Alternate reality??

[koshka]

LT,

Yeah, the anger is part and parcel of "the process." So is the sadness, the wondering what's next, the focusing on and hypothesizing about the inner workings of the WAS mind, etc.

But you will get through this. There's more ahead that's much more pleasant. The pride in getting things done on your own that you didn't do on your own before. The freedom of not caring what goes on in the mind of the Walk Away. The excitement of not knowing what's next. The joy of looking back at hard-won victories and realizing that you are capable, always have been.

The future is bright.

Happy New Year!

Joe

[SallyM]

wow, that is hard, casey. about your h. its hard enough to see this person on a regular basis, and it would love nice to spend time as a family, but it hurts so much to do that and they just don't see it, do they?

I'm glad you had a nice chat with your mom. I have a feeling time and focus on ourselves and our own gal is what its going to take. I'm definitely not there yet, though.

make sure to post the quote when you remember it!

[LooseThread]

I had a long talk with my mum on the phone last night. d was at her dad's. We talked so long that we flattened the batteries on both our cordless phones! My mum is deeply religious (Catholic) so I wanted to ask her how I stop being angry and forgive him. We went round in circles a fair bit because I don't see the value in being nice to people just so you can get to heaven (she didn't say it like this btw). What if there isn't a heaven? Isn't that going to make me feel pretty ripped off?

I found a cool quote in a book I'm reading that described why we should try to get along with people. I'll have to remember to put it on here later.

HIya M,

I've got the quote ready. Basically the reason I rang my mum was to say, how do I stop being so mad at him? How do I start to treat him like a friend when he has been such a sh*t to me. Mum was talking about forgiveness and how it gets us closer to God. I was countering with 'so what does that really do for us?". I feel like I believe less in a God and I believe more in Gaia (or Mother Earth). Following on from that, I can understand why it's important that we are good to the earth (pick up rubbish etc) but I couldn't articulate why it's good for us to be good to each other. I guess if we co-operate more we can do more good things and discover more things (like other planets out there that we could live on and space travel that would allow us to get there) but.... the 'nicer' we are to each other, the less people get killed in wars, the more over-populated this Earth will be and the more screwed we (the human race) will be in the long run unless we can find other places to live. So I wasn't much closer to finding a reason to be friendly with h (i.e hang out together with d6). Add to that whole mix is the feeling that he is trying to make things up to me and therefore lessen his own guilt by us hanging around together and being friendly. However, rightly or wrongly (and dear readers, give me your opinion on whether you think this is right or wrong), I feel that he is continuing to be disrespectful of my boundaries by pushing to hang around together when I have tried to make it clear that I am angry and hurt and don't want to hang around with him at this point. I want to keep to the facts, to dealing with d6 and co-parent effectively. I don't want to deal with explaining why I don't want to spend time with him, and I don't want to have to explain what I am doing in my life, where I am and who I hang around with. I try not to ask what he is doing (cos it hurts to hear him spending time with new girlfriend and doing things that don't involve me and spending money that I would love to get spent on d6's vacation care so that I had a little more money to pay off credit cards).

My mum was later talking to my sister (who also knows everything) and mum said that I wanted to stop being angry. My sis pointed out that perhaps I might still need to be angry in order to deal with him effectively (becuase I have been a doormat for so long, being angry would be a 180).

Ooops...anyway...rambling - must get round to that quote. This partly helps me understand why I need to forgive h and move on in an altruistic world-reaching kinda way. I'm not however saying that i can do this yet. I think being angry is healthy in some ways. I just can't let it go for too long and/or turn into bitterness.

"Since the microcosm of personal relationship influences the macrocosm of civilisation just as the civilisation - its customs and culture - influences personal relationship, it is in our relationships that we might effect this change. If so, an opportunity is present today in our everyday lives. It is the opportunity we have to value ourselves and to awaken to the way we express and protect that value in our relationships."

from Patricia 3vans. "The_verbally_@busive_rel@tionship"

Basically what it's saying is, that unless we make efforts in our personal relationships to value each other, then civilisation as a whole will eventually be effected because they are interdependant on each other.

[No_hill_for_a_Swimmer]

Hi LT
[preaching follows]
What I believe is Forgive is automatic but that is a tough act to follow however Trust is earned and that is something you are at liberty to give or not.

