Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums Midlife Crisis The EA bomb dropped by misdirected text

The OW in this affair will be needy in some way herself. She may be be looking for a good time with a stable man who has money. He feeds her ego as well at this moment. Unfortunately unlike other affairs these can last a lot longer depending how deep the issues are and how fast the H is running from facing his demons from childhood. Replay can go on for years. That is why it is important not to put any time frame on it and look after yourself.

Looking after yourself ensures that your survive both physically and emotionally whatever the outcome.

Some people on this forum adhere to the 24-48 hour rule. That means after something particularly bad happens they drop communication with the person and calm themselves and try not to panic so they don't do anything they later regret. It is hard to do, but it helps. I have found that nothing is ever solved in a day or two anyway, so what does it matter. Through journalling, a support group, one trusted friend (don't tell everyone you know or both your families at this time), or counseling, you need to get some support to start figuring out how to heal yourself from this. As that happens, it will become clearer what you want to do.

Not everyone will want (or be able) to experience this type of thing for several years in hopes that the depressed or MLC person gets help. Over the next few months you may find out that you do not have the stomach for it. If you make that choice, don't feel guilty. Even though he is "out of his head" he still dealt you an awful blow and it's not your fault if you have to move on to protect yourself. But you don't have to decide today.

So, I decided to go dark yesterday (and going forward) & received a series of texts...

The first was recognizing that he's been 'placing too much blame' on me (a gross understatement!) and that HE is the one that needs to 'grow the f up'. H claims to have thought all of this out from a man's perspective now, instead of what he 'craves as a boy'. (At least, maybe, for the moment that is...but I have actively jumped off of the roller coaster now, since I know he will continue to ride for a long time to come! I expect the boy to emerge again at any time...).

The next expressed his shame and embarrassment for the sitch, admitting that he 'must be a man, without attaching himself to anyone else' and that I 'don't deserve this from' him, ending in 'I completely failed you' (But why would he say that after he already took off?! OBVIOUSLY he failed me already...anything new is just salt in the wounds, if I choose to feel it that way that is - and I DON'T!).

The final one indicated that SHE has severed their communication, indicating that she was 'only trying to be his friend', that he pulled her into something that she didn't want an didn't know how to get out of, and that he 'assumed too much and thought that it was something it was not'. While she does have feeling for him, she said tha she would never act on them (I guess my text to her questioning her morals maybe hit home?!). So now he has terminated with the counselor (who I referred to as his 'new mommy'), I have gone dark, and he no longer has access to his latest leaning post (his text-only love) - since she's severed her communication. This means (maybe) that he may be finally facing the tunnel and ready to face the demons...but I can't really speculate...

Anyway, I DID NOT respond to these texts (Yay me! Yay going dark!)...instead having a quiet night in an exceptional 4-star hotel, after a long day of well-done work at this conference in a beautiful city. I also had some real food & the best night's sleep in weeks! I am feeling much more calm, centered and confident.

I am so grateful for the wisdom and support on this board!

So...BOUNDARIES: He will be picking me up at the airport tonight (10 pm), and I have determined a few boundaries. The first is no contact, unless it's about practical matters related to bills or getting the house ready for sale, and then only by text. NO more calling to 'see how I am doing, because he cares'. Inexplicably, he is still considering coming back to stay at the house...so, as an option, I have made arrangements with a friend to stay with her should he choose to do so and can return to pack up & sell, etc. when he is at work during the day. This would protect me from his roller coaster of varying degrees of guilt, shame, pain, rage, and trauma (throughout all of this, he keeps asserting: 'I am not crazy' - even though he HAS indeed been acting out of his mind!).

One important note in all of his latest 'drama'...I have not shed one tear! Maybe I'm literally 'dried up', following so many months of my own pain, grief, and loss - or just maybe I'm becoming more detached, centered & whole within myself and my own skin. My conviction that I am the s**t (and I AM!) and I will go on no matter what the outcome feels very strong right now within me since yesterday morning. But, like I say, I am just taking it one second at a time, and staying in touch with my feelings as they arise - letting go of those I need to and embracing those that serve me in my quest for healing...

