done by looking into your inner cord- it tells you what love is and what bad behavior is not. Take back your power of saying "No more pain". Do Not allow yourself to become" love addicted" to ungrateful behavior because of being left behind nor should you allow yourself to win this ungrateful person over. Take back your power by setting your standards that your love is for loving behavior.

Remembering the "good parts" is part of the early stages of getting over it.
When we suddenly find ourselves abandoned, we have a tendency to IDOLIZE the abandoner. It is the result of hormones and instincts; all normal. But this, too, shall pass.
I highly recommend getting a copy of Susan Anderson's book "The Journey from Abandonment to Healing." It was a real eye opener for me and helped tremendously to get me through my own 18 Months of Hell. You can buy it from amazon.com.

"Ok - here's a question - How do you stop missing the'good' part?" Time and effort does it for you. As time goes by you get some perspective. In the beginning I think I held out hope she'd come back. She did twice before the hurt stopped immediately. During that time I felt my world had come to an end. I loved being a married man. I liked the routine and I spent over 2 decades dedicated to my wife and kids. Then its gone. Just like that. Over time I realized what s-t she had been to me. I mean she emotionally tortured me over a year and half. She doesn't deserve me. So try to focus on how miserable life has been for you lately. It takes time but you'll get there. It does get better but you have to do some work too. Journal, talk, go to a shrink and your doctor, come here, exercise, join a support group. Focus on yourself now. Its your turn.

Well after speaking to my shrink, whom I started seeing the week I kicked him out, I have some clarity. I asked her the same question and we talked and I cried and I talked and I cried and a major issue is this: I was very abused as a child and I never learned to trust. I never had the unconditional love that I have for my girls and for my grandson and for awhile I had it from my sbtx. (The first time I've written that.) That's tough to realize that I tried to get it back for so many years. And that I kept changing the rules to accomodate his disease. I do understand that missing the good parts is part of the grief. I'm just so afraid I'll never feel unconditional love. I can only hope that maybe, just maybe there'll be someone who will love me because I am.

....I think that it is wrong to forget the good times, and not healthy to do so. It's like trying to say that all the married years of your life was a non-event. I refuse to cast the last 27+ years of my life in shadow. If I have a good or funny memory I speak it. If I want to smile at something from the past, I do. It is MY life I am thinking about. They are MY memories. If you have ever lost someone close to you, you can understand that as time passes, you can remember them with smiles instead of tears. What you feel is grief, and it will ease. Be patient with yourself.

That's what's so hard - I do remember the good times, the shared laughter. I mourn what could have been and then I thinh, Could it have? Really? I protected him from himself and then my children from his alcoholism. I made sooo many excuses I was sick of hearing myself. When I look back I realize it started going awry(sic) at least 12 years ago. That's the first time I questioned the longevity of our marraige. I remember thinking maybe he'll grow up - just maybe. And he never has. And I know it's the disease. The insidious snake of alcoholism. Weaving it's poisonous way through every fiber of our life. Playing hide and go seek in the very fabric of our marraige. It so sad to see that it won. I tried for years to fix him, to make him happy. Kicking all the negative in life under the rug 'til I could deal with it myself. Cause stress 'made' him drink. I thought if I could make him happy he wouldn't have to drink. But then he drank to celebrate. And when he was sad, or mad, or frustrated or elated or tense or relaxed or or or... First was the happy drunk, then the maudlin one, then the quiet one, then the angry one and then the mean one. The mean one is who reared his ugly head 7 months ago. But it's all of them that I have to leave behind. No matter that I hate it and I wish it could be different but it's not and I can't live that way anymore. I do deserve better and I decided I'd rather be alone and lonely then with him and lonely and angry and scared. So I now live alone but I am not lonely. Amazing.