I have been reading this thread with much interest. Although, I feel like I'm eavesdropping. lol My H has had many online relationships in the almost 10 years we've been together. I'm realizing from reading this thread why a lot of things were the way they were in my own behavior (reactions) and also in his.
Thank you for your openness. It is helping me a lot to have clarity although I am sorry you are feeling this pain. It's not a pretty thing, for sure.
We (me, w and three younger kids) went to the zoo today. It was good but I have this INTENSE sadness and pain in me. IT MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE TO ME! How can this be happening? How can my W think she can find happiness by destroying the people who love her most? And if she does find this great happiness, will it have been worth the terrible sacrifice she forced me and the kids to make?
How wil she EVER be able to live with her conscience?
The books say we will recover and heal, but I expect we will recover and heal like a man who has lost his legs. He will be healthy again but he never will be whole again.
My little reptile feeds on sadness and pain. God grant me the strength to keep him under control.
Me 43 W 42 M 1998 S16 S15 D7 D4 bomb 07/03/2007 OPA ILYBNILWY My Thread
The five stages of abandonment: 1) Shattering. When you first get the news. My experience: Every time you hear the news or think about it. It is as if my chest was ripped open with a chaiansaw and I have been left to bleed. I should be dead, but for some cruel reason I am not. Intense experience of betrayal of trust. 2) Withdrawal. The relationship sustained endorphins are wathdrawn from your body. Intense longing. Idolisation of your partner. Symbiotic regression: a pathological dependence on your partner. My experience: It turns me into a compulsive octopus that sucks onto my W. And then she tells me: I feel captive, I feel locked in, I feel suffocated, I need to get away from you, you are killing me. 3) Internalisation: It is all my fault. I caused it. I am unforgiveable. I am unredeemable. I am unlovable. I cannot change. I am sexually inadequate. I am ugly. I am fat. I am boring. I am not good enough. I would definitely leave me if I were married to me. It is an attack on the essence of my being, it completely destroys my sense of self worth. 4) Rage: Hello anger my old friend. From a small little knot in your stomach to intense violent berserker kill everybody in sight rage. I scream, I curse, I blame, I lash out and try to hurt as I have been hurt. It is destructive. It destroys whatever chance I have of reconciliation. It hurts the persons I love most: my wife, my kids. It is a normal part of post traumatic stress syndrome and not moral failure. I HAVE TO LEARN TO CONTROL IT! (I never had a single anger attack before the shattering.) 5) Lifting: When you finally heal. Personally I have no experience of this. I believe it will come (it hasn't, after 14 months) because that hope is all that keeps me alive. Sometimes I feel as if I am experiencing it, just to wake up from denial into reality, and I shatter again...
This book says that abandonment trauma is similar to the trauma of rape, because of the internalisation process, the attack on your sense of self worth, the core of your self awareness. I feel it in my body, and I see the destructive effects on my family. I tell my wife: Imagine you are raped. Now understand that that is what you are doing to me and the kids. It drives her further away when I say it, I know, but I feel at some point she has to know what she is doing.
She has to understand what sacrifice she forces on her loved ones.
Someone on this board said: The fool seeks happiness in the distance, the wise man makes it grow under his feet. And another one: The grass is always greener where you water it.
Me 43 W 42 M 1998 S16 S15 D7 D4 bomb 07/03/2007 OPA ILYBNILWY My Thread
I have been reading this thread with much interest. Although, I feel like I'm eavesdropping. lol My H has had many online relationships in the almost 10 years we've been together. I'm realizing from reading this thread why a lot of things were the way they were in my own behavior (reactions) and also in his.
Thank you for your openness. It is helping me a lot to have clarity although I am sorry you are feeling this pain. It's not a pretty thing, for sure.
Hi lovelearn.
There is a curse that says: May the purpose of your life be to serve as warning to others.
I know what you are going through and I tell you now, it is not your fault and you do not deserve it. Keep on loving, it is the only weapon we have that can truly overcome the darkness in and around us.
