My last thread got locked out after on 12 pages. I wonder how many threads I have started just since I came back almost 2 years ago.
When I open my eyes every morning, the first thing I still think of is this crap. The difference now is that I rarely miss her or want her there. All I feel most of the time is anger and foolishness. Anger at what she has done to me and foolish that I let it happen.
The bottom line is that STBX had an affair for 6-7 years before she moved out. She continued that affair while letting me believe we were working on things. And now, she is about to move on with OM/Boss and live the life she has wanted for almost 10 years.
I said this in a thread some time ago. I think she actually planned out the last 2 years to perfection. I was a fool, and played my expected role perfectly. I did everything she expected at every turn. And now, she comes out smelling like a rose and my kids blame me "80%" as D19 says. At this time, S17 hasn't even spoken more than 10 words to me in 4 days. I suppose I deserve that for telling them what I did.
Being honest and objective now, I don't think I would even want to her come back anymore. I love what she/we should be not what she/we actually are. I love the woman she used to be many years ago. She has finally made her decision to be with OM fully and completely anyway.
My anger towards her grows everyday. Yesterday, when I was driving home from work and thinking (as always), I actually screamed out "I hate you". As for OM, there is no words to describe just how much I hate the fact that he and I are both humans on the same planet.
I have mentioned before all the medical issues STBX has had over the last 10 years - severe arthritis/lupus, pancreatitis, gall bladder removal, hysterectomy due to early onset of cancer, and a brain tumor caused by drugs she was on for arthritis. I have admitted that I was not very supportive of her when she was ill, and she claims OM/Boss was always there for her and that is how their "friendship" started. Recently, I have been wondering if there really is Karma in the world. Maybe, just maybe she's getting what she deserves for lying and cheating during that time period.
I know that sounds awful. But, that's where I am right now. I would like nothing more than for their life together to be horrible. They are both liars and cheaters and are perfect for each other. They can lie and cheat each other right to their graves.
I really don't like feeling so angry and literally hating someone I loved so much before, but it is a lot better than pining for her and missing her. I don't know how long I will stay in this phase, but I know it's not good for it to last too long.
I am heading out to Calgary tomorrow to visit an old friend for the week. I'm sure we will spend some time where I get it all out to him, but then I hope I can just have some fun. I miss the old me - smiling, laughing and cracking jokes. Then, when I return, it will be time to get the divorce done and hopefully that will bring some closure.
Thanks to all of you who have tried to help me save my marriage in the last 2 years. I can now admit, there never really was any hope. This is one marriage that couldn't and shouldn't have been saved. Her heart and soul have been with OM for years. She could have never given all of herself to our marriage.
I have been in Prozac for a week now. I mentioned earlier that I screamed while in my car yesterday. Today, I had an episode where I felt almost our of control and felt like a panic attack. Again, I screamed while driving. When I got home, I went for a walk and that calmed me a bit. I literall had to slow down my breathing to calm down. Anyone have experiences like this as a side effect of Prozac? I am seeing family Dr. today to see what he thinks. Seems unlikely in only a week. Maybe I am really just losing it now that I have finally realized just how over it is and how angry I am.
Prozac takes a while to build up in your system (that's both the good thing and bad thing about it). I agree that a week probably isn't enough to really know how this will affect you. In my sitch, 10 or so years ago, it made me *very* jittery (I'm already nervous and jittery) and lost even more weight on it without helping the depression any.
That was my experience, each person will be different.
Oh, the ADs, once they work, don't make you feel *normal*, but they do allow you to go through the process of feeling normal. Subtle distinction.
Me 43 W 38 M 5 T 7 SD20 S15, S13 with 1st W ILYBNILWY June 2010 Separation/Bomb July 2010 Divorce Feb 8, 2011
BTM, This is the first time I post on any of your thread but I have been following it over the past couple of months. I am not an expert in this by any means, but I wanted to chime in. I’m sorry that you are in the predicament in which you find yourself. I went through a very similar situation years ago with my XW, (I’m attempting to save my 2nd marriage). I was full of hate and anger for a very long time; all the while she was off living her life with OM. X was as happy as a pig in slop, or so it seemed, and I was destroying myself with alcohol and drugs. I finally realized that the only person the hate and anger was hurting was me. I was literally, slowly killing myself. It took some time for me to realize it, but, the only thing that she had damaged was my ego and pride, nothing more. The thing about ego and pride is that they are things that only exist in our minds and that make them things that we have full control over. Not things that should control us. By being so bitter about what had happened, I was still allowing my X’s actions control me, my happiness, and my life in general. I have realized that some of the residual anger and bitterness have helped put me where I am today in my current M. I know that it is not something that can be turned off overnight, but I would like to warn you of what may come if you continue to harbor these feelings. They are only hurting you and your kids, and although you feel that there is no way to save your marriage, there is still hope is saving/mending the relationship with your kids. I hope and pray that you are able to take the path that I didn’t take, for the sake of your health and for the relationship with your children.
