Treasur, while I advocate for your self-care, I think there is a continuum of things we tell ourselves. And I don't think you are being a good friend to yourself. While I follow along with what you say, nodding all the while, once in awhile I pause.
The "he's not thinking of me, he doesn't miss me, he's going to marry the OW, that's why he wants to divorce me, I'm a cliche, his call was an accident" comments hurt me to see. I don't understand why these are part of your inner monologue to yourself.
I think you think you're NOT mind reading, because you're opting to believe the worst possibilities, but I think that is still mind reading. The only thing you know is that you don't know and it is impossible to fill in the blanks with information that you are not privy to.
However, what's the most logical thing? Reading the stories of the MLCers and their own words. Most who returned, or tried to, report that their time away was emotionally horrific. And while they may have kept up a front, they were not happy.
Now, maybe that's just because we only get to hear the stories of the ones who return, and maybe those feelings are isolated to those persons. We can't rule that out, but we also shouldn't rule it in.
I understand needing to expect the worst for your own peace of mind, but I do wish you'd be more of a friend to yourself in the process. From where I'm sitting, detached and not knowing any of the parties involved, I think you are likely incorrect in your mind-reading and I wonder why you'd want to tell yourself those things. It seems very cruel.
Do you think that the only way not to have hope/expectations is to talk down to yourself and live with that? Do you think negativity protects you?
I think there is a large grey area that you're missing, where you just don't mind-read and you don't pepper your ruminations with little insults to yourself.
Your H left. He thought that was the best decision at the time. That's true. He had a lot of negative feelings that caused him to toss an expensive watch in the river. But feelings have this way of changing. To say that he's still gone because he's happy and because you don't mean anything to him is quite the leap in logic. There are so many reasons that someone could stay on the "leaver" path that have nothing to do with our worth. Embarrassment, shame, caretaking/people-pleasing tendencies that the OW brings out, knowing on some level that there is something deeply wrong with themselves and wanting to stay away, not feeling worthy of you... Those are just a few that contract with your monologue and any one of them could be true. Yes, he could also be gloriously happy and eager to replace the life he had with you (your assumption), but I think the chances of that are small.
I would like you to be your own best friend and make sure that inner monologue is kind. I'd like you to remember that you have value and you honestly don't know what this man is thinking, and you don't need to fill in that void with thoughts that are worst case scenarios.
Treasur, you have value. You had a love life before H and you'll have one without him, if that's what happens here. But you have to take good loving care of yourself in the meantime. Find the balance in the grey area. Being so negative toward yourself probably feels like protection, but it's not. It's hurting yourself, and I'd like you to opt out of anything that resembles that.
Every time you negatively mind read, come back to that and replace it with a "I don't know, but what I do know is I have value and I am lovable."
I am not trying to say anything either way, because I can't mindread either. I do find his current actions, which you mindread/dismiss as meaningless, as interesting. From where I'm sitting, I only want you to be kind to yourself and to stop filling in the blanks with information that has you as unlovable, worthless, and easy to leave. Please.
I suppose I do feel as if I don't sit in the centre of anyone else's life, as if I don't deeply matter to anyone. I feel as if I have lost all the witnesses and cheerleaders for the truth of my own history and who I am, that I have no one to say "do you remember when...?" with.
I don't know you, and you don't need external validation of your worth, but your past was real. You have your memories because they happened. You are someone that another person would miss, because I can tell from your posts that you are a wonderful, kind, and caring person that the world needs more of. A treasure, perhaps
Lots of thoughts prompted by this...
http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2753923#Post2753923
This thread title, and the last, is from a Mumford & Sons song which has always resonated with me since I first heard it.
It has always made me cry and feel hopeful at the same time during earlier life storms and now.
And after the storm,
I run and run as the rains come
And I look up, I look up,
On my knees and out of luck,
I look up.
Night has always pushed up day
You must know life to see decay
But I won't rot, I won't rot
Not this mind and not this heart,
I won't rot.
And I took you by the hand
And we stood tall,
And remembered our own land,
What we lived for.
But there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.
And now I cling to what I knew
I saw exactly what was true
But oh no more.
That's why I hold,
That's why I hold with all I have.
That's why I hold.
I won't die alone and be left there.
Well I guess I'll just go home,
Oh God knows where.
Because death is just so full and man so small.
Well I'm scared of what's behind and what's before.
And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.
Ok, cadence, I'm going to give this a go because you've made me think really hard and think some new things.
Your post really jolted me (in a good useful way). It made me think about who I am, and what I treasure about the core of who I am. It made me think about mind reading. It made me think about assuming the worst. And about being brave and strong when I feel weak. And what I've learned from the (few) big storms in my life before this time.
STORMS
I've had a pretty blessed life so far, not perfect, but full of treasures. I have really only had four big storms in my life, but I think I might have developed some bad habits from them that aren't helping me now.
The first was when my mother was diagnosed with bowel cancer when I was 14. We lived in the Middle East and my mother came back to the UK for treatment while my father carried on working, and flew back & forth. I was at boarding school in the UK. With hindsight, this was a tough time for their M. My mother had multiple surgeries and was very depressed. I don't think my father knew how to deal with her depression, and she must have felt very alone. She used me as an emotional support system. Again, with hindsight, more than she should have and my father and me didn't really talk about it. But I remember listening to her saying things that a 13 year old shouldn't have had to hear. And I had no adult to support me. In the end, my father left a job and place he loved, I left a school and friends I was happy with, and we all rallied round my mother to support her. She got better but it cost my father and me things that mattered and affected our life for the next few years. I think I felt that I had to be strong, that there was only me on my own, and that being strong meant being practical and prepared to deal with anything and stuffing my own emotions because they had nowhere useful to go. Funnily enough, in those pre-online days, I remember talking to a stranger in a coffee shop, a middle-aged woman, never knew her name or saw her again. But I thought of her as an angel because I was completely overwhelmed and she really listened to me and made me feel seen and heard. Much like we all do here.
The second was in my twenties when I got made redundant in a recession, had a year of unemployment, started a new job. About a year later, I was really quite ill. Fainting, memory problems, palpitations. Got checked out for heart problems and epilepsy. Saw a ridiculously pompous doctor who wanted to put me on beta-blockers...at 27. I was a mess and frightened that I was seriously ill and going to lose my job/flat. Realised that actually I was so frightened of not being 'good enough' after the redundancy that I was working obscene hours to be 'perfect', that I had to be better/quicker/smarter and that was exacerbated because in my industry at that time, I was often the only woman in the room and much younger than my peers and clients. What did that storm teach me? Well, once again I figured it out on my own pretty much. I think I just found more efficient ways to be 'good enough' and it made me realise that I wanted more control over my working life. That led me to two things really; setting up my own business a few years later and realising that I needed more life in my life, so early GAL!
