Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums Midlife Crisis I can't move forward and it's driving me nuts

Antonia

I have a good friend whose stbx also went awol around the same time as mine, and we have discovered that if you are in contact with them, in any sustained way, at least later down the line, you discover they are nuts. Truly nuts. Brooklyn's xh is simply an extreme and articulate version of it.

Nothing they do really makes any sense. When we are not in contact with them we don't see it, or when the contact is occasional and/or angry. When they are hurting our kids we don't see it, but when we are having exchanges that are 'amicable', we start to notice how 'off' all their behaviours really are.

It is hard to explain, but my xh really does do and say the oddest things. Life is all about them. They have no real idea of what the world is like outside of their little box - more than the rest of us. They are a mess behind a mask.

I have quite frequent email exchanges with my xh - and I am really quite fond of him, but he really isn't the person I was married to, in any way. Just a shell. Pleasant enough, after all the rage, but there isn't anything there. And others have said the same thing to me, so it isn't simply ex wife perception. It is as if a hurricane hit him, and what is left is just about holding together and functioning. But not very well.

I haven't seen that so far but of course, we've only talked about this storm. I doubt there will be anything beyond that.

He emailed me when he got back home today to tell me he didn't sustain damage and was glad I didn't have too much and to take care.

I basically said glad to hear it, if you want to see the damage here you can look at my fb pics which are open to friends of friends, and enjoy the rest of your day. That's it.

I don't expect more contact. But I guess for me, it's been eating at me a long time that if anything ever happened to him or me, that my last interaction with him in March was me calling him an abuser and saying I love you but I never want to hear from you directly ever again. I just didn't want to end things on a bad note even if he deserved it I guess, but I wasn't strong enough to pull off what I did y-day and today until now.

So I guess the fact that I got to this place shows some progress. I have no expectations other than that he'll keep doing what he's doing and I'll keep on with my life :-)

Thank god, I really feel like I turned a corner. It's not just this, it's a ton of things that converged all at once. Despite the wreckage in my yard, I feel sort of like today is all new.

Ok I've got to post this because this is a watershed moment for me and I want to share this with all of you.

I don't know how long this feeling will last, but if it doesn't, I know it will come back, because it is here so clearly today.

I AM HAPPY.

I have had moments here and there of happiness, but there has always been this core of self-blame and feeling of being stuck and an "I'll never ever in a million years get over this and be ok again," and I do believe that if you picture my emotional balance as a see-saw, and on the left is my pain, and on the right is my moving on, that the see-saw has tilted to the right and come down to touch the ground.

It's not that it might not swing back from time to time, but there is momentum to push it to the "moving on" side.

I have said many times that when we have a rough period we usually hit a growth period, and this is abundantly true. For me, I think it's because the rough period pushes me into action. When I was most desperate, I had to come up with something to change my pattern.

I did.

I contacted XH over the storm. We have had several email or text interactions that have been fine, and I have been able to read anything he says with neutrality or detached amusement. For the first time, I can interact with him if need be and I can be ok with it and not obsess over it. This is huge for me.

I also contacted a mother of a friend who I knew went through a divorce too and her XH cheated on her. I just had dinner with her. Total stranger. We talked 3 hours. She is a lovely, amazing person. We will be friends. We will help each other. I reached out, and there she was. She is going to help involve me in some community groups which will get me GALing more than my usual, and meeting new people.

I am taking a meditation class tomorrow. Again. I reached out to a coworker I barely knew and told him that I was suffering. He said he was too. He formed this group to help people in the area to come together to meditate to alleviate our own and others' suffering, and to try to teach us all to be mindful and present.

I am going to see my naturopath this week. I intend to ask her if I can "give back" for all that she has given me by helping her write a periodic newsletter for her patients. I feel strongly about her approach to wellness and I want to help her get the word out. I write--this is what I do--and I can help her.

I worked in my yard today on hurricane clean up. In the past, I was angry for the work I had to do that I thought XH left me with. Know what I said to him on an email? I said, "I have a lot of cleanup to do, but it will be good exercise and get me out in the sun in the cooler weather."

Today I put 2 hours in with hard work and never resented one second of it. I was happy to do it.