Kolle
Me 43 W 42 M 1998 S16 S15 D7 D4 bomb 07/03/2007 OPA ILYBNILWY My Thread
D4 comes to me (whole family is in the room) "Mommy only joked when she told you she doesn't love you anymore. Ask her" "No my love, she did not joke. She wants a divorce" "What is that?" "She went to the court to ask the Judge to tell me to move out of the house because she does not want to live here anymore." "What is a Judge?" "An important man who works for the government and decides what happens to people, for instance, he sends criminals to jail" "Are you going to jail, Daddy?" "No my love, the Judge will just tell me to move out of the house" "Why?" "Because Mommy does not want me to live here anymore" D7 now takes over the conversation: "Mommy, why don't you want Dad to live yhere anymore?" My W says: "Daddy and me can not live together anymore." I say: "That is a demonic lie! There is a big difference between can not and want not! Don't lie to the kids! We can have a fantastic love relationship, you just don't want to! I LOVE YOU!" D7 Goes histerical. S16 says "Dad you are EVIL! YOU DID THAT ON PURPOSE!"
God knows I did not. I want to protect my kids from pain, but I am NOT prepared to lie to them or to have them lied to. I WILL NOT ALLOW the lie that this D is unavoidable to live in our home! I WILL NOT ALLOW MY KIDS TO THINK THAT I HAVE ANY PART IN THIS D!
Yes, I am guilty because I helped to bring my W to the crossroad. But the A with the OM, The D were her choices. She could just as well have chosen the other road.
Sometimes it is necessary to give a kid an injection to prevent greater pain later on.
God knows, it breaks my heart. I just hope that S16 will one day understand.
Me 43 W 42 M 1998 S16 S15 D7 D4 bomb 07/03/2007 OPA ILYBNILWY My Thread
I went for ballroom dancing last night, it is SUCH FUN! When I came home I was wistling a cha-cha tune and dancing down the hallway. This upset my W, and she said, Did you receive the divorce papers? in order to break my good mood. I said, No, and I will assault the guy who brings it, he'd better bring a body guard! She did not think it was funny, and I went on dancing, irritating the hell out of her. My mood survived the assault intact!
If GAL can't save my marraige, at least it will save me!
This morning D7 asks me, Daddy what can we do to stop the divorce? I say, We can only pray! So she goes down on her knees and closes her eyes, and about a minute later she says, I asked Jesus to stop the divorce. Will he stop it? I say, No, He will sshow Mommy what is right and what is wrong, but He will not force her. She still has to do what God tells her after he told her. It is her decision.
We are seeing my C tomorrow vir Divorce mediation.
PLEASE PRAY WITH ME!
Me 43 W 42 M 1998 S16 S15 D7 D4 bomb 07/03/2007 OPA ILYBNILWY My Thread
I hear ya about GAL saving you. lol My thought is that this journey is more the point than the goal and that in the process, I will become a better person. The marriage being saved is just a perk, in my eyes. :-)
I like your reply to your daughter. I was just thinking today about how I would answer my daughter if she asked that.
In reply to your advice to me above, yes, I need to keep on loving. I've been thinking about Martina McBride's song, "Anyway"..... "you can love someone with all your heart, for all the right reasons, and in a moment, they can choose to walk away....love them anyway"
It's hard but it's worth it. Even if they don't come back, love can only make you feel better. :-)
The session with the C went fantastic. W agreed to another session which was all I hoped for. She all but agreed that her internet EA was wrong. I thought it was all a massive baby step.
Then when we get home she goes to the computer and spends hours chatting with OM.
FIRST RULE OF DB: DONT TALK ABOUT THE OM
How the hell don't you talk about a stinking dead elephant carcass that's lying on your front porch? How do you pretend it's not there?
I knew I would shatter again and again, I just did not know it would continue to be so excruciatingly painful.
God help me, If I had a gun I would use it...
Me 43 W 42 M 1998 S16 S15 D7 D4 bomb 07/03/2007 OPA ILYBNILWY My Thread