Third storm. About a year after I got married, I got flu but it just didn't get better. I was very ill. I was tested for things like MS, Lupus...in the end, the medics best guess was some kind of reactive arthritis, an auto-immune disorder. I couldn't walk much for about 6 months. I had extreme joint pain and I slept about 18 hours a day like a cat. I lost my memory of most of about a year. Losing my ability to think and remember was the most frightening thing. My business, and our income, suffered. I felt like I lost myself and I was depressed for probably about 2 years. In some ways, I think I never quite retrieved my professional confidence back. I know I'm good at what I do, but I doubted myself after this in a way I didn't before. What did I learn? Again, H, parents, friends supported me but quite passively looking back. I didn't know how to ask for help and I felt guilty for not being strong enough to 'fix' myself. Over time, I experimented and struggled past it. Physically, I got better but it scarred me and I felt vulnerable in a new way. Again, I didn't talk about how I honestly felt, just kept things to myself but I was left with a lot of guilt - actually probably shame - about it. It made me feel weak and it weakened our finances for years.
Fourth storm: Started when my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Mother was as much use as a chocolate hat and pretty self-centred (with hindsight, some of this was early signs of her dementia too). I became the 'spare hard drive' taking him to chemo, dealing with domestic stuff and helping him problem-solve medical stuff as he went, and then 'fixing' things when he was no longer well enough to do it. He died two days after I organised for him to go to a hospice. That was the time when I really broke down after months of just being numb, because I had to accept he was dying and there was nothing more I could do. My H wasn't there, he'd started a new job working away two weeks earlier. And then I dealt with the funeral and legal stuff. And then 3 months later, my H fell apart with a depressive breakdown and ran away from home. And then 2 months after that, my mother no longer recognised me, knew what a kettle was and was diagnosed after a brain scan with vascular dementia.
Looking back on the storms, cadence - and I'd be interested to see what you see - I think I have a pattern of thinking I have to cope alone, not asking for help, numbly stuffing my emotions to support others, expecting extraordinary strength from myself (way more than I would expect from others) and finding courage by tough talking to myself to prepare to be brave enough.
If I was being kind to myself in this storm, as I would be to someone else? I don't know. I think I would say it was ok to be tired. I hate it now when people congratulate me for being strong because I resent that I've had to be because there was just me left standing. There has been too much grief and pain to stuff my emotions this time. I now have a Big Emotions 101 certificate and that has made me more honest actually. I've felt angry that no one was left to hold me up or just hold me actually, although both friends and strangers have been kind. Above all, I think I've drawn into myself and become so frightened that the next wave will finish me off that preparing my brave pants has made me think and feel despair and helplessness. Sometimes I've been so numb that I have been 'meh', mostly about my own health and ability to see the other side of this. I think I have confused 'tough' with 'am I ready for the next bad thing'. And you're right, cadence, I think that means being negative.
So, if I see that now - courtesy of Clever Cadence - what do I do with that insight next? Don't know.
Going off to do some other stuff now. Will come back and journal about what kind of treasure I think I might be!
Lots of musing in the back of my head. Suddenly realised that, bar his job (and massive debts), my H has recreated at 38 his life circumstances at 18. Nothing of his own, camping at his aunt's apartment, a home, car and lifestyle provided and financed by OW. Odd.
Ok, cadence, part 2 - who am I?
If I think about me at say 6, I was curious, intelligent, chatty, imaginative, optimistic, interested in people, kind, fair, bold, impatient, generous, confident. At 53, bit less confident as life got harder...otherwise much the same really.
If I think honestly about what others would say makes me most Me, people would probably say I'm strong, brave, fair, kind, fun, loving and intelligent. I'm probably say intelligent, fair, loving, kind and add creative. Don't feel much fun right now and not nearly as strong or brave as people think.
What do those qualities look like? I'm good at figuring stuff out, and thinking of 57 possible creative options if the first won't fly so usually I'm quite optimistic. I can almost always see that people and situations aren't black and white. I'm slow to judge and quick to forgive. I assume the best of people first and look for the good. I believe that love and compassion are important, and I am generous with both. I keep my word and I step up when some would step away. I take responsibility for my actions and mistakes, and I rarely blame others for things I'm unhappy about.
Have I been using those qualities in this storm? Some haven't served me well. I've tried to figure out the unfigurable, and many of my alternative options have failed spectacularly. It has helped me see that it obviously isn't my fault and that I'm not responsible for a bunch of things. Being naturally optimistic and fair-minded, I've struggled to adjust to MLC land but it has stopped me from being bitter or overcome by rage. It has maybe kept me hanging on to hope and love for my H, and that has kept me in limbo perhaps too long.
And using the same qualities for me? Not so much. I've judged myself quite harshly for being stuck for so long and not being able to find a better route out. I've lost my sense of optimism for my own life, I think. I'm struggling right now to envisage life post-storm. I'm not sure I have stepped up entirely for myself. I might be taking responsibility for things that aren't mine because I don't want to blame other people and feel like a victim. I think I'm not seeing the good in me or trusting myself. Most of all, I think I've just lost confidence in myself as a treasure with a future full of lovely optimistic possibilities. It is most unlike me, but I think I feel as life has slapped me around so much in the last couple of years that I'm flinching in anticipation. I used to be someone who assumed I'd pick a high card against the odds.
What do I do with all of that, cadence? Not sure. There's a quote by Eckhart Tolle, something about embracing a difficult situation as if you chose it for yourself. Maybe I need to retrieve my inner Pollyanna optimism?
Part 3: Facts, Mind Reading & Negative Assumptions
Ok, journalling here goes...
In the context that last text from STBXH (remember the one who popped up 6 weeks ago really wanting to talk 'openly', salvage, responsibility...blah,blah). He obviously decided against calling.
STBXH: I don't think this Saturday would be a good idea to talk. My position hasn't changed that I want to get everything definitively sorted out before we talk, if we talk
Me: (18 hours later) Sure things will be sorted soon without going to court. Thanks for letting me know.
Cadence, your thoughts about thinking the worst and hope/expectations, and how an inner monologue hurts you gave me a lot of food for thought.
i read this message to mean a couple of things:
1. My STBXH is currently someone who changes his mind completely within hours
2. Mr Nasty Control is still in the building assuming that I will be available post-D although I have said the opposite consistently, along with Mr Meh who thinks that leaving your wife requires no explanation or apology unless you feel like doing her a favour
3. Finalising the D is his priority.
Anyone see different?
I know I am not unloveable or worthless. I may have made myself easy to leave initially because I believed my H had been diagnosed with a serious mental disorder. It is quite reasonable after 18 years to focus on support and concern for your H. I had no prior reason to not trust my H or believe me or our M was not important to him.
