Beginning now...

[AntoniaB]

IB your post is really heart-breaking and I understand your emotions. I think a certain amount of this is the holidays making it worse, but most of what you're talking about the pain your children are facing and not your own.

I'm not sure if you realize that or not. My suspicion is that as you have felt less pain and anguish for yourself, even just a little bit, you've latched on to their pain or rejection and it's sort of re-feeding the way you felt in the beginning.

Just like you feel it when your son is angry and you feel you have to talk him down, you also feel it when they are sad, and their depression is becoming yours.

The best you can do for them on this issue is support them with counseling if they will agree. They have to learn to process their own feelings and not inadvertendly push their sadness on to you. It probably just happens with no one thinking. No one is "at fault" here. But it's not healthy for you.

I feel like at times my family is still far behind me in terms of acceptance, and their lack of acceptance or disbelief of my sitch sometimes drags me backwards.

Another thing I might suggest is to sort of walk into that feeling of hopelessness or "the bottom" deliberately, head on, and face it for what it is, rather than to feel it as something you fear. I don't think going back to that bottom at thiz point in your life is going to make you STUCK in that bottom. I think we often assume that it will and we dread that feeling of depression taking over, so we fight it. But it can be a productive experience.

I know you're a Christian but I only really know the Buddhist readings that I've been studying in meditation group, so this might not be right for you, but I will say there is a Christian Buddhist in our group, so....you can look up this essay and read it or not. It's by Pema Chodron, called "Hopelessness and Death." It is basically on going to that very dark place and facing it and using it to learn the deepest things about yourself, and coming back out of it stronger and more resilient, because you stop clinging to the notion that "hope" will just lay a great life back in your lap, but instead, you'll accept living with the ground under your feet being very shaky and you'll "make friends" with that feeling.

It's a powerful essay that helped me when I was feeling exactly as you describe.

[exquisitetobe]

IB,
I also wanted to erase all the pain. You have to change the way you look at it,( My IC's words )

You have to look at it as a SURVIVOR. You have to look at your kids as survivor as well. They are not victims of circonstances.
They are thriving. They are handleing the situation with dignity, the best they can. The fact that they are feeling this pain now could be a blessing for their own children in the future because they would NOT hurt their kids the way their dad did to them. They are learning important lessons in life right now.

My dad was an alcholic. I see booze as destructive. Do you think that i turn to alcohol for a quick fix? NO WAY! Don't want to take that path and scr*w up my life and lives of others around me. No Thanks!
My lesson was learn at a very young age. I always loved my dad but i hated his way of handleing life. I hated the fact that he didn't see the pain he caused us. He passed away in 1982 and i still love him. I ask him to guide me when things gets rough.
He played a big part in my values witch are founded by things i lived.
Stay strong and positive!!!

[job]

IB,
I'm so sorry you are feeling sad. I wish that I could make it better for you, but you aware that this is another step in recovery and those feelings will wash over you periodically when you least expect them to. I promise you, that in time, those sad feeling will be appear less and less. It's better to work through them as they hit then to side step them.

Your xh doesn't realize, nor sad to say, care right now about how his children are feeling. I'm sorry to read just how out of touch he is with reality. I will keep your daughter's fiance's family in my thoughts and prayers.

Irish, you are not alone...we are all here for you. We all have traveled or are traveling the road that you are on and understand completely how you feel. I'm sending "hugs" today.
I hope that you feel better soon.

[irishblessings]

Antonia, E, and Snodderly -

Thank you for your posts. It does help to hear that these blasts of sadness are part of the process. I just want so much to be over this! What I REALLY want is to be rescued - as sappy as that sounds.

There are not many aspects of my life right now that seem to be headed on an upswing. Intellectually, I know that I am ultimately responsible for my attitude and perspective and actions. I just don't feel very good about anything right now.

It is temporary....

[AntoniaB]

IB there are days I want to be rescued too. I think that is a very honest statement for you to make and it cuts to the heart of it.

