Got an apology from XH. Need advice now.

[AntoniaB]

Hi Beatrice, I think I can clarify on some of the points you raised, definitely.

On the rel. with others/not being defined by the wounds...she was saying that eventually we know we have "learned and moved on" when the thing that draws us to someone else new (or alters in an existing rel.) is what makes the person we interact with uniquely them and not the fact that they also suffered a similar wound. Sure, with the divorce rate what it is, it is most likely new friends/romantic partners would be divorced. But there are people who are divorced whose "trauma" is a small part of their story vs. people who are divorced whose trauma IS their story.

I used the example of "say I met someone, I usually tell them up front what happened with my marriage. It's important to me to tell them that he cheated, but that we had this amazing rel., and I love him still, but I'm accepting that it's over." She said "but there is SO MUCH more to you than that. That is part of your history, yes, but it isn't who you are. It's a very tragic time that changed you. But it's not YOU."

I have a colleague who is known for dumping on people within the first 10 min. of having dinner with them the first time that she was the victim of a murder-suicide with her parents. At age 6. She is now 65. That's defining by the wound. It's a way of not moving on from your past, and a way to try to control how people relate to you now too.

I agree some married people are nervous being around divorced people. My younger married work colleagues stopped inviting me out and now I feel like I'm leaning towards my older divorced colleagues for socialization. But it's not just that, it's that the younger people seem to not be very resilient to me anymore as they have never been tested. They seem whiny. I am more "attracted" to the more "seasoned" people who seem more grounded.

So for me, my "goal" with this is to, if I meet new people because the divorces are the link between us, to move away from talking about that as we get to know one another and focus on the interests we have that make us get along, NOT our similar pasts.

See I also think that your email disc. now with your XH don't fall into the category she's talking about above, as SO much time has passed. Her reflections are mainly for me and I'm only 15 mon. out, and XH and I were extremely co-dependent and in some ways I really think we still are. I don't think that's the case for you so your emailing has a diff. purpose.

(She noted that when I talked about co-dependence for me or XH that I NEVER used the past tense....which was very telling)

Oh I agree there are tasks no one likes to do. Those don't count as 'nourishment', ha ha!

I have also said "if I met the right person"....but also "I am going to work to be really good with assuming that I never do because my marriage for so long was amazing." When you ask me why I say "assuming I never meet someone" it comes back to the idealization aspect, that in my mind, he and I were "meant" to be together for life, and since it didn't work out, I'm assuming that anything like what I had with him just isn't in the cards for me. It was going to be him or no one. I "mated" for life. I don't REALLY see me with anyone else. So I'm sure that I give off that signal to potential mates, whether through what I choose to talk about when I meet them, or the way I carry myself.

And yes, it does take a lot of adjustment. Again, I think in my case, her advice is targeted towards the fact that I am a person who even now, tends to rail against things that are like 2 years or more in the past PLUS present things. That I'll still bring up "well when we had that argument when he came back in 2009 I should have done this and that led to that outcome", or "If he'd only go to counseling now like I did he's see that this is about his issues"... well for me that's a form of temper tantrum, being unwilling to accept that nothing can be done to change it.

[beatrice]

Thanks for clarifying - it makes more sense now! I have been thinking about her defining suffering as being a temper tantrum that things didn't go as we planned.

Now I may have misunderstood, but it does seem to me that there is much more to suffering than this, although i recognise that there is a strong element of this.

For example, pain and chronic illness, having a child with a disability. Some conditions are painful. In dealing with them there is an element of suffering that strengthens and builds us [A bit like being on weights machines!] We perhaps don't always get there without some grief and suffering.

it is the being defined by this, and hanging on to it, and using it as an excuse, that is unhealthy. Suffering because of pain and grief is part of the healing process. Only by facing our pain can we fully work through it and not be frightened of feeling it again, because we have mastered it, it has not mastered us.

I dealt with this in the early part of the summer. The pain locked away that other posters have referred to. I finally got it out and looked at it, experienced it fully [and boy did it hurt] and now it has little or now power over me. Fear of the pain was becoming greater than working through the pain itself.

I think self realisation is tremendously important, and not losing ourselves in a relationship, but I do think there is also an element of loss of self that is healthy. Parents grow through caring for children, and putting their needs first at times. We all see examples of where parents do too much and where also they do too little and put themselves first, to the detriment of their children's well being [and ultimately their own].

