I have been reading your thread and wanted to pop by and tell you thank you for your continued input on my thread.
I now see why you seem to be such a kindred spirit. Our H's could be twins! They seem to have the same issues and lack of moral character. Go figure!
I certainly have no advice as I'm still a total mess myself. I just want to let you know I'm here reading and appreciating the breakthrough's you are having. You give me hope.
T19 M15 S19 XH47 M43 bomb12/4/07 PA5/07 S12/26/07 D final 11/17/08 Back together with no defined R 05/2010 confused....to say the least!!!
He needed the 07 tax returns for the closing on his house.
He was SO nice to me (cause he needed something) - admitted to that fact when he got what he wanted and called back. I tried to talk to him about how S was feeling about the move, how he felt he couldn't talk to him, that things weren't as sunny as he would like to think. I was hoping that it being about his son would make him more opening to listening, but in the end, he just said he wouldn't believe any of it unless the kids told him directly. Um, that's the point! They WON'T tell him directly, they can't...he's the one who walked away!! Even from his own parents!
Ugh, doesn't matter. I told him that I have gotten used to picking up the pieces of the mess he leaves behind; I'm getting pretty good at it. I'll just keep doing that. It was just an exercise in circles and his mental gymnastics again, and I'm too tired to try to show him some other possibility, some reality. No, the kids have me, and they have their therapist. You can't pick your parents.
On a kind of funny note...I went out with MIL for a little while today, leaving the kids with FIL. D had gf's D over to play for a while...as soon as I pulled in, she called her D to come home! I just had to laugh - apparently, her D is not to be around me, since I won't let my kids around her when I have the option!
Her D told my D that their divorce was final this past Tues. There is no record of that in the court system; no motions or dates since July. Someone is lying to somebody....
I took the kids to pick pumpkins and apples today. We shopped for mums and decorations for the fall, Halloween, D's costume. We bought salmon and a lobster for dinner. It was a great way to wrap up the long weekend...I am so lucky to have these kids in my life. They are really great people.
Some semblence of order seems to have come to the house, although I still have laundry to do, and the floor needs to be vacuumed. All in all, I am pretty content with myself. What a strange thing....I can't really describe the feeling.
OK, the nerd just came out in me.....ever seen the Matrix? Neo realizes that he is the One when he can look and see the code behind the facade--he not only knows the truth, but can use that for his own purpose, like stopping bullets that are about to rip into him. He looks at his own hand in amazement, while fighting with the other.
THAT's the feeling I have right now.
Ugh, I am SUCH a nerd. Cause more than once, I have seen the resemblence of x to Anikan/Darth Vader....I was hoping to be the one to "see" the good in him, help him remember, but maybe it will take his son. Maybe he will never see it.
OK, I should shut up, or I will never get a date!
Sometimes, songs will randomly pop up into my head. I don't know if I have ever consciously thought about the lyrics, but I am finding that when I do look them up, they seem to say things that are under the surface, somewhere...
This just came "in:"
Metallica - Nothing Else Matters
So close no matter how far Couldn't be much more from the heart Forever trusting who we are And nothing else matters
Never opened myself this way Life is ours, we live it our way All these words I don't just say And nothing else matters
Trust I seek and I find in you Everyday for us something new Open mind for a different view And nothing else matters
Never cared for what they do Never cared for what they know But I know
So close no matter how far Couldn't be much more from the heart Forever trusting who we are And nothing else matters
Never cared for what they do Never cared for what they know But I know
(Bridge)
Never opened myself this way Life is ours, we live it our way All these words I don't just say And nothing else matters
Trust I seek and I find in you Everyday for us something new Open mind for a different view And nothing else matters
Never cared for what they say Never cared for games they play Never cared for what they do Never cared for what they know And I know, yeah, yeah!
(Solo)
So close no matter how far Couldn't be much more from the heart Forever trusting who we are No, nothing else matters
I just want to journal it for now. I should keep track of these things......
I'm with oldtimer. I see a clandestine motive to talk to your XH by using your son's feelings as a conduit. Not rying to be harsh, but direct. Bottom line: stop looking at court records, stop trying to talk to husband. These things only mentally delay your closure.
This is my closure. I don't want to talk to him, that's the thing. But I don't know if I can slam the door shut without getting this all out. I am not sending it anywhere except the IC, just wrote it. I want the damn sh!t out of my head.
My son did write his dad a letter. He is mailing it tomorrow. I haven't read it.
****This is very long....
What to say….
I always choke up around you, seem to go over the same old stuff and never get past it. You said that you want to get past it, and this is the only way I can think of to do it.
