Julie, I am constantly amazed at how much I can relate to certain people, you being one of them. I want you to know that you really are not alone in this struggle. I don't always post because sometimes I feel like all I am saying is "me too." But Julie, me too!
I am feeling strong today. You can borrow some of my strength right now while I have it. Find some peace tonight Julie, you deserve it. And you too Mutatio!
I dealt with almost a year of similar stuff that you did with husband, before my husband left. I understand how hard it is to deal with someone so irrational and unfair. So yes my husband has only been gone for 7 months, but add about 10 months of someone completely detached and sleeping in the basement to that. I remember him literally exploding in anger because 2 old ladies went ahead of him in Panera, while he was back and looking at the menu. It was really bad. He resented the obligation of having lunch with family because it prevented him from being fully exploited by a company that continues to underpay.
Now, I had read books and knew not to argue. But did not immerse myself with dbing. I was bad about pursuing relationship talks. during that time I went into pursual mode. I remember packing all these lunches and breakfasts for him (because his need was service) coffee to go. Uneaten dinners. I remember not voicing issues that were really unfair to me so that I wouldn't make waves. You have done much better then me but I know what you went through before he left for business.
My H was looking for excuses to leave and I feel like he was intentionally neglecting us because he knew I would eventually call him out on it. Which is what happened. I made nasty comment about him not spending time with kids on Father's Day and to him that was the excuse he needed to leave. ( I dont know if you remember that story. I asked for it to be deleted) The kids did not even know he left, he was around so little.
The only thing that keeps me here is remembering that after kids were born I was pretty bad too. i was sleep deprived and Felt that he was not pulling his weight. I imagine that he was stressed at work and felt like I was not pulling my weight because I was only part time.
There Are 2 big differences though. I never neglected children (babies then) and I never walked away from our marriage. I am still coming to terms with that. He has not apologized for it and feels like he had no choice, which to me demonstrates a lack of remourse and responsiblity.
I have to say. It is only recently that I am not hearing anger and resentment in his voice. There are some changes...I notice he was on time for morning kids obligation and he came over at 1030 for birthday brunch. (Getting out before 2 on weekends was problem for him).
But I get disgusted thinking of how he was this past year and overwhelmed with resentment and Anger.
Me: 42 H: 43 Twins age 5 Physically Separated 7/2015
Julie, I must have missed the first part of your story, I didn't realize that you had those original 10 months of suck preceding the separation. I didn't find DB until 4 months into it, I was doing everything wrong up until then. So I am on a very similar timeline as you. BD, and then 10 months of living together in this awful way, he spent 3-4 months on the sofa but then moved back into bed but probably shouldn't have been in there. Now gone for 1 month so far, but it is "for work" so that kind of gives us a way to be separated without being separated. I also spent those 10 months packing lunches and making coffee and "serving" him.
A few times I thought my H was spewing intentionally so that I would kick him out, but I really don't think he was thinking of anything but his anger and his status as a "victim". This is the hardest thing. I can not believe I've lasted this long, but I know a lot of DB'ers have been at this even longer. I am disgusted too. Alternating with feeling very rejected.
I hope for you that the lack of anger in his voice is a change that will continue.
Fo, Preceding him leaving, we had a really stressful year. We had moved in with my parents to save money. I had some pretty serious health issues and he just escaped into work, slowly detaching. He has some validity to what he was upset at me for, but I also think he was not empathetic to what I had experienced (pregnancy, cancer diagnosis and bad miscarriage and strong desire to get pregnant again) he became nasty and resentful and basically isolated himself to basement. He suggested marriage counseling but he never had time to actually do any of the exercises she suggested. The sessions consisted of him yelling at me and complaining to therapist about my anxiety and refusal to work full time. I pursued and became a pathetic mess. He was disappearing to gym, going out with friends and basically avoiding me. I was constantly asking about affair. He continues to deny and would tell me " how could I possibly handle another woman. It's the last thing I could deal with" I was following my own version of divorce busting, but really he wanted space and I kept pushing relationship talks. He was sulky, nasty. Would say things like "let your parents watch the kids for once"...meanwhile they were bending over backwards to help me. He would get mad at them because to schedule marriage counseling they did not want to babysit in the middle of the day, and he would not schedule appointments early in morning because he did not want to wake up early. The selfishness and sense of entitlement was just so beyond anything normal..
