Wow, Treasur, this is what happens when I take a break from the forum for a few days. I see where you posted on my thread earlier today, and with all this sh1tstorm going on in your life, I'm even more appreciative of you taking the time to encourage me! I'm so sorry I haven't been here to chime in on this discussion. And don't forget to add me to the girls get-together! Seriously, my heart breaks for you. I see so much of my own self-talk in your words. The Vanishers are so cold and heartless- but I do think it's easier to let go of them in the long run. I've kind of been back and forth with one, and I do believe it hurts less, without the constant push and pull of hope. You hang in there in your cottage by the sea. We can do hard things. We will get to MEH. XOXO
M-60 H-51 M-14 years BD 12/26/16 S 1/1/17
"First the pain, then the rising." Glennon Doyle Melton
I suppose it is almost biological, like being cast out from a tribe. Having to accept that with no reason given - because my H has never said anything about my supposed failings or even why he wanted a D, still hasn't - after 18 years, you are nothing to someone suddenly. That someone who loved me suddenly became someone who did not care if they ever saw my face again, if I was alive or dead.
It is incomprehensible to me. I think it is probably the cruelest thing you could do to another human being, and the person who did it was the closest person to me in the world. My H and my best friend.
I can get to 'meh' on the limbo and the madness of it. I can force myself to not hide from reality. I can choose not to let the cruelty become self-cruelty because I truly do know that nothing I have done caused or warranted it. I don't know if I will ever get to 'meh' writ large.
Me: 53 H:38 T:20 M:14 BD ILYB etc 10/15, H diagnosed severe depression S 1/16 PA 4/16 H filed 1/17
YES YOU WILL. So will I. Because we are strong, and lovable, and capable, and beautiful. And although we enjoy the men in our life, we DO NOT NEED THEM. And they can be replaced. Don't ever, ever forget that. HAN........ HOPE.
Holding space for you, too, tonight.
Lord, I hope there's enough room in my living room. But if not, there's ALWAYS enough room in my heart.
M-60 H-51 M-14 years BD 12/26/16 S 1/1/17
"First the pain, then the rising." Glennon Doyle Melton
I guess some days it is just hard to accept that someone you love does not love or respect you at all. That you skipped from the centre of someone's world to being nothing without an interim step. That while I have yearned and grieved and talked to him in my head and curled up with his old dressing gown when I couldn't sleep...he hasn't thought about me at all and wants a future that has no trace of me in it
Me: 53 H:38 T:20 M:14 BD ILYB etc 10/15, H diagnosed severe depression S 1/16 PA 4/16 H filed 1/17
Treasur that's a big part of why I was so weepy yesterday. I'm ready to let go, I feel the finality of it, but it hurts like hell that a person I thought was my best friend for more than 20 years no longer cares if I live or die, doesn't worry about me, doesn't mind casting me about in the world alone. I don't know how that hurt, which I hope is one of the last, goes away.
Hi OwnIt, maybe we're at similar points. I've found with letting go that it goes in steps, but at each step I grieve again a little bit. I've gone backwards the last couple of days. The house is a mess. I'm a mess. Not sleeping or eating again. Flashbacks. Even the cat is ignored.
For me it's because I had to push him to force myself to test - and see - what was BS. And it hurt to have to see that his real priority is to be a free man, or free of our M anyway. That his talk of conversation and mess and salvaging were about excuses without remorse, and that he still has no interest or care for how much he has wounded me and destroyed the life I thought I had. He thinks his behaviour has been 'far from good'...we'd use different words. In his head, it is an act of post-D tidying up and he has no interest in seeing me afterwards. Ever. He said that was because he presumed I would never forgive him and wouldn't want to...but actually I could hear that was BS, he just doesn't want to. For him, me and our M are now distant history.
I'm proud that I didn't buy the BS. I'm proud that I was brave enough to look at the painful truth. I'm proud that I changed course, detached, cut through the BS, said no and came up with a solution that keeps it going through the Ls without contact. I'm proud that I didn't scream or cry. I'm really proud that I ignored the fake flicker of what I longed for and protected myself from being manipulated by it.
