I still keep going...

[keep_going]

Valeska19,

I don't even know how to start saying THANK YOU. Your post and words have touched me so deeply, I wept when I read them.

To have someone that has never "met" me come with such compassion and empathy and support in a moment when I needed it the most is something I cannot ever repay or thank enough. You have brought a lot of peace to me and I don't think that is a coincidence.

Like you, I have had many low moments when I just cry in the shower or when I am driving and ask God for help. Yet, I believe I have not been really ready to listen back... Well, I am now.

thank you again. You show so much love for your wife, unconditional love, that you are a true source of inspiration.

From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU.

[keep_going]

25 - As always, THANK YOU! Your support and understanding has been unreal. Both when I've needed 2x4s and when I have needed more empathy.

And of course, you bring a lot of wisdom and common sense.

BTW If you were so crazy angry and "abusive," WHY DID HE LEAVE HIS CHILDREN WITH YOU???)

It's funny that you mention this. H's older brother said the same thing to me the other day. He said that even though H is his little brother and he adores him, what he is doing is not acceptable. He is an adult with responsibilities, not a teenager. My BIL has told me repeatedly that he will not let my H hurt me or the kids and will look out for our best interest. He also called my dad and my sister when H first left to tell them the same. I am extremely lucky to have married into a great, loving family and am sad to see how all this has affected them.

If your h is ever to see the light it will ONLY be AFTER he accomplishes his "Mission" which he is pursuing, "damned the consequences" in a terrible effort to prove himself "right"...after all, he and OW MUST be happy or...or all this pain will have been for nothing and will be on him...

I totally agree with you here. I realize this situation will need to run its course and if my H and I will ever get back together, it will be under new premises. No rebuilding left here... We'd need to build anew... But I cannot worry about that now. I have to get out of this yucky, dark place and finalize this ASAP or I will lose my mind.

Thank you again.

BTW, I love the serenity prayer. I have a copy in my wallet and read it daily. Now all I need to do is put it in practice...

[keep_going]

NLW,

THANK YOU! I have spent the last couple of hrs. reading thru your last couple of threads. Our similarities are uncanny... Specially in OUR feelings. Every word and doubt and fear you describe I have felt. It is nice to see that I am not going crazy...

The one positive I've found from the last month is that it's SO much easier for me to detach now.

H has shown zero care for me, and that makes it easier to realise that there is no point me being personally invested in his emotional crisis at the moment.

My focus is now on me and my kids.

I also agree that detachment should be easier. I look at my H and really just want him to leave me alone. I wished I didn't have to see him or talk to him. I know that is essential for my well-being and recovery. Unfortunately, that is an impossibility in my sitch, with such young children.

But I can definitely put up more boundaries and need to be better at enforcing them. You got some good advice on that in your thread and I will follow it.

Send him to my lawyer...

Thank you again. I will visit your thread as well and keep following your sitch closely. I know we will find the strength to see this through.

[keep_going]

Journaling...

Still having a very rough time. After the fiasco of my interactions with H last week, he went to visit OW over the weekend. It was nice not to have to see him, but he did keep texting me - first with info about our nieces softball game, then asking about the kids and then asking to skype with the kids (very unusual for him.) Why can't he give me some space?

On Monday when he came over to see the kids, he actually took them out for dinner like I had requested, instead of staying at my place. He was very nice to me.
I was so confused and shocked and angry and hurt. After all the selfishness and harassment and hurt he has given me lately, all of a sudden, he is nice.
(BTW, I have been just as nasty and hurtful to him, so I am not just blaming him for the nightmare of the past month).

Sidenote - every time he is with OW, he comes back and is nice to me. The few times he has apologized for things he has done since he left, it's been when he has been with OW. At first I thought I was imagining things, but I am quite certain now that she is the one that encourages him to get along with me and be nice to me. H also told his sister that OW is helping him become a better person and he wished his family would accept his R with her. Just my luck - now OW is turning out to be Mother Teresa. Great, I really have a chance here...

