Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers melissag VIII - but I'm afraid to have no fear!

Melissa, I am going to give you tough love.

I love reading your posts because I share almost identical feelings. It is so nice to follow you and read the responses because I can see myself in your sitch.

You know what I've done over the last several days? I've decided I'm not going to kick and scream anymore. I have been tantruming since BD and now off and on over the last month since my H lip service about 'working things out'.

I am letting go. I am saying the words letting go. This is so awful because it's not fair, not logical, hurting many people, and thoughtless. But I can't control it anymore. I have taken a giant step outside of me and looked at sitch once again from the outside. Wow, my H is not well. His choices are not him. I am going to let him go on his journey now. I am not going to stand in the way and put out the fires. I will uphold my boundaries and if they are abused, I will ask H to leave.

I am taking deep breaths and repeating these words and thoughts. I hope you can get to this place because it is becoming so much more peaceful. It feels like acceptance??

From one oontrol freak to another, I know we sometimes need to be shaken by the shoulders. You are great, you are strong, you have such talent and focus. Let your H go. We will do this together. We will mourn what we no longer have and we will focus on right now. Breathe.

Glad to know I am not the only one who does that. I am actually still struggling with that on the ML issue. I can't decide if I am only setting that boundary because I think that me ML with him is letting him eat cake.



Yes, that's kind of where I am. We had the SSM problem and yes, that is my H's LL. (And we wonder why he lives in an apartment now.) I do kind of feel like if I don't ML with him, he will go right back to that place where he felt so awful and rejected. Also, I like ML with him, obviously. Based on my H's most recent comments, I can't decide whether ML with him is getting used or not. I flat out asked him whether it was just physical and he said he enjoys the emotional and physical experience of ML with me. But in the same breath as, I don't want any obligations or expectations. I'm not sure how to reconcile those two statements. I have said it before here, I don't think that my H would be careless about an STD. But, I also didn't think he would walk away from our M. I don't know - I am really torn on this issue. My H hasn't filed or said he was going to file, but he did say we should talk about more permanent custody arrangements and financial support, so I kind of took that as him saying he wants to move forward with D. In which case, probably a bad idea to ML. Aggghhh. I don't know.



I'm not religious at all. I'm not offended by it, and have been known to throw out a prayer during extra innings of an important baseball game, but that's about it. I consider myself spiritual but in a more vague kind of way.

About the house . . . that stinks that you put so much into it and now have to sell, but I understand the feeling of it being an albatross. H and I owned a beautiful condo pre-kids, and had a hard time selling it when we moved to a house with a yard. I loved that condo, but there was a point where I just couldn't wait to get rid of it. As much as I dislike my house right now (simply bc it constantly reminds me of H and how we were supposed to live here forever), I am hoping I can somehow pull it off to keep it.

About the cleaning of clutter and junk:


Most definitely. I really hate clutter and disorganization - it makes me feel anxious and stressed. So I should have realized something was very wrong when I started to allow this to happen. I think that a lot of it had to do with self loathing, but I am not sure whether that caused the issues in the M, or was a result. Probably some of each, if I had to guess.



True. I do seem to do a good job at finding the negative, don't I? I do think that having a job would be nice, at least in the sense that I would meet new people and have something to keep me busy and help me feel productive. I don't think I want to be a L anymore - if I can swing it, I'd like to do something with less demanding hours because I want to spend as much time as possible with my kids while they are still willing!



No, it had nothing to do with staying home, I don't think. It was the fact that he never seemed fully committed. He acted committed by coming home every day at 6 and spending time with the kids, and skipping his friend's bachelor party at the strip club . . . but he just always seemed kind of mad about it. But I already knew that he thought D was a perfectly reasonable option, and he wasn't very good at all about reassuring me when I expressed feeling insecure about his commitment. Mind you, he pursued ME for two years. But as soon as he moved here to live with me, I remember him saying, "isn't this hard for you?" to change from being single to being part of a couple. I thought, heck no, this is great! He didn't think it was that great. And I often felt resistance to doing things as I thought married couples should. Just felt like he was always looking out for #1, not putting our M first or being part of a team. It scared the crap out of me.

So maybe his declaration about never wanting a R with obligations or expectations is just him finally admitting the truth.



Nobody. But for purposes of child support and maintenance, I am sure that my imputed income will be that of a lawyer.



That does sound appealing, but there is no way a teacher makes the same as a L here, even one who hasn't practiced in 9 years. Not even close. Who knew I would feel weighed down by a JD one day?



OK. Point taken.