So, another long day of work at this conference, a late flight, and an airport pick-up ahead... BUT I feel pretty fine!

Getting stronger,
SH

Wow. It has been an an amazing few days. Sounds like you have a good plan in place for when you go back. You sound lilke you are in a good place today even if it's painful. You are very wise to extricate yourself from HIS rollercoaster. It's painful and bizarre to have to spectate that stuff.

Wonder what is in store for H since he terminated counseling? I would be livid if I were you and felt he was "wising up" because the 23-year-old had gotten a good peek at the mess she was dealing with and the mess she was becoming and cut him off at the knees. It took THAT to give him a realization that HE has some serious issues? Ugh. I hope he gets some help or growth and not just some more props of one type or another.

Well...he picked me up at the airport for the short ride home. It was quiet and very little was said. No mention of the R (good!), just 'how was the flight' 'how was the hotel' type of thing. I told him about my lunch with a mutual friend in the city where the conference was...he told me about finding an old friend and meeting up with him after 15 years. Replay is still upon him...seeking out old friends & making plans to see another friend's band next weekend. Very little eye contact. He wanted to come in to say hi to the cats (our 'boys'), since he had spent the last two nights here with them...but one of them would not come out and so he left, abruptly and without the previous hugs. It was an exercise in detaching and, though it felt alien, it also felt right. He is on his own journey and I am not invited right now...

I cannot help him through this tunnel. I can only help myself to become a better, stronger, more independent and fulfilled person - not reliant on another for meaning or happiness or support.

It's funny how flat & calm I feel about this - being in this house-that-was-a-home alone. Sad too...he is truly out of his mind and truly lost...but it's HIS job to find himself...and MY job is to heal and seek wholeness in myself. I know this, but I am still sad about it. My hope for (or even belief in) restoration is waning after this weekend's tests. He is GONE (well...he has been gone for a month now in an over-priced MLC apartment & working ridiculous overtime to support it!).

So... tomorrow I will unpack, do laundry, plan for the debrief with my boss this week and take one step, one second at a time. I will keep breathing and believing in better days to come. I hope that I can find something else to do with the endless hours in between these tasks and in the days ahead.

Boy! This is a lonely, lonely ride...
I'd appreciate any words from anyone right now to help me feel less alone and helpless and hopeless. Especially since I feel so much love for him still.

SH

It IS extremely sad to see loved ones suffering mentally. There's no two ways about it. You would have to have a heart of stone not to notice and care after all these years. It's also hard to see someone you knew change and disappear in plain view. I try to balance my hopefulness with realism and my IC has helped some with that. It is true that we can all "wake up" and change our behavioral choices that feed our mood cycles and work on ourselves for the better. It's also true that it is impossible to know when, how long, or if ever people will choose to do so.

You sound like you are in an okay, but sad space now. Stay busy and around positive people. In the next month or so you will have the perspective to know whether or not you will want to stay in limbo and for how long. Counseling and books and this forum can help with that. The loneliness DOES get better. There's no REASON you should feel "normal" being in a home alone after having enjoyed life with this partner for almost 13 years. Your body and mind and spirit will slowly readjust. Yes, it sucks!

You're doing a great job and you didn't deserve to have this happen to you or your family.

SH - I know exactly how you feel. What I have found that has helped me is to detach from the person (alien) my H is now. I hold on to the memories and love that I had in my M for who H used to be. I hold that close to my heart, but do not get mired and stuck in it. I continue to move forward because the past is gone and so is the H I used to know.

I choose to look at this time as a gift to myself. I've taken a good look and am working on the things that I don't like in me.

That's where your power lies is in the knowledge that you can only control you. You get to choose how to react or not to your H and his antics. You get to choose how you want to spend your time, money, etc. You get to focus on you.