I think when you find yourself in MLC land the first biggest struggle is to reconcile how someone you knew for a long time becomes unrecognisable. If you have a Vanisher as I did, who says virtually nothing, you have no idea what they are thinking or feeling. All you know is that they are not acting like the person you knew. Not normal for them, and actually not normal for normal adults often. If you're lucky, you find out about MLC eventually and that it is real and you're not alone or mad.
The second stage is when some of the facts trickle out. For me, that took about 9 months with a second dollop through the D disclosure process about 3 months ago. You have to accept the factual reality that your H has done things you never would have believed of them. A big bit of you really doesn't want to accept they are even capable of being that kind of person. But you also know for your own sanity that you have to look facts in the eye. You're doing that while underneath you are wondering, and hoping, that the person you knew still exists behind the fog but you're not sure. You have no way of knowing what they are thinking or feeling, or most of what they are doing if you choose to detach and not snoop as I mostly did. You struggle to claw back your reality from what is happening now.
As Cadence said rightly, there is a lot I don't know and I have value and am loveable. There is a lot I may never know. It hurts that your best friend and H is treating me and our M as worthless and I still have value and am loveable.
I think I shifted from wanting to think the best to needing to think the worst as I saw more and more facts that it hurt me to deny. That my H had started an A at the same time as saying he wanted my love and support last year. That my H had said he wanted a divorce and then stonewalled me again for months. That he had stolen money and valuables from me. That he had committed bank fraud. That he had thrown a valuable watch in a river after filing because he said he was angry. That he is in a huge financial mess. That he has done nothing which looks like showing care, concern for my wellbeing or remorse. I have no way of knowing what he actually thinks or feels at any given point, that's true. I don't know if he is happy with his new life or OW. I don't know if he is mentally well now although some of his recent behaviour and medical facts from disclosure would suggest not. I don't know what his plans are. I don't know what will happen in his future life. Or in mine, to be fair.
The hardest thing for me has been to teach myself that I am not dealing with the person I knew. I don't doubt my memory of him or other people's experience of him.
Irrespective of what he actually thinks or feels, or might think or feel in future, I was abandoned and am being divorced by a person whose behaviour looks like someone who no longer shares my values and who is indifferent to my feelings or wellbeing. That is just reality right now. Preparing for the worst is an internal 2x4 to remind me that, if I look at actions rather than (few) words, my MLC depressed STBXH does not place me, our friendship, our M or his part of our joint obligations as a priority. The most consistent patterns in the actions I can see are to lie, avoid, procrastinate and run up debt. It is logical to assume, in the absence of other evidence, that he will continue to act that way and for me to adjust my actions accordingly. Which means, yes, I do have a negative mindset now towards the person who I loved and trusted most in the world. I'd be an idiot if I didn't, wouldn't I?
Accepting these realities really hurts me. It hurts that Mr MLC has killed the person I loved, or at least right now. It hurts that I see no signs right now of that changing. It hurts that I am collateral damage, that this has changed my life and that my STBXH shows no care about that after almost two decades. Is it possible that he is secretly thinking and feeling differently? That he isn't happy? That he will have regret and remorse at some point? Of course, and as you said cadence, the anecdotal evidence from folks who have heard the other side of MLC suggest that is more likely than not. But secret shame or love butters no parsnips and it doesn't help me right now.
The creeping danger of having to think the worst of someone is twofold. Cadence you were right to flag it for me. One is that by thinking the worst, you look for it and make it happen. Right now, I think it is realistic based on the little I can see in my sitch. For others, whose MLC spouses start to show signs of recovery, it might be different and you might need to remind yourself to be less negative. The second is that it is a slippery slope from 'accept that your H acts as if you are worth nothing/to blame/his enemy' to listening to the little insidious voice that says 'what if he's right?'. Cadence reminded me that this is the voice to fight.
Ok, just approved financial proposal letter to be sent. If he says yes (to my pretty unreasonable demands, hey ho) in order to avoid being exposed in Court, my guess is he will apply for absolute asap. So I shall be divorced in time for our 14th wedding anniversary next month. Which doesn't make me do a happy dance, but I'll be ok.
Time to look at what's good.
- having a runaway MLC protected me from some of the crazy stuff while I was also dealing with my mother's dementia
- the D is the price I pay to be financially separated from someone who is spending themselves close to bankruptcy
- it forces me to draw a line in the sand and once the house is sold, there will be no need for any further contact which will help me focus on what next
- I can date and have sex again if I want to
- I like my little rented house by the sea and he has never set foot in it
- an ex-H doesn't need my love, concern, mind reading or eggshell texts replies which leaves more mental space for better things
- I don't need to deal with legal paperwork or lawyers for much longer
- I'll get a replacement for my watch finally like a faux anniversary present, and I can still look at it to remind me that I am a treasure just like my H said when he bought it
- I have blocked all social media links because I don't need to know what he or OW are doing and when the practical stuff is dealt with I can block his email/phone etc too so he can't contact me again. He cut contact with all his/our old friends anyway and his family sent me to Coventry too so there will be no leftover links between us
- my pension will quadruple in value
- the new work opportunities just starting now will give me financial security that he can't trash
- I don't have to sit and listen and get hurt by 'talking' to someone who can't treat me or our M with respect and decency...and I've got to the point where the importance of what outweighs the need to know why
- I can start planning the next 6 months without waiting for further shocks or surprises
- I can stop hoping for a miracle H recovery and start hoping and building a new happy for myself and people who care about me
- I can have more conversations with old friends that do not include his name and people won't expect me to know how he is
- it removes a lot of chaos, uncertainty and helplessness about things being 'done' to me
- I can do what I want and feel how I feel without having to consider the repercussions of it
- I don't need to read any more books about broken men, depression, MLC or repairing marriages
- I know I am a good person and was a pretty good wife who tried my best for someone I love, and who didn't have an A, run away in tough times or file for D. And I'm battered but absolutely not broken
- I never need to have a conversation again about his dysfunctional parents or his way of dealing with them
- I never need to iron a man's shirt again or spend time faking interest in one new boring grey car vs another
Other good things from those of you divorced from your MLCers?
And when does this 'how the hell did this happen/how could they' feeling go away?
Ha ha ha at the comment about feigning interest in the grey car!
I love the way you you really think things through and put your thoughts on paper (well virtual paper) in such an articulate manner. I need to try that as I seem to be all over the place.
Again, so much of what you write applies and resonates with me. I have no doubt you will be fine. I think one of the challenges going through this, is wondering and dreading how you will feel when certain steps become reality. In all of this you have the comfort and knowledge that you tried your darnedest and are not playing the victim card but moving forward. H cannot say the same and later if he ever snaps out if it, he will have to deal with that and by then this will all be a dulling chapter in life. He is an idiot.
