Hi Smartcookie - Thanks for the hugs - it's always nice to get those...
The mourning process was exhausting and excruciating at times - but I feel like I've gotten through the worst of it. I still get sat at times - but find that I can finally reclaim songs (beautiful songs) that I had associated with her/us - and can now listen to them and hear things that I had missed before. It's actually kind of thrilling.
I agree with you that taking care of you is the best thing you can do for your kids - I'm doing that more and more - and can already see the difference it's making in my S11's life - He and I have always had a wonderful relationship - but I now see how much more comfortable he feels without the constant tension around us...
A couple weeks ago my S11 told me that he really didn't like B very much anymore - that he felt like she didn't want him around, and that she was always poised to snip at him about something. He wasn't talking about B since she left - he was talking about how she treated him over the years that she's been in our life. He even told me that he feels more comfortable telling me what he thinks about things now - since before, he used to worry that if he spoke up that she would get angry and that she and I would argue...poor kid...I can't believe he had to process all that crap and that I put up with it for so long...As a matter of fact, he asked me just that question, "Why did you put up with it for so long, dad? She didn't seem to respect you." I never, ever, thought I would have heard those words, that question, from my eleven-year-old son - but the fact that he asked me that question tells me that he's learned something important from my experience - namely - loving someone does not give them the right to treat us poorly.
It's great to hear from you, SC. I know you're going through a tough period at home...but I know you know that the sun will always shine. Always.
Good for you with being able to walk away from her baiting of you and for being able to "let things go" because you can see where it is headed - into a no win situation!
Well done. Good work on keeping yourself focused on the present and moving in the right direction for you and your boys.
Perhaps soon your W will be able to turn the corner for her own sake. That is all you can hope for. I know that my XW is currently in a good place for herself which has helped our relationship going forward, but I'm not putting complete stock into it until she is consistent. However, for now, it is nice.
I hope you're sitch will get there soon so you can be able to relax a bit as well.
Rob, I swear, sometimes it's just uncanny how much your comments relate to exactly what I'm going through at a given moment. Today is my S12's birthday (gasp...he's almost a teenager) and that, combined with Mother's day, seemed to have made for an emotional weekend for B. On Saturday she tried to lure me into her tension after handing me a gift for my S12 - I didn't say anything when I accepted the gift for him - I just looked at it - and it prompted her to snip at me - so I just stayed calm, didn't play into her game, and just took my baby boy inside
Over the weekend, there was more of the same - and she actually called me five times yesterday - rather than just responding by texts to my texts about S2 (who came down with a fever while with me on Saturday). I have S2 home with me today - as he was still a bit under the weather yesterday - and so I'll be heading out tonight to surprise my S12 and take him out for ice cream after his soccer practice. When talking about today B suddenly started telling me about all the issues going on at her job - stuff that she hasn't talked about with me for months - layoffs, firing people "for no reason", etc - and using it as an excuse for not being able to pick up S2 earlier than usual so that I can head out to see my S12 tonight...She even tried to make some comment about how it would I should realize that it would affect me if she lost her job...to which I said nothing, and simply asked to speak with my baby boy instead.
She's trying a new approach to manipulate me - I can see that pretty clearly - though I am just not interested in playing along at all. It's just too obvious that she's trying to get something...in some respects, I'm wondering if she's finally starting to see that maybe I'm not the source of all her issues/problems...though the idea of reconciling with her just makes no sense to me at all.
It will be nice to reach a point where I can relax more. Like you, Rob, I'm not putting much stock into the small changes she's showing until they become consistent...
Carlos, Sounds like you both are still "interested" in some sort of reconciliation. You are detached yes but I sense some want to work on this if she can work on herself. (what a awful sentence!) I still have that "wishing tree" idea in my head. How about we get people all across the country to set one up and by magic they all appear overnite?! Cheers
M22,H45,W45 S21/18D12 Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties and at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
Rob and Coach, Always great to log on here and see words from you, my friends.
Sometimes that feeling of reconciliation - that question of the possibility of reconciliation - comes into me when I spend a lot of time alone with my baby boy and I think just how inane this is...I look at myself now - and can see that though I am a flawed man, I am not a bad man - and I am certainly not the demon B believes me to be...so I still wonder, from time to time, if she could ever let the scales fall from her eyes so that she could that her pain and her issues don't begin and end with me - I may have contributed to her pain when we were together - but I did so out of my own lack of wisdom - not out of malice - while I think much of her pain was the result of someone else's malice.