Have you asked people who know and love you, even longer than I have, what they feel about your recent choices for your life? Have you shown them that you would be OPEN to hear their viewpoints and not shut them out or throw away the relationship if you don’t like what you hear?
What would YOU say about a man who left his wife of 16 years after an affair of at least a year was discovered? Who snuck around, lied, and cheated on her, all the while telling her that he loved her? Who did not say one thing to another person about what he was doing or contemplating, to try to get advice or help? Knowing that the situation was moral and ethically wrong?
A man who lived a double-life, and when questioned, only cast doubt back on those who questioned it (how DARE they question my integrity, after working a lifetime to build and prove it! This is a friendship, and I am loyal to my friends! She needs someone to talk to; her marriage is terrible and her kids are so much for her, all by herself!)
A man who left, regardless of the wife’s attempts to reconcile, go for treatment, go for counseling, do ANYthing to make up whatever it was that she had done, anything to save the marriage and family?
Step back and look….what kind of man would you think that was?
Do you remember talking about the “animals” that you worked with, who were married and had girlfriends, too? Who referred to their women as “whores” and their “babies’ mammas?”
Your parents have loved you most and longest of any other people on the planet. Yet, you are willing to throw away your relationship with them, for this? Do you think they are fools, or don’t know you, or have no wisdom? They don’t recognize the man you have chosen to become. They don’t know how you are able to justify your actions, how you could so easily go against everything they have ever taught you about morals and ethics. They don’t hold it against you that you were unhappy in the marriage, but how you dealt with that unhappiness. Instead of working on it with your partner, honoring your commitments and vows, turning to someone, ANYone who could help you, you threw it away, along with your integrity and good name. You lied. You cheated. You became an adulterer. You hurt every person around you – the closer they were, the more you hurt them, and you did it without caring WHO got hurt. You chose a path that they cannot follow or support you on, and it tears them apart to have lost you. I watched your father’s spirit die…he shuffled around the house with his head down and tears always in his eyes, looking and acting like he had aged 20 years, turned into an old man. But none of that matters to you. You have to be right, it is everyone else who is wrong.
You say that it was over for you, that you tried for “five years.” WHAT DID YOU DO? You spoke around the subject a few times, said you needed help, that you were tired. Not ONCE did you say you were unhappy, suggest therapy for ANYone, get a book (there are THOUSANDS), talk to someone who could communicate it for you…you expected me to be able to read your mind. And you found a “kindred spirit,” someone who also was unhappy, who seemed to understand….and you talked to her. So don’t tell me that you couldn’t communicate – you CHOSE NOT TO, with me. Even when so many eyebrows were raised. YOU made the choice to turn away and go outside the marriage! NO ONE is responsible for you having an affair, other than yourself! NO ONE made you do it! And there is nothing that I did that deserved how you treated me. Were you hurt? I can only begin to guess at how deeply. But it was not intentional – I wasn’t out to hurt you, I didn’t do things that I knew would hurt you. You did.
You thought you were trapped before, by what you were “supposed” to do, what you were “supposed” to be. Are you having her move in because there is no where else she could go and afford, except down to her brother’s, and you don’t want to loose your relationship with her? What heroism. What do you think might happen if the relationship with her DOESN’T work out? More than 87% of second marriages fail….that isn’t even taking into account the relationships where they don’t get married. You’ve said you don’t want to marry – afraid that “forever” is an empty promise…? No strings, no commitment. That is an optimistic start…I wonder how either of you will trust the other, be secure in your relationship. You both know what the other is capable of…people are wondering who will bail, first. They are guessing that you are too stubborn to let it “fail,” since you have given up so much for this, and you have to be right….
You have already ripped apart this family and your own once. You have made promises to those girls, especially, that you would be a family together. How will you face them if/when this doesn’t work?
There are four girls, NOT YOUR CHILDREN, who you will be living with and help raising almost full-time, while your own children see you on occasion. Two of the four had issues requiring mental health services and medication BEFORE the trauma of a divorce. Are you going to save them, too? Will you be doing homework with them, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, shuttling, disciplining, cuddling up and getting climbed on, being there every night, while their mother is at work? Will you be tucking them into bed every night?
Are you ready to do all that with someone else’s children, children who have a father, children who will remind you that you are NOT their dad, children with their own sets of problems and challenges?
