Muddle, I too am sorry it has come to this. Take care of yourself and especially your son. I hope he wasn't around when the two of you fought. It does sound like it is time to get out, for a while anyway. There is so much resentment and anger between you and your W that it is no longer healthy for the two of you to be together. Take care of yourself!!
Thanks for all your concern. I have been trying to track down a lawyer I can afford a consultation with. I don't really think my W is looking to take any legal action (restraining orders, etc). She hasn't as of yet and she has been herself, in fact we got along rather well yesterday (but you guys do have me a bit nervous). Today she started giving me the "you're not taking care of me properly" act and gave me a hard time: we have VOIP phone service, and the line was experiencing packet loss, leading to a really distorted sound - annoying. So she called me and asked me to call about it. I called from work but they couldn't resolve it without talking to someone on the line. I asked her to call so they could do some trouble-shooting and she started giving me grief about my lack of caring about the problem - something that she could have dealt with herself - and about how I wouldn't have done anything about it if she hadn't gotten me to. I told her that that wasn't the issue, the issue was how we were going to proceed here - whether she was going to call the cable company, or I was at lunch time. She refused to give me an answer, and basically refused to call, but wanted me to see just how wrong I was for asking her to have any part in this. This is indicative of her one-track agenda of making me understand just how bad I am as her husband.
I am going to talk to my parents tonight to try and formulate a real separation plan. We don't have the money to live separately right now, and we don't have the money to file for divorce right now. It's a pretty rediculous situation. It's clear to me that this event has been the final straw for me, and I have detached so much further than before. I truly see my W as someone that's not my W now, someone that I don't really want to have much to do with. It's liberating, and it also is amazing how this has freed me up to be even nicer than I was before, but it's allowing me to be firmly aware of my boundaries, and helping me work towards securing them from her. I am going to have to lead this process because while she has emotionally detached from me, she's still attached in many ways - and she still is trying to prove something and still trying to get me to accept responsibility for her unhappiness (implying that I somehow have the power to rescue her) but I'm doing a poor job with regard to this responsibility.
The sad thing here is that things have not been healthy in this relationship for some time. There's nothing new in this. I was hoping that we could move in a healthy direction, but clearly that's not possible. In fact it seems my W is committed to becoming as unhealthy as possible as a means of proving just how bad I am for her. Well, no more. Maybe she'll get to a better place in time, but I can't be a part of that process right now. Maybe there will be some kind of future for us, but now we need distance, and we need it pretty soon.
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. ” – Albert Einstein
It just does not cease to amaze me: after lunch, W complains that I put a pan (like a cookie sheet) in the dishwasher that she left in the sink. She said that it was as if I thought she was just being lazy, that she would have put it in the dishwasher herself. She said that she doesn't think it got clean in the dishwasher. I said "OK, I won't put it in the dishwasher anymore." That wasn't good enough. She had to go on and on about how it made her feel that I put it in the dishwasher. I told her "I made a judgement call about whether to put the pan in the dishwasher. I understand your point and I won't put it in the dishwasher anymore. My decision had nothing to do with you." She went on and on about how it made her feel like I thought she was inadequate, etc. And the fact that I was walking out the door when she decided to give this all to me didn't help anything. I kept trying to end the conversation - making it clear that I understood about her point and it was a good one. She wanted me to validate her feelings - feelings that were her own projected onto the situation. In the end I left with her saying that I don't care about her feelings. Well, I have to say I left agreeing with her. I feel like she's manipulating me by bringing her irrelivant feelings into the mix when there was simply an issue about my putting a pan in the dishwasher. I don't know why she cares anymore about whether or not I care about her feelings - the only thing I can think is that if I don't care about her feelings, she doesn't have any power over me. Loss of control for her is terrifying. Well, tough. I'm not there for her in that capacity anymore. She can demonize me all she wants for not caring, etc. but I'm only going to do what I think is appropriate (kindness, genorosity - by my standards) - I'm no longer going to try and make her happy by appeasing her. If she doesn't like it, which I'm sure she doesn't, she's going to have to find some other way to be happy, because I'm not going to cave anymore.
