You can have no way of presenting your image to others in ways you like. There is little control over it. What others think of you is their concern, what you think of you is much more important.
I recommend you cease being a pretzel for WH, he has little appreciation for you in this. The extra $ will be important for you in your future. You keep solving his issues and it backfires, if you do with a plan in mind, to document to get more time, to work to fuller custody that's one thing but to do so to appease is yet another. You give him control when you do that, he relishes your fear.
Please move those buttons out of press distance.
Each review you write shows more detachment.
Keep moving forwards.
V
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose. V 64, WAW
I'm working on it. My L asked me to try and discuss something regarding custody with him before our next court date. H has been so eerily civil and nice I decided to give it a shot. Of course Mr. Nice guy disappeared and the attacks resumed. I ended up biting, but then quickly released. We are getting no where. He is using custody as the only leverage to hang over me. That is the last thing that needs to be resolved but he is so outraged by what his legal financial responsibility is to me that he refuses to separate the custody issues from everything else. It [censored] because it is the kids who are hurting. All because he never thinks he should ever have to pay for anything.
I'm done. If I have to live with the present custody arrangement so be it, but the kids shouldn't have to suffer. 5 more years and then they will both be 18 and I won't have to negotiate with him at all anymore. I suffered an emotionally abusive M with him for 14 years--although I didn't realize what was happening, what's another 5 years.
40s 2teens M14Y BD-10/12/13 rec-1/14 BD2-5/14 rec2-9/14 EA disc-10/14 4/15-BD 3 and triangulation ensues Served with D6/15 MS forced to leave7/15 D agreement signed 8/16 final 5/17
I'm sorry this is such a drawn out and antagonistic process for you. Anyway to just completely let the lawyers handle everything?
Please don't live with something that is unacceptable to you regarding custody. I don't want him to bully you into giving up something that is as important as custody arrangement. I could be completely off base, but As long as you are not emotionally invested, he has little power to abuse emotionally.
I'm sorry this is such a drawn out and antagonistic process for you. Anyway to just completely let the lawyers handle everything?
Please don't live with something that is unacceptable to you regarding custody. I don't want him to bully you into giving up something that is as important as custody arrangement. I could be completely off base, but As long as you are not emotionally invested, he has little power to abuse emotionally.
Glad your still posting.
julie
You are so right in that I need to keep my emotional investment in check. I am good 99.7% of the time. But everytime I think I am passed it all I am reminded I still have work to do. WARNING: Rambling to follow. Thank you. Things have gotten better. Last court date the judge--who is now keen to his L's unorthodox and disrespectful tactics--intervened and things are finally moving forward. He even watched me as I walked passed him to leave court with my lawyer--in a strange way I have never seen before. Like he has seen me for the first time as someone strong and confident and he seemed a little sad. He usually refuses to look at me in public at all, so it struck me as odd, and yes I mind read.
He seems to have stopped fighting and is now so eager to negotiate custody and talk things out with me. He seeks me out.
He has been quiet, attentive, and we even walked to his car together during one of the kids games with OW watching. Can't really tell what is happening and I know better than to trust it.
Made her react a bit, she went out of her way to pull him aside for a conversation--even though he was trying to avoid her as he usually does in these situations. He avoids both of us.
We watched each other the whole time--her and I. I can't help it--it's like a train wreck. My curiosity keeps me wondering. What does he see in her? (money? desperation?) Is there any difference in his interaction with her than with me? (not really, looks like colleagues chatting--he seems disinterested and eager to get away) Man she gained a lot of weight in a short amount of time? (Hahaha--catty me can't help it). Holy Sh!@ she looks 4 mos preggers. OMG what does that mean if she is? (flash of panic that I couldn't quite rationalize at the moment of discovery).
My D called me out on staring. I need to stop. I am mostly ok. When I am not around them, I am better than ever. When I see just him I am better than ever. When I see just her I am better than ever. When I see them at the same time (never really together though because he keeps his distance still--until she decides she needs to mark her territory and makes a show of things) but still, when all three of us are in the same place--I can't stop trying to revisit that puzzle that doesn't make sense. It will never make sense. It is a Picasso put together by a man who does not see the world the way the rest of us do. It is a puzzle that I am better off not solving-because once I start seeing the world that way I know I have gone off the deep end.
And what does it mean if she is preggers? Well, it means absolutely nothing to me. He is already obligated to the support I am entitled to based on the financial formula that the judge laid out. If they don't get married, he's screwed with another dependent to support. If they do get married, she's screwed because she'll be stuck with someone who cannot manage finances and feels entitled to any money that crosses his path.
It means my kids will have a sibling which will affect them. D might be happy, she loves babies. S will be pissed and it will put more strain on his R with STBXH which is finally just now getting on track. I would need to prepare for that if my suspicions are true. But all in all--if he knocked her up it means difficult times for them, and absolutely nothing to me. And if he didn't--well that was a lot of head space I let them take up.
Basically, I dodged a bullet that OW decided to take for me thinking it was the prize. She is the Anne Boelyn in this situation.
She saved me. Yet, I still feel this--jealousy? Shame? Betrayal? It isn't heart break as much as ego bruise, I decided. I mean, I still mourn the loss of someone I loved who was never real. But the person with OW is not the person I loved--even if he looks and acts a lot like that person.And I know the truth. I read up on ASPD daily to remind me why I dodged a bullet. But the image of it still effects me. What everyone else thinks--the court of public opinion. That is where I am having difficulty detaching from at this point.