I believe all of us deep down inside have the 'Whats in it for me' angle and what sets people apart is how they counteract that angle so the learned behavior is doing good and if not counteract the basic angle then the learned and easier behavior is to do what is in it for myself.
[preaching ends]

Venting here is good. Hot Aussies Flirting with older Yanks is very good. However I'm coming from the 'Whats in it for me angle'.

Hey we are just havin fun. Kinda like when I ask all the folks from the commonwealth 'Who speaks the proper Queen's English?'.




Happy New Year.

[koshka]

LT,

](and dear readers, give me your opinion on whether you think this is right or wrong), I feel that he is continuing to be disrespectful of my boundaries by pushing to hang around together when I have tried to make it clear that I am angry and hurt and don't want to hang around with him at this point. I want to keep to the facts, to dealing with d6 and co-parent effectively.

Is it possible that he wants to see if you're still open to repairing the marriage?

I don't want to open any wounds. I spent years in MC with a wife who wasn't interested in the marriage beyond what she could get financially by staying in it longer. If you're in a situation like that, I can understand perfectly why you would reach a point where "enough is more than enough, thank you."

I won't say you're right or wrong. It's not my place to say one or the other. If you choose to set a boundary ("Dump the OP," "Don't call me," "I'm going to file for the D," whatever) and you stick to it, then I can say I've been there and I understand the process that got me there.

I just wonder if you stated clearly that you're open to restoring the marriage if he respects the perfectly reasonable expectation of fidelity, or if you stated clearly that you're done, would he respond respectfully? There are a lot of horror stories of a WAS who wants to have it both ways and becomes vindictive when the LBS stands up for his/her self, but there is no rule that it must be that way. There are other true stories of couples who split without the cruelty.

Idle musings, and it's New Year's, so these idle musings are fueled by my second Guinness. None of this is easy, so take what you like and leave the rest.

Happy New Year!

Joe

[LooseThread]

Hi Joe...food for thought...I think you may be onto something here.

I just don't think I can take the risk any more. I need to find who I am. Hope_11's latest thread (where she summarises her sitch) has got a lot of parallels, particularly wrt finding herself and saying that she lived for her h and not for herself. I posted a reply on her thread about that.

We got together very young and I don't have a frame of reference for a healthy relationship. That's one of the reasons I don't want to go back there...too much water under the bridge, too much hurt, too much mistrust and abuse of trust and - I believe - subtle emotinal abuse...(not that he did it on purpose, but it screwed me 'round just the same),

But like you said...perhaps I have not been clear to him. _I_ think I have, but maybe he has not seen it.

[LooseThread]

OK....that made me think too hard.

Had to go get a beer.

Tasmanian premium lager....mmmm

and some Double Brie plus crackers.

[LooseThread]

LT,
Is it possible that he wants to see if you're still open to repairing the marriage?

Hmmm... not any more as late last week he said on the phone that "you have made it abundantly clear that we are not getting back together"

However, there was an element of hurt in that statement, and given our dynamic I believe that he wants unconditional love from me. However, unconditional love does not mean that you continually go out and screw around and beg for forgiveness afterwards. Now that I know all that has happened over the last year (and perhaps there's more that I don't know *shudder*) I can't see any period of time longer than about two weeks where he has really tried to repair things and regain my trust. It's now at a point where I don't want him to try and fix things, I want him to respect that I hurt and leave me be for now.

I suspect there's more that I don't know about and I don't want to know any more because all it is doing now is making me feel like a fool to have trusted/believed him and taken what he has said at face value when all along my gut was screaming "something's not right!!!!".

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice (or more) shame on me.

Sadly, my heart has hardened towards him. I don't like being hard, I never have been, but being soft and forgiving (read doormat) has not served me well as far as he is concerned. Hopefully this would not be the case with another man, so one day, I hope to find that person to share the rest of my life with in a healthy fashion where I can be myself and not feel ashamed of that.

I won't say you're right or wrong. It's not my place to say one or the other. If you choose to set a boundary ("Dump the OP," "Don't call me," "I'm going to file for the D," whatever) and you stick to it, then I can say I've been there and I understand the process that got me there.

I am slowly getting better at setting boundaries, he just hasn't treated my boundary setting seriously so I have had to get blunter about setting them to the point where I sound vindictive.