Anyways, on Tuesday he showed up at kids' swim lesson and left a card for me. He was again very nice.

The card said:
"I didn't want today to go by without acknowledging how much you have meant to me the last 20 years. I'm sure that you'd agree it wasn't all bad by any means, and I want you to know that I am honestly grateful for you and the family we created. H"

By being in the midst of all this nastiness, I had forgotten that Tuesday was the 20th anniversary of the day we met. I cried so much that night. He has been saying for months now that I was abusive our whole marriage, and that it has been all my fault and now he is telling me that it wasn't all that bad?

That night he texted me: "I hope you got my card. I really meant it. I've been so sad all day."

I simply responded: "Thank you for the card."

Yesterday he was still very nice when he picked up the kids. I have been very distant and cold. Anyone can clearly tell I am mad at him. He asked yesterday why I have been so viciously angry with him the last few weeks. I just replied - "You have accused me of trying to take your kids away from you and have told the whole world." Then I walked away.

This morning, he sent another email pressuring me to give him more time with the kids. It was very nice in tone and talks about how much he missed them, etc.

I can't take this emotional rollercoaster. Why is he doing this? I want to detach from him and move on so much and he is torturing me emotionally or wants to just apease his guilt. This just feels like warfare mental games. I don't know what to think or believe.

I am in so much pain and yes, still so angry at him.

[adinva]

Wow, KG, your anger is so understandable, but is it getting you closer to who you want to be?

[keep_going]

Adinva - Simple, one word answer: NO.

There is nothing I can do to argue against your point. You are dead on, as is everyone else who has adviced me to drop my anger.

I know I need to and I want to. I have to.
I need to get to the bottom of WHY is it so hard for me to let go of it right now. What purpose is it serving me?

I need to get out of this dark, rotten place I have been in for the last month. I need to stop spiraling out of control.

I intellectually know that my attitude and actions are wrong. Why am I still doing this???

Thank you for your post and reality check.

[labug]

You said you had anger management issues and had been in counseling. What did you find out, learn there?

[adinva]

Have you ever tried any tool that helped you shift gears when your anger was shooting you in the foot? What helps for you?

I think part of it could be that you feel so justified, and maybe would like that to be validated. Absolutely - it's awful what you're going through. But it's up to you if you want to make it worse or use it as a wake up call to get control over your anger.

[25yearsmlc]

KG

honey you MUST Lose the anger now. You said it is what got you here.

Now when his heart MIGHT be softening (even if it stemms from OW, it is still a softening and who knows where that may lead?)

don't blow it with the "same old". It means all your hard earned progress will be tossed out the window.

Remember, "holding onto anger to hurt someone else

is like lighting yourself on fire to get smoke in their eyes."

don't validate his choice to leave. Undermine it with the new you.

Your situation is a damn tough one, I don't deny that.

Your path is not an easy one

but in some ways it IS a simple one. Lose the anger.

(((( ))))

[keep_going]

You said you had anger management issues and had been in counseling. What did you find out, learn there?

I think this will be a long post (are any of mine NOT long?), so bear with me while I try to dig deep out of this one...

I have had anger issues for a long time and have worked hard on my own and with a counselor in the last year to uncover the reasons for it.

I have learned that I have had abandonment issues since childhood. While I grew up in a two-parent household, both my parents always worked and neither of them had affectionate parents themselves, so they never really learned how to express love.

My father's dad left when he was one year old, so my dad never knew what it meant to have a dad. He had a hard life and I have never seen him shed a tear - even when his mom died. He has been the ultimate provider and conflict avoider. He has also allowed my mom to take out all of her anger in him. She has emasculated him and disrespected him as long as I can remember. She is always proud to say that her marriage has lasted over 40 years, yet cannot see the disfunction of those 40 years.

