Yes Snodderly, it has been one long road. It's been the past 3 months that I've really been able to stand back and look at my relationship with xh more objectively and realistically. I am seeing him differently. He's not so inhuman anymore.
The past 6 years have been the worst. Now that I understand MLC....he's been in MLC for 6 years, and he's definately not gone through the stages in chronoligical order. Infact I think he actually went through all the stages except Replay, which he's in now. What I question is if he could be starting to peek out of the tunnel into Acceptance. The BD was a year ago, but really I've been dealing with this for years. And I am exhausted from it. Spritually, mentally and emotionally. I feel just "fried". I feel used up, chewed up and spit out. It's really hard to stay on a consistent path of building your self esteem when you're literally sucked so dry. My job is also very emotionally and mentally draining. So at the end of the day, I feel like a ghost from what I used to be.
So I just take it one day at a time.
I guess what I really need to let go of, but I know I won't ever, is if he's really aware of how he's dramatically changed the lives of many people by his actions. I know him well enough to say that I think he is starting to understand that.
Thank you for reminding me that I need to look at his actions and behavior not him as a person. That is very hard to really grasp at first, but as the reality of the true hell he's going through sinks in with me, it's a little easier to accept. I tend to judge people by their behavior, especially when it's just down right brutal and mean.
You know, now that I think about it, Xh child hood and teenager years were very painful for him. He never felt like he fit in and according to a mutual friend that went to school with him he was a wall flower. I was his first everything. This makes sense if this is something he's trying to come to grips with now through his MLC.
But for me this is so hard to grasp because I was happy with my High School years. I had friends, I had fun, I never felt like an outsider looking in. I had flirtations and a few boyfriends, but only XH and one other person my true High School sweethearts. I had the time of my life in High School and even my early 20's with Xh.
I don't know.. I look at this from the MLC angle and say to myself " no wonder". Then I look at it from the simplistic point of view. He wasn't happy, so he left to go find it and he's happy now. You should do that too. Why be with someone that doesn't want to be with you anyway, he's made that clear for years he doesn't want to be with you. He still cares about you but to him there's no use in staying together cause the passion is gone and he has no motivation to try and get it back because it's easier to find it with someone else.
And then.....we see eachother, look eachother in the eye, and by God that connection is still there. But ooops....we're getting divorced! He's still living with OW...and it's all done by his choices and actions.
Now Im curious. Would him getting his love tank filled by another woman actually make him want to be nice to me and then want to try and be friends with me and pursue the friendship part? Make him want to be a better father? This is what I HATE about not being able to communicate with him. Why the hell couldn't he just say to me " Ok this is what's going on.... this is how I feel about our situation now and this is how I would like it to be". I am so sick and tired of having to read between the lines, act as if, yet be dying inside, keep the boundaries up to protect myself and the children, yet still have to allow him in our lives because of the children.
My aunt thinks he's a total narcissist and looks at our relationship as control based and that I've been emotionally abused so badly I never could see it. One of my best friends thinks he's just a horrible person and says he would be better use to me dead than alive and divorcing me. These two tell me all he does to me are head games, manipulation, and he still feels he can control me, and that because of the kids I never will really be rid of him.
Yet I guess what just upsets me so is all I want is the truth and I really don't know what the truth is anymore.
