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"I had an epiphany this morning while driving to work. I was singing along with the radio, wailing away to a popular song about breaking up. This particular song has some great lines that fit my situation very well, about being treated &amp;quot;like a stranger&amp;quot; and like &amp;quot;we were nothing&amp;quot;. You&amp;#039;ve probably heard it, since it&amp;#039;s in heavy play right now. And as I&amp;#039;m singing along, I first thought: I&amp;#039;m not really feeling this much. My next thought was that not only is Peter &amp;quot;just somebody that I used to know&amp;quot; (in some ways), but so am I. Or so was I, more specifically. When I said goodbye to Peter, I should have said goodbye to the Ellie I had to be when he was around. Instead, I clung to her, because she was familiar and safe in this new topsy-turvy non-Peter world. I knew how to be her. And I thought that if I stayed her, it would be stable for my kids, and safer for me. Maybe if I stayed old, familiar Ellie who doesn&amp;#039;t make waves and doesn&amp;#039;t do things other than old, familiar Ellie things, Peter wouldn&amp;#039;t be upset or angry or ugly to me. It turns out that he can still be all those things, on occasion, because he chooses to be. Sometimes it has something to do with me not doing Old Ellie things, and sometimes it doesn&amp;#039;t. He doesn&amp;#039;t seem to particularly care for the new Ellie, when she pokes her head out. That&amp;#039;s no big deal, though, because he obviously didn&amp;#039;t care so much for the Old Ellie, either. Maybe I need to find a few good breakup songs and sing them to the person I really need to sever my ties with: Old Ellie, who still acts like she&amp;#039;s married to Peter, and trying (at her own expense) to make the world revolve around his needs. New Ellie is discovering that it&amp;#039;s OK to insist on the things she needs and the things her children need, whether directly or indirectly. Strangely enough, when New Ellie pushes back, he accepts it. Begrudgingly sometimes, but he accepts it. Maybe eventually, he&amp;#039;ll learn to accept New Ellie. Then again, maybe I&amp;#039;ll learn the same thing. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/relationships/dating-marriage/a47215/not-just-him-goodbye/>