The only thing keeping you from being the person you want to be is you.
Just my $.02 Good luck with everything, I hope the best for you and your kids.
M 38 W 32 T 11 M 2 SS 14 S 9 ILYBNILWY March/2010 EA found out Oct 2010 PA found out Jan 2011 living together alone
I know it takes time to build in your system - and apparently so does my rage and anger. Dr. seems to think those 2 episodes were not caused by the drug. He wants me to stay on it for another week and then see him when I return from vacation. Not sure Prozac is going to help me much anyway. I'm not really clinically depressed.
If only there were a pill to feel normal! I would be content with one hour of one day of not thinking of her and her with him.
When I open my eyes every morning, the first thing I still think of is this crap. The difference now is that I rarely miss her or want her there. All I feel most of the time is anger and foolishness.Anger at what she has done to me and foolish that I let it happen.
The bottom line is that STBX had an affair for 6-7 years before she moved out. She continued that affair while letting me believe we were working on things. And now, she is about to move on with OM/Boss and live the life she has wanted for almost 10 years.
I said this in a thread some time ago. I think she actually planned out the last 2 years to perfection. I was a fool, and played my expected role perfectly. I did everything she expected at every turn. And now, she comes out smelling like a rose and my kids blame me "80%" as D19 says. At this time, S17 hasn't even spoken more than 10 words to me in 4 days. I suppose I deserve that for telling them what I did.
Being honest and objective now, I don't think I would even want to her come back anymore. I love what she/we should be not what she/we actually are. I love the woman she used to be many years ago. She has finally made her decision to be with OM fully and completely anyway.
My anger towards her grows everyday. Yesterday, when I was driving home from work and thinking (as always), I actually screamed out "I hate you". As for OM, there is no words to describe just how much I hate the fact that he and I are both humans on the same planet.
I have mentioned before all the medical issues STBX has had over the last 10 years - severe arthritis/lupus, pancreatitis, gall bladder removal, hysterectomy due to early onset of cancer, and a brain tumor caused by drugs she was on for arthritis. I have admitted that I was not very supportive of her when she was ill, and she claims OM/Boss was always there for her and that is how their "friendship" started. Recently, I have been wondering if there really is Karma in the world. Maybe, just maybe she's getting what she deserves for lying and cheating during that time period.
I know that sounds awful. But, that's where I am right now. I would like nothing more than for their life together to be horrible. They are both liars and cheaters and are perfect for each other. They can lie and cheat each other right to their graves.
I really don't like feeling so angry and literally hating someone I loved so much before, but it is a lot better than pining for her and missing her. I don't know how long I will stay in this phase, but I know it's not good for it to last too long.
A guy’s inability to stand up for himself and own his own strength will cause women to take advantage of them.
You aren’t really mad at your wife for disrespecting you even though that's what you say repeatedly in your post. You are really just mad at yourself for not having more self-respect and putting up with all that crap behavior for so long.
At first a year or two ago, you were the same person telling us how your wife couldn't be having an affair, and then she moved out but it wasn't to have an affair, it was because she wanted "space".
Let us all be honest BTM, you are angry, yes, you are very angry, but you are not angry with your wife, at least most of that anger isn't with your wife or the OM, it is with yourself. You believed that she couldn't do this to you, you believed that somehow she would be loyal to you, you believed that somewhere underneath all of her actions and attitudes towards you that the woman you fell in love with, still loved you, she just didn't know how to love you.
And now you know you were lying to yourself all that time, believing in your own dreams and fantasies during this entire process instead of believing in reality. And yet we constantly fault our spouses for being in a fog and living in a fantasy world, and you never fault yourself for living in your own fantasy world.