I ask myself sometimes what I would do if she called as asked to try to work on things - and in my mind, as I imagine the scenario, I can't hear myself agreeing to it. I think about my S12 and what he's said to me about she treated him - and I think about her ability to manipulate me - use my affection and my vulnerabilities to disarm me - and then try to define me and belittle me...and I just don't think I could ever trust her not to be that way.
Last night, when she came to pick up my S2 I finally just asked her, aloud and without any accusation, to move forward with our separation agreement and divorce. When I brought it up, she looked pained and shocked - and started talking nonsense about taking our time to do it right and wanting proof that I had removed her name from my credit cards...she then got very angry, accused me of not admitting that I am an angry man that intimidates her - and then stormed off saying "it's late, email me." So...I don't think she knows what she wants...and I think she was very surprised to hear me say, "I no longer want to be married to you. I don't want to be your husband."
But that doesn't mean I am completely over the sadness of having my family broken apart - it hurts me profoundly - and sometimes I feel just so torn that I could have loved someone so much, for so long, in such an unhealthy way that seemed to harm her rather than support her. By the same token, I'm much more aware of the ways in which she used our love for one another as a way to excuse her more harmful behavior - like her affair and her eventual revision of who I am.
Without her in my life, there's no anger whatsoever - there's the sadness of having lost something that I had expected to be beautiful - our family - but there's no anger...not toward her, not toward other people that have harmed me, not toward myself...wait a minute. I take that last one back. Sometimes I am angry with myself for having taken so long to realize things that now seem so obvious - and I also feel moments of anger - moments that masquerade as disappointment - when I look where I've arrived at my life - and think...how could this be? I've had every opportunity to make a better life for myself and my children, and I haven't done it...what is wrong with me? But asking that question - and feeling that frustration is part of facing the reality I am living - and figuring out how to turn my dilemmas into opportunity. And I'm learning. Every day I feel like I learn a bit more about the mistakes I've made - and I also learn a bit more about my strengths - and my priorities.
...and the Wishing Tree...they've cleared the installation of wishing trees from Pasadena - but I know they're still out there - I think all the trees were set up at an exhibit in Japan. Right now I'm thinking how nice it would be if we could all just take a piece of paper, about an inch thick, and maybe five or six inches long, fold it in half, punch a hole in it, and attach a piece of yarn to it. We could then keep this piece of paper in our pockets until the urge strikes to write a wish - we then select a tree that looks just right, write down that wish, and tie it to a limb...perhaps even handing an extra piece of paper to anyone that might be with us or watching us as we tie the wish to the tree...just a thought...
if she could ever let the scales fall from her eyes so that she could that her pain and her issues don't begin and end with me - I may have contributed to her pain when we were together - but I did so out of my own lack of wisdom - not out of malice - while I think much of her pain was the result of someone else's malice.
My feelings on my XW exactly, my brother.
This is the reason why there can not be a reconcilation. As long as there is a finger pointing away from the real cause, there is no hope for anything lasting. The road to becomming better is long, difficult and often painful. We're on this road by force, as we didn't choose to be here.
We've done some very, very difficult work and still have much more to do. We know both the pain of the journey as well as the glory of the results. We understand how the end result justifies all the suffering and difficulty encountered along the way, but we're still wary of what we've got to do b/c we know how tough it is.
Our spouses had a choice - either conscious or unconscious - and they chose not to face their inner demons and instead blame us. Until they choose to look inward, they'll continue to be unhappy and dissatisfied w/their lives.
They may learn to ease back on the anger toward us (as my XW has recently done and may the good Lord keep it going), but ultimately until they choose to unlock the key, they'll never complete their individual puzzle.
We're all flawed as humans, but those of us here on these boards can at least say that we're tired of blaming our flaws on our lack of success and have instead learned to embrace our imperfections and learn to thrive despite them.
Keep going, my brother! Keep going. You are moving in the right direction.
Not much to talk about...just here because celebrating my birthday a couple days ago just made me think about how much has changed in my life over the past year. I'm no longer devastated or even hurt by the end of my marriage - instead I'm relieved to find that underneath all the pain I felt for so many months was a healthy person just waiting to emerge. When B first started talking about D, she did so in terms of defining me - accusing me of being an angry man, accusing me of ruining her life, setting obstacles in front of her, not respecting her, abusing her...a lot of things...some of it true...a lot of it not-so-true...
At first, I responded in a way that I think we're encouraged to respond through this site - in a way that makes a lot of sense for many relationships/marriages that need a tune up - that need some major changes for both people to recognize how they can make things better. Such was not the case for me - rather, my efforts to validate B's words and actions merely seemed to confirm for her the idea that I was anything she would accuse me of being. Eventually, and after much soul-searching, many tears, several sessions with a marriage counselor and with my own T, I discovered that I was determined, in an unhealthy way, to recover the love of someone that was more determined to harm me than to care for me in a healthy, giving way.
