Yes, I am finding it much easier now to just ignore xW. It has taken me a long time to un-condition myself from automatically giving her words any credence. I was once under the impression that she was someone actually worthy of devotion and respect, and which my love for her only made that all the more total. But as Jesus said, you shall know them by their fruit. And now the veil has been lifted.
My goal is to eventually neither hate nor love her at all anymore, but to feel a calm indifference towards her (though I often wonder if that is ever really possible.) In such a position, I feel I can then offer her as much cordial respect as she warrants, as the mother of my sons. But nothing beyond that.
I am making strides in reaching that place. There was a point where this was my worst nightmare, to lose my love for her. And while I still feel a natural resistance to this somewhere deep within me, I also realize that this is where God is leading me. He is telling me, in so many different ways, that my W is gone, dead, lost, and I need to keep moving onward. That avenue is now closed forever. My heart now "knows" this whereas my head has known this for much longer.
Ever since this custody lawsuit was filed I have felt her stepping up her warfare against me, drawing me out to battle and hoping I would misstep. The harshness of her attacks have had less and less effect on me however, because I am now more conditioned and immune. And now that the last pieces of the suit are wrapped/wrapping up, I just don't feel she can goad me like before. I am embracing my ability to chuckle at her antics now and let it slide off my back like water.
That's not to say she won't begin a new phase in her psych-war, something to take me off-guard. But given her history I expect it now, and I refuse to let her button-pushing get to me any longer. I expect she will next attempt to sway the PC to her side, for one thing. And I suspect she might very well dispute the current child support payment too -- in fact if she can increase her monthly CS more than the resulting legal fees she would incur, she will certainly take that path (the evil MIL will insist on that.)
I also do not put it past her to cajole the OM into marrying her. And then to try to get him to adopt my S's. I know that's likely coming. A big tsunami for me to surf.
Still, knowing her stripes/spots gives me the power to anticipate her moves, and I will not be baited any longer. (Besides, I've got bigger fish to fry now.)
On the subject of WAS behavior, I constantly find it amazing how the unfaithful spouse will transfer their own sins onto their LBS. It is ironic that while DB advises us to act "as if" with the wayward, at the same time their own strategy seems to be to act "as if" with us -- they treat us "as if" we had been the infidel and not them. That is certainly the attitude I have gotten all this time from xW -- you would think I was the one who had cheated on her and decided to end our M to run off with the OP.
It is the most insane thing, this transference. It has been so bad in our own case that xW occasionally accuses me of transferring my sins onto her. I can say that I used to get really confused as to who did what under those circumstances. (Thankfully, I have had a good IC and some good friends, not to mention the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to keep me straight. I think I have managed to stay sane in the midst of sorting this madness out.)
You folks know a lot about my sitch, more-so than anyone else, but that's still just a small part of the picture -- there is just so very much more that I have had to see and endure that I have tried to ignore altogether. There's been too much to relate all of it here.
But like I indicated above, I am turning the corner on this sad phase in my life. Moving forward. Surfing the tsunami's and hurricanes, looking for smoother waters.