If your wife is happy with this OM and has been having this affair for several years, chances are this OM makes her happy and satisfies her needs in such a way that you aren't able to because you are very needy and only focus on your own needs - even when given actual proof of an affair, you still hope against hope that your wife will leave the OM and come home to you, you even hoped that showing off an expensive $250 shirt would somehow impress her.
We had given you plenty of advice for a few years on this site and yet you chose to listen to your own feelings instead of doing what might have worked.
You are mad at yourself first and foremost for not doing the work on yourself and doing what you should have done all along.
If you love your wife, let her go, finally. Do the most loving thing you can do for your wife, love her enough to let her go because you know she is happy with this OM, love her enough to accept her wishes and know that she is happy doing what she is doing.
Love yourself enough to let go of her and love yourself enough to accept your mistakes and move on with your life. Love yourself enough to know and acknowledge the truth that you are angry with yourself and not your wife.
Seek out some individual counseling and get some help, express your anger, have someone explain to you why your feeling like this, why your ego is hoping for karma to hand out proper vengeance and consequences on your wife and the OM and know that these feelings that you are experiencing are coming from a wounded ego and in the end you are just angry with yourself for not accepting the truth earlier.
You have a lot of healing to do, the first step will be to acknowledge that you are angry with yourself, realize that you are manifesting these feelings into your physical environment and it's affecting the relationship you have with your children, one of which apparently is getting tired of being around you, that is very real and you need to deal with that which means dealing with yourself properly. The AD meds may help a bit but they won't fix your problems, screaming in your car while driving won't help either.
Just my 0.02 cents, I've been trying to open your eyes for quite some time on this, I hope you finally get this msg in the way it was intended.
I will not try to tell you that your feelings of anger are not normal, or you should feel bad for having them (sense the but coming?), BUT...
Your anger and your pain are related. You feel pain, and the pain creates anger. You feel anger, and the anger increases the pain. Sound like a vicious circle? It is.
You are attempting to seek your happiness through the things you do not control.
First it may be "if my W comes home then I will be happy."
Now it seems that "if my W is unhappy, THEN I will be happy"
The truth is, neither will.
Your happiness, if you chose it, will come from you.
BITS
Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
Country - I've typed that same sentence to lots of other posters - the "happiness comes from you" thing. I will find my happiness one day. Right now, I am almost enjoying my anger at being lied to and played like a fool for years. But, I will admit that I would be happy with a happy cherry on top if their life together was a pile of steaming dog feces.
This morning when I was lying in bed, as usual my first thought was of this whole crap. The difference the last couple of days is that I don't miss her as much. Now my thoughts are of how stupid I was to put up with her affair for years, how I was really played like a fool for the last 2 years, and how STBX isn't the woman she used to be. OM has changed her so much. But I also let him change me in some ways. I became a bitter, angry, hurting man with no self pride at all. I am still angry as can be and will despise that man forever, but I feel like I am starting to recover personally.
I am hoping my week long visit to see an old friend will give me some time to heal and start finding the old me. I miss the funny, smiling, cocky (losing some of that has been good!) man I once was.
This has been a truly horrendous experience and I will always wish it had never happened and that we had stayed a family forever. But, I also know I did everything I was capable of at every point to try to save my family. Yes, I made mistakes and did one horrible thing I will always regret, but I never gave up until the fat lady was singing away. I was fighting against a power greater than I could muster - the love STBX has for OM.
I actually say that he "won". But, he didn't win the woman she once was. She's still a great woman the way she is today, but not as great as she once was. I was fortunate enough to spend the best years of her life with her. For that I am thankful.
You are both spot on. I actually said something like that in my post above. But I didn't admit just how angry I am with myself for living with her affair for so many years. I told myself that I did it for my kids. But, that's not really true. I did it because I was too scared to do anything about it. Somehow, I thought I deserved it and should just live my life on the surface and keep pretending it wasn't there.
It wasn't until they made their relationship public that I finally admitted it was real and even then, I was like a puppy waiting for her to come back to me. OM does make her happy. I can't understand how when he appears to be such a liar without morals, but he obviously provides her with something I don't.
He is simply the better man for her. I now need to be a better man for me and my kids. I need to BeTheMan.
