Ponder SP, would I have married a straight up "wedge" with nothing else going on? It is fun to make fun, but there is more going on then just wedge-dom unless I've been delusional for 14 years.
And yes, this is some wacky stuff but honestly it screams MLC in so many ways and is sad...
All levity aside, this is a very interesting question. Had a discussion with my IC about this a couple of weeks ago as I had noticed (he had, too) some very ingrained behavior patterns in WAW(he had been our MC for a brief spell) and I was wondering if the trait was always there and I was blind ("love is blind") to it, or if it had evolved or become more pronounced over time to where one couldn't help but notice it. The "truth", as usual, is probably somewhere in-between.
New: What a Weekend
H-48 WAW-49 M-22 S-14,9 D-11 EA disc.-11/07 PA disc.-3/08 EA2?-6/08 to ?
I think we all have our insecurities and our demons and when the going gets rough, some people cave into whatever those darker characteristics are.
It is sad to watch someone I love act like a caricature...he had some of these traits but they were just spokes of a many faceted wheel, now it is like the id is on steroids. But, he is toiling and he is trying in his own way.
Honestly, I'm closer and closer to just wanting no contact...I don't know, it is sad. I mean the clearer I get, the more compassion I have and the more I just feel sorry for him.
But, on the upside, I'm still feeling pretty good!
Good. Because you deserve to feel good about you and you work hard to do so. His journey is his journey. Don't let him take you on that ride else all is lost for you both. At least if you take your own trip, you have you when you're done.
Hmm..Faceook. Alternate universe. Hmm...might have to look into that....:)
Remember AK - you are an awesome woman. You are what makes you happy. You deserve to be happy and you deserve to remain awesome. You have the right to remain silent if needed.
AJ
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter" MLK Put the glass down... "Yesterday I was clever so I wanted to change the world Today I am wise, so I am changing myself."
I think we all have our insecurities and our demons and when the going gets rough, some people cave into whatever those darker characteristics are.
It is sad to watch someone I love act like a caricature...he had some of these traits but they were just spokes of a many faceted wheel, now it is like the id is on steroids. But, he is toiling and he is trying in his own way.
Honestly, I'm closer and closer to just wanting no contact...I don't know, it is sad. I mean the clearer I get, the more compassion I have and the more I just feel sorry for him.
But, on the upside, I'm still feeling pretty good!
Hi aliveandkicking.
Compassion is the answer. Compassion for yourself, as well as compassion for others. You not only have to care about your hurt, and others...you have to have the will to do something about it. True compassion stays...regardless of how others treat you. I want you to know that it is possible for people, such as your husband, to change for the better. I speak from personal experience here...but said individual has to want to change, and be committed to doing it...for it to occur. Compassion is the antidote for anger, resentment, and abuse. Again, I speak from personal experience. You are a strong gal, and you help a lot of people here with your posts. We appreciate you. I hope things will improve with you, and I hope you get what your heart desires. I think miracles can still happen, especially when people put into practice the good information we learn here, from others, and from the books. It's sound logic.
"Always go straight forward, and if you meet the devil, cut him in two and go between the pieces." - William Sturgis, clipper ship captain, 1830's.
he had some of these traits but they were just spokes of a many faceted wheel, now it is like the id is on steroids.
Maybe you didn't marry him as he is now.
Or maybe he wasn't then as he is now.
So what changed? Either you did or he did or you both did.
Whichever is the case, la question et suivant: Given that this is who he is at the present time, what is the best course-of-action for you?
WAW set me thinking in this way. The other day she pointed out that she's had only 3 serious boyfriends in her life, one of whom became her husband -- from high school to college to dating me to living with me to marrying me. So she's been wondering herself -- is she at 45 the person she was at 23 when we started going together? Does she want the same things, need the same things, desire the same things? How has the change in her POV through her experiences in life led her to this decision? She doesn't know the answers, but she knows there ARE answers.
Honestly, I'm closer and closer to just wanting no contact...I don't know, it is sad. I mean the clearer I get, the more compassion I have and the more I just feel sorry for him.