Of course I did. I love that I got to stay home with my kids. I started to go on more about why this upsets me (and why I understand the 2x4 with perspective on people in Africa, but still think I can be pissy about my own sitch), but I realize it just sounds bratty and entitled. It's something I need to work on.



I have tried really hard not to guilt him; I mean to the point where has has no idea some of the things that my kids say to me and the frequency of it. He has told me they say nothing to him; I guess they save their questions/concerns for me. I have tried to encourage them to talk to H when the questions are about him, but they still don't talk to him.



So far, he has left many of them for me to answer. Such as, "why didn't Daddy want to come ob vacation with us?" Sometimes he doesn't even tell them he is not coming to things, like Christmas Eve or S7's special post-concert dinner. So I get stuck being the bearer of bad news. I will say that when they learn he is not, in fact, coming home in May (as he has led them to believe), that will NOT come from me. He is on his own on that one.



I don't really get it either. I think that WASs have to be telling themselves some sort of delusional story that justifies things in their heads. My H was pleasantly surprised to find that, immediately after telling them about the S, he became the favored parent. It has worn off somewhat, but the kids still act like they worship him. Given that, and the fact that they don't complain to him, I don't think he's feeling too bad about things. He seems to think they are perfectly fine.



Honestly, I kind of do, too. I think that reality is bound to hit him in the face at some point, but even if he denies it forever, I don't think he is really ever going to live a very fulfilling life if he does not do some work on himself.



Well, I am certainly not making it easy for him. He asked me the other day, "do you not want anything to do with me?" I wondered whether he was hoping I would say "hell no, you're a so and so, I hate you." But I didn't. I said, "don't be silly, of course I do." (No response from him.) How DOES the WAS continue to justify having left? I don't know. But so far my H has done a pretty good job of it. Maybe because he hasn't really seen the damage he has done (and will do) with the kids, or because I am being so nice to him . . . maybe he thinks that he really is right, and we are all better off now! Do you think that this catches up to all WASs at some point? It seems hard to imagine, given where we are right now. But I guess my sitch is still in its infancy, even though it feels like it has taken a good 15 years off my life.



Let me say what my kids said, when my H told them he really didn't want to hurt them by moving out . . . "then why are you doing it?" If your H felt so guilty, WHY did he do it? Have you ever gotten that answer from him?



It seems to me that my H seeing me happy only lets him off the hook. But like I said above, I am pretty good at finding the negative in things.



That is a good point, and one that I need to remember. That I won't have any regrets about MY behavior. I certainly do regret my H's behavior, but I can't do anything about that.



Ah. I see. Well, I actually already do many things that I enjoy without H. I am far from sitting at home pining away over him all day. (All night when I am supposed to be sleeping is a different story, of course.)



I actually am at a loss as to how to talk to H about the ML issue. I think he knows that I probably won't, but I feel like I have to say something about a reason. Or even if I don't, what if he does ask me directly? I am not sure what to say.



This is one reminder that gets stars around it so I really remember. They are always watching. I think I have done a pretty good job so far, but I need to keep it in the forefront of my mind.



I have not nagged, complained or criticized to my H since BD. At all. With only one exception where I said my piece and dropped it.



This is a really good rule of thumb - wish I had followed it a long time ago!



This fear is definitely keeping me stuck. I know that in theory, if he comes back and I have moved on, then I would be happy and won't care that we won't R. But the thought of it makes me REALLY, profoundly sad.



I am still not sure what it means to set him free.

YES! I think you can benefit from it.
I am not the one to judge if you or your H is codependent but if you think that maybe your H is – then I would say that there is also a possibility that you are. If you have the time then get the book – it is splendid, even for a non-codependent person.
(I haven’t read The Language of letting go)

Hi GM, thanks for your thoughts. I see what you are saying . . . at first, I felt really good about ML. Then, when the talking stopped and it was just ML, I wondered if I was being used. That was making me angry. Now that he has said what he has said (that he enjoys it emotionally and physically, but has no desire to be married to me or anyone else now or ever), I can't work out whether that amounts to being used or not.
Or maybe just the fact that he acts like nothing happened the next day is enough for me to feel used. That may be the answer. I think it is probably safer not to ML (if the opportunity arises again) and see how that feels.

The problem with going with how I feel is that most things involving H these days seem to feel bad, simply because of the sitch. It's all a matter of degree.

I go back and forth at the moment between thinking that if I am to ML with H, or really have any kind of R with H, he must fully commit to the M; and that we are starting over with a new R and it's one where we are not M - that I should go with that and see where it goes. The part that keeps me stuck is the thought that we are M, and whether to have any expectations around that. Can you go backwards once you are M?