To this day, I cry thinking about being pregnant and literally 2 days post surgery and him waking me up at 7 30 am telling me it's my turn to watch kids. He needs to sleep. (This was Sunday and no he does not work night shifts)
I am having a hard time getting past a lot of this, because I can't understand how he rationalized these behaviors. I know I am not supposed to diagnose but I often felt like I was dealing with someone on the spectrum. (This has been questioned by others as well)
Me: 42 H: 43 Twins age 5 Physically Separated 7/2015
I am sorry. I am more moody and dramatic and negative these past few days. I'm making myself a victim. It's not hormones. I'm wondering if it's a crash after drinking while on vacation. Or its just a dip in my own emotional roller coaster.
Really I am just trying to be patient and take it day by day without venting to husband.
Me: 42 H: 43 Twins age 5 Physically Separated 7/2015
And I keep, trying and trying to make sense of it and come up with all the ways that I am selfish and wrong and to blame myself because I just want to be able to forgive his actions and not become a divorce statistic. I question if I myself have unfair expectations (yes I watched the videos) and I have too much if a sense of entitlement.
Good.
I'm not for a moment saying you're wrong to feel angry, or that something is wrong with you for feeling this way. I do believe it is your job to control your behavior and grow where you need so you can start to feel differently. The above quote is spot on.
The last few pages of posts is obviously raw anger. I get that the DB forum is an outlet to release emotion beyond your ability to cope. Before I continue I want to quote something I posted the other day:
Quote:
Venting is when external stresses exceed your coping mechanisms and you find yourself boiling over in the red zone, so you do two things...first you blow off some steam to a friend, but then you look in the mirror and ask yourself what you could do differently to either prevent the situation or handle it better in the future. In this case venting is a useful technique to get out of the red zone so you can get back in control, and it is centered around accountability.
Negativity starts the same, boiling over in the red zone and blowing off steam to a friend...but then it ends with the person pointing to the world as being the problem, and concluding they can't possibly be ok given that the world is the way it is.
Venting leads to regaining control, accepting reality, and growing. Negativity leads to cheeseless tunnels.
This is all my conjecture by the way, but by this example, the difference really comes down to what you do with the anger after you spew it out. Do you decide that you were right to feel angry, it was the only possible reaction to your environment, that you are the victim, and that the only way to feel differently is to change your environment? Or do you look inward at the expectations and entitlements you mentioned earlier? I love that you're trying to do the latter, and if you need to spew to get to the point you can look at that then please do so.
Quote:
I think my red hot anger comes from the fact that I am not following my beliefs. If I were, I would have filed the divorce papers long ago...
...He shirked his responsibility. I never in my wildest imagination could have predicted that he would be capable of doing this. And I am angry at him because I held him to higher standards and he failed me. I hold myself to these very same standards.
I'll bet he feels the same way. I'll bet he felt so neglected and unfulfilled he felt his options were suicide or divorce...but he didn't believe in either option, so instead of acting on his feelings he moved out and tried to get some space to try to create a situation where he could feel differently. Compared to the number of H's that simply file and fire up a replacement relationship I think this is pretty stand up of him. I totally understand how you feel betrayed, shattered, and violated by him...I just think that if you guys go on to share a 50 year marriage and you look back at the 2-3 years you went through here...I think you'll feel differently about his character once you're out of the pain and you can see things more clearly.
As for this comment:
Quote:
I never neglected children (babies then) and I never walked away from our marriage.
I'm sure XW could say the same thing. But there is something else she DID neglect. Something that caused every bit as much pain to me in the marriage as the divorce itself did. Something that is so foundationally important to me that it was as important as the children to her.
When you say you hold yourself to high standards, that's true, but you hold yourself to YOUR high standards. I would bet if you asked him you failed in his standards. And if those standards currently include being forgiving and loving you're not doing so hot at the moment either.