On that, you, me, everyone who knew him, my L and even his own L are agreed! I think only him and OW think otherwise!
I'm glad if some of my (long) thinking out loud is helpful. It helps me to know that I have already survived the worst, things I thought i might not.
I'm still sad, still bewildered by this turn in my life, still miss my friend and H. I suppose I think of myself like a widow really rebuilding my life after losing my beloved H. It will be much easier when I don't have to interact with the monster he is right now.
Part 3: Facts, Mind Reading & Negative Assumptions
Accepting these realities really hurts me. It hurts that Mr MLC has killed the person I loved, or at least right now. It hurts that I see no signs right now of that changing. It hurts that I am collateral damage, that this has changed my life and that my STBXH shows no care about that after almost two decades. Is it possible that he is secretly thinking and feeling differently? That he isn't happy? That he will have regret and remorse at some point? Of course, and as you said cadence, the anecdotal evidence from folks who have heard the other side of MLC suggest that is more likely than not. But secret shame or love butters no parsnips and it doesn't help me right now.
The creeping danger of having to think the worst of someone is twofold. Cadence you were right to flag it for me. One is that by thinking the worst, you look for it and make it happen. Right now, I think it is realistic based on the little I can see in my sitch. For others, whose MLC spouses start to show signs of recovery, it might be different and you might need to remind yourself to be less negative. The second is that it is a slippery slope from 'accept that your H acts as if you are worth nothing/to blame/his enemy' to listening to the little insidious voice that says 'what if he's right?'. Cadence reminded me that this is the voice to fight.
I am stunned at how this resonates so very strongly for me. You have said exactly what I have been thinking for almost 2 years.
I too need to take note of the insidious mind worms that eat away at my happiness and confidence. I want so much not to be a bitter old harpy, the person people cross the street to avoid or inwardly groan about if caught at a social gathering. Who wants to be that woman? Learning to ditch the "what if he's right?" inner snark is the thing I'm going to work on now. Thankyou and cadence for this great insight!
I've got an ambition to witness the gigantic karmic slap my STBX so richly deserves. Unfortunately, karma moves very slowly and sometimes unreliably so I doubt I'll see it happen - or I'll have lost interest by the time it happens. I should think that will be a good thing.
Treasur, you sound like you will be fine. Being fair and funny is a great combo, and sure to keep you in demand, if that's what you're after.
Treasur,
I love your list of the good things. I'm copying some of them down for my own notes to remind me, that whichever way I go in deciding to file or not file, there are pros and cons both ways. I'm struggling over the last 24 hours with whether to just go ahead and pull the plug, file, then see whether we have anything to build a new R on is really there. So far, people have been supportive in my thoughts to wait, with the exception of my S35. He wants me to be protected, and I think a tiny part of him wants to see me file, just to make a statement- "You cannot treat me this way for 7 months, and I will not live with you openly seeing other people." All valid points. In some ways, I think it'd be easier if he would file, rather than my having to make the decision.
I don't think for those of us with Vanishers, the "how did this happen/how could they" will ever go away. Lessen maybe, grow fainter, maybe. But maybe never go away. I think we just have to make room for that to sit in a corner of our head/heart, not feed it, and let time remove some of the sting.
I think the practicalities of D are a bit big for a 'statement' - easier/cheaper to go NC for 30 days, run off to Fiji for a month with no internet/phone, donate his favourite clothes to Goodwill, 'accidentally' break his laptop/tv/car....add your own suggestions here.
When in doubt, just give yourself time to breathe and think. Your actions are for you, not to send a message or try to influence someone else. Just for you and what feels healthy for you.
I've decided my new shorthand for new people who ask is..."my H had a depressive breakdown, became unrecognisable and a bit mad. Nothing I could do about it"
I agree with your thoughts about "a statement". This is a huge decision. I put my thread out there to get some feedback before I call the attorney to set up appt- so far no feedback..... but I'm leaning toward calling, making an appointment for a month from now- and take the time to go NC, slow my thoughts down, see my counselor again next week, and be sure I've thought this through.
I LOVE your British way of saying- "gone slightly mad." I'm adopting that too. I think it can apply to both H and to me, in slightly different ways.
Meet you in Fiji.
Read something useful on another site, one that is a bit more bullish about infidelity.
Someone posted that why this is a perfect storm is that it is a situation where our strengths become weapons that are used against us...compassion, love, understanding, commitment, effort and courage. This means that we have to be careful not to let those fine human qualities hurt us, but it doesn't mean they are bad qualities and it doesn't make any of the post-BD craziness our fault or responsibility. We were 50/50 in our M, but post-BD, our spouses were 100% responsible for creating a whole new deal.
And combined with our lovely good qualities, the flip side of the pitch is that it brings lies, confusion, chaos, changing reality, rejection, abandonment, loss, grief, fear, control, manipulation, anger, anxiety, hatred, destruction, blame and extreme emotions that change frequently.
No wonder this stuff is so hard for us. But the lesson I took from reading this is we are good people trying to do the best we can in a virtually incomprehensible situation. We can use it to improve things WE want to improve about ourselves. We can use it to add some new coping skills that protect us and people we love. But I haven't read a single story here, no matter the previous imperfections of a M, where there were not other gentler, kinder, less destructive ways for our spouses to choose that would still have given them what they say they want. For their own 'reasons', our spouses chose this route...but it was never our choice so it really isn't our responsibility or fault. Our responsibility is to own our own responses and hold on to the normal truth about who we are and how normal healthy adults deal with tough times.
Here is where I am this morning. The sun is shining and I'm working on things outside my marital sitch, things that are about what next.
The £ proposal is with my STBXH. I have no idea if he will agree to it, argue or respond at all to it. It pretty much leaves him with nothing and is much less 'fair' than I would have been 6 months ago, but I've stopped thinking about his needs now just mine. And it isn't a great sitch that will leave me skipping off undamaged, just the best I can do given how things are. In 7 days, if it isn't agreed, my L will go back to the Court option. Que sera. I hope that this stage will be over soon even though that means the D being final, because I'm tired of a life shaped by someone else's destruction and silence.
I seem to be a funny place on the detachment road now. I don't want to contact him. I have no need to snoop or mind read. I miss the H he was, but less sharply, as if he'd died so similar to how I miss my father who actually died two years ago. But I'm still here and I don't know what the next chapter will bring. Unless I was really creatively self-destructive, it takes a stretch to imagine that it could possibly be worse than the last 2 years!
