Another day under my belt. Work, home to kids, their friends, my house is torn apart again (what two mini-people can do to a house in a week!! I think they've seen too much hurricane footage!). Do some then collapse on the couch to "rest my eyes" for 1/2 hour. Up, out, shopping w/D (how many webkins should one person own?! Its her money, but sure hard to watch).
Pizza night (yay!!), time to catch up with emails and boards, bed. S is having a sleepover, so should sleep LATE tomorrow.
All's good in Donna Land - my babies are home with me
Me 35, H 38; Together 13.5 yrs, M 7 Bomb 1 10/07/06 Sep'd 1/14/07 - 4/15 Piecing: 4/07 - 9/07 Bomb 3 10/11/07: Never loved you, let's separate 2/08 slowly improving 7/08 Piecing (7/25/08 rings back on!!) Current thread
Today was good. Kids played with friends, I cleaned the house up a bit and played on the computer. Even watched a movie on TV. The weather was crappy, so it was nice to be inside.
x is with his brothers and dad, along with others, at BIL's "bachelor party" camping weekend. Dad was having a hard time going, but some of his old friends would be there, too, so he planned to have a cushion between him and x. They aren't surprised that x put an offer on the house with gf; just disgusted.
D played with gf's D today; skank was out and her stbx had the kids in the house. I checked online and her divorce is stalled. Last date on court record was 7/30, with no future dates scheduled. So the $ for the down payment didn't come from that. bff from college guessed that x raided his retirement. Or got a private loan from someone.
He works in the Bronx in NYC - wonder if it was from a shark...?
What a strange, twisted mess they are living. I just want to make sure that my kids end up ok. Still not sure what to do about my S and her D; I'll have to face that when and if they get a house and tell S that he has to sleep next door to her.
I found a DivorceCare support group locally that I might try to go to tomorrow. It is at the church my S has been going to with his friend. Might be an ok place to make new connections and friends who understand...
Donna, I have heard many wonderful things about Divorce Care. I have also heard many new relationship have come from DC as well. Just be careful not to go there until you are ready. It is so hard to let go, I know, but you are truly doing wonderful. I want to post something about the OW that I found on a different BB. If you have heard it or already read it I apologize. It has helped me to maintain my confidence and keep my strength. In fact, it helped me let go because I saw how broken my STBXH really is. I TRULY believe everything that is said:
Wayward Spouses ALWAYS affair down. They NEED someone beneath them, who will admire them and give them feigned respect. Your husband is not seeking out the younger, better looking woman, he is taking whatever opportunity presents itself and meets his needs for sex, admiration, and boosts his self-esteem. SHE IS NOT SPECIAL. If she happens to be younger and pretty that is just the luck of the draw and a RARITY...most of the time it IS NOT the case. After reading here you will discover that the OW could have been anyone and your husband's choice of OW was not in any way an indication or indictment of you as a beautiful, attractive, desirable, intelligent, mature, moral, loyal, spiritual woman, wife and mother. OW is, I guarantee, no match for you.
Think of it this way, your husband is behaving low and dirty. Thus it necessarily takes a pretty low class woman to admire him at this point ... DO NOT allow this trash to rock your self confidence. You may or may not have let yourself go...but you can get it back and be the classy, beautiful, respectful, upstanding, Grade A woman you always were whereas the Other Woman WILL ALWAYS remain trash."
I hope that helps you at least to see his actions have NOTHING to do with you. It is a reflection of him only. You deserve so much better than what his able to give you. Stand tall and see your worth. One day when you are ready you will find someone who is worthy of YOU!
Broken Hearted ------------------ Me - 36 H - 37 S - 8 Married - 1992 ILYNILWY - August 2007 Moved Out - March 2008 OW Revieled - May 28, 2008 Filed for D - July 2, 2008
I went to the DivorceCare "class" yesterday. Of course, it covers most of what we already know, but like so much, every time you hear the messages, a different piece resonates, depending on where you are in the process.