My mom's mother had some kind of undiagnosed mental disease and also suffered from chronic depression that kept to her room for 10 years. This happened when my mother was 8 or 9, so my mother had to assume the role of mother to her four younger siblings. So she was practically abandoned by her mother and robbed of her childhood. She was never allowed to be vulnerable or emotional, since she had to be strong for her siblings. This brought her anger issues all her life, issues that she has never dealt with and that led to her messed-up marriage.

I do believe that my parents love me. Yet, I never received any words of affirmation or outward expressions of affection from them. Neither of them have ever said the words "I love you" to me. My husband taught me to say them.

My parents are now older and any hope of any serious change in the family dynamics is pretty remote (my dad is 86 and suffers from mild dementia and my mom is 77). So I have learned in therapy that I need to accept that they have loved me the only way they knew how and to try to make the best of my R with them. My challenge is to have no expectations that I will receive any emotional support from them when I am going through the most difficult time in my life and need their love and support the most. This is also tough on me because they are the only family I have in the US - all my siblings, extended family and childhood friends are back in my country of origin (I moved here as a young adult).

So growing up, I never learned to express my feelings in a positive way. I saw that either you shove them inside - like my dad, or you express your hurt by playing strong (meaning angry) to keep the boat afloat - like my mom.

And this is the baggage I brought to my marriage. I never saw what a healthy relationship looked like and neither my husband, who also grew up in a dysfunctional family, which resulted in a very toxic marriage despite the great love that I know we felt for each other.

But, back to me... So I have learned that I have been emotionally stunt all my life and I now am trying to learn to change and deal with my emotions constructively - whatever they are.
- I am trying to get in touch with the little girl inside of me that felt abandoned and hurt and is still reminded of that in every interaction I have with my parents.
- I am also trying to get in touch with the adult woman, who didn't really know how to express her love and hurt to her husband in a positive, healthy way and is now suffering from his abandonment as well.

So my struggles before and since my H left lie in how I express hurt and loss. I felt abandoned in my R with H years before he physically left. We both made a lot of mistakes, but the hurt, anger and resentment I accumulated towards him or the reasons (real or perceived) that I felt let down by him never got resolved. And if anyone asks my H, he will say that this is exactly how he felt as well.

On the other hand, even though he has been gone for a year, I still feel his abandonment every day. I see him happy and how he has moved on with his life, while I struggle with my issues.

He has a very solid R with OW. Someone who is helping him grow and become a better person. I am hurt that she is doing all these things for him that I strived to do and was not successful. Their R is a daily reminder of my own shortcomings and inadequacies and bring out my worst insecurities. A reminder of how I could not bring out the best in him and of how he was not willing to become a better person with me and for me. A reminder that he has ultimately moved on and is happy without me.

My H had also been angry with me ever since he left. He had admitted that he had not forgiven me, yet I think he is now trying to get to that point. I am hurt that he is overcoming his issues and I am not. I am hurt that he is reaching forgiveness and I have not.

And because of this, I am also having a hard time forgiving myself. I struggle to shake the notion that I must have been this terrible monster during our marriage, because who would abandon a wife that is 2-months pregnant unless she was really that bad...


So my identified problems are:
- I need to learn to feel, accept and express all my emotions, specially hurt, in a positive way and not turn them into anger, so I can break the anger cycle that has prevailed in my family for generations now.
- I need to detach from my H and his R with OW, so I can forgive him and move on, regardless of what he does
- I need to forgive myself so I can start creating and living the good life that I and my kids deserve

How do I get there?
- continue working on my anger management skills
- continue trying to grow emotionally and find healthy expressions for all my feelings
- re-kindle my relationship with God, find my faith and place my trust in him
- pray a lot so I can find the strength I need during this time of turmoil and utter despair
- continue DBing in all relationships in my life - GAL, 180s
- continue reading, reaching out, learning, participating and seeking help in support groups

I am not out of this rut by any means, but I think that even spending this time writing about it, is a positive sign that maybe the worst of this crisis has passed.

Thank you ALL for your support - I am starting to see a slight movement in my state of mind and it is ALL because of the help I have received since coming back to the boards.

THANK YOU!!!