I'll probably get this wrong and someone will correct me, but I think where you are is step three in the grieveing process. I thought somewhere I read that is goes somthing like, 1) shock or disbeleif, 2) extreme sadness, 3) ANGER, and 4) reconciliation or acceptance.
I was listening to something recently that said as humans sometimes we don't follow our grief all the way down. We sometimes skip a step or jump right to acceptance. Problem with that is we don't get to "feel" what we need to feel to completely cleanse ourselves. AND, I agree with what the speaker was describing is that we don't learn anything from it. Strength can be, strike that, IS gained in learning and knowledge. Like Althea says (thanks Althea!!!), knowledge is power - focus here on the future and how great your life WILL be (and don't give me any of the malarky about how it won't blah, blah - you know better Nic!). I'll REMIND you I live my life VERY differently TODAY than I did almost 2 years ago as the bomb was approaching. Why, because I RODE the grief ALL the way down and have learned something from it.
So I'm proppin' you up Nic....hang in there....
Sven
Oh, BTW, link to my latest thread (actually, its old, but still alive!) should be below (Trying to Piece).
Never sacrifice the great for the good. Sometimes the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair.
I'm reading a book on exactly that subject--"From Abandonment to Healing." It's very informative and has some useful exercises to do in order to get through all this. It does hearken back to some childhood experiences too.
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I am hearing so many lies from H, and so many things that I now see are lies, which, when I confronted him over the years, he denied. I do not trust him at all.
I've been looking over my posts from the last year and a half, and reading some old journals. I've also read a book about emotional abuse.
Do any of you know the movie "Gaslight"? For a long time, I've felt like that was my life. I mean, for many years. I would accuse H of flirting very heavily w/ someone at a party, and he'd tell me I was paranoid. Now I know that friends noticed it too. I told him he went out way too much for a married father of two. H claimed that everybody does and I should be thankful he wasn't cheating on me(!). And again, if I'm jealous, I shouldn't have such low self-esteem. But one of his best friends said the same thing to him, in front of me. He would tell me I was crazy if I asked him if he'd been drinking.
Even last weekend, I asked him if his gf was with him when I was talking to him, and he blew up at me, saying I was crazy and what was I talking about. I ended up apologizing, but now I know I was right. He told me he was spending the weekend w/ a guy friend, and couldn't see the kids, but it was with her. He flatly denied it when I asked him, saying that she had her son with her. She didn't.
Whenever I've hit a nerve with him, he has turned it around to me being paranoid, crazy, depressed, low self-esteem. I believed him. Is it any wonder I feel so guilty?
I still get sucked in. He can be very charming, as long as he's not questioned.
Yesterday when he dropped the kids off, he told me he needed my car to go shopping. Lie. Unless he went on a six-hour grocery shopping trip. I think he's planning a whole new life with this ow and her kid. She lets him go over and spend the night there when she has her son! What a gem. And he goes, of course. Poor girl, wait till she finds out what he's really like.
She's 32. Ticks me off b/c he'll probably have more kids with her, and I always wanted more but he didn't. Anyway, better to have fewer ties with him.
He's nice to me as long as he thinks he has me under his thumb. When I show strength, he gets scared and angry. When he dropped the kids off yesterday I had them say good-bye right away then ignored him. He stood around for a minute or two, then said good-night and left. What does he want from me?
OMG, I so want this to be over.
Life isn't about finding yourself; it's about creating yourself My thread: Trusting God's Plan
Don't hate me for saying this, but am glad, so glad you are making these revelations.... Why? First and foremost because now you hold the upper hand - for yourself. YOU control the frame. Think about it - when we DR/DB, we still leave an element of the "control" with the WAS. Sure, we take ownership of what we did wrong, we GAL - taking ownership of our lives and what we make of them. But we also leave the final choice to move on together or apart to our WAS's.
I think that is pooh somtimes because often it might let us become the enabler (of their ambiquity). We don't do it on purpose - we have a higher calling - the saving of our M. But I think it is important - taking a page from JustMe to really examine it. Examine our partners and our intentions. My IC pushed me REALLY hard to make sure I could live with my choice. AND to be darn sure that IC for my W was part of the reconciling process. Why? Because the demons were still there - just because my W had a moment of clarity didn't mean that it wouldn't happen again. And that really hit me hard for some reason. But I came to realise that it wasn't just *my* behaviour that was in need of changing - seems obvious, but it wasn't. She needed as much, if not more work. Now, I got lucky...my WAW did come back, and we are a work in progress but I had real doubts if this was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Not because of the OM and the world of hurt that put on me - but because I became stronger through the whole process and really started to believe that I DESERVED better.
