No hijack--it's all totally helpful and timely. My GF who visited the past few days and another GF who visited earlier last week are both in grad school, same discipline as me, and this whole topic came up with us outside this forum just chatting about our relationships with others. My GF with the healthiest relationship is with someone who is in her program and they understand one another's need to have space/independence, but the other GF is with a military guy about to return from a 6 month deployment who wants her to have babies. Now. They got married 8 months ago. She wants to be a student. She is properly worried about his homecoming...
I am continually surprised how universal these relationship problems are.
Oh and thanks dolphin for your supportive comments!
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
Good stuff about the work situation on several threads. I was a university professor for a while, but quit to start a consultancy business. I realise now that my h had a very ambivalent attitude to this. He is a well known academic in his field, but a chronic underachiever relative to his ability. However as long as he was ahead of me [I started later due to family and other stuff] he was fine.
He liked the money I made, and our lifestyle, but trivialised what I did - very subtly, so I didn't realise it. It wasn't overt belittling, just a sense that it was commercial and didn't require too much thought. Interestingly my children picked up this message, and it wasn't until their friends were impressed with what I did that they started to think about it . .
Anyway, I also had the accusation that my career came first, and all of that stuff. However what is interesting is that he really doesn't like not having as much money. He actually thought, I believe, on some level that I would continue to support him and OW!
I think they are very insecure, and underachieving. This is partly lack of confidence, and a willingness to try [sometimes tied up with laziness]. But it isn't their 'fault' - it has to be someone else.
As long as they are feeling OK about themselves it all works, sort of, but when they become insecure - life transitions, getting older, death of a close family member, the boat is rocked, and they are thrown off kilter, and need someone and something to blame, because that is the way they operate.
Only this time it was a big one, and they decided to junk the marriage.
"Empathy bypass", LOL. I'm going to remember that one!
I think my H chose OW for 2 major reasons as it relates to his career, etc. Like I said, she does what he does for a living, but she has only 4 years experience while he has 21. They can commiserate about the state testing garbage and stuff that affects me indirectly but them directly, and they even have the same students, but he's got 16 years of teaching wisdom on her. I know that she really looks up to him for that. So he gets power to fight his insecurity there.
On the other hand, he also professed how great it was to me that she has a whole independent PUBLIC life from him as a performer--she is a former state beauty queen whose talent was singing. (it took her 3 years to win and let's just say the state beauty queens from my state are NOT a whole lot to look at, but I digress...) Anyway she is one of those local theater people--big fish, small pond, who gets to star in practically every musical or play that goes on in this theater company. When my book came out, I was offered a tv interview on a local news show. I declined. That sort of self-promotion is just "not me." He threw this back in my face when he "chose her" because he said "she would never have declined something like that. She's 'comfortable' with who she is and you're too scared to be 'out there.'"
Bottom line, he wants to hitch himself to women with goals and activities because he has none. My goals and accomplishments were under the radar. I wasn't someone who'd walk into a party and "carry" the conversation with my set of admirers. She is that very type. He claimed that it took too long for people to get to know me because I'm shy and bookish, but with her, people "just love her instantly" and she always has a crowd of admirers.
Guess what? This keeps the focus off him. He believes that his happiness comes from being attached at the hip to the right woman. When my professional life became more research oriented, I became less public in some ways, or derived enjoyment in quiet ways. So he dropped me for someone whose accomplishments are much more public. He said he couldn't believe a woman like her would be interested in someone like him, that he didn't "deserve" her.
It all goes back to the fact that they try their hardest to come up with every reason under the sun to blame everything external for their own problems.
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
On the other hand, he also professed how great it was to me that she has a whole independent PUBLIC life from him as a performer--she is a former state beauty queen whose talent was singing. (it took her 3 years to win and let's just say the state beauty queens from my state are NOT a whole lot to look at, but I digress...) Anyway she is one of those local theater people--big fish, small pond, who gets to star in practically every musical or play that goes on in this theater company.
I laughed out loud at this. Let's face it these women are drama queens. Seriously your h sounds like a teenager. I think he deserves her more than he knows. Right now they are playing romantic lovers ..... if it hadn't hurt us so much it would be funny and pathetic in equal parts.
Further down the line it all goes horribly wrong, but by then we have usually moved on and they are too dumb to sort themselves out. I am sorry for the mess my h has made of his life, and his failed relationships with his kids and his untreated depression . . . .
I agree wholeheartedly with Beatrice's post. What H find so perfect and charming about the ow now will be the very things that he can't stand about her down the road.
It all goes back to the fact that they try their hardest to come up with every reason under the sun to blame everything external for their own problems.
I agree with this. Also in reading your description of H's perception of ow and the situation I see him as not only blaming but attempting to justify his actions.