She keeps telling me I make her feel like a two year old. Well, throwing tantrums and trying to control other people by manipulating your own feelings is pretty juvenile behavior. Sorry, I don't make you do any of that. Maybe because I don't stoop to your level I make you feel that way by way of comparison. Silly - really. I think I need to get even more vocal about my boundaries. This may bring about some conflict, but in the end, we'll be far better off. She asked me for tough love a long time ago (when this all started she thought that I didn't have the tough love in me) because she realized that she was out of control (my assumption) and wanted me to push back so the boundaries became more clear. Well, clearly she is out of control because she's getting what she wants and she's still making her case for it. So, what do I do? I have to start cutting the cord. I've got to force her beyond her comfort zone by refusing to accept what is not mine. I have the distance now to not be clouded by my emotions - I'm not afraid of losing her anymore. I'm not going to be open to being manipulated by her means of rejecting me or withholding her love from me. I'm out the door myself, but I'm still going to go through the motions here so I can learn this really important lesson about myself, so I can train myself to be better in a relationship.
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. ” – Albert Einstein
Muddle, you make me feel like I'm living the good life but then again I didn't clean the food remnants out of the sink last night! I'd only taken the kids to appointments, cooked the meal, cleaned up most of the dishes etc. Gosh, You and I are such uncaring bastards, aren't we! P.S. has your W ever heard the term Personality Disorder? She might want to check it out with her C, but then again, don't bring it up!!!
Here's a good article I picked up somewhere else. Ties right into what you're talking about Whatis:
Quote: Rebuilding Your Self-Esteem after an Affair By Dr. Frank Gunzburg, PhD
One of the most devastating aspects of an affair is the effect it has on your self-esteem. When you find out that your spouse has broken your marital vow and cheated on you, the effects this can have to your sense of self-worth are tremendous.
It can make you feel as though you are the most worthless person on the face of the planet. You must be, right? After all, your spouse would never have thrown away your relationship if you weren't such a terrible person. Isn't that true?
Let me give you a very short answer to that question: No it's not.
No person is perfect. No relationship is perfect. You aren't perfect either. But that doesn't mean you're a terrible person, and it doesn't mean that the affair is somehow your fault.
Every relationship has bad times. Every married couple has arguments. When you got married you made a vow. You vowed that no matter how bad things got, whether you started arguing every day or didn't have sex for months, that you had a lot of options. You have the option to move out of the house, to go to your sister's, your mother's, or your best friend's home. You have the option to talk to a clergyman, a therapist, or call a hotline. You have the option to yell back, complain, or act passive-aggressive. You have the option to buy a self-help book and see if you can work out your problems that way. You even have the option to get a divorce.
Out of the multitude of options you have, there is one that you gave up when you got married. You gave up the option to have an affair. By having an affair, your spouse has showed that he or she has a character problem. This broken promise is a reflection of a "hole" in your spouse's character.
There may be any number of reasons this weakness of character exists. Perhaps your spouse has a difficult time keeping promises. Perhaps he or she can't accept the reality that people and relationships aren't perfect. Or perhaps he or she has an unresolved childhood issue regarding trust or integrity. Whatever the reason, it is this "leak" in your spouse's character that caused the affair. Not you.
So the first thing you need to realize is this one simple truth: The affair was not your fault.
If your marriage wasn't doing so well before the affair, you probably contributed to the problems in your marriage. It may be that you, or both of you, dropped the passion in your relationship. Perhaps you got to a point where all you ever thought about was taking care of the kids and going to work, or, perhaps the two of you were yelling at each other a lot or not having sex for months on end. Even if you both agree that your marriage was doing well before the affair (this happens too), you are both going to have to work on your relationship to make it better than ever so you can protect it from future problems.
So it's true, you are responsible for the future of your marriage. Even so, there is one thing you should be clear on. The affair wasn't your fault. The choice to cheat resides with one person and one person alone--the cheater. It is the cheater's fault that the affair occurred, not yours.
Now that I have made that clear, I want to address a typical scenario that occurs in many affairs which deepens the sense of worthlessness the injured person carries. Keep in mind, this doesn't happen with every affair, and I won't be able to cover every different situation in this letter. However, the following scenario happens so commonly it's definitely worth addressing here.
The injured person is demonized while the paramour is given a halo to wear. I want to look at how this happens, explore the effects this has on the injured person's self-esteem, and help you understand how you can reverse these effects.
Demonizing the Injured spouse: A Cheater's Way to Excuse an Affair
One way the cheater demonizes the injured spouse is by developing a litany of complaints against him or her. The list could be in his own mind, told to other people, or used as ammunition against the injured spouse, herself.
