GAG I thank you for the long post and the care you have shown in your words. It means a lot.
I didn't know you were a teacher; we have more in common than I knew!
I want to share with all of you something important.
Today my girlfriend and I were cleaning closets/drawers in my house. In the midst of this, I found a letter I had written to my H 9 years ago. NINE YEARS AGO. I had given it to him. The response was not here. I had left it when I went away to see my parents for a few days. Here is the gist:
I told him I had "had it" with his insecurities. That I was sick of him blaming his "general unhappiness about his life choices" on me. That I had worked "very hard" for the success I had achieved, and that I found it disconcerting that he was so unsupportive of my career now that I had become a full-time professor. That only since I moved from adjunct faculty to full-time faculty that I found him unsupportive and resentful of my work. I also said that I had told him that it might be a condition of my job that in order to become tenured, I would have to at least begin a PhD program, and that I found it horribly sad that when I mentioned this to him, that he reacted by saying he would "divorce me if I went back to grad school for a PhD."
People, look at this!!!
How did I forget this?
In addition, I said that I was "incredulous that ever since I was working full-time that he was suspecting that every man I worked with I was interested in sexually." I talked specifically about professors and students whom he had apparently said he was "worried about" that I "harbored feelings towards" and how this was just absurd, from my view.
Look, everyone, this was 9 years ago. This coincided with when I moved from part-time adjunct teacher working at 3 different schools to full-time professor. He was threatened. I talked at length in this letter about his mood swings. About how he clearly had issues from when he was a kid, and how he had shared these with me and how his counselor, who had told him he was "ok" with after 2 sessions, hadn't been privy to the huge summation of notes he shared with me about his "triggers" for depression and rage.
In addition, I talked about how this whole letter from me was set off with his comments about wanting to "hurt one of our cats" because she bothered him while he was eating. This was nearly 10 years ago.
I said "I can't take this anymore."
How on earth did I forget this???? I have evidence, everyone. I have evidence that his issues began 10 years ago at the least. I read this letter to my friend. I said "am I out of line?" She said "you are only defending yourself. It's not a mean letter."
I just feel shell-shocked about this. Maybe my H is beyond saving. Maybe I am better off and maybe I dodged a bullet.
I am 41. I can do a lot of things with the rest of my life.
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
I was thinking about something you had written in a previous post before I read your lastest. It was to do with your wanting to be divorced. I felt that you are still reacting to your husband rather than responding, because of course the emotional links are still there, the hooks are still in, for both of you.
This latest post confirmed to me what is true of so many of us here. These guys have had issues for a long time, and in living with them we became, as you have noted before, co-dependent. But because we are basically OK, in spite of having adapted, often beyond comfort, to accommodate these people we are enmeshed in their lives in a way that is really difficult to disentangle. A simple act of will won't do it. Time, therapy and the practice of detachment [all of which you are working positively on] will do this.
What I suspect happened with your h, and it certainly happened with mine because he told me himself [now he is less befogged he can recognise certain things] is that we weren't needy enough for them. We were actually too mentally OK, and so they found someone with real issues, issues probably bigger than their own.
The thing is with most issues is that if you don't do something about them they get bigger - as true with psychological problems as a hole in the roof. They denied, suppressed and externalised their inner problems, and there came a point at which we were no longer adaptive enough. This is just my take on it.
I suspect it will take a long time to fully emotionally disengage, and I think it is hard to completely stop loving someone, if not impossible. A good friend of mine whose h left her and who has a successful second marriage, said that even after nearly 20 years there is a bit of her that still cares. But she has a great second husband and wonderful life.
I agree with with Beatrice, I think we women tend to bend and sway more than men do, therefore we try to adapt to their behaviors.
Your H obviously has many issues, and though you have tried to accommodate and work through things with him, he still has not resolved his issues. You, have worked on yours and you are a better person for doing that. You will be able to move on and create a spectacular life for yourself.
Will you always love your H? I believe so, because I will always love mine, but I also know that if the love is not reciprocated, it becomes diminished and smaller. You make room in your heart for those who do reciprocate love to you. Trust yourself and who you have become.