I was very unhappy before B dropped the bomb - and had even mentioned divorce to her myself on many occasions. For me, it was a way (a bad way, to be sure) of expressing my frustrations with our marriage - my disappointments with things that would not change - and my sadness at feeling so used by her - and so often confronted with her anger.
B had an affair just before our baby was conceived - just months after we were married - and she was entering into an EA when she decided to drop the bomb...using many of the same words she had used to defend the man of her PA - "he's a good person", "he diffuses anger", "he's patient," "he's not like you" etc...When she started using these same words with me again I knew something was going on outside of our marriage - and yet I tried to keep things going...and as I read the books I tried to use a lot of the techniques...
My mistake...and I think it's a common one...was to think that I could "save my marriage" through the DB techniques. I could not do that...all I could do - and for this I am grateful for having found the site and the books - was save myself. It took me many, many months to come to terms with the idea of saving myself - and allowing B to travel her journey on her own - but once I did, I understood so much more about what it means to be detached and what it means to love someone in a healthy way.
I was talking with a dear friend of mine recently about something really significant that occurred to me recently...As I was driving home, I started thinking about how I react to people when I am critical of them. What I noticed is that often, maybe most of the time, when I am feel emotional about my criticism of someone - whatever I am saying has more to do with me than with them. It's the classic scenario of projection - and I'm very aware of it in myself now...along with that awareness, however, I've also noticed that when I am critical of someone, and don't feel any emotion about it - that I can respond with a lot more reason and sense to their behavior.
For instance, my former landlords turned out to be unethical people who had no issue with stealing from their tenants...in terms of property - and unreturned security deposit. I find their behavior abhorrent - but I have no anger about it - just a determination to make it right according to the law. They flaunted the law and took advantage of my situation - and yet I don't feel angry about it - rather - I feel like I just have to take care of the situation and continue to move on. It's an attitude that I learned from my interactions with B.
She's accused me of so many things now that have nothing to do with me - and so now, whenever she throws out the threats to call the police (which still happens whenever I disagree with her about our son)I don't take the bait at all. I just process the words - process the threat - and think about how to move on without being engaged in her way of thinking. In other words, I won't allow another person to determine who I am based on the dynamic they try to create. B has been trying to start an argument with me for a couple weeks now - and I'm just not interested in playing into it at all...and she seems thrown off by it - but I find myself going on with my days without being affected by her anger and her moods...it's quite calming.
So what am I trying to say? Well, if you're a newcomer to this site - I would suggest that you allow yourself to go through your process of healing as best you can. It will be painful - and it may take longer than it has for others here and it may happen for you quicker than it has for others - but it will only happen at your pace, and you will feel things when you are ready to feel them. There's a lot of pain involved in both saving oneself and in rescuing a marriage - but that pain always yields to new strength...just as the tiny tears in a muscle make it stronger as it heals.
Our hearts, our capacity to love, our relationships, they may not have an overt physicality, but they seem no less governed by the rules of the body. Love can heal from pain - love can be strengthened through pain - but it requires the effort of loving oneself - the risk of loving oneself - to make that healing possible.
Wow. Think I have often started replies to your posts with "wow" and this one will be no exception.
Feels like I just read the words of a man on the other side, one who found himself in hell, kept walking, and came out stronger, healthier and reconnected with his essential, vital self.
So glad to read what many of us have known about you all along through your posts - that you would emerge from your battle brilliantly.
Hi VV, Thanks for the kind words. I sometimes feel like I've gotten closer to the other side - though I'm not that certain I've made it there yet. I continue to work on it though, and sometimes find that I still have a few threads of attachment that still tug at me - not in terms of making me want to go back to B - but moreso in terms of holding me back from facing my future head-on.
There's something that's just so unnerving about having a decade of a shared life torn apart - the collapse removes a structure, a foundation for future thoughts and plans, and left me with the harsh reality of how to improve myself on my own terms.
B, despite being the one to leave the home and break up the family, will not respond to any of my requests to go agree to a mediator so that we can get our divorce settled. Just recently she was shocked - literally shocked and even angered - when I told her that I no longer wanted to be her husband, and that I wanted our divorce to move forward as soon as possible. Her response was to say that she wanted proof that I had removed her name from my credit cards...And so I knew that I had caught her unawares and that she had to deflect rather than address a real issue between us.
My boys are both doing well. S12 will be living with me soon for the summer - which will be wonderful - and S2 continues to be a happy, lovely boy with a beautiful sense of humor.