Being rescued would make you feel good for a time...let's ASSUME that would happen...you'd feel good for a time, you'd feel the weight off.

BUT.

You'd know something was off or wrong. At this point, you'd know.

What you have to learn, and what I have to tell myself over and over, is that YOU ARE THE ONE WHO RESCUES YOU. You are the only one who can do this who will remain TRUE to you.

I'm not saying don't ever trust someone again; I'm saying when it comes to being saved, we women (as I suspect this is a female trait more than a male trait) have got to learn that the stories about males rescuing us are just that, stories that reflect a different time than we live in.

I will post something that I stitched on a pillow awhile ago...back when I was with XH, and yet at the time I didn't even believe it. But I believe it now. It is by Jennifer Aikman-Smith:

"Once upon a time is how most fairy tales first start. Then add a questing maiden or a knight so pure of heart. Sometimes there is a treasure, Princely frog or magic blade, Dangers to be conquered or long journeys to be made. Yet strength and courage triumph to the enemy's chagrin, The questing soul discovers that the Hero lies within."

You are your own savior. This is the truth buried in you.

[irishblessings]

Antonia -

I know this to be true. I really do. I could really just use a break! I have a lot of dread for an upcoming interaction on Friday with X's whole family. It still hurts.

I really just need to take some time and redirect - gain my center again.

IB

[Truegritter]

Irish

I have been away and am reading and am sad to see you in so much pain.

In your faith (as you recall I share yours)

"if you have faith but the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains."

Please don't criticize if i didn't get that exactly right.

What is faith?

Is it that He will provide what we perceive we don't have?

Or

That we are thankful of what we do have and that our faith is we are thankful that it is so?

If we focus on the lack of what is not here, it will always be here. (lack)

In our reality.

I think we lose that when we focus on the lack of our spouse in our lives.

How will you reconcile that your spouse is not in your life?

Believe me I don't say this without experience.

As you know I have never been one to put a sugar coating on things...

You have to find a way to move forward and set the example for your children or they will risk repeating what is happening to you right now.

Break this.

Now.

You have an opportunity to teach them something diferrent than their father's legacy to them.

You. And only you right now.

[beatrice]

IB never underestimate the extent of the trauma that each one of us here has experienced. it stays with us a long time. In healing, I have come to see we heal from other hurts too, those from way back, so that when we do emerge - finally! we are really changed.

One question, and it isn't a criticism, but why are you interacting with your h's family? Do you really need to, or simply think you do? now is the time to examine all our our shibboleths and beliefs that may no longer be very helpful.

[irishblessings]

True - we do share the same faith and I do need to break this legacy!

Beatrice - I don't think of your question as a criticism. I've never really thought about it - except from the perspective that I have always been an aunt or godmother, etc. Am I no longer that person to people who have been in my life for 30 years? I don't really know the answer to that.

Got a lot to think about...

[AntoniaB]

You are still that same person (godmother, aunt, etc.) but you have to be that person on your own terms. If you as an aunt want to see a niece or nephew, for instance, it makes sense to me for you to ask that person to lunch or something to catch up.

If it wasn't so painful to have it all on your X's family's terms, that would be one thing, but it is giving you days of dread or worry, then the event, then dealing with the aftermath. I just don't see how you have to put yourself through this.

Maybe I'm lucky that my XH's family dropped me like a hot potato and stopped any contact with me the minute he walked out, but I'd never in a million years have walked back into their midst (still wouldn't) just because I used to be someone who was connected to them by marriage. If I really thought it made sense to be connected, I'd do it in small doses, on my terms. I wouldn't walk into a roomful of people who showed no support for me or our marriage and who also opened the door to OW, all because they're all so morally bankrupt that they didn't have the guts to take a stand or, short of that, have the decency to express care or worry about me.

I don't recall you saying his family was supportive of you, perhaps I'm wrong.

But if they were not, why are you putting yourself through the wringer like this? You can still fulfill your roles from afar, via phone calls or letters to individual people or, like I said, a lunch or dinner date on your terms.