I feel your pain. It has to be SO hard to see it all unfolding. You did so well in not getting into it, not making a big deal out of it all. Not putting your kids in the middle.
I did not have to experience this. The OW crap was horrifying enough. My kids were older and chose not to be involved with her. 7 years later - it remains this way.
I guess the good part is that she is nice to your kids. That your D has a friend to do things with. Not much comfort, I'm sure but it is good to build on the positives.
Take care, I just wanted to let you know that I'm listening and understand,
No, my kids really don't have much of a say in if they are involved with her; they are just too young. And I think she will bend over backwards to be nice to them, if for no other reason than to look better than me.
D told me that he can call the house "theirs" on the 24th. He will move in first, and her and her kids "not for a while." I assume not before her divorce is final, if for no other reason than alimony purposes.
I guess I am just looking at all this, thinking I can't believe that this is the way it all ends. Not a glance back, not a second thought....nothing. He got the idea in his head and went full speed ahead, without a second thought back. In fact, any thoughts he might have had were squashed by his self-validations and rewriting history.
It makes me so sad that I mattered so little to him. That he can just walk away from 22 years.
I was one of those people that Gigi wrote about, who thinks that if they just follow all the steps, they can really stop a divorce. That there is something that we can do.
As much as I am happy to discover and learn about myself, I can't help but be sad that we weren't able to do that together. I do understand the mistakes that I made, and am working hard on them....I just don't think I will ever understand how I was too late...I don't understand how you walk away without giving the person you made a commitment to, a chance.
******* I had a long meeting with my student teacher and the first-year teacher that I am mentoring after school today. They are both so young (23), just at the start of their lives. They live with their parents but are trying to save and get out into the world on their own. They are focused on their careers, on their friends and family....I wish I could be them, some days, with my whole life before me like that. I would definitely start saving right away (just told them today about the power of compound interest). They put their love lives on hold--too much a distraction for them right now.
I got home, picked up the kids and got McD's for dinner (I was home about an hour later than I planned on, and S had scouts). D and I went out to see Beverly Hills Chihuahua together - very cute movie.
My babes are tucked into their own beds, and here I am, wondering (or lamenting) how my life turned out this way.
I promise you who had many second thoughts and cared deeply for you. Just because things didn't work out the way you would have liked does not mean that it was easy for him or that he didn't care about you.
Donna - I hear your pain and can not imagine how hard it must be to move on with his parents so close to you. How can you detach? How can you change your focus to just you? He is no longer thinking about you, hon, he has moved on. How can you do this? I just want to see the best for you. You are such a beautiful soul and deserve better than to be dragged along. I hate that you still feel so much pain from his actions. You desrve better and once you finally let go you will get better. I know you love him, but the person who left is no longer him. He has changed, he has turned into an alien. Statistically speaking he left one relationship, what makes you think he will make this one built from deciet work? Most end miserable and the ones that go on to marry end horribly as well. You got the good years, the years where he was hopeful and had drive and wonder. He no longer has those things and is jaded. She gets the broken him now. He takes from her to feel good and she takes from him as well. Healthy relationships are built on giving, this is not their dynamic. This is why so many A relationships fail so often. Move on and know the this too will pass and you will be ok.
((Donna)) I just wanted you to know I was thinking 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
Likewise. Let him go. It's tough when HIS parents are living with YOU! (You KNOW I don't get that, but that's just me) What kind of guy buys a house and lets his parents stay with his ex-wife? WHAT???
You really seem to be so level headed, and are always super-reflective. Close down the "he's coming back" stuff. I know it's hard. Detaching from his family is tough when his parents are constantly around you. Not to be harsh, but have they come up with any idea to "get a place of their own?" That would certainly give you more opportunity to detach.
No, my kids really don't have much of a say in if they are involved with her; they are just too young. And I think she will bend over backwards to be nice to them, if for no other reason than to look better than me.
D told me that he can call the house "theirs" on the 24th. He will move in first, and her and her kids "not for a while." I assume not before her divorce is final, if for no other reason than alimony purposes.
I guess I am just looking at all this, thinking I can't believe that this is the way it all ends. Not a glance back, not a second thought....nothing. He got the idea in his head and went full speed ahead, without a second thought back. In fact, any thoughts he might have had were squashed by his self-validations and rewriting history.
It makes me so sad that I mattered so little to him. That he can just walk away from 22 years.
I was one of those people that Gigi wrote about, who thinks that if they just follow all the steps, they can really stop a divorce. That there is something that we can do.
As much as I am happy to discover and learn about myself, I can't help but be sad that we weren't able to do that together. I do understand the mistakes that I made, and am working hard on them....I just don't think I will ever understand how I was too late...I don't understand how you walk away without giving the person you made a commitment to, a chance.
