Heavens above, I'm so glad it's not just me that feels this way. They're welcome to each other: a drunk, and a young girl.
Exactly, focus! I agree with Andrew, too, in that in my case, the OW did me a favor by taking XH off my hands. I was drowning and didn't even realize it. I was so far from the person I had been when he and I first met...
Yes, I think this too. Slowly drained and very gradually overwhelmed from the many years of XH's behaviour and his refusal to take my point of view into account, or even just begin to consider my point of view. My mum described him as selfish.
I now understand that was denial on his part. And denial runs especially high for functioning alcoholics because outwardly, their lives don't seem to be affected by the amount that they drink. So they don't believe there's an issue.
And I think that denial (or from my perspective: failure to even consider my point of view) led me instinctively to not believe/trust that I could rely on him.
Originally Posted by Dawn70
...and the person I really liked (I liked myself a lot when he and I first met)
I don't think I really knew who I was when we had met. I maybe had an inkling, but my growing lessened and lessened, until it stopped and maybe even went into reverse.
Makes me sound like I was a victim and he was to blame. I was just as responsible. I should have looked after my own growth.
Now, it's taken me 18 years and a lot of pain to get to this kind of understanding and clarity. I'm also 48 years old and have lived a life (been through a lot).
Originally Posted by Dawn70
and so, though I didn't see it in the initial moments/days/weeks after BD, it did become abundantly clear later. Now, while I'd like to do some sort of physical harm to OW, just mainly because she made me look stupid, I really am just sitting back and waiting for the other shoe to drop and for him to realize that his life is not nearly as perfect with her as he thinks it will be so that I can get my "I told you so" in there and move on. There is no such thing as a perfect relationship and I know him well enough to know that she will be like I was in the beginning and be tolerant of his many issues that he refuses to deal with, but she'll grow weary of them and start to buck him just like I did and it will go down the same path that we did,
I *think* what might happen is what I saw between his mum and dad and also essentially what happened between us too. His mum did everything to do with the house, as well as work full time. She also ran a yearly festival. His dad worked, went to the pub and drank (and also, I believe, was not averse to kissing other women - and we're not talking about a friendly peck on the cheek here). He had nothing to do with the organisation and running of the house and they had three children.
My outlook was along the lines of: you do everything you need to do to sort out your day to day living (work, housework, pay bills, etc). and then you have fun with the time you have left. XH seemed to have had a different set of priorities entirely, one where the fun always came first to the cost of everything else.
I remember walking to work one day (this must have been about 2002 or 2003), trying to understand where the niggling feeling I had was coming from. There was something really important about the date it was that day. And then the penny dropped: it was the deadline for submitting tax returns for self employed people. I called my XH up. I woke him up (I think it was about 11.30am to 12.00 noon and he had probably been out the night before) and reminded him of the date and suggested he get in touch with his accountant to see if he could fit him in at the last minute. He sounded fed up, said he was going to go back to sleep and would just pay the fine for submitting his return late. I lost the plot a bit and remember getting really annoyed.
Funny how little some things change: after he left his car insurance was up (I knew because all his post was still coming to my house and I knew the name of his insurance company). He left it all to the very last minute, and his mum ended up sorting it out for him, which included panicked text messages to me to try and get me to help her.
So, denial plus that sort of level of selfishness and self absorption, and I'm not sure what way things are going to go for XH/OW. Who knows? Who cares.
Originally Posted by Dawn70
...because once a cheater, always a cheater. He cheated with her, he'll cheat on her. I know I have said this before, but he was married to his first wife for almost 17 years. He was married to me for about half of that....about 9 years. So, at this rate, his little skank can expect a good 4 1/2 years. They are already 2 years into marriage. And, by all accounts, while he's acting all happy and sh!t, his health is suffering far more than it did near the end of our relationship. He wanted to blame me for all sorts of stuff including a pretty significant weight gain he had because he was depressed (my fault, according to him), but he's actually gained even more weight since he's been married to her.
Anyway, sorry for the hijack, doodler.............I got off on a tangent there. LOL
I'm pretty sure he was going out with someone else when we met. And he just sort of sidelined her/cheated on her. Which is pretty much what happened to me all those years later, although the fact of being M made things a little more complicated, legally anyway.
I don't think he sorted any of it out. I have a feeling he just took a sidestep right into his new life, like he did at the time we first met. I dealt with sorting out his things and arranging to get them back to him, his mum and sister picked everything up. I reckon his mum suggested the D to him (after their child was born) and sorted out all the D paperwork for him.
Thinking about these things and piecing them together in different ways also helps me get a greater and greater distance from it all, and to carry on moving in the opposite direction.
I've too much growing in my own life to do. I'm making some plans for moving my business forward another bit next year. This past year has been fantastic, I've put a lot of energy and imagination into it. And (I wasn't expecting this at all) other people have really noticed and are commenting a lot about it. The good vibe I always try to find when I'm working on it all is paying off in spades.
I've also put all the passion, love and positivity I could find in myself into my R with my Wonderful Man. I absolutely love what we have together, it's very gentle as well as being incredibly loving and passionate. I'm trying to look after it all with as much love and care as I can.
