Can anyone answer this? Part 8

[sandi2]

Good Morning,

I hope I don't appear to be a hog by taking up so much of your thread, but you can always start a new one.....

Your story is close to my heart and that is why I wanted to try to say something that might help you. I tried for years to reach my sister, but her H worked to pull her and their children away from the family and any friends she tried to make. The kids have nobody in their life but him. For one thing, I have never heard or seen a male friend with BIL. As you said, it was him (and now his family) against the world. He brainwashed my sister into thinking I was trying to interfer into their lives and not to listen to anything our mother or I had to say. It was very difficult for me to stand by and watch her abused in that way.....but I finally gave up and decided if she would not listen and chose that life over what she could have.....then I was powerless to help her. However, if I ever see any signs of physical abuse, I will step in b/c that is my baby sister and I can't sit by and watch that happen. I do know the mental and verbal abuse goes on all the time, but that is something only she can stop.

One thing that always bothered me was how she would refer back to her other marriages and say enough that I knew she thought this was her last chance b/c in her mind.....nobody gets D three times. Yes, she this is her third M and every man she M was just alilke!! It was weird. They all were built up similar in size, and they all were a bag of hot air, and they all treated her like dog poop. The first one was physically abusive but they lived off away from us and she didn't have children then and ran off during the middle of the night to come home. That was after she had supposedly left him for good about a year before due to the abuse and would you believe he talked her into going back to him? It amazed me the power the man had over her. When she left my house to go back to him, I was crying and when she hugged me good-bye she told me everything would be okay and I told her right in front of him that, "No, the next time...he will kill you". He didn't open his mouth to me, b/c he was a coward, but I'm sure he had plenty to say when he got her alone. The second H abused her sexually, mentally and abusively and it would take a book to tell all the horrible things he put her through. It would sound like fiction, but it really happened. I think in order to "live" with all that happened, she has someway put it out of her mind and acts like she has forgotten it. We never talk about it with her, but it has always amazed my family how she M three men who were all alike. I only bring all that up in case you happen to see anything in that that rings a bell with you. And.....to continue to let you know that I have been close to the problem similar to yours.

I would think and still do that I WILL NEVER find a man again to treat me this way. He did these nice things alot but when he didnt get enough sleep or when he was tired or stressed he was angry

But don't you see?......you felt and still feel that you do not deserve anyone to treat you with kindness! YOU DO DESERVE KINDNESS FROM THE MAN YOU ARE MARRIED TO!! That is the least a H can show to the W he is with is to show kindness. Even with people we aren't M to, we show kindness......right? So, I hope that you will add to your "list" that you DO deserve to be treated with dignity, respect, and kindness. Every individual wants to be shown dignity. I have learned that by working with the public at various jobs down through the years. But in a M.....both partners want to be treated with those things. Of course they want love and sex (which is the physical expression of love). BTW, did the two of you have a good sex life? If the only time a man shows any signs of "love" is when he wants sex?........something is very wrong. I have never....since the day they got M and he kissed her at the alter.....seen my BIL put his arms around my sister or kiss her or even sit next to her. Now, she knows not to try to show him any affection in front of people, and in their bedroom....she is so starved for his kindness that she clings to him for sexual attention. As soon as he is "relieved" then he turns over and that is all the "love" she gets until the next time. I just know she feels like some object he uses to release his sexual tensions....and then he's through with her. She had done all the "positive" things to try to make him happy......except standing up for herself and having a backbone.

As I said before, you can find at least one good quality. My BIL never misses a day on the job. Maybe that is where he feels important. But that is the good thing I can say about him. However, it is my sister who is killing herself working to bring in the money she feels the family needs to live on. My BIL buys his "toys" to hunt, fish, golf, or whatever his latest sport may be. She feels the entire financial burden on her shoulders and he acts like he could care less.

I think when I got close to a friend, he got scared that maybe they would influence me so much, i would trun on him. Just guessing at this. He just never seem to really like whomever my friend was. He would even talk about the way they kept house, just stupid stuff. When we would sit around and just talk alot of the time it would be negative something about somebody especially our friends. He had me agreeing with him, he had me convinced that nobody cared about us and we could trust nobody.