I am where I am. Based on the little I can see, my H wants to 'move on' now without explanation or looking back. He broke, he stopped caring about me at all, he ran, he didn't reach back. That's it. It was out of my hands, like being diagnosed with a serious illness. Just a life thing. Nothing I did to deserve it or ask for it. My assumption, based on how things are right now, is that I will never understand or hear his perspective on it. I will probably never see or speak to him again, or know what happens to him. He is essentially a stranger with my H's face. But I'm still here.
It's my birthday in October and by then, I want to feel that this phase of my life is in the rear view mirror rather than biting me every day. I'd like to go on a date before then, and laugh about trivia and feel pretty. I'd like to be working on a plan to rebuild my business. I'd like to feel secure that I can keep my financial head above the water for the next 6 months. I'd like to stop seeing therapists and navel-gazing but to start looking up and out and forward. I'd like to get back to feeling that surprises are more likely to be good surprises. I'd like to feel as if my gains are starting to outweigh my losses, and that things which make me smile outweigh the inevitable sorrows of things like my missing beloved and my mother's dementia.
I will assume the positive thought that my H will sign off the agreement and let that sit in the background while I get on with other more fruitful happy things.
So, these are the things I am working on today.
Oh and wearing nice underwear that someone else will get to enjoy too...and sex, yum!
Great job, Treasur.
Navel gazing is frustrating, but entirely necessary after the few years you've had.
Remember that like attracts like, and given your plans to start seeing who else is out there, you want to be at your best regarding emotional health.
Obviously, it's impossible to get to perfection, but if you've handled your current grief and pain from your past and have a healthy outlook, then you're more liable to meet someone healthy.
If you've got insecurities, you'll attract/be attracted to someone with the same amount of issues, but they'll be manifesting in other areas.
Think of your navel gazing as an investment in your future happiness!
I'm telling you this because I want to see you find someone emotionally healthy. I want the same for me, and I'm working on the same things.
Treasure,
I believe I have just been inspired to go buy some new underwear later today.😁 We men tend to wait to buy new ones when it's absolutely necessary. But with this weight loss, I am get a few new pairs along with a new belt.
oooh, Tread...I like those David Beckham style 'jewel huggers'...do not be tempted into novelty patterned underwear and I suggest you avoid satin or sequins unless you're planning a new career!
Thanks, cadence - I'm definitely more about FWB than deep romance right now, and I absolutely have no energy for great emotional dramas!
Thanks, cadence - I'm definitely more about FWB than deep romance right now, and I absolutely have no energy for great emotional dramas!
That's fine!
However, why are you equating romance with great emotional dramas? You know there are stable healthy men out there where it would just be easy, right?
I trust that you know what you need now, and if you're just looking for some fun, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that!
Was responding to your comment about emotionally healthy...don't have a relationship history of dramatic divas! (Is there a male version of diva or same term, don't know)
Very odd but tonight for some reason, first time in ages, I can feel my H's presence. Get that now and then. It's hard loving someone and knowing you have to let them go completely.
Three days now. No response to £ agreement so looks like he's back to silence again as it's a pretty simple thing. Yes or alternative or go to Court. Only 2 steps left really. Agreement and then he can apply for the Absolute which will suddenly appear on my door mat. Even a few months ago he said it was inconceivable that this is where we are. It is...but he created this final chapter. So sad. Such a waste. I have no idea how this feels good to him. Strange.
Today I am throwing photos away, keeping a few, but part of clearing the rubble for my own what next
I love throwing things away (well giving them to a friend or Goodwill anyway).
You cracked me up with the new profession line to Tread. Just reading Tread talk about buying underwear was somewhat risque.
I don't even know how you can think of a FWB. I am terrified of disease. I don't think I'll ever be able to do the nasty with another person ever again. And certainly not with a FWB.
I picture some bookish guy with a heart of god. Tall and broad shouldered would be nice. I think I'll have to trip over him though.
What is your type?
I like smart men, have a weakness for green eyes, dark hair, nice forearms, physically confident. Like my very first teenage love actually. Not much like my STBXH! Not keen on beards.
Gosh, just had one of the moments when the grief grabs you. Almost 2 years on I really have no idea what happened to my H, why in God's universe he would be choosing to be anywhere else but here with me.
I know if he walked in the door right now he wouldn't look or sound like my H. Dead eyes, cold voice, rigid face, different clothes. He's a stranger now.
Such mixed crazy emotions and two years of madness. I don't understand it much more than I did 22 long months ago. I've just learned to accept and keep going. Sometimes I think the closest to how I feel as if he killed himself. Questions, no answers, knowing depression took him, yearning, anger, knowing in his right mind he would never have chosen this for me or him, knowing he chose to go.
On the bright side, now I can cry for a bit, shake it off like a wet dog and press on. A year ago I'd have been hiding under the duvet or rocking backwards and forwards!
We use a gmail calendar to share info about where we are to avoid bumping into each other by accident. My H is at our old house today. No idea why. It hurts me to be there. He avoided it and seemed to find it distressing for about 18 months. In the last couple of weeks he has texted saying is it ok if he goes there to 'air' the house....?
There is a bit of me which is exasperated because it would be more useful if, instead of 'airing' a house that is up for sale, he spent time on doing the long list of other tasks he's been not doing. Buying a replacement watch. Packaging up things that he was required to return to me months ago. Responding to the £ agreement. Nope, he's 'airing' instead...It is hard looking from the outside to see much sense in many of his actions from the beginning really.
I have no idea why he would have had the kind of emotions in January that would make him throw a 3k watch into the Thames, or what kind of emotions you'd have to do that. Some kind of anger, I guess. A year after he ran away and stopped talking to me. After 14 months of psychiatric care. 9 months after starting to see OW. 4 months after he had seen me. 3 months after any direct contact with me. A few weeks after he had filed for D. Crazy.
I'm struggling today. Not sure why. I read on another thread about the idea of a Pendulum, part of that agonising rumination we all do when we wonder if the person we knew was real, or if this is the real with the mask off. Someone suggested that MLC works like a pendulum, that the person we knew was at one end of the swing but hiding/avoiding bits of themselves. MLC sends them to the opposite end of the pendulum swing. Ideally they reach a mid point eventually between the two.
The biggest struggle for me in this is why he has seemed to need to hurt me and make things harder for me. Less spew than some, but using silence and inaction to erase me and control things. I suppose if I look at it - without mind reading why - my H felt that he couldn't do/be what he felt he needed with my presence in his life. No idea why. Maybe blame, or me representing something. I've even wondered if in his head our M was like an addiction somehow, that he had to go 'cold turkey' and obliterate it so much that he could never let himself drift back. Ah, truth is, I don't know. I do know that it is bewildering when someone you love and trust erases you from their life and never tells you why.
I miss him so much, but I also know that he is a stranger now. A strange stranger too! I don't know what he thinks or feels. I find it hard to believe that after 20 years someone never thinks of you at all or has no feelings walking away, even a little. It would make such a difference to me if he had just written me a letter that said some nice things about me and our life together. Sigh.