When we all have to be somewhere all together and everyone knows something but no one let's on what, and I don't know who is on whose side because everyone is so civil and phony. So I have to take a high road, knowing there is talk that I will never hear. Knowing everyone is watching what H and OW do and how I react. And I get distracted and it steals the excitement I should be feeling for my kids accomplishments and shining moments. I miss a goal that was scored. I sit where I don't have a good view during a moving up ceremony. I am not detached enough in these situations. I am angry she shows up--somethings she needs to be a part of because of her job, but a lot of it she really has no reason to be present and any decent mistress would avoid.
And I try to be friendly to all of my acquaintances even when they are standing right beside her--so I have to smile at her to in a way that looks natural, casual, non-sarcastic, unassuming. Just a--I am smiling because you are my kids teacher, parent of my kids friends, standing among the rest of the teachers and parents, who were also friends and neighbors and part of a community I was infiltrated in for the past 12 years of my life, as wife to a colleague, parent, and resident of the community. And now, here we all are--shaken up in a cup and thrown on a table and I don't quite think anyone won in this, but we all feel like someone should have for all that was at stake. So everyone is just standing around the table waiting to see.
And I am not detached in those situations. They aren't frequent anymore--but the past month with all of the end of year hullabaloo crammed in a bunch of these event in a short period of time. And now I have several months of peace until school starts again. The worst is over for now.
40s 2teens M14Y BD-10/12/13 rec-1/14 BD2-5/14 rec2-9/14 EA disc-10/14 4/15-BD 3 and triangulation ensues Served with D6/15 MS forced to leave7/15 D agreement signed 8/16 final 5/17
Yes, the long run is my blessing. The short run is a series of trials that I sometimes handle better than Other times. Honestly the first time I thought about the possibility of him having a kid that wasn't mine was unpleasant. Now I am almost hoping it's true because it might help me get my kids more of the time.
This community right here is a constant blessing. How could I have managed the last 2 1/2 years without you all.
40s 2teens M14Y BD-10/12/13 rec-1/14 BD2-5/14 rec2-9/14 EA disc-10/14 4/15-BD 3 and triangulation ensues Served with D6/15 MS forced to leave7/15 D agreement signed 8/16 final 5/17
But it's what we all are here for these days. Easpcially me, it not like I can save my m. The ow has her hooks deep and xh2 thinks she's a prize and she thinks he is.
It's is what it is and they aren't learning anything from what happened we are gaining insight and strength along with our healing. It's a time thing.
M 46 h54 Both married before T 11y Bd 2/14 I must see where ow leads! Ms 18 hs 26
I always follow your posts and I too believe that you dodged a bullet. You have a gift of beautiful children and self growth and now it's time to move forward and away from something so unhealthy. Sounds like you are doing great at that.
I went to a different beach every day this weekend with my son. The waves were actually rougher then usual for the N. Shore and warmer then usual for this time of year. South shore was freezing though, but kids never care... I did think of you though.
I remembered trying to surf when I was younger. . my friend brought me out to the second set of waves and then she got called back in by the life guard because she had a boogie board without wearing flippers I think? Anyway she told me she would find someone to borrow a pair from and would be right back and she never came back! I had no idea what to do. I just stayed out there waiting for her and literally crying and then eventually just braved it back.
I never tried again, but now would like to. Are you going again?
But it's what we all are here for these days. Easpcially me, it not like I can save my m. The ow has her hooks deep and xh2 thinks she's a prize and she thinks he is.
It's is what it is and they aren't learning anything from what happened we are gaining insight and strength along with our healing. It's a time thing.
Yes. You are right. I am feeling much better. Had some very positive interactions with him. Easy to do when I believe he is the one who lost the prize. And today I am feeling that way. I am happy. And that is something he really doesn't know how to be because for him everything is conditional. I think that might be a big thing that he really hates about me--I always know how to be happy even when I am sad, struggling, heartbroken. I went through a dark phase last year--the first time in my life that I couldn't figure out how to snap myself out of what I was feeling. But that is over and in the past. I learned from it. I am more understanding of people who can't snap themselves out of it now because I finally experienced that sort of psychological breakdown. Thank goodness it was only fleeting for me. I feel for the people who live that way always. I never understood it before. And the perspective here certainly helped me separate what was in my hands and what was out of my hands. I still get a little shell shocked thinking back. But I am in such a better place now I want to see my old coworkers (the good ones not the ones that were out to get me) to show them I am good again. Who I was last year isn't me. I am a changed person but not in a broken way, in a way that I am even more true to who I am then ever. My realization that people can be awful did not make me bitter and untrusting--it just made me learn to trust myself more than others, and to trust God when I am not sure if I can trust myself. I learned that I can love without giving my power away.
I am better. He didn't throw me away, he planted me. I never could have blossemed in that old life, and now i feel like I stand a chance.
40s 2teens M14Y BD-10/12/13 rec-1/14 BD2-5/14 rec2-9/14 EA disc-10/14 4/15-BD 3 and triangulation ensues Served with D6/15 MS forced to leave7/15 D agreement signed 8/16 final 5/17