Yes, my BIL was/is that way, too. In fact, they have a son who is close to my GS's age (b/c I started my family young and baby sister started very late, so that's why the close years in her son and my oldest grandson). Anyway, my GS tried to have a close friendship with their son and my BIL was so jealous that he didn't give up until he split them apart. He even stooped to telling lies on my GS. He was worse than a child. I never seen any grown man act like he did, but then his son is the only friend he has and he is not about to let another person come along and take "his" place with his only friend. It is another way he has of controlling his family.

My xh is always in protective mode it seems.
When his mother died, he grieved very little...he said life goes on. When my mother died he was so scared that I was going to go into this grieving process too long, even said so. That is just him. He says alot "Thats Life".

I have known other men who came from either too unreasonably strict parents or either from such a large family that he never got the one on one attention he needed. Each one had characteristics like you described. They had it rough as a kid and they each had (usually a father) who had the attitude that "that's life, get over it" and showed no sympathy for anyone. I have never seen my BIL show any signs of emotion other than a bad temper and a cold, cold heart. My sister is just the opposite and is very tender hearted and he gets so ugly with her when she breaks downs and cries. These type of men make their family feel that they are weak (especially a son) and need to toughen up and don't allow yourself to "care" about anybody else. I am suprised your XH grieved at all when your mother passed away. She must have touched him more than he meant for her to. We've had close members of our family to die and they were exceptionally kind people, but my BIL acted so cold and showed no tenderness for my sister who was grieving.

Sandi, is it my fault that I let him away with this stuff? Is it my fault he got bored or tired of the responsbility and left us? Could I have not prevented this from the way I let him be?

I really answered this in my last post, but you added it up when you said you knew no other life. I doubt that you had the tools to know how to deal with him. You probably did not know how he was going to treat you after M and it probably began slowly and increased as time went by. My BIL did not treat my sister before M like he does now. I don't think he was too bad at the very beginning and his attitude toward our family wasn't as bad. I'm not sure if he kept it under wraps and it slowly came out of hidding or if something triggered that nature in him. I thought that he saw a person in my sister that he could run over and when he got a job he was very unhappy with, that is when he started coming home and really taking it out on her. I felt that she was so afraid from pasts MR's of his bad attitude and temper that she cowed down in his presence and acted like a whipped pup. That is all it takes for a bully! He will make your life miserable after he discovers you will take what he dishes out.

Why I didnt put my foot down i dont know other than I felt like he worked hard and always provided for us and he deserved the best.

Notice that you said he deseved the best! That is how all W's should feel toward their H's. However, to be honest, Renee, I don't think you thought YOU deserved the best and that is why you settled for his bad treatment of you. You thought since he worked hard to provide for his family, you should be happy he did even that much b/c you felt unworthy of anything more! Yes, you stood your ground at times and it frustrated and angered him b/c of the lack of control he felt, but this feeling of unworthiness all goes back to your growing up years. You never were able to over-come that and it hung on all these years. If you were to go to the county library and check out books on self-improvement and self-esteem, etc., I think it would help you a lot. I even found tons of free stuff on the Internet about women's self esteem. It was good and you would hopefully start to grow by emotionally feeding off that information. You need it badly!

Could I have not prevented this from the way I let him be?

I think this is what is really eating at you now. B/c this new GF seems to have made an entirely new man out of your XH.....right? I know, I would wonder the same thing as you are doing and it hurts to see another woman step into "our" place and everything seems to be what "you" had wanted and never got. Am I pretty close about that?

Maybe if you had handled things differently from the very beginning......but who knows? Besides, it has happened and you could beat yourself up every day and it would not change the past. However, whether you have another R with a different man or if your XH leaves this new GF and wants to pick back up with you........know that you will be different and that no man will ever disrespect you again! You have learned from your past mistakes.......and as bad as you might want to "not" admit it.......you could learn from what this new GF is doing to make things work. However, he hasn't M her yet and time will tell the story. If he should want to get back together with you, he needs to know that it will NOT be the same R you had before. That is another reason for you to try to heal and grow and start working to improve your own image of Renee in YOUR mind. If you become the woman you like and respect, then you won't allow another man or woman to treat you less. People are just able to "sense" this about another person and they act accordingly.