But I also know that right now, based on what I can see from his actions, he will just hurt me and NC is better for me. D will be better for me because there will be no links left. It makes no sense to me that, after almost 2 years, he isn't 'better' if getting rid of me was the solution (and I quite unreasonably hate his posh psychiatrist but find it worrying that H recently admitted in an email to his own L that he forwarded to me that he lies to his psychiatrist too...) I can see from his behaviour that he is not yet calm, well and happy. If he were, he would act differently and make things more straightforward in the D process. I don't know why no one else who is in his life - including the psychiatrist - isn't suggesting that after 2 years of treatment and buckets of ADs, if he is still making such a god-awful mess of things in his life, practical rational consequences of what he says he wants, something about the treatment isn't working... To be fair, he lies and hides so he is possibly not communicating honestly with anyone as he would have done with me in the past.
I resent this last 2 years of madness in my own life. I do blame his choices for some of it, but not all of it. I had other losses too and I let myself get stuck in limbo for longer than was good for me. But I also feel huge compassion and sorrow for the chaos he has created for himself. Sometimes, like now, I can almost feel him hurting. Odd kind of link we used to have that nips back in now and then.
I know that right now there is nothing I can do pretty much about any part of my life that still involves him or requires his participation. Nothing. I can only focus on everything else outside that. I don't know what I will do if he doesn't respond to the £ agreement he said he wanted me to send. My L will want me to press the Court button but it's such a lose-lose option. I guess I'll figure it out when/if I need to. I don't even know when/if he'll apply for the Absolute...or if I should in October when I could as the respondent if he doesn't. There's a lot in my 'No F***ing Idea" box!
What am I going to do today is go swimming on the beach at midnight alone. Naked if there's no-one around...a benefit of living a block from the beach that I haven't done yet as part of my GAL. So, there's one positive new thing...haven't skinny-dipped for 30 years and my second-hand MLC diet does mean I look GOOD naked! (Even if I wish my H was here to appreciate it...or actually a foxy new FWB man with nice forearms even, I am struggling with celibacy after 2 years!)
I really believe that when we make the decision to let go and move forward that there is a tidal wave of emotions. It is the death of the life we envisioned, the death of the hope that the situation would turn around, the grief we feel over having failed, the scarlet D, and the fear of walking forward alone.
I think all of these things are coming to the fore so that you can process them one by one and move forward without carrying this baggage with you any longer. I feel that I am doing the same thing now. My emotions have been much more rollercoaster and I think I have been contacting him more than necessary knowing that the contact will shortly be at an end.
I hope this part will be over soon. The pain is pretty visceral.
Death of the last bits of hope perhaps. That there will be a good ending. Or even a chance to say goodbye
Been musing on reverse mind-reading this morning, and how much of a mindf**k mind reading is, even if you are wearing Andrew P's glamorous turban! Would really welcome any lessons from any of you who were able to have those 'missing' conversations with a lost spouse in a way that was useful to you, even if it made no difference to the M or was a long time later.
We all keep 2x4ing each other that we can't know what our spouses think and feel, or why they do or say things. In life, in a long-standing M, we all make assumptions. We assume they are shared assumptions...until we find out they are not. Otherwise we would drive ourselves a bit mad every time we communicate with anyone!
For those of us who have spouses who have run away and said very little, part of our bewilderment lies in the vacuum. It's an understandable survival mechanism to try and fill that void. We warn each other against it because our thoughts create feelings which create actions that might make things worse. But living with so much 'I don't know' about something which matters or requires action takes some adjusting to, doesn't it? I am nowhere near getting to that.
But I did start thinking this morning that the void works both ways. My H will have filled it with some of his own mind-reading. I don't know what that is but I know he hasn't asked what I think/feel so can't know...and often I don't know what I think/feel and it can change quickly tbh!
Bear with me because this is one of those 'Schrodinger's cat/makes your head hurt' reflections....
I would really like to hear my STBXH's perspective on what happened to him, why he has treated me as he has, how he feels about that and whether he sees anything nice about me/our M. It would help me, like a missing jigsaw piece. Right now I see no sign that I will ever be part of a conversation like that and all my previous attempts to make it happen have failed. With the huge caveat that I have no idea what he feels about anything now, I was trying to imagine what I might feel like in his shoes given what I do know. So, me mind-reading what he might be mind-reading about me, and how those assumptions will create thoughts, feelings and actions by him...stick with me....and if there is anything I can do to increase the chance of getting the thing I want.
So, double mind-reading, partly based on what I've seen from his actions, partly based on small things he has said, partly based on my old knowledge of him....I think he assumes these things about what is in my head:
- that I am angry and think he has behaved badly towards me
- that I want him back as my H as he was, and I want my M back
- that I still love him and want him to love me back
- that I have a ton of questions I want answers to, that I want him to explain or justify
- that I think he is to blame for everything post-BD and might want to punish him
- that I do not want to let him 'move on'
- that I think he is ill, weak, irrational, untrustworthy, a liar and nasty
Some of these things are true, or partly true. But they are not all that is true. My H can no more know what I think/feel than vice versa because he severed the communication between us.
But if I was him? Why would I want to have a difficult confusing conversation with someone who I assumed thought those things about me and the sitch? I think I would assume it was pointless and would hurt me, that it would be easier to not bother and keep walking. The only thing that might change that for me is if there were things I really needed to say to feel better or things I needed to understand that I couldn't without talking with the other person. If I could see a benefit as well as the obvious risks.
No idea what, if anything, to do with these thoughts. Maybe nothing I can do. But perhaps if my H does make even a half-hearted wobble towards talking again, I might think about how I could send signals that his mind-reading about me could be less than accurate too. If I want that jigsaw piece for myself still then.
But perhaps if my H does make even a half-hearted wobble towards talking again, I might think about how I could send signals that his mind-reading about me could be less than accurate too.
Treasur, I immediately feel that this isn't detachment. You are, in effect, striving to control his perception of you.
I understand how maddening it is for someone who thought you were the bees knees for so long suddenly ups and changes their mind. However, then you get into the "did his opinion of me lead him to do what he did?" or "did he develop this opinion of me in order to justify what he did?" chicken or egg debate. And, honestly, with MLCers, it is hard to know. With waywards, it's a little of column A and a whole lot of column B.
I feel that my H has projected so much onto me, and it does make me feel powerless. I've had times where I've felt like you do, where I wish I had the opportunity to show him that I'm still me and not the unholy combination of evil engulfing all-powerful woman out to control him and steal his life force and the naive sniveling desperate clingy woman. He could only see me as a combination of those things and it did and does bother me.