And I'm a bit angry that I spent yesterday dealing with admin that is protecting me but also tidying up his mess. I had to because he can't be trusted but still it seems unfair. It hurt me more to close down an old bank account than it did to take my rings off, funnily enough.
The harsh truth that we all have to balance is that the person we loved was real, and they loved us. But it is also true that the MLC version is a dark part of them too, their shadow. Part of the H I loved and trusted is also capable of extraordinary cruelty and spite and pompous entitlement. Both things are true. A friend of ours, who really loved my H, kept trying to reach out to him for well over a year. He ignored her too. She said that she had wondered if the friend she knew was ever real. Lisa isn't given to deep analysis; she's a pretty straightforward horsy country girl. She said "I think it's as if being with you brought out his best self because he had to be good enough for you. Left in charge of his own life, maybe this is the real him that he would have been if he'd never met you and it isn't a great person, is it? He's not making a great job of his life. Like the difference between wearing a suit for work and what you look like in your old torn sweatpants. Maybe he was never good enough for you, or as my friend. Neither of us would like or trust him if we met him now, would we?" There is maybe something in that. It fits the MLC idea that someone goes back to (ideally) move forwards.
I've been very tough with my reflections looking back, as I'm sure you have. Could I honestly have seen this coming? Really, I couldn't and everyone who knew him was as shocked as me. Did I love a fake? I don't think so, no-one can fake for almost two decades, but maybe I got the best of him not the dark bits. Was marrying him a mistake? Maybe, but I wouldn't wish a moment of those years away and I didn't rush into it, we'd been together for 6 years. Was it the age difference? Maybe him being only 18 when we met encouraged me to believe his FOO fractured bits, and I knew they were there, would strengthen naturally as he got older. Maybe it meant that he tied his ship to mine before he had time to design his own. Having said that, I honestly believe that the extraordinary strength of love was shared for almost two decades; I didn't imagine it and it was mutual. Even now, I can close my eyes and remember the delight on his face just because I existed and vice versa. If we hadn't got together, I think he would have had a breakdown in his 20s and be as he is now. Would that have been better or worse? Who knows. Less to damage in some ways, but less maturity or life experience to use to recover.
I think letting go and turning away are different feelings. The finality of turning away feels big. I have spent well over a year, in the face of contrary evidence, hoping that my H's psychiatric treatment would bring him out of the self-destructive fog. Partly because I wanted to believe that he would get better and return to reality. Partly because I was so overwhelmed by the grief of losing my parents too that I was frozen and couldn't call on logic in the way I usually do. Logic screams - whether I like it or not - that my H is currently a damaged toxic child who will hurt himself, me and other people without even noticing. Inviting that into one's life is self-abuse and D is the last step in self-protection. If he ever reaches a point when he returns to being an emotionally-balanced adult - and it could take years and incur much more damage to himself and others - he will need to make contact with me as part of his own healing. And I trust myself enough to know that I will know the difference between that man and the one in play now. It wouldn't be hard to see.
But I also have to move forward from here, rather than his 'move on', assuming that I will never see that because it may never happen. I need to move forward with grace and part of that is not robbing myself of my memories of two decades of my own life. I hope I will be deeply loved again before I die. I know how rare and special it is to be cherished for who you are, and I can't regret that experience.
Me: 53 H:38 T:20 M:14 BD ILYB etc 10/15, H diagnosed severe depression S 1/16 PA 4/16 H filed 1/17
I've been musing this morning about D, what it really means to me and the messages in my head about it.
I never planned to get married. It wasn't part of my life plan and I never did that 'imagining my dress' thing as a young girl. I wasn't against M and my parents had a pretty good long one, I just was more interested on other things. I turned down 3 proposals in my 20s. Lived with someone for about 18 months, nice man for not for me. My H and I lived together for 6 years before we got married and I was happy with that. We shared finances and a home, but I didn't plan for us to be married, partly because of the age difference. When he asked me, it was a surprise but I did have to think hard about it because I wasn't sure what it meant to me. I did know that I'm someone who feels strongly about honouring my word though, even though I wasn't a person of faith then so I saw it differently. I think if I'm honest I married my H because I knew I loved him and it mattered to him.