Maybe he likes being bossed around

I don't know that it is so much of that as the fact he knew from the beginning he could not boss "her" around. That caused him to respond in a positive way. She probably does not put up with him coming home in a bad mood or talking about other people the way he did with you. But, you see, they are not M and he knows that she could walk out on him without a minute's notice. I have heard people say that that is one advantage of not being M in a R and it makes the man treat the woman better. Isn't that sad? Maybe there is a lot of truth to that statement b/c he knows not to take her for granted. He took you for granted, big time. He knew you would be there just as long as HE DID NOT LEAVE YOU! I think you unconciously must have had this "neediness" about you he sensed and maybe it turned him off. Even if you yelled or whatever and wanted you way about something......the clinginess in your emotions over-powered the yelling matches.

You said you saw your XH push others around and thought it was okay. Why do you think that was? Was it b/c of the brainwashing technique he had used on you to believe whatever he did was fine? When you saw someone other than your XH run over people, how did it make you feel?

I have to say that after all that I said about my xh, for some reason I can not get angry at him or stay angry at him anyway.
I feel sorry for him. I wish I could help him. I saw at times the inner child in him.
Sometimes he would come up behind me and hug me and act all wishy washy...for no reason.
THIS is the man I miss.

Yes, you are still grieving over that loss and you will continue to do that until you can find closure with it. Unlike a death, you are trying to find out the cause of what went wrong. Well, maybe that would be the same if there had been a tragic car wreck and he died, you would want to know what happened, right?

Maybe feeling sorry for him is better than the other emotions you COULD be experiencing. You are able to see his weakness and that is good b/c his "hero" image has fallen and now you see him as he truly is.

The actions he displayed that made you feel that you could almost see his inner child was a time he had a need to feel secure (IMHO) and as if he was looking to you as a mother figure. We W's don't like to think our H's look to us as their mother, do we? However, try to see how you probably was emotionally looking to him to replace the father that left you when you were small. Have you ever thought about that? Both of you had some serious issues growing up and it was kind of like watching a trainwreck in progress after the two of you M.

Then there have been times that he could have knocked me out if I had been a man. He said several times that I make him madder than anybody he ever knew.
He said several times, after he left, that he wanted a simple life.

It was his sense of not being in control that made him so angry. I think the reason he is doing as well as it appears he is in the new R with GF is b/c he was tired of the fighting and the frustration in the M with you, but he did not know "how" to repair it. To him, the only way to find that "simple life" was to start fresh with a new woman. You see, it does seem easier to end the old R and start with somebody new. I was in that frame of mind when I was going through my "crises" at the time I came here. I saw no hope for my MR and wanted out. I was sick to death of it and had tried everything I knew to make it better. So, when OM came along.....that seem to be the answer. Your XH sees this GF as a "different life" for him........and he is trying to be different, but as I said.....we will see b/c those traits he has are inbedded very deep. So, if he losses it and go off on her....that may be the end of "their" storybook fairytale.

Sandi, my son and I put xh on a pedistol. We thought he was OUR hero. We thought he knew everything and my son still does.

Exactly what I see in my sister's family.

I am quickly learning I can take care of myself and my family without him.

That is the most important first step to take! When you discover that you can live without him, then you will be able to reach these other levels. It takes time, but you are well on your way considering it has been this short period.

I contolled him bigtime. I threatened to leave him once and he freaked, (this was before we married). He got down on his kness and begged, I mean BEGGED and cried for me not to leave him.