Will you and their mother set an example of what commitment looks like? If either of you cared for the kids more than yourselves, if either of you believed in family, and the covenant of marriage, you would have BOTH told the other to go back and do the hard work! There is a reason you got married in the first place – there was love there. And yes, it can be brought back!!! IF the people are willing to work for it!! You left because you weren’t happy? Then, you have to find a way to make yourself happy IN THE MARRIAGE, with your SPOUSE!
Are you ready for your own children to ask, why aren’t you there for us? Why couldn’t you make it work, for us? Why them, and not us? Do you realize that they will NEVER see all of you as the happy little family of your fantasies?
Your youngest has stopped crying for you at night. She is ok with you not being here. She will quickly forget those times when her mom and dad both came to say pretty dreams.
Your son doesn’t even want his OWN sister to go camping with you and scouts….how do you think he will handle sharing you with 5 girls, 4 of who aren’t even related? Do you think our kids want to go to her mother’s house for holidays? What is THAT mess going to look like?
When I used to cry, I would apologize to the kids, especially Chuckie. I would tell him I was so, so sorry that I couldn’t make it work, that he and Brynne deserved so much more than this. He always answered, Mom, you are not the one who should be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong, and you tried. We saw how hard you tried.
They will always love you, but they don’t like what you did. They don’t like the choices you made. But you can’t pick your parents. Chuckie still hopes that you will start to make the right choices. Both of them have told me that they are only kids – they can’t make things any different than they are. It wouldn’t matter what they said.
Brynne just says “I don’t know” when anyone asks her anything about the divorce or what she wants. She is afraid to have an opinion. She drew a picture at Healing Hearts. A happy memory, when we were all together as a family at Disney. A sad memory, when daddy hangs up the phone on mommy. She doesn’t know I saw the picture.
What do you think a son will think of his father who made these choices? Step away from this whole mess…..look at other people you know. What does Chris think of his mother? And he is an adult.
Things people have said:
Charlie: I have never seen anyone so selfish, and it is especially weird for Chuck. He is only thinking about himself. It is over – don’t hold onto someone who doesn’t love and value you. I wonder if this Scout shirt will burst into flames when he puts it on…
A friend: He won’t look at the mess he has bought into. He isn’t the same….its like, as long as he checks in every few weeks and talks about nonsense, he can say that he still has my friendship. But everything is different, now. How could it not be? Like I would ever go over to their house, have her get me something to drink? I will never accept them as a couple… He lied, to a lot of people, including me. I was on vacation with you both for a solid week, and he never acted like a man who wanted out of a marriage – and yet he was sleeping with her before the end of that month! He fooled everybody….Maybe this is the real him. Wait till they live it for a while. Up till now, it has all been a fantasy. But wait until he comes home from work to have at least 3 of them climbing all over him, while she goes out to work. Does he really want to start all over, now? This is when life was supposed to get easier….now, to deal with all their mess, all their issues, including the mother! What is it that he sees, anyway? She isn’t attractive, has bad teeth, dyes her hair to look like yours. Oh, wow, she lost 30 pounds—too bad its not really enough to notice! She was never nice, or funny. Hardly ever see her smile. Always a miserable person, not a nice thing to say about anything in her life, just how hard or miserable it all is. Even to this day…nothing is going to make her happy. Menial job…what is it that she brings to the table? Its not looks, or smarts, or money….just problems.
John: He’s not worth it. Not worth you. You are smart, beautiful…doing all the right things. What would you still want him for? Get over it. He’s not the same guy. You’ve got lots of great guys out there waiting for you!
Trevor: I always looked up to Chuck, the way he was for his family…I can’t believe that he would, or could, do this.
Banker: He’s with HER, that fat cow with all those kids? I’ve known her and her family since she was a girl…got another boy in trouble back then, always bad news, a kind of slut reputation. Not surprising, from her.
A medical professional: I’ve known the family. That woman has been miserable for as long as I can remember, and her daughter is just like her. A very dysfunctional family. Your husband is sick; it is a shame that he won’t look at himself. You are so much better off without him. He is looking for someone to make him happy, and it is really from somewhere deep within himself that keeps him from being happy. Its not about you at all.
Another friend: Well, Chuck definitely traded down, didn’t he?
Anyway, I think you get the running jist of it. I won’t even get into what my family has thought about…..but just know that Aunt Joanie cries at the thought of what you have done. She thought you were so much like the best parts of my dad….I think it is a lucky thing for you that she broke both of her arms. Thank God they are both of my parents are dead, so they don’t have to see what you have become.