Maturity, it seems to me, is recognising and nurturing our precious and individual self-hood, but also being prepared to put it to one side for another's good, if need be. I think this is different from co-dependence, because it comes from strength, not weakness. It is like, for example,the difference between enabling an alcoholic, or drug user, and making the decision to care for someone with a terminal illness.

[AntoniaB]

"Fear of the pain was becoming greater than working through the pain itself."

This really hits me, because it's so true for me....I had such anxieties for years about all kinds of issues other than my marriage, and this anxiety started to define me. It was only for having gone through this that I learned how to face my anxiety and all but banish it.

I agree so much with your last paragraph too about maturity and the line between that codependency and just being there to care for someone without losing yourself in the care. Tough line to walk but anyone who has been through what we have emerges as much more able to find that line than we ever would have before.

[AntoniaB]

So I had an amazing GAL weekend with a long-time friend--we went out and got massages, had great dinners, drinks, stayed out partying till 2am, saw a great blues guitarist, flirted with a hot bartender, bought some shoes, and got our tarot cards read. Terrific weekend.

I posted on the alt that I got my "groove" back and wasn't letting it go again.

A few hours later, XH sends me an email about the retirement acct. A totally unnecessary email--it just says that the forms he was supposed to get in the mail came. Like, why do I care?

Then he also said that he hoped my yard wasn't a mess with all the rain lately and that I was enjoying my sabbatical and writing and ended with "work s*cks, as always." And yep, he sent this during his work hours from his room when OW can't catch him.

So I chose to reply with my now permanent cheery/optimistic self (far unlike my pessimistic self at the end of the marriage) and chatted briefly about how I had an awesome weekend, what I did, and how yeah, I had some yard work but I was doing great with it, and then said look, I'm sorry about your work problems...for me, in the midst of last year's nightmare, I chose to throw myself into my job and to make it better and that internal attitude change in myself really helped and now I can walk away from my job and be happy with it...but then I said "but of course, you have to forge your own path and decide how to fix this situation yourself..."

Essentially his intermittent emails sent for no real reason are giving me this chance to constantly SHINE as this person who overcame EVERYTHING to be happy without him. And this really is who I am, my changes are really "sticking", and I think my actions show it with all the stuff I've been doing in the past year that only now he's finding out about.

So in a way I almost feel like this might be his karma--I was concerned for a long time (and sometimes still am) that he will never "pay" for what he did to me. That he'll never get "his", that he gets to ride off in the sunset all happy. And at this point all I think is, "look, buddy. Look good and hard, at me, the one you LET GET AWAY." I'm now the person he always claimed he wanted me to be and he doesn't get version 2.0, new and improved...his loss, my gain :-)j

He keeps writing, I'll keep being me, the new and improved me. If he doesn't, well, that's his loss. I'm not losing sleep over it.

[beatrice]

Loved the post

[ericmsant2]

Antonia,

He keeps writing, I'll keep being me, the new and improved me.

I agree that you should continue to be the new and improved YOU. Can you say that you are doing this with NO EXPECTATION? Not even a little bit? Whatever the answer is ask yourself why and then ask how is this impacting YOU NOW.

If he doesn't, well, that's his loss.

When you REALLY FEEL THIS ^^^^ (and maybe you do)….FREEDOM comes.

I'm not losing sleep over it.

You shouldn’t. It really is his loss….

God Bless,
Eric

[TAMF]

got our tarot cards read.

love tarot cards! spill it girl - what did they say?!!

[AntoniaB]

Eric, to answer the question on expectations, I am at the point where I interact with him the way I do a coworker who I have thought might be interested in me but might not. I don't expect either of them to want something more with me but it would be nice if they did. I mean with XH, especially, I do think that on some level he has to be comparing "old Ant." to "new Ant." but do I think that is going to make him leave OW? No way. He's in that rel. till she dumps him. That's my gut feeling. He went from being Mr. "I have no fear about changing direction in my life to make myself happy" to going straight back into his box. It does not appear that his life is any different than before--he just has a different woman in it. HE is the same. He already lost his home and 1/3 of his retirement and his possessions and his pets and wife. (in exchange for cash which he appears to be blowing more quickly than usual). He moved to another town to be with her where the only friends are hers, and certainly no family anywhere near. He puts all his eggs in the OW basket. I don't think a few interactions with me will do anything but begin to show him that I wasn't the problem ;-)

Generally any time I hit "send" I view it as "this may be the last time I ever talk to him" because I'm not going to initiate any contact with him and because I do fully expect him to just stop communicating at any time. I guess I'm just using the opportunity I'm getting to show him how awesome I am ;-)

