Day By Day

[AntoniaB]

Hey Tad, I'm sorry to hear about your mom. I seem to see a lot of people around me losing parents (and mine have their own health issues) lately and it's something a lot of people 40-50's are unfortunately going through. My best friend lost her mom and dad 42 days apart this summer. So I know it's tough but you just have to get through it.

I have not been here to read in a long time and just popped in today while I was taking a break from cutting up kindling outside and happened to read your post and I figured you might want feedback or advice.

I'm in a really good place, and my time in the nightmare seems like a very distant dream other than very rare lapses for a day or two into that darkness and usually those things are triggered by an anniversary of some sort or a strong memory/association. I really am living a very different life now, not just from when I was posting all the time, but before, when I was "happily" married. I think for me, I have slowly realized that I wasn't so happy as I thought in that marriage, and my XH's betrayal was the single worst and best thing that ever could have happened to me.

If I could go back and time and control whether he cheated or not, I would choose for him to cheat. Sounds nuts, but it was the only way I'd ever decide enough was enough and say leave her or me. Of course he chose to leave me, which at the time seemed horrific, but it was a blessing in disguise.

I think most MLCers are really messed up people inside, ticking time bombs, and in my XH's case, I think he hid his insanity for a very large portion of the marriage and even hid it from himself. When I met my XH he was an angry cynical intolerant man who softened when he was with me, for me alone. Over the years, though, he became all those things and then some. When he left, he seemed like Mr. Nice Guy. He claimed that I had destroyed his goodness and optimism.

Not so.

A friend of mine who works with him last week said "All I know is that I can't imagine being on the receiving end of his anger and rage. If I were Antonia, I'd never speak to him again as long as I live. He is a very troubled and evil person." You should know that the woman who said this has a reputation for being a b*tch and very "hard", and even she says he is a terrible person. EVERYONE I come across now who knows us both says I'm LUCKY to be away from him and that he only held me back from a good life. And it's true, without him, I have made such strides in my career, my financial stability alone, my emotional stability, my friendships, my family relationships. EVERYTHING about my life is the better for him not being in it. And again, I'm not just talking the XH who betrayed me, but the XH who was married to me.

More than anything I love myself now. I never did when I was married to him.

I think that so much of your mind and heart are focused on what you lost in losing your XW. So you can't move on from it and you have depression and see little hope. And yeah, you have a lot on your plate right now. But if you can start to just ask yourself if her being gone has freed you to be independent and to really find things to love about yourself apart from her or anyone else, you can shift your thinking.

If you believe in any sort of a higher power or the "wisdom" of the universe, then consider that maybe all of this happened to free you from a person who would ultimately destroy you or at the very least hold you back from being who you are meant to be. Maybe this crazy woman being out of your life is the greatest gift you have ever been given.

I'm telling you that when I opened my mind and heart up to that possibility, it changed everything. SURE I remember every day that XH betrayed me. It's a thought that drifts through my mind--but it drifts right back out. Most of the time I just feel like it was another life I lived and that when he cheated and left, I was reborn into a better life. Yes it took a few years to negotiate that and get used to it and it was a time of a lot of depression and anxiety, but I am so used to the new life now that I sometimes find it hard to remember exactly the old one.

I just think that if you allow yourself to say you know what? That relationship ran its course, and it was stifling me, and now I am free, you may shift your mindset and start seeing things as opportunities. It worked for me; hopefully it can help you.

More than anything you have to take her off the pedestal. If you're still awestruck by how this woman who used to be so good could turn so bad, maybe you need to consider that we are all human and none of these ex spouses were anywhere near as perfect as we made them out to be. I think a lot of us worshipped these people as heroes because we did not have enough self-esteem of our own, and our existence depended on their attention. Well you know what? She's messed up, my XH is messed up, they always were, they are now, they always will be, and if anyone deserves the pedestal, it is the person who stood by them when they went nuts and dealt with their crap, the person who had to become a survivor who eventually learns to thrive without them. THAT is the person you put on the pedestal, Tad. You.