My part in all this? Yes, I did play a part…
I was secure in my marriage. I was sure of my spouse’s love, that nothing could sway it. I didn’t have to earn his love, love isn’t a commodity. He loved me as deeply as I loved him. (Did you want me to be insecure, worried when you went out, worried who you were friends with? Trying to jump through hoops daily to prove myself to you? Did you do that for me? Does that make a good marriage?) I looked up to him, I respected him, I was proud of who he was and how he treated our family and friends. I wanted him to be happy, and tried to encourage things that made him happy (like getting out on the bike, hot tub time, reminding you to call your friends, tried to encourage you to be involved in more things I knew you liked like scouts, take up a hobby, etc.)
I am not organized. I have struggled with it my entire life. It is more than simply being lazy – that would have been a quick fix….it is more the way my brain is wired. Just like your brain had a hard time with speech. I am on the scale for ADD. It’s the flip side of my creativity coin. An absent-minded professor…
But instead of learning how to make adjustments to this, I relied on you. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to have it cleaned up, or purposely ignored you asking me to get something done. If you remember, I actually asked you for help with this when you did bring the subject up – I was trying to find a way to make it work, like how you clear your throat before you say Hello. I just asked for company. Someone there to help me keep my focus. I didn’t even want you to pitch in, just be with me. I was always happy to work, even stuff I hated doing, as long as we could spend time together, like when we did the dinner dishes together occasionally. But you made me feel guilty for that. When I saw you go to do something, I would jump up and try to help—yes, I saw your disgust, no, I didn’t want you to do it all. I just didn’t think like you do when it came to those things—I sucked at it, but I tried. Same with the money – how long did I ask to sit down and write up a budget with me? I have one, now. I didn’t leave things intentionally for you to take care of. I didn’t see it, didn’t connect it with a way to express my feelings for you. (How could I show my love for you with something that I was so terrible at doing?) I expressed my love for you with words ALL of the time, compliments, support and interest in what you did and talked about, what you were interested in. I thought of you when I went grocery shopping (sometimes I still have to put things back in the cart, realizing that you were the only one who liked it). I touched you, held your hand, sat next to you, wanted to be with you, loved to cuddle and hug you. I took care of you when you were sick or hurt. I worried about you. I spoke to you all the time, many times throughout the day. About everything and nothing. You were my best friend. We worked together as a team with our kids, and with what we were good at. You could fix anything, I could research anything. You did directions. I planned and tried to pick fun things. I felt like we each began where the other ended.
And now I know that that wasn’t always a healthy thing. There were many areas where I didn’t grow up. Things where I stalled.
Now, I am on my own. For the first time as an adult. I have had to rush through adolescence in a bunch of areas, and you and I both know just how painful that was for me.
And that was what a lot of my pain was that you saw. But here I am, independent, learning and growing. Learning what about me lead me to the reactions I had. Looking within.
You see, going to therapy isn’t for the weak. Or to be brainwashed.
It is a kind of mirror…a guide, to help you realize the stuff under the surface that no one wants to look at, the hard stuff, the things that are so painful that your psyche has to bury them any way it can.
I learned at a young age the survival skill of denial. It saved my life. I remember the hours on end, at 2 and 3 years old, when I would be left alone in my room to play with my “imaginary friends.” I was alone. I found a way to make it ok, because it had to be. I found a way to love my mom, because I had to. And if there was ever anything wrong, it had to be my fault, because it couldn’t be hers.
In the mean time, I have been able to see the areas that I got right. I am raising two great kids as a single mom. I have strengthened my family bonds and friendships, and made many more. I have rekindled a relationship with God, someone who’s love will never have to be earned, someone who’s strength will never leave when things get hard. I have a successful career. I am a college graduate, and will soon have my master’s degree. I run a household. I am service-minded, trying to give back to others, mentoring new teachers and doing things for the kids I teach who need it. I am a good person, with a great life. And I finally feel blessed, again. A good catch for a good man, someday, when I want it.
Anyway, those are the tips to the icebergs of what I have discovered. I am still in recovery, still looking at myself to continue to grow as person who I want to be. That is my path. I will be aware, and not be afraid to look deep within.
I wonder if you have looked at what it is, deep inside you, that allowed you to go against everything that you had once held so sacred. I wonder if you have asked yourself what kind of mental gymnastics your brain has pulled so that you can look yourself in the face each morning in the mirror. What you have done with your shame? Will you ever have the strength or character to really look at it?
To help me face the new reality of who you are in my life, I made a list.* It helps to protect me. See, I will always love you, for you, for the deepest parts of you. You do not have to earn my love; there is nothing you could ever do that would make me not love you anymore.
