I'm at it again....

The hardest part of the year for me is coming to a close, the winter. we are leaving the dark behind and coming back to the much welcomed sunshine and warmth. with that being said, this winter was rather mild overall. It was another year of lessons learned scenarios, which culminated into Esther and the boys moving out. Not on their own accord. It was a slurry mess of me not setting boundaries properly with my ex-wife and overall burnout. it was an emotionally challenging year, and where I have had sometime to be quiet and reel myself in from the non stop grind, I find myself sitting in an empty house for half of the week, able to clear my head, but the silence is deafening. 

    We have had time to talk about the situation, It's been hard because I can feel the hurt when we are talking, and I can see the hurt in her eyes when she comes over. There has been many heart to hearts this year, and many shed tears on both of our ends.  Even though both of us are hurt by things that we have done ( or didn't do) I can't help but feel that ultimately it's my fault. Which sucks because we have been through so much together, i feel like we have accomplished more than a lot of couples do in that same time frame. we were brought into each others lives at precisely the right time, because of this i feel like we were brought together for a reason. As much as this situation sucks I feel like we are not through with each other. 

    I know I have work to do, I need to learn to deal with a narcissist, I need to learn how to set boundaries between me and a narcissist, and I need to learn boundaries within my relationships. I need to delve a bit more into what causes me to do the things that I do. It's confusing, because there is SO MUCH information out there that I almost feel like I gas light myself with what I read, which makes it very confusing to know what actually is going on in my brain. Then I of course question if there is anything wrong with me and just go in circles. How are you supposed to fix yourself if you're confused as to what needs fixing, or finding the root cause. Is this trauma related from childhood, is it PTSD from my marriage. I wish life came with a handbook so I knew what to do. I'm tired of hurting myself and others.