Agree with andrew. It doesnt matter. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe she was dishonest with him about birth control. Who knows.
I would be willing to place money on the notion that having a newborn in their life is not going to bind them together. Not one bit. Nothing harder on an alcoholic then the demands of a newborn or toddler or preschooler. Bound to be lots of resentment and fights.
...from reading other stories, our lost lambs often re-invent themselves in odd ways.
I totally get this. I went through/am going through a similar process. And I think lots of us have here.
Funny how in many ways our journeys as LBS mirror those of WAS/WS...minus the cheating of course. But the other aspects, and just on a sort of time lag from the WAS/WS.
Originally Posted by AndrewP
.Also, I understand that it is "very" common for new relationships, especially those that don't have a strong foundation to have a baby to bind them together. Whether that actually works or not is a subject for debate.
So here's a thing...XH and OW were 'good friends' (in my book having some sort of EA/PA) for three years before XH left in October 2015.
Plus, pretty much one of the only things she ever said to me was when they were all about to start work one evening, and I was there too. There were a few of us (XH's work colleagues) all standing around, and somehow the topic of children came up. I remember her saying that she wanted to have 'lots and lots' of children. And the feeling I had was of being stabbed in the stomach. I knew that comment had been directed at me. I remember it like it was yesterday, it was such a strong feeling and so vivid.
That was in July 2013. So I reckon they'd been talking about these things.
Originally Posted by AndrewP
Can they, and do they fundamentally change who they are? Personally I doubt it. What does change though is how we see them from the perspective of distance and time. Also, many of our former partners have worn masks of a sort to be attractive to others.
I think we all do, in all honesty. And I agree with you about changing how we see people.
The thing that I think a lot of us found painful was the whole 'relationship rewrite' that the WAS/WS does. But we get to do the relationship rewrite as well I've come to understand. It just happens later, after theirs.
I tried to make mine as fair to both (all) parties as I could. Tried to see it from as many perspectives as I could. But perhaps that's not the best thing? Perhaps I should follow my own path more, to honour my own feelings more?
Originally Posted by AndrewP
Is the doting father the real him? You'll never know. And at this point, it doesn't matter.
Enjoy your new life and try to only look forward. I know it's hard.
Originally Posted by JujuB
Agree with andrew. It doesnt matter. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe she was dishonest with him about birth control. Who knows.
I have a feeling he was desperate for one. He'd never talked about it with me (maybe he thought I could mind read him?) and I think he talked about it with her, as part of the whole 'I'm so unhappy, my wife doesn't understand me' thing.
And that was part of the attraction between them, he thought he'd found his 'soul mate'. And she was flattered and dazzled by his attention (older, very successful, married man).
Originally Posted by JujuB
I would be willing to place money on the notion that having a newborn in their life is not going to bind them together. Not one bit. Nothing harder on an alcoholic then the demands of a newborn or toddler or preschooler. Bound to be lots of resentment and fights.
Not that it matters.
Well, their EA/PA started and flourished in *the most* unrealistic of circumstances. Incredibly successful world tour, where they stayed in luxury accommodation, had absolutely nothing that was everyday and humdrum to worry about. Travel and tickets? All sorted. Transport from the airport to whatever city centre hotel/apartment they were staying in? The driver was there, waiting for them. Press coverage? Yup. TV and radio interviews? Yup. No bills to worry about, no housework, no cooking, no washing.
All they had to worry about was the actual work itself, deciding what restaurant to eat in and what bar to drink in. And earning quite a lot of money in the process.
I've had a couple of days to think since I posted, and read your answers. And I guess what's actually behind what I was writing about was my thought that XH would somehow morph into the perfect partner/husband/father after having left.
Meaning that I had somehow held him back in some way for all those years we were M, caused him stress and ultimately caused his drinking and disrespectful behaviour. That I was responsible for it all.
The rational part of my brain says that it doesn't feel like my burden to carry. It also feels like a huge effort to keep pushing that feeling of guilt/responsibility back from me. But keep pushing it back I must.
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.
Interesting... My ex's mother was also the type that took on everything. Worked full time. Kept an immaculate home. Baked cakes for all her co workers. Helped to baby sit my son. My ex's father would disappear and work on his cars. I did not know their history (he left his family for a while when my ex was really young and came home) until my ex mil told me in secrecy. I never let my ex know. My ex FIL was not a alcoholic. He stayed away from it because he was an orphan due to alcoholic parents. But i wonder if he had that "dry drunk" personality and if ex MIL enabled that and my ex just witnessed it.
When my ex left me, i asked him what he was looking for and he told me someone like his mom. Told me i did not work full time or keep a spotless home.
Point being...my ex mil was a classic enabler and codependent. In every way.
My ex put his desires..(expensive seasons tickets to football games, luxury cars)over the needs of his family. My mom would also point out how selfish he was. I was always trying to rationalize with him. Get him to see my opinions and my my logic as well. I was right. Of course you dont buy a luxury car and seasons tickets when you have a baby on the way and you are living in an apartment. But it never mattered. Very frustrating to not be heard. Or tonnot matter to someone.
Thank you for your posts. When i read your posts, i see the dysfunction of my own sitch more. Most of us who post here are not dealing with typical marital issues due to universal male/female issues. Most of us are coping with the the aftermath of highly dysfunctional relationships with abusers and addicts and cheaters.
We know we r better off, but we are still trying to make sense and look back on clues and hints.
Sorry to hijack. I just see similarities and it helps me to cope with all of that gaslighting for so long.