It brought up some of the feelings from early in the sitch, just remembering the giant hole I literally expected to look down and see through my chest. I've come a long way, but there are different kinds of pain. More manageable, thankfully.
The facilitator asked me to stay after a few minutes after the group. She went through the same thing I did (although she wasn't friends with the OW first). She has been D'd 6 years, and her x is onto gf #4. She told me (again) that this is something, some void, that he feels within him, that has little to nothing to do with me. That he is the one who is broken, who is just delaying the work. She empathized and identified with my pain, and asked to pray for me. It was very touching.
I was sad last night. Knowing that I don't want the person that he has become, not wanting to let go of the life that I loved (even as I have adjusted and am handling the new life really well). Its just sad, the realizations. I wonder now if the feelings I still have are for him, personally, or for my life as a whole, then. Not that I am desperate to change it, anymore - it is what it is. I am taking that point and working with it.
So, grieving sometimes, what was and what I loved. But I am also moving towards a life that I can love in a different way.
I toy with the idea of dating. I'm not serious about it; I'm not ready to be serious, I haven't finished my work. And it isn't a priority. So for right now, if it happens, it is just for the moment. I had a profile up on a dating site, and I just hid it for now. My kids come first, and I'm not that willing to share the rest of my time, which I would have to do when seeing someone.
And that's ok. I need my downtime. I am keeping up with my friends, my house, with my job, I'm about to add in Scouts, etc. I can forsee myself becoming pretty content on my own for awhile.
The sad doesn't stick. I am learning to just sit and feel it for a while when it comes, then put it away for another day.
Just wrote this on another thread, and didn't want to forget it:
Beth-- I have been thinking and reading about that, too.
I read that, in our 20's, our Rs serve as "I'll be good and take care of you, you be good and take care of me." We are trying to be what the other person needs.
The next stage of life (which women hit first, like other social development) is when you start to look at yourself and try to meet your own needs. You realize that another person can't "complete" you or make you happy, so you set about learning how to do that for yourself.
I think that is what happened in my M. I got to that stage first. Having raised my kids to being more self-sufficient, and caring for my mother through her sickness and death, I was ready to reinvest in myself. I started to focus more on my career, a dream job that I have wanted to do since grade school. I got involved in scouts again, something that I had always loved (and where I had met x, actually).
I just didn't realize that he was still in the "I'll be good so you will take care of me" stage.
So, he felt lower on my priority list. Not taken care of or respected. Taken advantage of. My world had expanded. His hadn't.
And the skank was right there to say, "Oh, you poor baby--I can't believe that she treats you that way and doesn't pay attention to you. I would take care of you..." Lots of attention, gifts, emails and texts....
well, you get the idea. The biggest problem was that he never told me how he was feeling. I was happy, I was taking care of my happiness. He saw it as selfish. I never saw his discontent, especially since she had been waiting in the wings with her tongue out, and practically told him that he should be treated better before he even formed the idea in his own head (now, that is a complete guess on my part, but I'm not sure that I'm that far off--NO ONE saw any signs of him being unhappy in the marriage, and I would think someone would have either seen it or got wind of it).
So, he was trying to "be good" and didn't feel like he was getting the return he wanted. He threw that right out the window. A few people have told me that he has become like the most selfish adolescent they have ever met, only thinking of himself and no one else around him. Not listening to anything anyone has to say about it. With him no longer having to "be good," to play the part, maybe this is the real him? He said that he was pretending for a very long time. Maybe he did go into the next stage, and feels that this is the only way for him to find his own happiness? I don't know, and it really doesn't matter at this point.
Donna - FWIW - I had the opposite experience, almost. I was still stuck in putting my husband and kids first; in retrospect, H would have been happier if I had been more selfish and put myself first more often.
I say "almost" because the tipping point did happen when I was sick and unable to cater to him quite as much as I had before.
You know - the bottom line is, it usually isn't about US at all, but about them and their problems.
