WH came back. Piecing. Past the 2 year mark ...

[25yearsmlc]

Blu

I will start with the anecdote I wrote earlier b/c I DO know how to use quotes and colors!




One - anecdote that may resonate. Years ago a friend was at a workshop with me. (The EE workshop as a matter of fact). Her name is Carol and she had lost a young child some months earlier. Yet she seemed sort of "at peace" for lack of a better phrase.

I was 6-7 months pregnant at the time, & Carol's loss was utterly terrifying to me.

I finally admitted that the idea of her beautiful life being "all ruined' by the loss of a young child was too much for me to comprehend. It was beyond my ken.

But Carol is one of those Zen people who seem to have such resilience and inner contentment that I just liked being around her. Yet I was so uncomfortable, I had to ask her how on earth she was dealing with it.

I said that to me, her loss would be like a beautiful painting that someone had thrown red paint on and now this painting, i.e. her "Life", could never be beautiful again. Not with that horrible stain.

So she turns and says "Oh I see life more like a tapestry. Up close you can see the stains and frayed threads, or you can see all the textures and variations woven in,

But when you step back you can still see that on the whole, it's quite beautiful."

Maybe your m is a tapestry, Blu.



So now let's look at your post...

[quote=BluWave]25,

Thank you again for your timely and thoughtful reply. (as you can see I still am terrible at the use of quotations) Okay so maybe I need to find this other Ted Talk. The one I saw highlights how common infidelity is.

I don't disagree, but here are 2 thoughts on this^^. First, I'm not sure if they count someone who has had 2+ A's as 2+ cheaters or as one, and

Secondly - a one night stand or a fling for a shorter time than your h had, counts the same as a long term repeat cheater.

I don't see that quite as black and white.



- I feel like this little girl who wants to believe in love, which perhaps has some very unrealsitic ideas interwoven in there ... then again, I know people that have what I consider to be a love/monogamy/respect that I DID have. I just don't anymore ...


how do you know what these other people have? I mean, honestly? I think you want a time machine to go back to what you had or think you had.

Dear God Blu if you do find a time machine, let me know.


Her research does show that. You are correct. It can be done. Our MC also told us that not everyone can get through this.

choice+ effort ^^^

All these years later and I still don't know if I am that person. I said for all those years that this was my only deal breaker ... and here I am. I am trying to convince myself of something that I never saw as possible.

this^^ resonates with me. I had boundaries and they were crossed, and I found DB. Maybe I just wanted a way to stay and not feel degraded or foolish.

OR maybe I was smart and loving (as a mother and wife) to put my ego & pride aside, to examine what really truly mattered to me and our family. To keep us intact.

I'm not sure I was right to stay back 10 years ago. Maybe I should have filed and started over at age 47 instead of 57, though there were financial benefits to my kids to staying m. (Discounting the possibility of me finding a great job or financially helpful new h)

I am not sure of my past choices, but I know that regretting them too much now will not help me or my kids.
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You tell me the H that I idealized is flawed. You are correct! I would say more than flawed tho. The behavior was extreme tho, wasn't it?


yes it was Blu. I am not going to minimize it. I relate. The fb posts of how HAPPY h is and how me met the "love of his life" are cruel behaviors I'd never ever have imagined h doing. If your h can explain it to me, I'm all ears.

Makes me grateful that h is in Alaska, so I don't have to deal with the "hi everyone!!" factor...

You are being very challenged.

Even my nonemotional, more logical, brain has trouble wrapping my mind around how a person can do what he did.

I have said these ^^ exact words to my T. She said to "stop putting a rational spin on irrational behavior."

Maybe there's an "in for a penny, in for a pound" mentality. ??


He lied to me for 8 mos, had an A with a "friend" and then picked up and left me for her for 10 mos. This was right after my father died.
During that time my bipolar teen went downhill in a severe way--running away, drugs--and I had to send her to treatment out of state for 1.5 years. It still blows my mind what I went through. How can you say you love a person and turn your back on them in that way???

if you know my "updated" story you will recall that I filed after h left for the tundra, just days after I was released from the ICU for a weird sudden neuro problem that has changed my life (though temporarily I'm pretty sure). It was terrifying and I was impaired. And my mom had died and last child was off to college and some other things happened so that I was at my weakest. And neediest.