But I also know that I don’t want you in my life. You are not good for me. And that is beyond husband, friend, acquaintance. I know now that you will go out of your way to hurt me when you get the chance; it is part of how you live with yourself. You’re the good guy, right, so I must be really screwed up, really a bad person who you escaped…..no one leaves a happy marriage, no one leaves someone who is trying, who is good. I don’t think you do these things knowingly….I don’t think you are out to hurt me. Its just how you manage, like how you justify your actions. I can’t even keep up with your circular arguments; I give up on that. Someone told me once, You can’t make sense of nonsense.
So you have said that I was not a good wife or friend. That I am not a good mother. That I am not a good person. At least, that is what you say to me when you are tearing me apart…you go right back to being the good guy when you say anything about me to other people.
And you showed me that this will be the way you view me for the foreseeable future, when you told me recently that Denise hated me. You apologized to her, but not to me, told her that “you were mad,” so I guess you had to do it. Like the death threat – I made you mad, so you were allowed to threaten to kill me, how could I hold that against you? Like the affair and marriage break-up “had to happen this way.” I MAKE you lash out in anger, threaten me with violence. I never tell anyone what leads you up to acting like that—what is it I did?
Asked you to talk to me. Cried for your forgiveness. Begged for another chance, for you, for the kids. I wanted to try to make things right.
In short, I would have relinquished everything about myself, my very essence and soul, if only you would reconsider. How thoughtless, how terrible of me. What abuse. I can only thank God that you never took me up on any of it; I may have found myself beaten, or with my arm sawed off, or even dead – I was willing to do anything, give up everything, to die for you. You will never know that kind of love. And now, I will never know it again, thankfully. Because NO ONE is worth giving yourself up for. I deserve so much more than what you gave, what you are capable of.
I wrote Denise a letter that very night, telling her how sorry I was that I let her down, that I understood if she didn’t want to talk to me anymore, that I thought we had been ok but was so very wrong……if you could have, you would have taken one of my main supports, one of the people who saved my life, away from me. With no remorse.
It is the same way you left me to die so many times. I wonder now if you really, secretly hoped that I would do it. I know that you would have told yourself that it wasn’t your fault. How much easier life would have been for you.
Believe it or not, I wish you well on your journey. I am pretty sure that you won’t hear it from me, even though I seem to be the only one trying to talk to you about the serious stuff (you don’t want to hear it, or you would have read the boards all along.) What I was trying to tell you the other night, is that people who love you wish you would listen. TALK to the people who love you, have always loved you. Tell them that you will listen, and then LISTEN. Read a goddamn book, look at what this does to ANY human who goes through this – you wouldn’t believe it, but you are actually following a script! A tragedy that plays itself out all too often….ask Sarah, or another counselor, or your divorce lawyer. I had people tell me how it was going to end before I even knew you were having an affair! Can they all be wrong? Not ONE person likes Monika, not one person thinks that this is a good idea. Maybe I am the only one who will come out and say it, but if you ask with a willing heart, the others will tell you how they really feel. (Although I think that some tried, but you shut them down quickly) No one thinks you want to hear it, so they don’t bother. They can’t be bothered with someone who is deaf and too full of pride. They are just standing back, waiting to see the fall. They have given up on you. Now, maybe, you’ll have some relationships that hold on because of what you can do for them.
I love you, I worry for you. I pity you, actually, and am deeply, deeply disappointed. This will sound incredibly nerdy, but I remember sitting next to you, watching Star Wars so many times, thinking that you are Anikan, taken over by your own Dark Side, changed into this other thing capable of hurting others, going against everything that you ever thought was right. If not with you, everyone must be against you, an enemy. And me, the princess who died from heartbreak….I am lucky in that I found the strength to hold on for the kids, that I could not leave them. You are “on the path that I cannot take.” Maybe you haven’t changed at all….maybe it is just that I finally have my eyes open and can see you for who you really are. And I deserve better than that. So do the kids. I hope that you can keep a semblence of normalcy together for their sake, at least, and do as right as possible given the situation.
I wish you would just go away and leave us alone after all of this. Go off and live your life. I wish I didn’t have to deal with that woman, have to wrap my head around her being in my kids’ lives. But I will find the strength to do even that, and help my kids deal with it all, too. Because everything seems easy after the Hell that I have walked through. The best lies ahead for me.
(I can hear him already, saying that I am psychotic, that how dare I talk down to him, that he is the same person he has always been, justify, justify…..I can’t go on wasting any more air on this. I wonder if he will hear this, if he will ever hear anything at all…)