Basically the process here is simple. The cheater starts thinking of the injured person in a black-or-white way. Rather than accepting the reality that everyone is made up of a multitude of good and bad pieces, the cheating spouse starts to notice only the bad pieces of the person he or she is married to.
In essence, the cheater focuses on everything his spouse isn't. Ignoring the good sides of his spouse, a cheater makes it seem as though his spouse is "all bad." Once this happens, it makes it that much easier for someone to come in and hook up with the cheater. If the cheater is talking with a married person, all the cheater has to do is demonize his or her spouse to the potential paramour, and they immediately have a strong common bond.
At the same time, the cheater usually looks at the paramour in this same black-or-white way. As you might be able to guess, in situations like this, it's very easy for the paramour to become the "haloed" spouse in the mind of the cheater. Let's look at an example of how this happens.
Let's say that Carol has some problems in her relationship that she's really frustrated with. Namely, she has become disgusted that her husband is "never thoughtful." She tells herself things like, "He never has time to spend with me," "He never talks to me," and, "He never expresses an interest in the kids."
This is the only thing Carol can focus on in her relationship.Every thought she has of her husband is dominated by this sense that he is less than thoughtful. One day, she's talking with her friend, George, who's having problems with his wife. He makes similar complaints about his wife, and now Carol and George have something in common.
Suddenly George starts being super-thoughtful to Carol. He calls her at the office to see how she's doing, he sends her flowers to let her know he's thinking of her, he even stops by at lunch to pick her up from work every once in a while.
Eventually, they have an affair. All Carol can see is that her husband has been completely thoughtless, and George is a super thoughtful guy. Her husband is the demon, and George is wearing a halo. When Carol's husband finds out about the affair, his self-esteem is destroyed. Not only did his wife cheat on him, but he's being forced to compete with someone who seems like the perfect man. How could he possibly match up?
You may find yourself in a similar situation right now. Perhaps you feel you are being forced to compete with a fantasy personality: Someone who doesn't have to share finances, responsibilities, children, in-laws, laundry, carpools, and house chores; and who therefore has the time to just focus on your spouse in a "wonderful" way. As a result you just don't feel like you're good enough to match up. Hence your sense of self-worth is damaged that much further.
If this is the case for you, let me remind you of something: No one wears a halo. No one is a perfect person. The fantasy that your spouse has built up around his or her paramour is just that—a fantasy. Let's look a little further at Carol's situation above to clarify this truth.
In the example with Carol, she doesn't even know George. She might feel as if she knows him better than she has ever known anyone in her life. However, she's never had to live with him. He might be a complete mess in other parts of his personality. Maybe he has an explosive temper that won't show up early in the affair. Maybe he's demeaning and unreasonable. In fact he may be anything at all. Carol doesn't really know.
What she does know is that he's thoughtful to her, and that's the one thing she's been missing in her husband. So she puts a halo on George and assumes that this thoughtfulness is a reflection of every part of his personality.
She starts thinking of him as a wonderful man. She imagines him to be kind, thoughtful, gentle, attentive, and so on. But of course he may not be all those things. He may not be any of them if she were the one living with him. She's living a fantasy.
What's more, she's never had to handle real life with George. She's never had to handle bills, children, or in-laws. She's never had to go with him to social engagements. She's never had to deal with all of the things that go along with making a marriage work. Which only makes it that much easier for her to make George into her dream man. She's having a relationship with a fantasy. In reality she has no idea who George is. In truth he almost certainly doesn't wear the halo she has put on him in real life. No one does.
This whole process is sometimes taken a step further by the cheater. The cheating spouse may rewrite history to match the demonized image she now has of her spouse. This process is so subtle that the cheating spouse won't even know she's doing it and will believe with strong conviction that her memories are the correct ones. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't.
For example, Carol might focus exclusively on the times her husband wasn't thoughtful and "forget" the times that he was. She blots out parts of her recollection of the past, hence changing her perception of their history together.
Another example is a cheating spouse who says something like, "I never loved you. Even on the day of our marriage I remember telling myself this was what I had to do out of a sense of duty. I was afraid you would fall apart if I left."
When you hear things like this, you can be almost certain your spouse is rewriting the past. Statements like these are unlikely to be true memories.
The problem is that the injured spouse often buys into this demonized vision of herself. She starts to accept the cheater's rewritten version of history. As a consequence, she suffers a terrible blow to her sense of self worth.
In some cases, the cheater never even says these things to the injured spouse. The injured person just takes on this terrible mantle on her own, assuming that she must be a horrible person for her spouse to have cheated in the first place.
