Here's a story...of a very sad lady

[NotCrackingUp]

Hello Dagny

It sounds so horrible, what you and your sons are going through.I can identify with the sick feeling you get from confrontations with the man you loived and trusted who has become a mean-minded, selfish, angry so-and-so. There have been times when I too have wondered if I wasn't having a nightmare, I had been used to loving and understanding a man who suddenly turned around and started to tear me limb from limb. My H also seems to be oblivious to the hurt he's inflicting on his children, and they're in awe of him so they don't show it in front of him. When I've tried to tell him about the bad dreams, tantrums, broken nights and tears, he thinks I'm trying to make him feel guilty.

My H did say to me, shortly before turning against me and deciding to separate, and after he'd told about his PA with the OW, that it (the A) was like a "drug", that he couldn't seem to get her/it out of his system. Your H is under the influence of a sort of "mind-altering substance", he's not in control of himself. My H has left, but it would appear that the A is over, or on the rocks. With hindsight, I realize it's been dead in the water since the end of the summer. He's still "not my husband", but is much less angry and unreasonable, although very much on the defensive at times. She's still in his circle of pals, they "run in" to each other (she never kept to the no-contact rule they "made" when he "ended" the A back in April), but kids say they've met her when he was with them and he tried to cut her dead, was unpleasant to her. All this to say that while he was in the A, he was horrible to me, rejecting and critical. He's more like the old self since it's cooled. It really is a drug.

You really should keep on not talking to him at all. That way, he can't get angry at you (only at her, who knows?or even at himself) and you get time to heal. I hate the fact that he's not here, but seeing/talking to him a bare minimum has given me back my sanity. Someone told you to do things by e-mail, and that's for the best. When my H comes here, I try to be dust on the road, and have generally just gone. He doesn't like that, but tough.It means he calls me -and leaves a message, 9 times out of ten. He's recently left a message on the answering machine AND sent a text to tell me his new landline number. Wants me to phone? He'll be waiting, I'm afraid.

You're right about not mentioning the OW.He will defend her and it'll hurt you. I've so often wanted to say what I thought of the floozy who ate dinner in this house with me and my children while systematically wrecking our family. I've so wanted to call her every name in the book, but have managed not to say a word. My 13 year old daughter, though, wasn't so controlled this Summer, and told her Dad what she thought of that woman, using language I think he didn't know she had in her vocabulary. What did he do? Flew into a rage against his daughter and said she was not objective (!) and full of prejudice. He thus defended your woman instead of trying to heal things with his daughter, and now they don't speak and hardly see each other. The affair is deadly poisonous to wife and family, I'm afraid. So just keep far away from him, for yourself.

I can't help much at all, I'm in Limbo myself. But getting out (shopping -if he leaves you any funds!- doing something cultural or physical) helps. I moped all Summer, now I try to fill up my non-work time with things. Not easy with kids, but they like to see me being pro-active and not too sad. I had to force myself at first, now it's easier, and I even find I have short moments of happiness -seeing the sun rise, having a laugh with colleagues, listening to Sam Cooke, baking a cake. You just have to try to grasp at those few seconds of contentment, concentrate on accumulating a few of them every day, taking a mental note of them. That lifts the mood, even if it can fall again from time to time.
Take care, NCU