Divorce because I betrayed her trust - PART 7

[DaB35]

2 - XW

XW’s upbringing has given her a very binary view of the world. It’s X or Y. There is never any grey middle ground. A strict religious childhood has caused her to have a guilt complex and also severe Imposter Syndrome in all aspects of her life, and also feeling obliged to please others and help out to the extent that she never said no.

As an example, growing up her family had no TV, because her mum admitted that at the time she wanted to be ‘the most Christian’ in the town they lived in – there was apparently competition amongst mums in some parts of the UK in the mid80s! - and so banned TV in the house. XW would tell stories of hysterically devout schoolteachers admonishing her publicly in the playground for kissing a boyfriend on the cheek when she was in junior school; her alcoholic gran verbally abusing them when she would visit the family home to take care of her and her siblings whilst her parents were away on holiday. Subsequently, both XW and her sister have regularly expressed feeling guilty over having sex full stop, even in their 30s.

She’d be overwhelmed, inconvenienced, and would then grumble to me all the time about how her friends may have taken advantage of her, or let her down somehow. Lots of examples: we’d always be the ones travelling to her friends’ houses. They’d hardly ever visit us, and when we’d try to organise something at our house, they’d usually drop out or cancel. One of her closest friends flatly refused to pay for her bridesmaid dress, even though at the time she was earning more than XW. XW paid for the dress out of our planned wedding fund, and the friend never paid her back. She is still hurt by that as she brought it up in the years after our wedding. Her brother and his wife don’t drive, so when we would visit her parents 300 miles away, we’d of course have to take a detour to pick them up. That is fine in and of itself, but XW would always moan to me privately that they never offered to pay for our fuel etc.

She is also a bit of a sheep, in that peer pressure really gets to her. At Uni (before I knew her) she was a heavy party animal, boasting of drinking people under the table, vomiting after a night out, smoking, and so on. Likely a rebellion against her more straitlaced younger years. Even one of her Uni mates said after we got married, “you’ve become really boring now” and I always felt that was a slight dig at me because I was teetotal (for no other reason than simply choice) and XW had ‘calmed down’ somewhat from being with me. But this was precisely one thing she loved. “He levels me out,” she’d say happily to her friends and colleagues and would hold my hand and smile at me as she said it.

When we were together, she’d smoke still when socialising without me, even though she’d say she’d given up. I remember us going to a friend’s wedding and when a few people she was talking to went outside for a smoke, she just abandoned me and went out with them for half an hour. I had some friends to talk to, but I was still upset. As usual, I didn’t say anything about how upset I was and supressed it. It annoyed me that she was always saying “I’ve quit” when actually she would go back whenever she felt stressed or had a few drinks, and was surrounded by several others doing it. She would have girly nights with work colleagues and openly admit that she smoked. Again, I never said anything, because if I did pick her up on something she’d always come back with, “Well it’s my life, I can do what I <expletive> want.” Slightly immature response but there we go. If she was the only person in a room wanting to smoke, she wouldn’t do it. If she is indeed rebelling, I wonder who she’s rebelling against being in her 30s.

XW was always proud of saying she didn’t want kids. She’d proclaim to everyone and joke, “I’m too selfish. I like my own time. I like doing things on my own terms. I like being an aunty. That’s enough.” During our S she suddenly brought up the topic of kids. She was resentful and turned it onto me. “You were always so against having kids I went along with it.” Then, “What would you say if I had said I wanted to have a baby?” I have a very strong suspicion that XW’s sister has planted this thought in her head. XW’s sister has always been goading her to become a mum. Perhaps she wants to be an aunty too. Every time XW’s sister would ring and if XW happened to say “I feel a bit ill,” without fail every time her sister’s response was, “Are you pregnant?” This would frustrate me immensely (but due to NGS I never brought the subject up with XW). At the very start of S, XW lived with her sister for a month. Then in June, back at our house, she suddenly brought up the idea of being a parent. I don’t think that was a coincidence.

I’ve mentioned this before – I’ve always felt XW’s sister has a degree of control over her. Always telling her what to wear, eat, where to live, what to say, what to do. XW told me when she was younger she had short hair and was a bit of a tomboy. She wouldn’t wear ‘girly’ clothes, instead opting for loose fitting stuff. Her sister was embarrassed by her to the point that she’d introduce her to her own friends as ‘her other brother’. When I first met her (XW and I had dated for about a month) she was so rude to XW in front of her entire family and me. They were talking about moving home, and when XW’s mum asked her how her job was going, her sister suddenly turned to XW and laid into her for five minutes, pointing at her and swearing (in front of her 2 year old) saying how she “didn’t have a proper job” and “shouldn’t just be working a few hours a week” and “needed to pull her socks up and sort her career out”. She was literally shouting. I remember that because it was so shocking. It's like she still saw XW as a little 10-yr old girl who didn't know what she was doing.

The most worrying things were (a) XW was so timid and was meekly justifying her choices yet agreeing with this onslaught, (b) that one sibling would speak to another like that at all, let alone in front of a room full of people including a new boyfriend and (c) that her parents said nothing and made no effort to defend her.