Now, that serves me well in my new "R" with my W. And it will serve you better when you start your new life. AND YOU WILL. I'm so glad you just turned and walked away last night after the kiddies said goodbye. That's perfect. You know what he wants from you - he wants you to be there when he needs and leave you when he doesn't. Well, that is pooh too. I'll tell you, next time he says he needs the car, don't let him have it. I don't know the laws up in the great white north, but next time, tell him you took him off the insurance and he isn't supposed to drive it - or if that won't work - immediately back the kids up and go to the mall.
All that said pal, don't dwell on the lies - wasted energy - remember what our buddy TJ says? "What you focus on expands". Start focusing on your new life, your relationship with you kids and not on what ol' SFB is up to....
You've got work to do.
Sven
Never sacrifice the great for the good. Sometimes the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair.
WOW, reading your posts is like reading about someone waking up from a nightmare.
I think, in retrospect, we can all look back and see "red flags"...perhaps not as intense or big as yours, but they are there. Why did we not see them or walk away? B/c we were taught to overlook fallacies in loved ones, compromise for M, and grow together. Well, at some point, you did growing and your H did not.
It's great that you're seeing things. And, as Sven said so nicely, that you see that you let these things affect you, and let him go on with it with YOUR actions in M.
Good news is, you can take that back now.
Old habits are hard to break, as well as old patters of thought and perceptions...for ex: not wanting to get him angry, rock the boat, etc.
But, sounds like you'er coming to a point of not caring, and wanting to stand up for yourself.
What do I see for you? A strong woman emerging. Finding herself, her strength, her power and life back again.
You are blossoming, keep going with it.
Don't let him borrow the car. Tell him you can't do that, and as Sven said, take him off insurance.....I did that with H already....when MLC got really nuts, I was scared the H might get involved in madness that would affect the insuranec....sure enough he has had 3 tickets.
Share stuff to the extent of co-parenting, and kids. Then draw your boundaries.
Your question now should be, How will Nicola detoxify her life? Take it back in healthy, sane, ways? How will she thrive? What does it take?
Wanted to say quickly that he also lied about being in IC.
He's got a new car now, so he won't be using the other one. I got an estimate on the one I'm driving, and it's worth about half the one he just bought--so much for trying to tell me mine's nicer!!
Finally, I've found a good accoutant and letting her deal with some stuff to help out my L.
Thanks for being there for me. Now, D10 is waiting for the computer! Will write more later.
Life isn't about finding yourself; it's about creating yourself My thread: Trusting God's Plan
I've not been following things too closely for awhile, so I was caught off guard by developments in your situation. You've been kind and helpful to me many times during the unfolding of my story, I just wanted to take a minute and do the same for you.
There is something that becomes ultimately freeing in loosening ourselves from the madness associated with trying to see this MLC journey through to the end. So many of us asked the question, "Is this really MLC?" In the end I'm not sure that it really matters.
At some point basic human decency must come into play. No matter how deep in crisis a spouse is, there is never a need to brazenly lie and decieve the person that you pledged your honesty and commitment to. It grieves me to see the number of people on this board who continue living through separations lasting well over a year, continually being deserted, abandoned, and mistreated by the one person who would supposedly NEVER do those things to us. You, like so many others here, have endured horribly cruel treatment at the hands of the one who once pledged his love to you. How long should a reasonable human being truly be expected to tolerate this kind of treatment?
Someone wiser than me on this board said something to the effect once that MLC is no Get Out of Jail Free card, and I think there is something to be said for that. I was told by several friends and family members early in my sitch that my wife was emotionally abusing me with her actions and words. I think that is true for many of us on this board I'm sad to say. There is never an excuse for this, never!
There is a door in front of you Nicola, a door that leads to a whole lot of full life still waiting to be lived. There is no doubt grieving yet to be done, but one day the grieving will end and you will be ready to move on. I have found that what lies ahead can be every bit as excellent as what we hoped the past would be. You have much to offer to someone who is worthy of your love and commitment. You will be much more than fine.
Deb and I are two examples of people who came to this board with our marriages already on life support, and fading fast. We both came here, like all the rest of you, to do whatever could be done to save the marriage that we had committed our lives to. We also both found that there was nothing left there to save. And as each day goes by, I am realizing that I did do a bit of the rose colored glasses deal with how things were in my marriage. Things were not all that great for quite some time. And now that I have found what real committed love is all about again, I realize that I had settled for less for far too long.
It feels good to live again. It feels good to love again.
You deserve to try it Nicola.
Blessings,
Bill
"Don't tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon."
It has been a long time since I have read your thread, forgot you moved here. Good thing is you are starting to move out of limbo land, and that is good. Yes you tried your best to save your M, but it did not matter how hard you tried it was going to come to an end. For me anyway I saw it early enough and just let it die. Heck it was already dead. I am sad to see that things are heading for a D for you, but happy to see that a resolution is in sight for you. Just do what you have to do and move forward with your life. Ciao for now!