I just wonder if you stated clearly that you're open to restoring the marriage if he respects the perfectly reasonable expectation of fidelity, or if you stated clearly that you're done, would he respond respectfully?

I have tried to tell him that in order for us to get back together that he would have to be on his own and get therapy for at least 6 months to deal with his own cr@p. However, I have said that in heated discussions where we have both been upset so I don't know whether he has heard me properly. At this point however, I feel that saying something like that would be drawing out this process of pain and would not allow me to move on.

Idle musings, and it's New Year's, so these idle musings are fueled by my second Guinness. None of this is easy, so take what you like and leave the rest.

Guinness?? Do they get Guinness in the States? Come to think of it, I don't think I know where you are.

I like Guinness but it's a three course meal so I rarely have it.

Ooo weeee....beer is kicking in...stay tuned for more spelling mistakes...

[Reincarnated]

Hey, CMC. I just found your thread (sorry it took so long).
I liked your quote. I actually was TOO willing to forgive...I don't think it really makes a difference to the sitch or to the WAS. But it does make a difference to YOU. You may feel better yourself if you can forgive...

There is a quote: Forgiveness is a gift that you give yourself.

It may set you free.

I think I can forgive my H. I can accept where he is. And I can acknowledge that he has a GF. But, I do NOT have to accept that what he did was right, I don't have to accept her in my life.

[koshka]

Casey,

Of course we get Guinness in the States. Criminy, we're not on the moon,ya know?

Unfortunately our bottled Guinness is brewed in Toronto these days instead of at St. James' Gate. If I wanted Canadian beer, I'd have paid for O'Keefe's, thank you very much.

A lot of what you write reminds me of the painful process of accepting that my ex-wife wasn't interested in being faithful to me. I never got around to telling her that she'd have to have years of therapy (I don't think she'd be ready for a relationship in six months), but I'm fairly sure that she's read my threads and I've posted it there more than once.

It's not so much being hard in your heart toward him as being firm about what you rightfully need for yourself. Sometimes we can think that if we need something that's a weakness in us. Or worse, we can judge ourselves as "needy" with all the negative connotations of that stereotype.

The truth is that humans have needs. There's nothing unnatural about that.

I caught my ex-wife in an affair in 2002. I got her to go to MC, but she wasn't going for the sake of the marriage or our family. Two years later she finally broke it off with that guy when he was fired from the market where she worked. She immediately started up with one of the crew remodeling our house for her mother to move in. A couple months later, that guy's wife showed up on the porch to confront her, in front of my then-nine-year-old daughter. It didn't bother her (my ex-wife) that much, because she'd already moved on to another guy. Her mother told me later that this was her "soulmate." He's engaged to someone else now.

At one point before she left, she told me that, years earlier, she had come on to her boss at work during his separation and divorce and he turned her down. Whether he did or not doesn't matter any more.

I know what it's like with the sex addict spouse. I know what it's like to realize that there might always be "more" that hasn't come to light yet. I also know that sometimes we get to commiserating with one another here and that's not the point of DBing. We're here to make ourselves better able to be full partners in a relationship, ideally in the marriage we wanted to save when we came here.

I have had doubts about filing and going through with the divorce. I have had bouts with the "what if?" kinds of questions. I'm getting better at seeing that the boundaries I had were not unreasonable, that the behaviors she showed in the marriage and in its demise are not healthy ones. But the decision to divorce or to continue "standing" is something each of us has to reach on our own, because when our heads hit the pillows at night, there isn't a bulletin board of people supporting us. We share our lives here, but we live them as individuals.

I don't envy you being where you're at right now. I do know that when you are sure in your heart what you want to do, then a lot of the anxiety will go away. Not all, at least I don't think so, but a lot. It takes time to see what you need to see, in yourself, in your spouse/ex-spouse, in healthy relationships.

If you're not comfortable with your Mum's Catholic traditions, then maybe something else will fill that need for you. The Church has been a source of comfort for me in this and in other tough times, but that's me. Whatever nurtures your connection to God/Higher Power is likely to help you now.

I'm in Maryland, about 65 k outside Washington, DC, where it's time for my head to hit the pillow for the first time in the New Year!

Thanks,

Joe