What changed was that when we got married, I was blown away to realise that it did feel different and that I really liked it. It felt as if we were really on the same team, as if it added something to how we were together. The not so good side of that, with hindsight, is that over time I invested more care in him and we, and let me drop over the edge sometimes. To be fair, I think he did the same. The We became too important, and that made it fragile because it stopped us challenging how things were and our own needs.
And D? I hate being turned into a cliche of the middle-aged woman whose H ran off with a younger blonde. I hate the D process and the paperwork and the untangling of stuff. I hate the chaos of how it has happened with those lovely MLC spins. I hate the fact that I don't know why I'm being divorced, or how my best friend turned into someone who would choose to destroy my life with no apparent sign of regret or sorrow. I'm going to hate ticking divorced on boxes. But I've decided to keep my double-barrelled surname because it is a reflection of MY life journey so far and how I got to here. My H was a big part of shaping a third of my life so far and that feels like a reality not to hide from. I'm a bit scared of the short-term financial pressures, but less about the medium-term. I'm lonely sometimes, but that is because I miss my best friend and our team and the uniqueness of him, rather than being lonely as such. I quite like living alone and I really like not having to do some of the 'wifely' domestic stuff. I suppose I just miss looking to my left and seeing him beside me.
Do I think our M was a mistake? No. Do I think I tried my best to honour the promise I made to my H to be on his team? Yes. Do I feel like a failure because I'll be a divorced woman? No. Wouldn't see anyone else that way, so I don't feel that way about me either. Would it have been my first choice after 18 years? No. Was it a choice made for me? Yes. Does it hurt that the signs are that my H will get married again pretty soon after our D is finalised and that's a big driver for him? Yup, that hurts like hell, that me/18 years wasn't worth even a conversation compared to a year of OW. That obviously he thinks he can make the kind of loving commitment now to someone else that he didn't honour with me. Probably not a smart choice by either of them, being objective, but not my circus etc. Still a knife in the guts though because it makes it look like in his head I was the problem, not his actions or mental health or lack of commitment or effort...that he can 'do' great H in future but apparently not for me even after 18 years. He might be right...nah, probably not, he's still pretty broken.
What will this awful process that I never would have chosen give me? The biggest short-term gain is severing any link with his self-destruction and who he is now that hurts me. Everything from money to having to contact him at all. It is a finite process with an eventual end point unlike MLC!
It will make it easier to protect myself from the impact of his behaviour. It will make it easier for me to honestly grieve for the man I lost without being horrified by the ghastly version of a man he is now. Anything else? I don't know. Having lost my parents too, and having no kids, I suppose I do feel as if I don't sit in the centre of anyone else's life, as if I don't deeply matter to anyone. I feel as if I have lost all the witnesses and cheerleaders for the truth of my own history and who I am, that I have no one to say "do you remember when...?" with. On the flip side, it also means I have no obligations at all. I could leave the country, take up yak breeding, end my life or risk it jumping out of a plane without having to consider anyone else's needs or expectations. It is a very stark kind of freedom, but it is still freedom isn't it? No one to care but also no one to be effected. Odd feeling. It may not stay that way, but it is how it is right now.
Me: 53 H:38 T:20 M:14 BD ILYB etc 10/15, H diagnosed severe depression S 1/16 PA 4/16 H filed 1/17
Odd. STBXH just called a few mins ago. Somehow I knew it was him, didn't pick up & he didn't leave a message. Probably an accidental 'fat finger' call. Will do nothing.
Have been reading posts by LouR this morning, and feeling inspired by her calm, tough, optimistic focus on making a new life for herself after her MLC H blew up her old one. Thanks to her, that's my mental focus for today
Me: 53 H:38 T:20 M:14 BD ILYB etc 10/15, H diagnosed severe depression S 1/16 PA 4/16 H filed 1/17