Lorie W47 H48 D16 M20 H gone 11/9/10 lives w/OW
When you forgive,you heal. When you let go,you grow. When you cry to God, you surrender. When you love unconditionally, you show others Christ's love.
I would like to share a different perspective on your situation.......a perspective that has been gained from my years spent at a big university and seeing the impact of that type of work on my personal life.
Originally Posted By: AntoniaB
That I had worked "very hard" for the success I had achieved, and that I found it disconcerting that he was so unsupportive of my career now that I had become a full-time professor.
This really reminded me of the attitude I presented to my partners for 30 years. I supported my first H through medical school and when that M ended (I D'ed him in my mid-20s because he was physically violent throughout the M) I was impoverished with no real family support. I was alone except for a supportive GF. I swore to myself that I would never NEED a man and that I would achieve the level of training that I needed to have a rewarding career and to support myself comfortably. It was very reminiscent of Scarlett O'Hara promising herself she would go home to Tara and would never be hungry again. After sacrificing my personal life for an academic career which I thought would bring me security I have learned that that was a false sense of security. You can work 24/7 in a career and still have the rug pulled out from under you by the political whims of those in positions of power or by an economic downturn. A career is not worth sacrificing your personal life for.
Being a tenured or tenure-track faculty member is one of those careers that few people can really understand I think. I know that my XH had absolutely NO idea of all of the sacrifices I made to finally get a tenure-track position at my local university. Very hard thing to do. There are very few of these positions available and the politics in these places are brutal, especially now that there is so much less money to go around.
What I am trying to say is that I think unless people are in academics, they (your H) can't REALLY understand everything that you're juggling. In my discipline there is a lot of gender bias too (very few women faculty), so I had to work harder than many of the men to remain competitive. All of this sucked time from my M and previous Rs with men. I justified MY neglect of my H and M by telling myself that the work I was doing (medical research) was important and contributing to society.......and it was in a small way. I had invested SO much of my life and made SO many sacrifices to achieve this goal that it was hard for me to consider throwing all of that away to leave that career.
I DO think that academics can seem to have an air of superiority about them and this may be part of what brought out your H's insecurities (an issue that HE needs to deal with). I also know that since I was supervising and directing so many people at work that at times I could be very direct with my H. It was an attitude that I needed for my work, but H was not used to being around women like that....and in truth I don't think that is a healthy way to interact with one's partner/spouse.
The reason I am laying all of this out to you is that this dynamic has happened to me more than once and I believe I am seeing a pattern in my life. I lived with a man for 8 years when I was in my 30s, and looking back I can see these dynamics at work then as well. My point in telling you this cautionary tale is that I hope you will also explore your role in the dynamic that has led you to this point. I don't want you to repeat this dynamic the way that I did.
Originally Posted By: beatrice
What I suspect happened with your h, and it certainly happened with mine because he told me himself [now he is less befogged he can recognise certain things] is that we weren't needy enough for them. We were actually too mentally OK, and so they found someone with real issues, issues probably bigger than their own.
Beatrice makes a very interesting point. I'm pretty sure this applies in my situation and may in yours as well............although one could argue that sacrificing your personal life for work (unbalanced life) is a sign of mental health issues too. These are all things to consider and are part of the work we need to do to pave better futures for ourselves. Please keep looking inside yourself to learn the lessons that this situation has to teach you.
GAG these are excellent points and do give me a different view in terms of thinking how this affected him. I never did pursue the PhD at this point but I became involved in research and presenting at conferences--which I made him take me to because I didn't want to go alone. He was entirely out of his element. Then I took on the book a few years ago and that took a ton of time, because I'm not a disciplined writer who chips away a bit at a time. I procrastinate and then will go into a crazy mode where I work for several days straight on one thing only and I ignore all else when in that mode. I also talked incessantly about my job.
He is a teacher so it seemed we had that in common, but for years he would say outright that college profs were not in the "real world" and they had it so good but all they did was complain He saw me as part of a stuffy world even when I know I wasn't. When he couldn't find guy friends to hang with, I tried to get him to be friends with some of my non-pretentious, laid-back male prof friends, but he'd say things like, "I don't have anything in common with him. He has a doctorate/is a professor."