That is exactly how I feel and how I have felt for a very long time. For close to a year I was so angry at my H the rage was almost impossible to articulate. It wasnt so much the rage that he just got up and left one day, it was what he did after he left.
Eventually though I started to feel very sorry for him. Not in a pity type way but I felt deep compassion for him. His entire life (post bomb) was based on cliches, lies and using another person to heal and find happiness. And to this day I really dont think he has found that happiness although some of his needs are being filled (his ego, sexual needs and so on). But the deep friendship and bond he and I shared is not present with OW even after 1.5 years.
I also feel deep compassion for him because in his mind he had created such a fantasy about how things would go with our divorce and our post divorce R and now that his fantasy is crushed I do think he is feeling things he never expected to feel. And I dont mean about us getting "back together" but I do think he is realizing what a terrible loss he has experienced.
I do get sad sometimes and heck, sometimes even a bit lonely even though my life is pretty full. The rage is gone but I do feel deep compassion for him. He has been floating around for the past 1.5 years from place to place, has not established any roots for himself and has relied on OW to "make things better". And if that works for him then great. But the messages he has sent me recently indicate otherwise.
For so long I felt so worthless. But I *do* have worth and self value and now *I* know that and really that is all that counts. At this point I also agree that no contact is best for me and maybe for you it will get you to the next point.
So what changed? Either you did or he did or you both did.
To oversimplify, I grew up, he didn't.
To be more objective, I saw us as a perfect pair and that I could keep him balanced...ya, ya, co-dependent.
Quote:
So she's been wondering herself -- is she at 45 the person she was at 23 when we started going together?
This is valid. Some people are able to change and be themselves within a long term marriage and some aren't. In the Ms I see that last, the people change exponentially. The M is not a question, it is a given and the changes are welcomed and accepted...you know the whole 2 or 3 really long-term successful marriages I know of?
It's funny, alive, your last graf there is just like the convos I've been having with Foreign Female Friend. It's almost as if there's two ways to look at marriage -- it's a thing, but it's also a place. The best marriages, it would appear, have more of the quality of place than of thing -- as Place, the marriage is a location within which you can both grow. But if it's a Thing only, it can be so static that one person's growth can -- deliberately or incidentally -- be fatal. Very much like the Schnarch discussion on coming into your own.
I think eventually the LBS has to just say what is on their mind. A while back I told my H that I simply had no respect for him and he was not the person I thought he was. I told him that I didnt think he was a good person or a bad person, that wasnt for me to judge but what I did know for certain was he wasnt the man I thought he was.
I dont dwell on it all that much anymore but he really did convince himself that one day all this would be behind us and we could go back to being best buds. And that ideal was too far beyond my limit of what was acceptable seeing the events of the past 1.5 years.
One day I asked him if his GF would be strong and supportive enough to understand that he would be rebuilding some sort of R with me. His answer was no, she would not be. And that sort of said it all to me. Personally, I think he likes her neediness because it feeds his ego and there is no baggage with her.
But I did remind him that when he and I started dating we never had to hide anything. And no matter what happens with his GF they can always look back and remember the first 1.5 of their R happened while he was still married to me. And if he is okay with that, well, I am too but he cant get both.
Once my H saw that I was very serious and dedicated to my own counseling he really did step back because I think he realized (or convinced himself) he could never "catch up". And honestly, at this point I doubt he could. But I wont be forced to share his vision of all things being "black and white" when the world and most R's are filled with shades of gray.
He can stick to his cliches for the rest of his life if that is what gets him through the day. And for a long time I bought into them but I dont want a life or R based on cliches and what one thinks a M should be (no work, no problems). And maybe he will be one of the lucky ones that will have a M like that one day. If so, then great. But I tend to lean towards the side of reality that any long term R will require work. And the work doesnt have to be all bad or hard or unpleasant. We arent digging ditches here. But *some* work has to be involved or else you just drift through the M year after year without really finding or experiencing everything a good, solid and healthy M has to offer. JMO of course.