The irony is that it has nothing to do with the injured person whatsoever! You're competing with a fantasy. And no one can compete with a fantasy. None of us is perfect. We're all real people with real flaws.
What you need to do is keep in mind that the cheater is demonizing you. Your spouse is living in a fantasy world and may very well be rewriting history to match that fantasy.
Don't take on the burden of an affair that isn't your fault. Instead, I recommend you remind yourself of these three truths when you are struggling with feelings of worthlessness after you learn about an affair:
1. Your spouse cheated based on a character flaw. It is the cheater's responsibility that the affair happened.
2. Your spouse may be rewriting history based on his or her need to justify his or her position regarding you and your marriage.
3. Your spouse has an investment in putting a halo around his or her paramour while demonizing you.
If you keep these three things in mind, it will help you realize that the affair isn't about you, that it isn't your fault it happened, that you aren't a horrible person, and that you don't have to suffer with feelings of worthlessness after an affair.
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. ” – Albert Einstein
I know exactly how you feel. It seems that the changes don't matter, the WAS still views the LBS as pathetic with as you said lots of " nasty traits".
As long as they have OP in their life they are "motivated to look to the problems of the M as a way out of the R and not look for solutions". I pray everyday that R with Ow will end b/c this will give me the best chance of getting my H back in my life.
Detaching is so hard and yes I wonder all the time if it just relieves the WAS's guilt when the LBS finally does detach and move on, but on the other hand if you pursue and hold on they will run further away. I always tell myself that you can't control what H does or how he feels. He needs to figure this out by himself. The only choice the LBS has is to GAL and work on becoming the best person we can possibly be.
I know what you are saying. My H has yet to look at his part in the breakup of our M. For him the answer to his unhappiness was having an A . H left me for Ow and is still with her. ( 1 year and 4 months later) How does he think that this R will be any different when he never looked at himself and took any blame in our M?
It's funny when H left he told me that he needed time "alone" to figure out what he wanted out of life. All along he had this Ow, he was never "alone".
I read Mars/Venus it is a great book. I agree that it is sad that the WAS has no desire to learn about R before jumping right into another one.
" She is choosing to destroy our damaged marriage. I contributed to the damage, not the ultimate destruction. She is to blame for that choice. I am responsible for her not being happy in our relationship. Clear. My blame doesn't do anything to help heal us, or to contibute to all of us moving forward in a way that will help us grow as people and be happy in our lives.
You just expressed how I am truly feeling. Don't you wish they could just see things as we do? I told my H so many times that if we could get through this our R would be stronger and better than ever. His reply was "That's your opinion".
Muddle, thanks so much for the article. It is right on! My own T told me that people, such as my W, who are moral in every other way sometimes have a "hole" (she used a Greek term) that enables them to see something entirely immoral as moral e.g. an affair. This article also hit me when it talks about the OP seeing and filling the void the S tells them about. This is exactly what happened in my sitch. W complained to OP about what was lacking in our R and OP took over and started filling that need. Mission accomplished! As you see my thread deals with "How to compete with perfection", which is how my S views the OP and makes me feel like I must compete, but yes, I am competing with a fantasy. I will certainly keep in mind that the A and subsequent issues are not my fault, I am a very deserving person. This is what pissed me off when she told me I wasn't a very "supportive husband". Wow, talk about being on a different planet! So, thanks again for sharing this.
also thanks for the great article, guess that's what H meant when he said "get your solace elsewhere", I'm getting it here.
When you loose respect for each other is time to give each other looooooooooots of space, she isn't well. I believe you to be a pretty reasonable guy, and for things to get to the point they got she must've really flipped her lid.
I see a bit of the old me in your W, making a storm in a cup of water, getting all worked up and forcing H to appease my hurt feelings even though he wans't the cause of the uproar, it was all in my head. So I puffed and I puffed 'til I blew my self up in a hissy fit created by my very own while blaming H for not blaming himself and appologizing. She needs to look at herself REAL good, 'til then, I pray you keep up w/detaching from her toxic behavior.
Be not afraid...I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten Joel2
30something 2kids survivor of S, MLC, A, D I have peace in my heart, at last.
but then again I didn't clean the food remnants out of the sink last night! I'd only taken the kids to appointments, cooked the meal, cleaned up most of the dishes etc. Gosh, You and I are such uncaring bastards, aren't we!