But H isn't H anymore. At least he wasn't the last time I saw him. I could have met with him, but it was soon after I'd moved out and I remember how he'd treated me and I was not interested in sitting down with the angry man with no empathy who seemed to really believe that there was a real estate refund process for faulty Cadences.
And now I see him making legal decisions that I fully believe are driven by that perception of me (that I want to steal his money AND don't want him to sell the house because I'm so desperate to reconcile) and boy is that ever killing me and my "totally normal and sometimes awesome person" pride. But it's out of my hands. Completely.
You've got no power over how he sees you. He won't trust your words. He might trust your actions, but only when he's on his way out of the MLC. Until then, you are a screen onto which he has projected his worst fears from his childhood/whatever he has repressed, and there is nothing you can do about it.
I do think that time and absence are the only things we have. Those of us who don't share kids don't have communication or in person opportunities, and I fully understand how frustrating it is (while also understanding that it's frustrating on a whole different level to share kids with an MLCer).
It sounds as if you've been reasonable in all interactions you've had with him (staying calm, not getting angry) and I think, unless he wants to open up to you, that's all that you can do.
I do agree that you should be open to him if he asks to talk or calls you again. Reaching out is meaningful, and I don't think you should fear it (as hard as I imagine that is to do in your shoes.) There is very little common sense reason that he'd want to see you/talk to you to hurt you more. However, we are dealign with MLCers, so who knows?
But, based on all that has happened, is it even possible for him to say something that could hurt you more? I'd hope you'd understand that's the key to self-protection: accepting what is and total detachment, not filling in the blanks with the best or the worst possible scenarios. What could he possibly say to you to hurt you more? That he is incredibly happy and has no positive feelings toward you? Well, if someone wants to talk to you and wants to tell you that, it's sort of akin to those people who post nothing but constant sickeningly sweet happy photos and events on social media - there's a reason that's the image they want to project. People who are truly happy don't need to display it or shout it from the rooftops. They're just happy and if they're just happy, there's no need to convince other people of it.
As for how he thinks of you, and whether that could change anything at this point, what would you tell your best friend if she was in your shoes? Probably that his opinion of her doesn't matter, that she's unfortunately got no way to control what is happening, and that her opinion of herself is the most important thing. If she felt she's acted honorably, then she's fine.
Some people want to dislike us because if their own issues, and I feel that happens in an MLC. If they don't want to see us clearly, we can't make them do that. Because they have upturned their lives and ran away, and other than some mental health/depression issues, they would also want to think that was the right decision to have made, and thinking the worst of us allows them to support their own decisions.
You're right, cadence. Ish. I think I am getting more detached from my H and I certainly see no hope at all for a shared future. The bit I'm not detached from is a missing jigsaw piece of what the hell happened in his head for him to blow up both of our lives. I think I can be OK now without a conversation, but if it were possible to have one, I think I might prefer that. I don't know if I've always been reasonable. Most of the time, I've just been bewildered and sometimes that has made me inconsistent in my reactions. I have tried my best to be compassionate and fair though.
Maybe I wish I could sow a seed. Maybe it's a seed for me in my head if he wants to talk again after I said no before. Right now, it's not likely to be an option that presents itself.
Could he hurt me more? I don't know, maybe. I think some of the things he might say that could, I know are not real enough to me to hurt even if it might hurt to know that he thinks that way. I have been afraid but I feel I've lost all that matters than I can lose from this sitch. I actually feel, no matter what happens, that the worst pain of the last two years is behind me and that helps me look forward now. Do I feel that whatever he thinks/feels is a reflection of me? Mostly not. I just think he's fighting his own demons and I became a bit-player in his head, not even sure he saw or remembered who I am. But my journey has pushed me to remember who I am regardless and that's a good thing.
I haven't done anything with my thoughts. I'm focusing more on the things I need to do to make the next 2 years much better than the last 2. Whatever that looks like, I don't want to stay where I have been and I wish the last bits of the D process would get done because it [censored] me back. Make A Life more than Get A Life perhaps.
Silly thing, I know, but this morning was the first morning in a long time where I jumped out of bed feeling keen to start the day. And no thoughts of H or sitch. I know that lots of you know how such a small thing feels like a really big thing - yay for me!
Treasure, you and i are about the same time out of our situations. And i love reading your posts, because your thoughts and reflections are very similar to my own.
I notice that people who have been in very bad car accidents, or that have been through difficult surgeries or even difficult births and deliveries have this need to tell their story over and over either in their minds or with other people. They organize and put into order what happened and then try to fill in the blanks or the missing pieces. They do this for a while and then eventually seem to heal usually with time and distraction. Therapists usually tell them to keep talking and figuring it out.
Our partners not only ended a relationship and left, but they also lied to, vilified and demonized us as well in order to do so. This is traumatic and for me the hardest part to get over. Because in their minds we were demons, it allowed them to do some pretty nasty stuff to us (in your case he stole from you, in my case he withheld child support) We were victimized by the people we loved and trusted, and its hard to make sense of this. Which is why you/i are trying to fill in all these missing pieces. We are sorting out and coming to terms with trauma, and i think its normal and a part of the process.
Eventually we will no longer care enough to need answers or explanations from the people that traumatized us because the pain from this trauma wont be so acute.
25 write a post to you about the importance of GAL and it was spot on. I think the people that can delve into a new world do better. Im at a point where i need to do this too.
Im so glad you had a great morning!
Treasur,
As I've said before to you, it is a LEGITIMATE feeling, that missing piece of the jig-saw puzzle. It's like one day we woke up, and that life-time partner had left the building. Bam. Just like that.
I think us being able to say things like that aloud in a safe place like this forum, helps us come to terms with the unanswered questions. And with the realization, that we may never get the answers. But there's comfort in the company of others who totally get it. And I TOTALLY GET IT.
We can do this. Let's go meet this day, face full and uplifted towards the sun!
We all bumble around here, don't we? Some things the same, some different. Some things others here get when RL friends can't.
It's hard for me to see my H as he was in some of the stories here. He was dented but full of love and warmth. Very different from now. It is a big missing piece, but I'll have to live without it. It helps rationally to know he was diagnosed with severe depression. It doesn't help that 2 years of treatment and this is how he is. And there is nothing I can do.
Repeat after me...Detach and GAL, M is dead. Detach and GAL, M is dead.
Bad day here. Been thinking about fear.
I'm not suicidal. Been there last year and it was about feeling unable to live with the pain.
But I'm tired, really tired. My fear is about not being enough. I fix things because I think doing is what makes me enough. I'm ashamed that without my family to love me, I haven't found a way yet to feel enough just on my own. I'm ashamed I feel not enough. I'm ashamed that I'm still a mess. I'm ashamed that I can't find a reason to matter that matters enough to me. I'm ashamed of being so weak and tired that I want to give up. I'm frightened that I am not enough and that I can't find enough in me to do more than put one foot in front of the other. I'm just tired of all of this.
