I'm so sorry you're having to deal with a haughty pastor at this time. What a schmuck. Why don't you say "Just tell them I'm leaving to try to focus on keeping my family together in the face of my husband's adultery. Now, that's the TRUTH, but then again you always seem to do whatever you want to do anyway, so spin it however you wish, it's your flock," and let him spin that however he wants to!
Seriously.
Puppy
Hi, Puppy--
You're right--and I feel like I'm just done enabling the dysfunction here. But the guy has no social skills, what did I expect? Just now I'm feeling the grief from the job as well as my marriage, have a little hormonal thing going on, and I feel kinda raw.
So--MC this morning. Said essentially what you said more or less. As predicted, H continued to deny, talked about not trusting me because I was carrying around copies of emails, etc. He was upset that he didn't get to talk more about what a wonderful dad he's been over the past 2 weeks. Unfortunately, the MC ultimately acknowledged that we have very different feelings, I'm still in shock and stuck there, and that we're really there to talk about D12. It is so frustrating--and it empowers him that she deflected the topic after bringing it up last time. H made demands that I "stop hanging on to this" because it has nothing to do with the breakup of our marriage (oh, just that the A began 2 days before he asked for a separation), that I have no right to ask that D not be involved with OW (whose existence 5 minutes earlier he denied). MC declined to read the emails I had brought copies of; he claimed I had "misinterpreted" them anyway. At the end, with me reduced to tears of frustration and H getting his way, he did come out with a statement that he is "excited about the prospect of the possibility of pursuing a relationship with this OW" but it's not an A." So I take that to mean it's still primarily an EA. MC acknowledged unfinished feelings for me and closure for H, and that I may never really resolve my unfinished-ness. So I'm sitting there sobbing about the unfairness of H making a unilateral and unconsulted decision, out of the blue, that has been so destructive to D and me, feeling absolutely powerless and watching H gloat that he had won this battle "and it better not come up again." Why can't I just accept that it was mostly my actions that led to the end of our marriage and leave this alone? I replied that I can't and won't support his denial.
When it was over I sat in my car and had an anxiety attack--sobbing so hard I couldn't catch my breath. I can only hope that the amount of pain I am feeling is evidence that I am moving to a different level in coping with this. I need to be somewhere else emotionally, I need to be more functional so I can find a job and work on GAL'ing.
So, Puppy, everything I've tried to do to confront the A has blown up in my face. I'd say it's the single most frustrating aspect of all of this, right behind being told H has spent the past 3 years in therapy trying to get to the point of leaving me. Geez, thank God OW came along to help with that--otherwise he might have had to actually talk about it with ME. And then behind that is hearing that it's all my fault, and his rush toward preparing for priesthood. Lots of frustration here.
Right now I feel like a bloody mass of raw tissue--sorry for the graphic nature of that description, but it fits.
M60 H52 D20 M14 yrs OW-old gf from 1986 bomb-5/18/08 H filed for D-9/10/08 D final 4/24/09 xH remarried (not OW) 2012
Me:57 H:52 M:28 Got another lawyer last year and filed. D35,S/D twins28,D22 EA4/04 End? Who knows? "Life is like a mirror. Smile at it and it smiles back at you." — Peace Pilgrim
I'm so sorry, and wish I could give you a great BIG hug right now, cuz i'm pretty damned good at them. I had a few anxiety attacks in my sitch, too, and they're frightening and leave you WRUNG OUT.
All I can tell you is, don't look to your MC for your "approval." And don't look to your husband. Look to GOD, and God alone.
You were not created to please either your husband, your MC, or any other man or woman. Yes, it would have been nice to have been "justified" by the MC, and your husband belitted, but try to remember to Whom you are accountable.
Because I can assure you, HE is not pleased with your husband's infidelity, and there WILL be a reckoning for it. It's just not your battle right now.
So in that vein, YOU STICK TO YOUR GUNS. You call an "affair" an affair, because that's exactly what it is, and you don't lie to your daughter and you don't lie to anyone else, either. "This is your mess; YOU get to clean it up" is your mantra. "I will no longer lie to cover up your affair."
YOU need to get over it??? No, I'm sorry -- your husband doesn't get to decide what you "get over" and what you continue to hold him accountable for. He can delude himself in that counselor's office, before the marriage counselor, and he can even do it before his friends and family. But he can't do it before God, and someday his daughter will know exactly what he did as well.
Your husband, too, will crash one day, when he realizes what he's done. And it won't be pretty.
Oh, and then I get an email from H clarifying if I'm still seeing my IC and no wonder we're short on funds. Yes, still seeing my IC!! I need all the help I can get to keep putting one foot in front of the other, be stable for D, find a job, do my current job and deal with it ending, etc. Apparently he is holding off seeing his IC while we're in MC and expected me to do the same. Ummmm--it was his decision to destroy our family in order to do whatever he wants to do, leaving me to pick up the pieces, and now he's begrudging me the only support I have.
M60 H52 D20 M14 yrs OW-old gf from 1986 bomb-5/18/08 H filed for D-9/10/08 D final 4/24/09 xH remarried (not OW) 2012
Thanks, Puppy. I completely agree with you; thank you for defending my honor! I'm just kinda getting negatives from all sides--and I honestly haven't done anything I can think of to deserve it. I know God is "on my side," I just wish he'd give me a little assistance right now because I really need it.
M60 H52 D20 M14 yrs OW-old gf from 1986 bomb-5/18/08 H filed for D-9/10/08 D final 4/24/09 xH remarried (not OW) 2012
Oh, and then I get an email from H clarifying if I'm still seeing my IC and no wonder we're short on funds. Yes, still seeing my IC!! I need all the help I can get to keep putting one foot in front of the other, be stable for D, find a job, do my current job and deal with it ending, etc. Apparently he is holding off seeing his IC while we're in MC and expected me to do the same. Ummmm--it was his decision to destroy our family in order to do whatever he wants to do, leaving me to pick up the pieces, and now he's begrudging me the only support I have.
Answer to him:
"Yes, I am. I need some help to deal with your unfaithfulness."
Thanks, Puppy. I completely agree with you; thank you for defending my honor! I'm just kinda getting negatives from all sides--and I honestly haven't done anything I can think of to deserve it. I know God is "on my side," I just wish he'd give me a little assistance right now because I really need it.