There are two things I did unconsciously that I think worked:

One, I acted "as if." Sure in my head I harbored feelings of anger towards XH. But I thought I have a choice. I can legitimze that anger by making a snarky remark about how he should be here to help, or I can say that the hard work does me good. When I said the latter, it became my reality.

Two, I finally looked the heck outside MYSELF. When I asked my friend's mom to dinner, I did it for me but I also did it for HER. I thought I could help her feel like she wasn't alone by telling her my story. In person. And in talking to my coworker who is eager to get a group going, who will be let down if no one shows up, I cared about HIM enough to say I want to support you.

When I looked outside myself, it was like I suddenly could say look, Antonia, you're an amazing person. He made his choices. It doesn't have to ruin your life. You can still have a life. You can have a BETTER life now that you are so much more in tune with who you are and not codependent on him for happiness.

In short, I think I just forgave myself and got over the hump.

I suddenly feel like my self-esteem is significantly better than it has been all along. I'm not looking at his choice of OW as "oh she is better than me." NOW, I know that isn't true. I have a TON of accomplishments and things to be proud of.

THAT is what is important. And add to that my ability to survive the worst pain I ever could have conceived of and gotten to the point where I could care MORE for other people's feelings than my own? Boy, do I ever rock ;-)

And you know, I know that this feeling is probably not going to be constant, and I'm going to slide back from time to time, but I'm here right now and the peace I feel is just wonderful.

You guys were ALL right. Everything said to me in advice was true. It's awesome :-)

Antonia - you do rock! Isn't it interesting when we get to the point of truly doing things for us, and not as any kind of reaction to our former spouse.

By loving ourselves we are set free, because real self love enables us to reach out and help others.

You will have down days, but you now know you will bounce back to an even better place, up and up. Even now I am still going through emotions that I had carefully put in a place of no pain. Growing up, if you like, becoming someone I like and respect.

Your reaching out has given me pause once more, to remember to go on doing it, for ouselves, and for others.

I'm glad, Beatrice, that it has given you pause!

My new friend sent me a bunch of her poetry tonight--she said that what I could do to help her out is to give her some advice on her poetry, or just be her cheerleader, because she is very creative but also very shy about her work. She wants to enter some contests and wants my help choosing what to send. I told her that I really would like to make her dinner too at my home. I haven't cooked for someone in ages, and she has pretty much opened her home to me--she lives in the town I work in and said please, between classes, come visit, or stay overnight if you are there late and don't want to make the drive home.

Her daughter who is my very close friend is 4 hours away at college. I think she misses her very much. I just see ways she and I really can help one another out.

I am SO struck by how much people pass into our lives when we need them. I feel like I wasn't going to learn anything anymore from XH anymore (or he learn more from me as I was stuck in a pattern) and THIS is why we are not together.

My XH is communicating with me only during work hours, which means he is protecting OW from any possible "pain" of seeing him interact with me. Between this and his hero-worship of her that only now I can see as I'm not hiding from him anymore, I can see that in every way, he is simply repeating his rel. with me with her. He is STILL lost and has no identity other than to be a woman's protector. He will leach her power and her confidence from her slowly but surely as he did to me. He will do it because of love, and he'll call it respect, but it's codependence. He has to be the hero. Till he can't anymore.

He doesn't get it. We have to be our own heroes, and we can't live to become another person's worshipper or protector. And he's never do it maliciously. He's doing it because it's all he knows, and it makes me sad for him and able to see him in a very different way.

I saw a quote on the alt that made sense, and it was "maybe rejection is god's way of saying you're headed in the wrong direction."

This direction I'm in is not what I thought I'd ever want but I guess it really is what I NEED.

Do you remember that wonderful bit in The Holiday where the Kate Winslet character realises that we are supposed to the leading lady of our own lives!

I am having some interesting emotional times - my youngest son has spent a lot of the summer with me, and went back today to finish grad school, and be with his wonderful gf. And I am feeling very sad, but not in a way that wants him to be here with me. That isn't where he belongs. I am grateful for the time we had, missing him, of course, but OK with the sadness. If we hadn't had such an amazing time I wouldn't be feeling so sad!

Isn't life complicated? But I am so glad that I can love, even if it means feeling down for a bit when the people you love are somewhere else. I don't need my son for my happiness - I just love him and miss him, but want what is good for him too. My other sons are great too!