D19 was a troubled teen, has been arrested and assaulted since...

So this&^^^^^^ sadly resonates with me a lot.


So that is not just a flaw, is it? Okay so he is back, has all the remorse, etc, but I still go back to "but you did THAT to me, to us, to the kids," and it doesn't go away.


why won't it go away? I'm asking.


So even though we have worked through things, I have come to realize that I don't have the bandwidth to handle/accept those other (smaller) "flaws." Basically I am still a bitter, scorned woman. Yup. That's me.

Sorry Blu but I'm still not clear on this^^^. Are they small flaws or big faults or what?

I love the analogy of bandwidth, but are you saying that you cannot allow this many frays on the tapestry or what?

As for bitter scorned woman...OKAY so if you leave him, what will you be? I mean down the road

do you envision a life of peace and contentment or what? Are you like Diane Keaton on Something's Gotta Give, where she lives on the ocean in a beautiful home and writes,

or are you making sure your kids know it's still their dads' fault or what?

I do think fleshing out some details of what you envision is a good idea for you.

Know what your options really truly are, as a day to day life.


- I can't afford my lifestyle, community, kids' schools, and what I provide for my kids if I were alone. I also know it would tear them up if we split. I watched it happen! So basically I am stuck right now anyhow.


IF THIS^^^ IS TRUE - then what's the question?



Is my M a tapestry? I don't know. I can't see clearly. I think I could see both perspectives when I shift my thinking a bit. Like I said, I am not in a good place. His mother died a few weeks ago. I recall you saying how when your H's mother died, that something changed. ...

actually both our mom's died a few years apart. H's mom got sick and died after we recon and we stopped piecing. She was not a big part of our lives. She was an emotionally unstable but kindly woman, whom h loved but he also did not seem to want to live near her...

When my mom died, something shifted in ME and I knew another "let's go to Alaska" ordeal was not something I had in me. It was supposed to be "my turn" now in life. All those moves for h and none for me...I could not do it again and face my kids OR myself.

Life is short. Losing my mom was a big fat deal to me. Horrible. It reminded me of that brutally. I could not subsume myself into h's dreams and discontentment and chronic restlessness anymore. I loved him, I was committed and loyal to him and our m, but a part of me would die and not return if I went, again. Still, I would not have filed for div, had he not betrayed me when I was sick.

BUT my h wasn't like your h is acting. My H was behaving exactly the same as he had been a decade earlier like all the "growth" had been fake or he simply went backwards...


I loved my MIL so, so much. She was a wonderful grandmother. And as different as we were on the surface, we are also pretty fierce in the same ways. Her H did the exact same sequence of events as my H, just several years before--had an A with a friend, left her for the A, was severely depressed, came back--and her son (my H) was her main support! Then this jackhole does the same thing to me just 5 or so years later. Crazy? Or expected? I don't even know.

I'm tired of hearing about the cliched parallels between spouses & parents. It does not have to be!

My h's bff Dan, is among the best husband's I know. Dan had 3 sisters and they had a terrible father figure. Dan's dad left the family to marry pregnant OW.

Dan's was 9 watched his dad marry OW and then saw that marriage end, Shockingly. Of course now there was a half brother for Dan, as well.

then his dad married wife #3. He treated his third wife in a crusty mediocre way b/c he refused to look within and change HIM and

so W#3 left him - 17 years after the first marriage and family broke apart.

Dan's role model %ucked. But overall, I see Dan as the best h and father I know. I love his w too. Long time friends of h and mine.

Point is, the cycle can be broken.

FWIW, Dan and his w have 3 grown kids all happily married. Their 2nd grandchild is on the way. They all seem stable and happy and when I saw the photo of their family at the ocean, 3 generations

I and realized where Dan came from in terms of HIS role model, the cycle he broke AND the legacy he created,

I'm awed, and envious.

How about you?





more later