I like reading your posts Juju, I see so many similarities (some of them really make me laugh) and it really does help bring even more distance and clarity.
The car thing totally reminded me of something I had forgotten, and it made me properly laugh - although at the time I remember feeling exasperated beyond belief.
So, XH always had a car. He needed one for his work, as he was usually working in different places and sometimes at strange times of day/night.
Actually, something has just sprung to mind: sometimes he'd use his car, sometimes not. I think it probably depended on whether he wanted to be drinking or not.
Anyway, he always managed to find reasonably good second hand ones. His last car had been BMW. At the very end of our M, when he was in full on weird mode, he needed a new car. And he came up with this genius plan. Apparently there had been a whole bunch of taxis made and then some law had changed, which meant that they couldn't be sold as taxis, but could still be sold for private use (basically as cars). I can't remember the details.
They were all in London, which is a five hour train journey, and an expensive one at that, from where we lived.
He wanted to go to London to buy one, and drive it back, and use it as his car.
Now, when he told me, I mentioned that he might have people constantly thinking he was actually a taxi and wanting to hail him, or just open the door and get into the back, especially if he was out on a Friday or Saturday. I'm not sure how other people might feel about this, but I know this would have annoyed me, no end.
Nothing, no reaction.
So I remember asking him how efficient they were, as cars. The drive from London to where we lived was maybe seven or eight hours, and fuel is super expensive here. Plus if he'd been driving around a lot, as he invariably needed to be, would it have been that efficient?
He really wanted one. Would not listen to any sort of rational train of thought about it, or even engage in any sort of discussion with me to explain why, nope.
So it escalated (on my part) into a meltdown, obviously.
I can laugh about it now. What a ridiculous situation to have been in. It was like, he'd decided something, presented it to me as final, and wasn't even interested in explaining how or why he'd got to that point. Just nothing, it was like I wasn't even there.
That was my relationship as well. He presented something as final. No logic. No practicality. It was just what he wanted. (Ex had a bmw too. He made sure it was manual, so i could not drive it. Very impractical in an area with tons of traffic. Not o mention, he had to purchase separate tires for the winter as the car could not drive in the snow... mmm and i leant him money for it. I was earning a lot less then him too. I was mad and complained but still allowed him to borrow money.)
When NG, asked me my opinion on something really big that did not concern me at all i was shocked. It felt really good.
I am being reminded now... how i did not want to take NGs advice on something he was actually right about. out of rebellion perhaps. I Thats not good. I need to learn to trust and be a partner more if I want things to work.
Sometimes its easy to copy what was done to you and do it to another person. Thats what i know now.
Ha ha ha...no. I think maybe because I was so confused by this seemingly out of the blue desire of his, and because I had such an over dramatic reaction to it : o)
It's probably one of the things he was complaining about when he said I was 'controlling'.
Now? If I was in the same situation? With what I know now? I'd hopefully be like, yeah, whatever, you go right ahead and do that. And keep right out of it.
So, as I've been reading about functioning alcoholics (basically, alcoholics) one of the common characteristics they share that's really jumped out and connected with me has been their inability to have a genuinely intimate relationships with their family members.
I now really feel that was so in my M, in the pit of my stomach. And that's a lot because of my R now - it feels like we really are companions. And looking back, I now see how much this was lacking in my M.
Following on from that train of thought - and this is me thinking about loud here - alcoholics can't have genuinely intimate relationships with their family members because they can't have that kind of relationship with themselves. They can't be honest with themselves about how dependent they are on alcohol and how important it is to them (denial).
I've also been reading about codependency. And man, it's not pretty. I think maybe that's whyI instinctively felt I had to wait until I was at a safe enough distance to dig further into it all. Anyway, this is where I'm at with it all.
As much as alcoholics are the way they are above (plus a lot more, obvs), codependents are the mirror image of that. Their life slowly becomes all about the alcoholic. They are pretty much completely dependent on the alcoholic and all the drama that ensues from that to fill their lives. Slowly there is less and less of them left in the R.
And how on earth can they have an intimate relationship with someone else when there ends up being so little of them there, in themselves? And what little there is of them, they can't even be honest with themselves about how dependent they are on the alcoholic. They can't even have an intimate relationship with themselves. So they are the mirror image of the alcoholic but for different reasons. They are a counterbalance if you like (and not in a good way).
Dishonesty and denial, lack of self, lack of self worth, lack of self esteem, distrust, manipulation, lack of intimacy, emptiness on both sides...I could go on. And cheating, multiple times, on his side.
So how do we make that better? Speaking for myself here, not the least bit interested in the alcoholic/addict. Do the opposite of that list above. Explore what those things are, what they mean, how they manifest themselves in your life and do the gosh darn opposite.
I tell ya, it wasn't easy to admit any of the stuff above. I've been thinking about it for a long time, and only really thinking about it in this way this past month or so. But there, I said it. And the world is still the same as it was yesterday and the day before.
The sky hasn't fallen in. The relief is intense. I feel lighter. It feels like I'm the other side of something.
Hey Focus... I have just come to these same realizations. In my case, the alcoholic is my dad but everything you say above resonants with me. I know exactly what you are saying. My whole life I wondered why my dad was so closed off.... now I see. My dad would never admit how dependent he was on alcohol until very recently. To be honest, I never realized the grip that alcohol had on him or how severe the physical and mental dependency is. Looking back, I can see the codependency this caused with my mom. Really unfortunate.