What if we get D, and then we would go out sometimes and have a physical R? Then I guess the rules would be like we are dating . . . and where would my boundaries be then? I am wondering if it is my desire to be M to my H that is making me feel used or dissatisfied with the physical R. Maybe I should think of it the same way I would if he was a guy I was dating. Would I like it if we ML and then he didn't call me the next day? Hmm. Probably not.

Melissa, as I was getting kids ready for school this morning, I began thinking how awful it is that we are missing out on our kids growing up TOGETHER.

We used to talk about and dote on our kids and enjoy them together. I feel like I lost that one person in life that loves the kids like I do and appreciates all the cute little things they do.

I feel like H is going to wake up one day and they'll be grown and we'll all have missed out on sharing these memories together. Ugh. Hope you're doing well today.

Blues,

no way around this, it STINKS! So I stopped dwelling on all the stinky parts b/c it made ME feel bad and I became negative and angry.

I got very very tired of feeling angry. There were times I thought, "but h DESERVES my anger"...and then I remembered something I heard long ago.

"Hanging onto anger to punish someone else, is like lighting yourself on fire,

-----to get smoke in their eyes."

Truth be told, if you were still M, he'd miss out whenever he was at work. You would have to tell him the event he missed and know that he cares.

Hopefully he does still care and thus, sometime in the future when you are more detached and able, you will still be able to pick up the phone to say "our son/daughter made Varsity and played SO well last night!"

IOW< not every single interaction will be ruined, and some might be the same as they would have been if you remained married. IF you remain apart, there may even come a time when some cooperation between the parents means at least one will be at each game.

I happen to know a div couple with a d17 on our D16's basketball team. They are (& the former wife describes them as) "very cordial" with each other. Sometimes they sit together at the game, sometimes it's only one of them. But I have noticed the dad texting his ex wife to tell her that their d scored a 3 pointer, which impressed me. (The ex w works a few nights a week so she misses some games but she's at many others in the day, which he tends to miss) I also know they live within 3 blocks of each other. So they have worked out the yin and yang pretty well.

I might ask them how they did it someday...

As for the H waking up someday...maybe he will.

My h and I reconciled but I'm telling you it is painful to see how much repair work he needs to do and to see him wondering if it's ever going to be enough. I am SURE that tempts him into giving up, but so far he has not.

Then again, he seems lost as to how to rebuild his r's with our kids. Both our daughters were wounded but did not show it that much until later. Even I did not know how deeply or how angry they are, until recently. And it has been some years...

And that's WITH reconciliation.


Sure My h has deep regrets. I pray he can do the work to regain their trust and I pray they can forgive for real, and open their hearts to him. I believe they will. Truly I do. I know I'll do my best to model that for them.

I do not know how long it will take (will let you know).

The main thing for me to reinforce is that they are loved by both parents...deeply. And they are.

Even with his wacky "episode", and some very selfish acts of his, I have always believed my h would kill or die for our children if the circumstances arose. And I do believe that.

So I tell them that when they get hurt/furious. (They rarely admit to hurt feelings so much as "angry" or "resentment"). They will always need to hear that their parents love them, imo.

Even when we screw up. Also we will screw up even if we are still m. Our kids will have issues with us just as we did with our parents.

I don't want to quibble about what you are losing. It IS a loss, for sure. That's obvious.

(My mom told me that the book "Necessary Losses" was helpful to her, btw. I think it was after my dad's death that she read it, but am not sure. Maybe it's worth a gander).

IN TIME your co-parenting will change and evolve. It's up to you if that is a good helpful thing or a worsening condition. I think you can build on co-parenting.

My cousin tried hard to co-parent with his ex, and she eventually trusted his parenting more and they cooperated better. A few years later, they remarried. They built on the co-parenting, friendship, connection, intimacy, reconciliation...


But I wonder if you may want to stop emphasizing the losses, &
May I suggest you Start with a change in focus.

Less focus on your loss, so there's no circling the drain and spiraling downward (which I did, often, and for months)

Maybe try no negatives, for say, a WEEK, to see if it helps you feel better.

There are times that repressing our bad emotions IS appropriate (at work, in front of the kids, on a date!...etc) But as for "repression" being so unhealthy,

hey
You will grieve these losses anyhow! We all did/do/will.

So why intentionally stare at a scar or wound? Why not get the medicine and apply it, so it improves & you feel better and begin to heal??