******* I had a long meeting with my student teacher and the first-year teacher that I am mentoring after school today. They are both so young (23), just at the start of their lives. They live with their parents but are trying to save and get out into the world on their own. They are focused on their careers, on their friends and family....I wish I could be them, some days, with my whole life before me like that. I would definitely start saving right away (just told them today about the power of compound interest). They put their love lives on hold--too much a distraction for them right now.
I got home, picked up the kids and got McD's for dinner (I was home about an hour later than I planned on, and S had scouts). D and I went out to see Beverly Hills Chihuahua together - very cute movie.
My babes are tucked into their own beds, and here I am, wondering (or lamenting) how my life turned out this way.
Donna, these thoughts enter my mind also. All the time. They are like flashes/short dream sequences throughout the day. IMO our spouses are sick, they are quitters. YOU and I deserve better. hang in there.
I had someone remind me that pain in life is inevitable, suffering is optional.
I also know that feelings follow thought.
So, I have to change my thinking. I need to write out, think about how this R and M is not what I would want for myself, anymore. That the dynamic has changed, time has passed, and only one party has any interest in having it any different. In other words, impossible. Not to be again.
I know that I keep taking the 20+ years that I did know, that I did have, and trying to apply that to a "maybe" in the future. I DENY the reality of the present. I JUSTIFY the actions that he has taken, finding the cause of them, forgiving them. It is that I see the potential for a different future, and keep trying to bend this whole situation to my will. Damn the optimist in me; it isn't serving me a damn bit of good right now.
I had my faults. I read mastateflower's post, and I know what I did wrong. I took my M for granted, I took the truth for granted, the commitment for granted. I got busy and didn't devote enough time to my partner. I didn't do all the little things to show him that I was thinking of him. I excused his friendships with women as him just being a good, caring guy - one I was proud of because of his giving heart, his intelligence, his charm, and his good looks. I didn't want to be the needy, jealous wife - but I never questioned why he would feel the need to have those friendships to begin with. I didn't look to see what needs I wasn't meeting for him. I didn't push to get to the hard stuff. I was blissfully ignorant. I asked about it, but went along with his initial wishful thinking that all was good in the world. I did not recognize his most important love language - acts of service - and do those things for him (I didn't equate that with showing love, so didn't understand when he asked me for this). When he did these, I thought of it as something for the family, or for himself; not as an expression of love to me.
But what he did, things that I should have ingrained in my brain and make me unwilling to have him in my life at all if I had any self-respect:
--MOST IMPORTANT: He stopped talking to me. He is afraid of conflict and would rather placate me than deal with issues that came up with him. He stuffed his resentments. He "went to bed angry," when I never gave him reason to think I wouldn't listen to him and try to fix things if we talked it out. I never expected us to not disagree on some things. I shared, so I thought he would, too. --He looked outside of the marriage to have needs met. --He lied. Alot. About SO many things. He kept parts of his life, his feelings, secret from me, when we had promised to share them all. --He planned and sneaked around to have an affair. He "got rid of me" at times. --He set up a private email and kept the cell records from me. When I was fooling around one day to guess his password (I didn't even guess that this would be a big deal), he exploded on me and said I was terrible for not respecting his privacy. --He was one of two who ripped my family, and another family with kids, apart - complete selfishness, without regard with even the kids or any other consequences. --He rewrote history to support his choices, destroying the good that was in our marriage for himself and anyone who will listen to him. He has told mutual friends that "it had to happen this way." At least one of our friends told him that was bullsh!t. --He left me when I was at my weakest. The more I needed him, the colder and meaner he became. I really think there were times that he left me to die, and told himself that he wouldn't be responsible if I did. --He broke his vows and all his promises. His I Love Yous turned to lies. --He twisted his perception of me to justify why he wouldn't work on the M; to him, I became a monster he had to escape. Later on, he just saw me as "psychotic." --He discounted all the ways I did love him and show it - buying things with him in mind, holding him and physical affection, the I Love Yous, being interested in his life and listening/supporting him, telling him about all the things I loved and admired about him, wanting and trying to spend time with him where he was (often just in front of the tv he parked himself in front of). --He made me believe that I was a terrible person for more than 8 months while the affair was going on - watched me turn myself inside-out as I tried to change to be what he wanted, while lying about the affair. Whenever I fixed something, he would come up with a new reason. --When I questioned his friendship with this woman, I was made to feel crazy and controlling when I asked him to back off - I actually felt sorry for her, knew that she had a crush on him, and asked him not to send confusing signals (!) He told me that he had few friends, and that he was "loyal" to the few he had. --He left me, a huge issue in itself, my essential core fear in life. Abandoned. Rejected as a person. --He never gave me another chance once I knew there were problems-he was already gone. --He refused to listen to me, talk with anyone else, read a book or see a therapist past 2 sessions (when, my IC suspects, she started to go into his contributions to the problems in the M). He won't look at it, thinking he will be "brainwashed." He doesn't want to change his mind. --He made this