Hummmm........well, he apparently is in one mode before M and then enters another mode "after" the weeding vows and feels the ball & chain effect. It goes back to how he is treating the GF b/c they are not legally M. It also goes back to how "you" were before you M him. But once the wedding rings were on the fingers, then you started putting up with more and more of his cr@p as he gradually added it up. As time went by, you must have felt more fear of the idea of him ever leaving you. We women do that, you know. Maybe it goes back to how we grew up as little girls and thinking we had to have a man take care of us. When we start to get a little older, then we think we are losing some of those looks, etc., that inticed men in the first place and how will we ever get anybody else. In your case......it stems back to the experience of your father leaving you. You never healed over that, Renee. That is obvious and I wished there was somebody who could help you. I think your Pastor or Priest could help you in that area. He would probably be even morewilling to help and spend time in that area b/c there are so MANY couples having troubled M's today that I think men in Church leadership are so bogged down with people's M's that it gets "them" down to the point they dread to see the next one mention a troubled M. That is JMHO (again). If you feel you can talk to him about "anything" then don't hold back b/c of anything I have said. The reason I said that is b/c of how I will come to the board at times and I basically read the same senerio over and over. Sometimes, I just can't deal and have to turn away from the board that night or stay away for a couple of days. It's not that I don't "care" but it gets me to the place I feel I am saying the same thing to people and the idea of starting over from scratch with a newcomer......well, you understand (I hope). Truthfully? That is why I was "rushing" you to hurry and let's get moving on and stop talking about your past and your XH. I did not realize how badly I was handling your personal stitch until you pointed out how you had not had enough time since the D. Then I realized I needed to slow down.

I can see him doing this with her. It's like he is that young man I met years ago. He even told me, whatever the new gf wanted she was going to get.

That goes back to him wanting to start "over" in a new R. He is back to trying to be that young man again. It is easier for him to do that with the GF b/c she has not lived with him all those years and seen all his bad side or as often as you did. That is why I said that only time will tell if they stick together or not.

He has even discussed having kids with her, said he would like to have twin girls.

Now this one statement...alone....sounds like a man in MLC!! How silly and immature does that sound to you? I wouldn't think so much about him saying he would like to have children with her but to talk as if he is "picking" them out of a window? That is pure childishness.

The fact that he told you how he plans to spoil the GF shows that he is selfish and mean spirited and wants to hurt you. He knew exactly how bad that would pierce your heart. He knows how bad he has hurt you. He knew how you were hurt as a child. HE KNOWS ALL OF THIS....and yet he chose to do it. He will continue to stab you will daggers every chance he gets until he sees it does not effect you at all. That is why you must work hard not to wear your heart on your sleeve where your feelings are so easily seen. Pretend you have high regard for yourself until you can actually "feel" it.

He may very well be in MLC b/c he is showing a lot of signs. What he is doing now is trying to recapture his youth. I think they call it "replay" or something like that. He is trying to redo his M with a new person b/c he screwed up his first M so badly.....so throw the old out and bring in the new! Add these immature statemens he has made and this behavior he's displaying......it all adds up to a man in MLC. The sad thing is that it may take years before he comes see reality and then he may be in another M...srewing it up. That is why you can't afford to "wait" around on him, Renee. There is no telling what may happen within the next few years. He could have several more GF's by then. Whenever he decides he's not happy with the one he had, he'll throw her out and find a new one b/c he wants a woman to "make" him happy......and it just does not work like that. We have to make ourselves happy and it won't happen if we don't even like who we are.

That is why I hope you can emotionally drop the rope that ties you to him and move on with a life. You don't have to stop loving him, but you need to break this emotional bondage. Your son will always be the tie that binds you to him, but you can still be in control of that. We'll talk about that another time.

I know my posts have be extremely long and I hope I did not wear you out trying to read them. I would not spend this much time in writing if I did not care about your life. So, please take that as a compliment b/c I meant for it to be. You ARE worthy of good things, Renee. You DESERVE to be happy in life. Please start today by talking to yourself and telling yourself these messages. It may seem like a crazy thing to do, but it matters what kind of "tape" is being re-played over and over in our minds as to how we will feel. If all we have playing in our minds is like a negative recording we're listening to....guess how we will feel and how we will act? So, start telling yourself that you are a good person and you are worthy and deserve good things.

I'll talk to you later.

Sandi