Ok the tarot....well, one thing really unsettled me. The lady said he had had multiple affairs way back in the beginning of the relationship and this one now was just the one where he got caught. I have a really hard time believing that one because he NEVER left my side for like, the first 15-18 years. There just weren't gaps in time where he was anywhere I wasn't. I don't think I'm being naive here. There was a marked difference in his behavior in the time he started seeing OW than any time ever in 23 years. I also think she was wrong about saying that I had not wanted to marry him but did anyway. That's just nuts. I never doubted marrying him for a second. She also claimed we were supposed to have 2 kids and "where were they?" "what happened?" Well, weirdly enough, the very first thing XH ever said to me was "would you bear my twin daughters" to which I replied, "maybe in another lifetime." Then I laughed at him. (I had just woken up and my college roommate opened the door and he saw me and I was dishevelled and a mess, I'm sure, and that's why he said he said it--he also said he was into me and wanted to know if I was a "kid person" and thought that I was "the one" when I blew off the notion of having kids). We never had kids by choice. So I don't know where these kids are that I never had...but I did adopt 2 kittens the week he left me for OW, and he and I actually helped the mother give birth, and they are mine now....AND I am writing my second book, which I have always seen as my "children"...

As for what she got right? Well, she said I was not going to ever have problems with money or material things, which was nice, and that I was really doing a lot with my life and accomplishing a lot, but that I had been in a rel. for a very long time where I was progressively giving more and more and getting less and less in terms of real love, and that right now, I was "a mess" in terms of my love life mainly because I was in limbo. She said the limbo was coming from not being able to release him. She said very suddenly "If you could be with anyone right now who would it be" and I blurted out "him" which surprised me. Then I said "except he isn't good for me." She said "never say that. People change." She also said "why can't you have him now" and I said "because he is with OW" and she asked me if he works with OW, which he does. She said that OW "lured" him, that he did not go looking at all. That she observed him, saw him troubled, and targeted him. She said that he was confused and searching for himself and that he might never be capable of the love that I was able to give. She said he was infatuated, that what he felt for her wasn't real, and that in 3-4 months from now things would start to unravel.

Then she said "he is going to come back and you are not going to know what to do because this is the source of your limbo and confusion now and you're not able to make a decision."

And THAT is very true, that I do not know what way to go.

She also told me there was a man in my life who I had known a year or so who was thinking he would like to be close to me romantically but was sort of scared to make the move. I really don't know who this would be. I only know 3 unmarried men, and only 2 of them are guys I met in the past year or so.

So then she said that she wanted to help me with my path, and I had to choose, do I want to release my XH completely from my life, or do I want him to come back. And for 75.00, she'll light 3 candles and pray for the path I choose, and in so doing, one will come true ;-)

I've thought about it for a day now, and I'm not doing anything. I'm going the way of Buddhism and just letting things play out the way they do. (which is another way of saying I don't know if I want him back or not, ha ha. I do and I don't. I think part of the reason I do is that I don't know what being with anyone else is like, so I assume it is him or nothing...

Sorry if that was long, but you asked!!!

[ericmsant2]

Antonia

1) I get it
2) FTR, let it be know that I can no longer be called "EPIC" LOL

[AntoniaB]

LOL Eric.

OK get this. He just emailed me back--this one's at night--which means OW is at her musical practice. She is in musicals in local theater and has practice at night. So he sent me a 4 paragraph email all chatty about work and stuff, and then he TOLD ME ABOUT HIS VACA WITH OW. He edited her out of the story--in that if you read it, it sounds like he went on his trip alone. But of course he didn't, as his profile pic on the alt. is of the two of them on the trip (my friend who has seen all the pics verified it was from their European trip).

Can anyone give a perspective on this? My email to him told him what I did this weekend and mentioned only that I was going to my parents' house this week because my sister and mom were going to be in Germany. So he said "They're in Germany again, huh? Did you know I went....." And then wrote about his trip with OW.

WTF is he doing this for? Can you get over this? I'm not angry or bothered, just sort of bewildered by him.

I am a little concerned that he suddenly DOES start talking about her...I mean, I'm in a place where I can talk to him, but I'm not in THAT good of a place, if you know what I mean. I was about to write "don't tell me any more" but he did edit her out so far, so I let it all go and just said "No I didn't know you went there...it sounds really cool." Then I changed the subject.

???