Hence the suggestion to change your focus. What IS still working in your life?

And what if your h never ever "wakes up" to regret, but instead to ignore OR worse, to say he did the right thing by leaving?

Blues, Melissa, I do not want to discourage you from using the DB forums, sometimes to VENT. This is the place for it.

However, I noticed that for ME, a chunk of my venting became "being stuck" and not moving forward, circling the drain of negativity and becoming a swirling vortex of negativity ("SVON") and it took my older sister to sort of virtually slap my face and stay "Knock it off. You are spiraling!" I was just being all round negative.

I did not want that in my life anymore. For ME, and for my kids, and last, for my m.

So check yourself when you vent, and if it IS letting off steam and making you feel better, VENT AWAY...

but if not, take note. Plus, Blues I cannot recall your timeline but I know Melissa is fairly new here. A lot of what I learned was over a 2 year period.

Which brings me to the other point Melissa. This ordeal is in its' early stages. Try not to take the temperature of the relationship or assessing its direction, so often

Unless something happens on his end, I would wait another 90 days before wondering if anything has changed b/c it takes time to believe in new changes in others and then to factor in how they make us feel...time on the WAS's end and on ours. Try 90 day chunks, or 30 days if 90 is too long for you to wait to monitor for results etc.

My 2 year ordeal was...two years.

You guys are making plans & decisions based on much newer & fear fueled words or events. What MUST be decided soon?

What can wait, (assuming no risk to your finances)?

Why not figure that out first, and determine if you can remain where you are, for now, and just work on YOUR LIFE and moving forward, but without all the damage assessment, for some amount of time?


And if need be, vent away here. I think your best chance of happiness with or without your h,

is by making this about improving YOUR LIFE and your kids...it makes you more appealing

(no one finds a miserable SAD spouse, attractive or appealing. It kills me to hear people say "but If I act happy or upbeat they will think they did not deeply wound me"....like being deeply wounded would attract them more???...)


Keep posting and doing your DB best. I notice a lot of insights and that is a great sign.

((( )))

Wow 25-I'm going to print this out and keep rereading it. 2 years! Ugh!

I understand the 'spiraling'. It's so easy to get caught up in that. Melissa and I have similar timelines. She has had an awesome thread to follow. Very honest and relatable.

Your words from experience are exactly what I needed right now. Thanks!

Blues, thanks so much for your post. Letting go is definitely a work in progress. I was in tantrum mode for a number of weeks following BD, for sure. I feel like I have made huge strides in accepting that I have no control over what H does, and making the best of it; however, sometimes I do get pissed off. So I throw a little tantrum and then I move forward. I tend to post more when I am feeling low and really need the support, so it might seem like I am more negative than positive, but I would say I am actually doing pretty well!

Now, as far as letting H go . . . that's a little bit of a different story. I certainly have given him all the time and space he wants. And I have been trying to focus on me and not him. But emotionally, no, I am nowhere near letting H go.

In fact, if I am being honest - I don't even know what letting him go means.

Let's go with the butterfly example. If you let the butterfly that you love go, does that mean you open the jar and let it fly away? Because I have done that part. Or does it mean that you somehow make yourself no longer miss the butterfly, or love the butterfly, or wonder where it is, or whether it will come back? Because I am nowhere near any of those.

It's confusing because the expression "letting go" is technically a verb but I found it to be more of a state.

It's one of those things that comes after you minimize him from your day to day life. I started by changing the little things that were a certain way because we lived together. It's hard and you'll never notice you started until later on.

Eventually I laid down on the couch and started tearing up. No sobbing, just tears and I just accepted...she's gone, she's where she wants to be, I can do nothing about it. It was a big "aha" moment that came on it's own...not a verb where I chose to do it, it just came.

Without that, I could have never handled things the way I have recently.

If you're looking to "let go", don't. That'll come in it's own time. Instead concentrate on minimizing him from your decisions, make new memories without him, do activities that are just yours, make friends who never even met him. That's about as much control as you'll have in all this.

MLC, thank you for following my sitch and continuing to post!

I am not sure if it is a learned thing or a human instinct to want to let others know when they have hurt us - I just know that I often feel it too. I love your analogy about lighting yourself on fire to get smoke in someone else's eyes. I think that in this situation, you can take it even one step further, because more than likely, our WASs don't care whether we are angry or not. So it's really just lighting ourselves on fire for nothing.

Blues and 25, if I am being honest, I have to acknowledge that my H may actually enjoy the kids more now that I am not around when he has them. At least, that is how he is acting now . . . whether that will stand the test of time, who knows.