choice, even though he knew it would hurt his children --He made this choice, even though he knew that he was a role model for our kids and the choices they might make in the future. --He made this choice, even though he knew it would make our standard of living much lower (for everyone), and hurt the kids' options for extra things like trips, classes, lessons, college, etc. in the future. --He made this choice, even though he knew it would hurt his family and friends - everything would change. No one will ever look at him the same way again. --He bought gifts and funded part of his affair with family money and put some of it on MY credit card. --He carried out some of the affair IN my house, under my nose, some while I was cleaning up from dinner and putting our children to bed. --He disrespected me in all the ways someone can be disrespected. --While still in the M and before the bomb, there were times when he tried to coerce me into a sexual act that hurt me, then made me feel guilty when I said no. --While still in the M, he would often wake me from sleep for sex - at the time, I thought he was just overcome by love for me, or had a wonderful dream. In reality, he just didn't want to make a deep connection, or talk - he was using me. --While still in the M, he made me feel guilty for any time I was sitting reading or working on my computer (often for grad school, sometimes just because I liked it and needed down time). He made me feel guilty about spending any money on myself or things to decorate the house. I would go a year between hair cuts, and felt like crap if I bought clothes for myself. I am not a good /interested housekeeper, and he refused to let me get a service, saying it was a waste of HIS money (even though I worked). Then, my lack of skills and the resultant state of the house was chalked up to my laziness and not caring about HIM, not loving him. --While still in the M, he hid and lied about explicit and disturbing pornography that I stumbled across one day when he forgot to put it back in the ceiling. He said he only read the articles (this from a man who doesn't read). Again, made me feel guilty for getting upset about it, so we wouldn't talk about it. He just threw them away. Feeling bad, I tried to meet this need by writing erotic stories for him. They were received lukewarmly. --While still in the M, he refused to do some things with me that I expressed were life-dreams (learning to dance, travel to Europe), while I tried to participate and encourage his (buying and riding the motorcycle, even though I was scared of the highway and got very sore after more than 2 hours). We met camping, but he never even wanted to go for a walk after dinner, let alone ride a bike or go kayaking. --He is still currently trying to hurt me, telling me lies designed to criticize and crush my self-worth, self-esteem and my support systems so he can feel better about himself and his choices - how could the Hero leave a good person? I have to be the crazy, messed up one for his life to make sense... --He has threatened to kill me (if I turned his children against him). --He has shown and been violent around me - shaking with clenched fists, punching a hole in a door, punching my car, punching the tractor, leaving skid marks in my driveway that are still there almost a year later (I was standing right next to the car), calling the police rather than talking to me. --He blames me for his parents not talking to him; he can't accept that it is because of his actions. --He takes responsibility for his lack of communication skills, but blames me for not "knowing" what was wrong, for not being able to read his mind. "If we had really had the connection that I said we had, I would have known he was miserable." He says that I didn't respect him or have him as a priority (tells me what I was feeling, which is untrue), that I took advantage of him. --He cheated on me with someone who I've known for 12 years, someone we vacationed with, someone who babysat my kids. I remember telling him about my fears of this ever happening (before the truth finally came out), how this very thing had happened in the house I grew up in - neighbors caught in an affair left my house vacant, and I grew up friends with the boy whose father had left and whose mother languished in a deep depression for years. --Only three months after the divorce is final, he is buying a house with the Other Woman, and will have my children "blended" in with hers.
I think I have to do this more often. I have to write this out, re-read this, let my logical thoughts overcome some of the fantasy, denial-based, optimistic thinking.
I guess I am just looking at all this, thinking I can't believe that this is the way it all ends. Not a glance back, not a second thought....nothing. He got the idea in his head and went full speed ahead, without a second thought back. In fact, any thoughts he might have had were squashed by his self-validations and rewriting history.
It makes me so sad that I mattered so little to him. That he can just walk away from 22 years.
I was one of those people that Gigi wrote about, who thinks that if they just follow all the steps, they can really stop a divorce. That there is something that we can do.
As much as I am happy to discover and learn about myself, I can't help but be sad that we weren't able to do that together. I do understand the mistakes that I made, and am working hard on them....I just don't think I will ever understand how I was too late...I don't understand how you walk away without giving the person you made a commitment to, a chance.
Donna,
There is so much in the last line I quoted above. My wonderful new W says you either have the committment "gene" in you or not.... I firmly believe while we ALL were not perfect spouses... Our spouses chose to leave instead of doing the "hard work".... We can rattle off loads of modern psychobabble... In the end, they frankly are cowards...
I pray you find all the very best....
RMG
"The bad things in life open your eyes to the good things you weren't paying attention to before." from "Good Will Hunting"
RMG-I can't believe how much this surprised me, how out of character it seems, coming from him. More than 20 years, and I never thought this was even a remote possibility. Naive? Well, now I am jaded, I guess.
OT...I am thinking about that, trying to look at it without the "fairytale." I'll try to write about it later....