XW’s sister has had very little control in her life. She got married in her early twenties and apparently lots of things had been decided for her. She's moved around the country only because her H is furthering his career. She would constantly say there are lots of things she would do differently if she had more of a say on her wedding. She therefore took over a lot of our wedding plans, and XW let her do it. She even made XW change her mind about the bridesmaids’ dress colour, and not an insubstantial one (dark green to pink), mainly because her sister liked a different, more expensive type of dress instead, whereas XW preferred the original green ones, but just went along with it, again aiming to please. Cue lots of other bridesmaids returning items, ordering again, returning again because the sizing scheme was different for this retailer compared to the old one, and lots of grumbling!

XW always looks up to her sister and I’ve never known why. She is aggressive, dismissive, humourless, overly animated which is extremely tiring, loud, manipulative, and never sticks at anything she’s good at. She set up an award winning business and quit within a year because she “got bored”. She spent over 10k on a new musical instrument and doesn’t play it - it’s just an ornament in her house now. She has lots of talent in various fields but just sits on it. Yet XW seems to idolise her but she is the more creative one and genuinely furthers her skills which I was only too glad to support. Apparently when they were younger her sister was stunning and all the boys at school chased after her, whereas XW never got a look in. I never saw it myself. XW is WAY better looking and has a much more attractive personality.

So, me putting two innocent pics of XW’s sister in a chat with one of the women I was sexting online was due to passive aggression. I felt frustrated at her for the way she’d treated XW and her general demeanour, so it was like taking her down a peg or two. It felt like I was scoring points off her. Massively immature, yes. It was stupid to do. But in discovering this, XW naturally felt it was because I felt attracted to her sister more than her. Absolutely not the case. I dislike her, and have always been quite guarded around her ever since I first met her when she laid into XW.

Again, something else I’ve mentioned is that perhaps XW felt pressured to get married. Her parents were married at 18 and her sister at 22. It was a BIG deal for her to get married before she turned 30. She brought up the matter MANY times. My sister got married at 31. It was never brought up in any conversation. My parents got married in their 30s – no harm done.

So, contradictory would be a good word here.

3 - US

I felt I was not a 100% worthy H for XW. I felt I couldn’t open up to her about my problems, or explain that she’d upset me, or that I was feeling depressed. One crucial thing was that XW has copied her sister with regard to this – being very dismissive of mental illness, even though she has acknowledged to me that there is “a history of mental illness” in her family. She and her sister adopt a “stop feeling sorry for yourself, get on with it, stop moping about” stance. This is extremely unhelpful for someone who is depressed as it shames them even more and makes them feel worse. So I never brought up my issues with her because I feared she’d react like that.

My regret is when she discovered everything she said, “I expect you to move out and take all your clothes. I don’t want any of your clothes in the house when I come back.” And I just did as I was told. Weak. So weak. Also, during the D process I had no choice but to speak to certain people along the way because I dealt with all the paperwork for the house, and all the accounts etc. were in my name only, so they wouldn’t speak to XW. I didn’t want to do it but had no choice. When really, I should have put my foot down and said, effectively, “No, I’m not going to help in any way and I’m not moving out. Here are the passwords. Do it yourself.”

Some of you know that she decided within 24hrs to separate and then D. I have always felt that when it comes to a long term R, if one partner finds the other has done something very wrong or very hurtful, to simply throw it away immediately suggests that the R is a one-size-fits-all and they could be with anyone. The partner is expendable and doesn’t matter. I tried to explain this to XW but of course logic was never on her menu, and I get that.

This is not to say we didn’t have happy times. We would laugh every day, absolutely. We made each other laugh. We had similar tastes in music, TV, films. We were good at pop culture references (think quotes from TV shows applied to certain real-life situations). We cooked together. We liked similar food. We both liked animals and nature.

We both enjoyed cuddling on the sofa. We support similar things charity-wise. There were so many positives about our M and R. I just wish I was brave enough to open up to her, and wish that we took MC. I also wish I found DB earlier.

NOW
I do not have an addiction. My posture is now better from yoga and the gym. My psoriasis has gone. I feel better about my body. I have self-worth. My skin is better. I walk taller, more confidently. I am actively networking with regard to my main hobby. I have new hobbies too.

I speak to friends; I reach out to them first now. I validate in conversations more. I feel closer to my parents and sister. I make efforts to keep conversations going rather than dwindling. I say yes to work nights out when invited; I make an effort, wearing smart waistcoats etc., and have a good time. I go places alone. I know I can spend five minutes scrolling through Netflix to decide what to watch without being fearful of getting shouted at for taking to long to choose something.

This was after 6 months of therapy. Absolutely worth it. I am excited about the present. I do look back sometimes. I miss XW but it is not a searing pain. It’s more frustration and remorse. But, I am a lighthouse. I am having a picnic. I’m just getting on with it.

If you got this far, thanks!