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.