That all said, leaving the past in the past for a moment...what are you offering to bring him back? Is unbridled anger being the woman only a fool would leave? If he left because he couldn't live that way anymore, are you sending the message that you've taken responsibility for your contributions to the breakdown of the marriage, and you're ready and willing to do things differently? Most importantly...if H died in a crash tomorrow, would you feel regretful that you didn't unload all of your spew onto him, or would you feel regretful that you didn't show the love deep in your heart? I appreciate that you're not spewing at him directly and are trying to control yourself around him, and that's great. But you can't act your way through piecing or a marriage, so at some point you have to figure out how you can actually be a person he can partner with.
I know this isn't easy to read, I also know it isn't 'right' it's discussion, I also know that your anger is very real...but most importantly I know enough to know that you, even if you disagree, won't hate me for sharing my thoughts. And that, Julie, is a sign of my respect for you, because if I was afraid of being raged at I wouldn't have been able to be this open with you. If you feel I'm painting you to be a monster that's not the case. As I've said, it's normal to have these feelings, and it's impressive that you've controlled yourself and are trying to see past the red goggles. Truly. If anything Julie I think that I've had a lot of anger myself towards XW and society and I've spent a ton of time thinking of these very things.
I come back to the point I made before. This anger is telling you something. It's telling you that you have exposed nerves. Entitlements? Expectations? Maybe. I have really been challenging myself and I keep asking myself "WHY". Why am I so angry? Because XW did _____. Why is that so important? Because I think that she should have done ________. Why is that so important? Because I deserve/need/want ________. Why do I need/deserve/want _____?
It's that last question that I've wrestled with. Is it because I can't be happy without that? Because I feel there is something missing and broken in my life and ________ makes me feel ok about it?
For me the answer was yes. I wasn't ok with myself, here, and now. I depended on XW's love to take the edge off. It was like I was in pain, and she was the pain killer, and she PROMISED to always be there to numb my pain, and now she wasn't, and so she was at fault for my pain. That's how it looked. That's how it felt.
I have since removed myself from the pain. I am no longer living in pain. I am ok. XW wants to D? Great, there's your signed D papers. Not what I wanted, but your journey. And frankly while I wouldn't have left her, I wouldn't have left her because maybe I was so dependent on the pain killer that I couldn't have, and that my so called 'values' and 'standards' I hold myself to are simply disguises of my neediness. And looking back I can really see how my dependence on her led me to controlling behavior that made life unbearable for her.
We're different people. I don't have the answers. I just know you have work to do. You're doing it, so that's great. Just don't think of him as a bad guy or morally inferior, because that's not what morally superior people do.
Me:38 XW:38 T:11 years M:8 years Kids: S14, D11, D7 BD/Move out day: 6/17/14, D final Dec 15
I understand that when I discuss my anger with friends and family, of course they side with me and husband comes across as a villain. It won't help me to have everyone agree and clamor on with "you go girl" speeches. So I appreciate the honesty and no kid gloves necessary.
Very interesting analysis on venting and negativity. I also understand that my rants and anger seems to be cyclical. Meaning that nothing good is permanently coming from it. It's not just venting since it's the same old stuff over and over (even im sick of it) It's negativity. Which is a major issue for me. I owned it early on in my threads but have never been able to overcome it. During my first conversation with DB coach, she asked me what my husband's complaints about me were and I told her, negativity. It's how I was raised.
It's not permanent. But during certain moods I become overwhelmed by it. (Kind of like when your in the heat of an argument and you just forget to validate or use dialogue or visual imagery) Sometimes discussing gets me out of it. Your perspective helped get me out of it because it allowed me to see husband as I once saw him.
It feels better for me to not be consumed with anger, but calm and peaceful. I can think more clearly and i look forward to life and the future. But I don't know how to make it happen on my own. I talked to a couple of counselors about the break up and they kind of just agreed with me like the "you go girl" friends and told me I am entitled to anger and to accept it and that I don't have to justify it by bringing up husbands point of view..that they were supposed to do that. You also have to understand that in person, I come across as very sweet and believe it or not calming, So I can understand therapists approach. I don't go anymore.
Zues, you said that you wrestle with your anger as well. I am wondering if maybe my anger at husband is simply a way to blame him for my unhappiness, because it's the easy thing to do. and yes. It is controlling.
Me: 42 H: 43 Twins age 5 Physically Separated 7/2015