The day he left last year ironically was the day my book was published--which I had dedicated to him for his support of me. To this day he says he had nothing to do with that book. On that day, I was asked to do another book, and he said "how can you think of doing that when we have problems?" So I declined the offer only to take it up again this fall after he left me for good.
I know that for me, it wasn't the job that hurt us as a couple--it was my insecurity about the job, my anxiety about teaching when I felt that I lacked the confidence in myself to be such a public person and stand in front of people for a living. I felt I got into that job because I wanted time off with him. Not because I like the teaching part. I had terrible performance anxiety and second guessed everything I ever did and worried nonstop. THAT was what interfered with the marriage.
Now that we are finished, I faced all those old anxieties and they are gone. I have no problems with confidence about the public part of my job, and I have no anxiety anymore. I haven't had a teaching nightmare since he left.
So for me, the dynamic is already shifted because I dealt with my own issues about that job and feel in a really good place now, but it's too late because he's out of my life. It's not too late in that I won't bring those things into the next relationship, of course, but I think I need to be in a relationship with someone who isn't so thrown by "class" or "status." This comes from his family--his family never liked me because I had more education than them. I was quiet/shy. They took it as lofty superiority and would just make cracks about not being able to understand what I wrote. I sent them a copy of my book when I published it and they never even acknowledged it.
When I met my H, I wrote a diary entry that said "I am interested in H and decided today I want to be a professor." These life choices happened simultaneously. I was a good student; he was brilliant but lazy. I stayed in school and got a "better" job in his eyes. I went on to publish. He taught 8th and 9th grade. I didn't put on airs, but he acted like it meant I did better in life than he did.
Guess what the OW does for a living? She teaches English--same subject as me--in his high school. She has 4 years of experience. He has 21.
He told me a month ago that he is happy now because he feels like he has a "say in the direction that the ship steers". And in fact, he told me that he intends to take some of the settlement money and go back and get a master's degree--but he intends to go to the most worthless diploma mill of a school locally so it will be the "easiest route to a master's" because he only wants it for the income since we're not married. When he said this, I joked with him and said "I guess it's good we're not married because I could never respect someone who took the easy way to a degree by going to a diploma mill school."
So one thing that hasn't changed in me is that I can come off as high and mighty about academics--and it's seen in that statement above. I just get easily disappointed in people who have ability and intellect but who take the easy way out because I don't do that. And you know, that's a microcosm of this whole divorce. I'd have fought tooth and nail to keep this marriage. He gave up the fight. And maybe that means we can never be right for each other.
There are only two times I can think of when he won an "argument" with me, and that's the two times that he left me. I think I am someone who doesn't know how to lose, and I imagine that it can be tough to live with someone like that. Even when I lost him I held on tenaciously wanting to be right.
The lesson here is I have to keep trying to learn how to let go.
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
The other thing that confused me about my H/XH's problem with my work schedule after we married is that I was already working in that career when he met me. He knew how much I had to work to keep up. We talked about my work schedule early on and I told H at that time that I was concerned that my work would interfere with our R and didn't know if he understood that. He reassured me that he had lots of friends and interests and could keep himself entertained. He was actually proud of my accomplishments and what I did for a living.................I just think he had no clue what that life is like. Wish he would have told me that it was making him feel like leaving.......He later told me that he didn't want to give me an ultimatum. Maybe he was afraid that I would choose work instead of him............
That's interesting GAG. I wonder if H thought that after you married it would be different somehow, and he would worry about it later if it became an issue. The reluctance to give an ultimatum seems to point to his concern that you may choose work over him. There's that self esteem stuff again. Perhaps though work wasn't the real big issue he says it was and that's why he didn't provide the ultimatum? Just random thoughts........
Antonia, I'm sure GAG's perspective is giving you some insight to your own situation and I trust that you, like me have found her reflections very welcome on your thread. I hope you have greater clarity as you work towards your goals for 2011.