25, do you mean repair work on himself, or on the M? Is it just a matter of you having done the work back when he left, whereas he didn't start until you R'd?



This scares me. And my H has conveniently decided to ignore the fact that this is how it usually plays out. I spoke with a child psych who works with kids of Dd couples, and he said that many times it seems like the kids are doing just fine for some period of time (a year, 2 years, 5 years), and then you start to see what's really going on. He said he's got many adults who sit on his couch and are still asking why their parents got D, and working through the trauma it caused.

I hope that your Ds can forgive their Dad . . . are they upset with you at all for taking him back?



I am 10000% committed to co-parenting well. So far, all the kids' events that H and I have gone to (school, sports, etc.) we have sat together and quite honestly, I don't think anyone else there (aside from the few people we have told) has a clue that anything is going on with us. We are always kind to each other in front of the kids (well always, really, even when they aren't around), and we have both been very flexible with working out time with the kids.

I will keep this up even if we do get D, as long as I can without it hurting me too much. I imagine there may be a period of time where I am too hurt to sit with him, but who knows how I will feel then . . . or when "then" even is, or if "then" will ever happen. I also fear what will happen if we get D and H is with an OW. Like I have said before, he is a chameleon and a people pleaser, so I am not sure whether he will hold firm to his commitment to be respectful of me, be friends with me, and be a great co-parent, or if he will cave to pressure by a GF, since that is what will get him laid. Of course, if he has that kind of pressure, perhaps that would be the obligation and expectation he isn't interested in . . . who knows, I am just making things up now. Best to just do my best one day at a time and deal with whatever comes as it comes.



That's an inspiring story. Thanks for sharing it.



I posted this to Blues earlier - I don't think I am doing too much of this (given where I am in my sitch, I think I am doing pretty well). I tend to get caught up in things, come here and vent, and then move on. But thank you for this, it is something I need to be cognizant of and constantly checking to make sure I am not getting sucked into negative thinking.

I am reading the book The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown. Today she pointed out that an attitude of gratitude is not enough - we must actually practice gratitude in order to feel joy. (That joy comes from gratitude, as opposed to gratitude coming from joy.) This is really important to me, and I want to see it in my kids, too. So today I bought a gratitude jar . . . something I might have thought was kind of hokey or dorky before, but I now think might really be a good thing. I find that verbalizing my gratitude makes me feel good, and makes my kids feel good.



Well, I was just getting to the point where I was feeling good about being patient and using the time to improve myself . . . then H declared his intention to move forward. So I guess he thinks that something must be decided soon. Well, in his mind, he has decided what HE wants, and in his mind he will NEVER think otherwise, so I guess he figures why drag it out?

I'd love to hear opinions on this, but here is something I have been mulling over the past few days. (This may just be me trying to avoid negative feelings if we do get D, I haven't really worked it all out yet.)

M is a piece of paper, and D is a piece of paper. My H actually said something that I thought was kind of crazy about a month ago, but maybe I kind of get it and maybe it makes sense. He said something to the effect of, "I don't want to have labels. Married, divorced, dating. We just are what we are." Now, granted, my H probably thinks this because he is trying to avoid the obligations of M, the shame of D, and the expectations of dating, but if I think about it, I guess I can see the value in it. If we do get D, that doesn't mean that we never speak to each other again and no longer care about each other. We can still choose to be the people we want to be and the R we want to have, regardless of whether we have the M paper or the D paper.

Perhaps the significance of that paper is just a construct in my mind. I guess the question is, is it truly important to me? I mean, we are M right now, but so what? H has already shunned all of the obligations, promises, etc. of being M. He is on match.com looking for women. He does nothing to take care of our house. He does nothing to care for me (emotionally). So I am not sure why I am so fearful of D.

Which leads me to . . . I realized today that one of my big fears around D is being a failure. I realized that, though I don't consider myself a particularly materialistic person, I in fact do view a nice car, a nice house, and being married as successes in life. If/when we get D, I will have to downgrade my car and house, and my standard of living in general, and, worst of all, I will be D. Something I never wanted to be, because I view D as a failure. A cop out. Something that only weak people do. (I hope I am not offending anyone here, I am just trying to be honest with myself . . . and obviously I am challenging these long held beliefs.)

So that is something I really need to work on.

I am glad that I am now introspective enough to notice these shortcomings and do the work to improve myself, but I really do wonder at what point I will stop having these shameful realizations. Sigh. No wonder there was so much self-loathing.

Marching forward . . . .