I think that lots of our MLC's are seeking excitement and will often choose a woman that will introduce them to a different (exciting to them) world....they will try to make them selves happy at any cost....hopefully one day they will become truthful with themselves about who they really are and what's important to them....and what attracted them to the new woman is not about her it's about what she represents....fantasy and excitement...
M53 H54 D17 M33Y T38Y Bomb OW 09/09 OUT 10/09 BACK 11/09 OUT 01/10 WANTS TO R 04/10 BACK with OW 05/10 Wants to Reconcile 05/11 I said NO
As I expected, the first planning period H gets on his first day back to work, he emails this. I just want advice.
"Just to clarify, I have not received the "Notice of Hearing" from the Family Court yet. I wasn't sure what form you were referring to in your text. I realized this after I sent my reply but I wasn't in a position to clarify. I will check with the Family Court and make sure there are no problems. Also, please don't mistake my answer of "immediately" as one of enthusiasm. I thought about how it might have sounded later. I am not celebrating our divorce. I can only assume that the delay is due to the holiday season.
Did you cash my check for the pump repair yet? it hasn't shown up on my statement. If not can you please do so? I need to assess where I am at financially.
My lawyer has our 403B statements and I am awaiting his reply. Have you made any moves towards refinancing the house yet?
If you are up to it sometime we need to sit down and divide up the cds and xbox games. I'm sure I took things you want and vise versa.
I hope you enjoyed your holidays and are still enjoying your break. I went back to work today.
Take care"
The text he refers to is one I sent on Dec. 31st. It was the first Ive contacted him in a month or more and all I said was why is the divorce not final yet. We were supposed to be divorced in Dec. but I guess Family Court is really backed up or something, because if he didnt' even receive the notice of hearing yet, then they didn't even inform him the divorce was trial ready.
Don't take hope from the fact that we aren't divorced yet. I am 100% sure he will proceed with it. He has never wavered, and as you can see, he's doing the legal stuff that ends the financial ties too.
What I want advice on is whether to reply to him or not. My instinct was to reply and say that I wanted the divorce to be final because every minute of every day that we aren't divorced I feel even further betrayed, that him leaving in June didn't mean the betrayal ended then, that the betrayal continues with every day he spends with her while we are still married. I also wanted to say he had 7 months to separate the cds and video games with me and I offered several times to do it, and he refused, and that his window was closed. That I don't want to see him ever again, that I don't want him in my house, and that I'm through.
I'm afraid to see him. I know that I've been able to keep a lid on depression and grief, only letting it out in bits and pieces, by being dark and by not seeing him. I'm afraid for it all to come back. I don't think I can sit in my house with him to divide up cds and games and not lose it, and I don't want him to know I still have feelings for him. I'm tired of him getting the love of the OW and MY love for him. It's bad enough that I cannot make my feelings for him go away, but I'll be damned if he gets to walk away from me knowing that I still care to the level I do. He doesn't deserve it. HE DOESN'T!
His guilt over the fact that he is still hurting me does nothing to give him a wake up call or make him come back. All it does is feed his ego. I'm tired of feeding his ego. I just keep thinking, he doesn't get to win this one, but he is winning, at least in terms of having the love of 2 women at the same time, when I don't have the love of the one man who professed to love me for life.
So then what do I do? Do I email back and lay the betrayal stuff on him and tell him I don't want to see him ever again? That's the truth. I don't waver on that anymore. That's my feeling for like a month now. I dont see that changing for a very long time.
Or do I ignore his entire email on the grounds that none of the questions he asks are things he NEEDS answers to.
What do you think?
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
One of Snodderley's wise counsels is to wait and let the answers come to you.
Of course you hurt, and you cannot think your way out of hurting. We practise detachment but it takes a long while to be able to do it. It is normal to feel hurt, abnormal not to. They are the messed up ones, not us. If you were watching a play and your h was behaving like that you wouldn't think 'Oh he has the love of two women, what a winner' I suspect you would think what a selfish heartless and immature jerk.
He is doing what I call 'Mr Pass for oh-so-normal' to try and think well of himself. My instinct is to ignore this, or at least let it lie for a while so that if and when you do reply it is a response and not a reaction.
If he follows it up [and as you know sometimes they do and sometimes they don't] you can just say something like, you didn't realise there was any urgency, or be frank and say you don't feel up to dividing the things yet. Likely he doesn't either, for all his talk.
Bluntly you do not not have to meet to divide up trivia like games and CDs. If you don't want to see him at present say so. Do not lay the guilt on him though - counter productive and moving to his level. Take responsibility for your feelings, and tell him you do not want to see him at present. It is your choice. When they divorce us they have no more right to see us than a stranger does. They are very good at getting us jumping to attention.
Remember, like in The Holiday, you are the heroine of your own life