Knowing there is no quick fix for your H you have time on your side. You get to figure out what YOU want. When the dust settles from the shock it will get easier to formulate a plan that works for you based on how you want to proceed.

You sound like a very strong woman and pretty centered. That will serve you well through out this journey that we did not ask to go on.

Take care.

Thanks rr & SA!

I very much appreciate the input from anyone and everyone here! It brings me some kind of solace to know that I am not alone and to hear about approaches that help others get through and find strength.

I think the worst part of the situation is that I am woefully underemployed, mostly working from home, and I have lost my taste for the doctoral work and volunteer activities that used to keep me engaged and/or get me out of the house when he was here. All of the things that once thrilled me (and he now says he feels that he took second place to) no longer hold their appeal. During the day...I am alone. At night...I am alone. It's maddening and I can't stop thinking about him and us and acting like a complete self-destructive idiot in my head. Having spent so many years with my best friend, love and companion this isolation really, really sucks - and there isn't much that I can do to 'get out', since any friends have their own work-lives and "life" lives and my family is spread all over the country nowhere near where I live. It makes it very difficult to GAL. I do have some activities - IC, massage therapy, dance class...and I added a new yoga class last week. But it's just not enough! I don't like bars or clubs (I feel a bit 'old' for those scenes and they're too loud and uncomfortable for me) and there really is not much else to 'do' as far as GAL is concerned...

That's why it's interesting to me that there seems to be an impression her that I am a strong, laid back, and centered woman - since I feel like ANYTHING but that right now! I seem to be on my own roller coaster, even if I have jumped off of his...

Last night (like a duma** who can't seem to 'go dark'), I texted him some lyrics from one of our favorite songs - when I first played it for him several years ago, we looked into each other's eyes while we were listening with tears streaming down our faces because it captured how we felt about each other so perfectly. It is one of those moments that I will never forget that defined what everyone I know believed to be a solid, stable, and loving relationship (really! they are all saying that they always believed that we were one of those couples that would 'make it' because we loved each other so much!). About 40 minutes later he wrote "I don't know what to do with this other than to feel guilty, even more so now.." To which I replied "Oh...sorry - not intended that way at all!...really just sent as a gesture of peace..."

I don't think I will hear from him for a long while now. At least not until it's time to pay bills at the end of the month.

So, here I sit in this quiet house-that-was-once-a-home, wondering what I am going to do with my day, listening to my cats cry for him since they had him here for two nights while I was away and feeling like I am drowning in isolation...

I definitely do NOT feel strong and centered! I feel like an abandoned, damaged, flawed middle-aged loser...

Do his expressions of guilt, shame, and feelings that he 'failed me completely' mean anything? Until his now-terminated counselor forced him to make the decision, he spent weeks saying that he did not 'want to make a decision that he might regret for the rest of his life' and said things like 'I loved our life together..but...' I guess these kinds of questions bely the fact that I am NOT as detached I think I am...

I need help to get through this! I'm losing my mind!

SH

SH - Everything you're feeling right now is normal for a LBS to go through. You explained exactly how I felt at first, also.

Have you read the Divorce Remedy book yet? Try not to pursue your H in any way. Go dark. Only contact him about necessary financial things.

Let your H find out what it is like not to have you in his life. Use this time for you and to figure out what you want. GALing can be done in many forms. Explore some of those things that have interested you, but you never had time for.

I have to go to work now, but will check in later.

Make it a good day for yourself and take care.

(((HUGS)))

You might have to go outside your comfort zone of usual activities to combat the isolation. My H and I spent A LOT of time together too. I've had to try to fill that time with other friends and new people. The people always fall short. Months later it feels at best like a distraction. You're not interested in what you're usually interested in because you're still upset. That's painful and normal. The only advice I have about GAL is fake it until you make it. Which I guess means fake it until the time passes and the pain dies down some. The crying cats would only make it worse for me, if I were you. LOL. Try to find some humor in that one! You are not a middle-aged loser. I notice the spouses of the WAH who are twenty-somethings on this thread feel like losers too, if that's any consolation!