Ebb & Flow

[spitfire23]

Hello Hope,
I am so sorry you are going through all this. I also thought that the two of you would make it. There was an important piece missing in your journey: the truth. I know EXACTLY how you feel as I have been in your shoes. It is very difficult, no impossible, to work on a relationship when you don't have an accurate picture of what is really going on in the situation. Hope, your H is a coward. You deserve much better. He is emotionally underdeveloped and at this point in his life, he does not seem willing to face that or work on it to improve.

Because your emotions are so raw at this point, I caution you to be very careful in your discussion with him. He appears to already be backtracking on some of the things he has told you. Typical. One of the things I think these kinds of people go through is they get so overwhelmed with all the lying that they feel trapped. Your H probably spilled his story to you for 2 reasons. One, to try and lift his guilt and make himself feel better (He's been carrying it around a long time.) Two, to horrify you so completely that he knew you would let go and give up. I went through this myself 2 years ago. Guess what happened when your H came clean to you? The guilt did not go away like he had hoped. Do you know why? Because you can't unburden yourself by placing your burden on to someone else. His guilt will never go away until he deals with his own demons, preferrably with a professional. And what happened when he figured out that his guilt was still there? He lashed out at you. He told you he hated you. He told you he hadn't loved you in a long time. He blamed you for his unhappiness. You have heard this before but it is true. This is not about you. He has personal issues that he needs to deal with and my guess is that they were there long before 9/11.

Reason number two seems to have worked. You are horrified and rightly so. Typical of a coward. Force someone else to make the decision so I don't have to do it. I know you do not want this divorce. You are right in making him have to do the work for it. Do not make it easy on him. But, be very careful Hope. You are still highly emotional about all of this and it may cloud your thinking. I know I was not able to see a lot of things until I moved out of the highly emotional state. You have invested 15 years into this marriage. Remember that. Also, remember that your H will want to fix this in the quickest and easiest way possible. Do you know why? Telling you the ugly truth didn't ease his guilt. Maybe if he severs all legal ties with you then his guilt will go away.....NOT!!! He just doesn't know that yet.

I do know how badly you feel. I do know how devastating it is to find out that your life was not what you had thought it was. Please keep in mind that you are not to blame for not having seen all this going on in your life. You are not stupid. You were DECEIVED. And you were deceived by someone who is probably a master at it...who has probably been deceiving himself and others for most of his life.

One of the things I struggled with for a long time is why did my H ever want to be with me in the first place? I'm a good person. I do the right thing. I try to live my life in a moral and caring way. I think you are all of these things, also. It seems to me to happen so often that these troubled souls latch on to people like us in an attempt to pull themselves up, to make themselves feel better. To cover up the lives they really lead. Don't blame yourself. Don't allow this experience to make you bitter. Continue to be the good person that you are.

You have a long, difficult journey ahead of you. Please check in and let me know how you are doing. Spend the next couple of days getting your ducks in a row. You H is going to expect you to be the sweet, gullible Hope that he has deceived for so long. He will not be prepared for a composed, informed Hope. He may react angrily when he realizes that you will stand up for yourself. Do not react emotionally. Do not waiver. If it gets ugly, stop the meeting. You can have an attorney do your negotiating, if necesssary. It doesn't have to be that way, but do not get into any huge fights. Call a timeout and maybe suggest that you meet again after a week or so to cool off. This will be to your advantage. And it may take 3 or 4 meetings to accomplish.

I wish you well, Hope. Please keep us updated. You have been on my mind so much since yesterday.

Hugs,

Spitfire