I can't move forward and it's driving me nuts

[AntoniaB]

Thanks 25 years and crushednstuck! It helps to hear from both of you.

I looked back and found he wrote me two "explanatory" emails that I think you were referring to:

#1: Thank you for your kind words. I really hope that you have come to a place where you are at peace with what has befallen you. I do not deserve such kindness but it does make me feel better to hear you speak this way.

I realize now more than ever that I did a horrible, horrible thing to you both times that I walked out. I am truly sorry for handling things the way that I did. I'm not making excuses for myself but to use your poem at as metaphor, a drowning person will do whatever thay have to to get to the surface. A drowning person is not thinking about anything but survival.

I have regrets about the way our marriage ended but I don't know that it could have happened any other way. I wasn't thinking rationally and nothing you could have said would have gotten through to me.

This next part is tricky. I don't want to upset you. Just as you feel you are in a good place NOW, I am feeling the same way. I am not "steering the ship" as you say but I feel like I have a say it where it is going. To be honest sometimes that is a scary feeling. I'm not used to having to decide where I want to go but I least now I've come to feel like I am responsible for the things that happen in my life. I feel clear. I feel good.

I'm not going to say anymore but rest assured that I have the same well wishes for your future and fond memories of our past as well. I hope a time will come where we can be in contact with each other and not find it upestting for either one of us."


This was our last conversation face to face:

" He said several times that he has doubts all the time. But that she is "good for him" and calls him on his flaws. I said "I did too." He said "but I had shown you a new side of who I wanted to be when I left the first time and you wouldn't accept it." I said this was true. He said "so I came back and tried to just be the old guy I was, and to be perfect for you, until I couldn't do it anymore. Then I just wanted to give up. But I wasn't going to leave you. I didn't have the guts. I didn't want to be the bad guy. So I tried to make you hate me. My anger and rage and my way of treating you, I was trying to make you kick me out. I thought it was the only way. But you wouldn't do it."

I said "you had to know I wouldnt'." He said, "I didnt' know it at first. I thought I could make you hate me enough to kick me out. But you didn't."

And I said "and you resented me for that."

He said "No I didn't resent you. I just wanted out."

I said "why did you want out?" He said "I felt trapped. I felt like I didn't have feelings of love for you and I didn't know what to do. Then I met her and I was powerfully attracted to her. Other women didn't exist in my world when things were good between us. When they weren't, I noticed one."

I said "but you could have said something. You could have said you weren't feeling love for me. You could have said we have a serious problem. We need help."

He said "I didn't want to try." I said "why?" He said "because I didn't want to do the work to try because I didnt' think the outcome would be any different. I didn't think things would ever change."

I said "but when you kissed her and confessed, and I said I'd still take you back if we just went to counseling and you stopped seeing her, you still bailed. Why?"

He said "because you had never shown the ability to forgive me last year when I left the first time (this is true, a week or so before he kissed her I had said I hadn't fully forgiven him and was still harboring anger) and I figured that you would say it but it would never happen."

So I said "so you were afraid you'd lose her if you tried with me, and you might lose me anyway, so you hedged your bets and tried with her instead as she was more of a sure thing."

He said "no. she is less of a sure thing. You were much more the sure thing. I chose her because I have never gambled in my life. I took a gamble. I was trying to do the opposite of what I always do. I plan. I think of the future. I chose to stop doing that. That's why I chose her."

So with that "settled", I asked about the anger. I said "now that you're out of the marriage, has your anger and such gone away." He said "no." I said "but you blamed our marriage." He said "I know." I said "and it's still there." And he said "at times." I said "where does the anger come from?" He said "any time I don't feel in control of my life."

He says that OW has seen the anger several times. He says he feels he can recognize when it's coming on and keep it in check sometimes. I said "you have two types of anger: anger towards yourself and anger towards your partner. Has she seen anger towards her?" He said "not really." I said "don't you think she will?" He said "I recognize when it comes on and I stop it."

I said "doesnt' this still make you a pleaser". He said "I'm working on that." "How?" I said. "I just am," he said.

I said "are you going to regress (because he is maintaining that he is better now)?" He said "I don't know."

He said he is happy with her and she is good for him. He said he isn't happy with the situation and has regrets. He said he feels horrible many times about what he did and then his brain tells him that's the cowards' way, living in fear, and that he needs to get past those feelings and live in the present and not in the past or let the past affect his present.

He said that many times other men tell him he should be happy he is divorcing and try to run me down, and he says "I don't understand these people. This was a failure. I'm not happy about it." He said that he has no more friends than before, that he has only her and two other women friends from before. He said he doesnt' want more friends, particularly guy friends, because they are rude and obnoxious and say insensitive things about divorce. I said "you're putting all your eggs in one basket--one person." He said "yes." I said "and isn't that what got us both into this mess?" He said "that's who I am."

There was a final email from him where he said that he was aware that he realized he could have started his own Greek tragedy if this all fell apart on him but he was taking that chance, and that he didn't regret the years with me and that most were happy.

So I don't know what this tells me in looking over it now, other than that in a way I couldn't have stopped anything once that affair began, but I do feel like I am the architect of the demise of my marriage--at least, I was co-architect. I had very high standards for him that I would not relax when he went into MLC, and I feel like my own ignorance or lack of personal growth or whatever created the environment where he felt trapped. Sure he had a choice to make, and he chose the immoral path, but if he felt then the way I have felt now--like he was drowning--I get it.

I feel like I've gained so much insight too late for it to ever matter. Sure it matters if I ever get involved with someone again...but I am so tied to him in my own head that I feel I will stop that from ever happening.

I didn't say this on the other email but I feel like I'm afraid for someone to touch me. I honestly think I will recoil if a man ever tries to kiss me because it's NOT HIM.

I feel like I'm a really messed up chick some days. I have ALL MY ACT together as a professional with a career and a book contract and I'm becoming a writer as we speak, which was a dream from WAY back before I ever met him...and I have great friends and family, and I appear to be handling it all and most people would say I am very lucky to have what I have. Some days I think I don't deserve the home I have bought from him or the yard or possessions. I have gotten so far on my intellect, and yet I can not handle one of the most simple things known to mankind, a relationship. I couldn't keep my marriage together, and now I can't even go on a date without feeling like I'm doing something wrong. I am really a mess inside and no one would ever know it and the pressure to keep it together is really getting to me.

And yes, I'm calling my doctor tomorrow. I know when I'm headed to the dark place and I have to put the brakes on.

You know it's killing me to not talk to him ever, to be this widow, and I chose it. I cut him off, because I couldn't handle talking to him. I made him act this way. The guy can't talk to me if he wants to as I've blocked him. And talkign to him tears me apart. It's a terrible catch 22.

I know I'm rambling, I'm just really a wreck. I'll get it together. I have to.