I want my life back and I can't seem to find it some days. Today is just one of those days.
Big hugs to you!!! Chock it up to just a really bad day. We've all had them before and sometimes they hit with no surprise. When it happens to me, I try to give into it and give myself a break. I know if I take a long walk or get out and go to a movie it helps but on days I can't manage that, I just crawl under the duvet and let myself wallow and feel sorry for myself. I know that it is not the conventional wisdom but it works for me. Also, since I am able to do it, I do. I know later I will be working and will have to get out there and put in my happy face.
I am surprised you are feeling that way. You have been amazing with all of your postings and processing recently. You have helped me so much in your postings. You are not alone in your circumstances. I know the weather where I am has been awful and that plays a huge role.
You help so many people. Just reading about you being a fixer, etc., again articulated a lot of how I feel. I think we have bad days because we spend a lot of energy trying to do the right thing and be a good person and then the anger and resentment bubbles up. I struggle with never having the opportunity to discuss or fix my marriage with my WAH/MLC. It just isn't fair. End of. I also don't believe in karma because I think that would mean I did something awful to deserve this. I know they will crash eventually but in the meantime, why do they appear so happy on the outside? Wish I could help more and I hope your day gets better. Sometimes that happens too.
Hey sweet Treasur,
I hope today is a better day for you. It hurts to see you hurt like that, although it feels like a second skin (that thank goodness we DO eventually shed!)
My awful days were in the darkest days of January, which seems to be a hard month anyway. There were days I DID just crawl under the covers and cry. But being the women that we are, we can only do that for so long before even WE become sick of ourselves. The only thing to do is let those feelings come when you must, ride the waves of them, then walk out of the surf and get on the "sturdy quicksand"! Which is a joke.
YOU ARE ENOUGH. Repeat. I AM ENOUGH. You really are. Take a second and look around for someone who may need your smile today. Every single person we meet on the street, in the market, etc. is fighting a battle that we know nothing about. One of the things that helped me the most was signing up to drive for a program that delivers hot meals to elderly people. The work was easy for me, and I found that just getting out of the house on a regular basis (AND NO, I DID NOT feel like doing it- but once I signed up, I knew I had to go, so I did) was a help, but oh my, going into those homes each day around noon, some of the recipients not even able to walk to the door, but rather had to call from inside the house to come on in, some coming across to open the door in a slow, painstaking way in their own wheelchair, some creeping along on a walker, but the gratitude in their faces when they saw another human at the door..... it absolutely changed my mood and attitude every single time. And the crazy thing, almost every single one of the them wanted to give me a hug, and say GOD BLESS YOU FOR HELPING ME. You may not have access to a program like that right where you are, but you are a smart woman with so much love to give. A husband is not the only channel you can pour that love into. There are hurting people literally everywhere. You just have to be creative with how to find them! I know you know all this-no new information here. But sometimes we just need a little nudge to remind us that we have things to offer, that people around us are starving to receive. Now get out there and love some people! Just today. Don't worry about tomorrow until it gets here. Just do it one day at a time. It will carry you all the way home, like headlights on a car at night. You can only see a short distance, but each short distance brings you closer to home.
Thanks, leah.... did the duvet big sleep last night. Am wandering around like a slightly mad woman muttering "i am enough, I am enough, i am enough". Will keep going unless I get arrested for looking like a lunatic by the sea!
Here's what I'm struggling/stuck with...
This is NOT my life, but it is if you know what I mean. Losing my parents and H all within four months just kicked the s**t out of me. I think I just froze and I feel like Sleeping Beauty slowly waking up after 2 years! Plus dealing with the incomprehensible destruction of my H's Rollercoaster of Silent WTF Doom, emotionally and practically.
There are outside realities that I have to respond or adjust to. Selling our house and my mother's. A hideously complex legal process of dealing with my mother's affairs as her guardian. Visiting a mother with dementia who is either terrified or raging, and usually doesn't know me. A business in death throes because I haven't focused on it. Not enough money to survive on after December. Being divorced by someone I love with no reason given who mostly doesn't communicate at all, keeps throwing new WTF challenges into the mix and doesn't respond to L's letters much either. Having no family back up and some good friends who are also exhausted by supporting me emotionally, or live thousands of miles away. Being 53, living alone in a very nice rented house by the sea...with an affectionate elderly diabetic boy cat. These things are all real.
So my challenge is what I do with me and what I do with the cards I've been dealt.
Before life blew up, I was an optimistic extrovert with a business, a home and a partnership where I thought I was valued and safe. I didn't like where we were living and my business wasn't really pleasing me. I was a bit bored actually, but planning as a team. Then life made other plans!
There is nothing I can do about my mother's dementia or my H's behaviour. There is nothing I can do to stop or avoid being divorced and acting as my mother's legal guardian. I can only choose how much these things damage me more and how much mental space they use. I have no goals for my M, my communication with my H or my mother. I might need some for the D.
My goals:
1. I need to protect my mental and physical health and find the bit of me again that knows I'm really enough
2. I need to make safe financial ground to stand on for the next 6 months regardless of what is happening outside
3. I need to rebuild my working life so I feel productive and engaged in life outside my life/head
4. I need to see friends, make new ones and do new GAL things that make me feel good
5. I need a plan for the next 6 months and the discipline to just f**king do it regardless of what is happening outside
Today, I'm going to make a solution-focused plan. Small steps and experiments that lead to bigger steps just like DB. I'm going to f**king DB my own life because I've had enough of the life that other things and people are trying to make for me. F**k 'em.
Glad you have emerged from the duvet! Sounds like you have a good plan.
Still cannot believe how similar our situations are except you are living my dream in a house by the sea. I, too, have the husband who doesn't respond to lawyers but manages to throw up WTF things regularly. Spoke to my lawyer yesterday and are going to start taking the initiative, in a divorce in which I am still not totally clear why I am getting. Know my next step may freak him out and the financial taps could get switched off but I have no other choice. I can always run back to the States. A weak Plan B, I know. Hang in there.
Are you in the UK, citygrl? If so, you're welcome to come visit me at the seaside!
Thank you. I am in the UK. Southwest trains is my service. Weather has been horrendous! I do struggle slightly with the driving thing when I don't know my way. Husband always drove distances. OMG. I sound like an old lady. Freaky. That is part of my GAL goal: driving to places I don't know. Weirdly, everyone says I am a good driver it is me that freaks out because I am always afraid I am going to revert back to US driving and enter a one way street or something. Add it to my list of problems and issues. Lol
I'm on the East Coast, citygrl...trains from Liverpool St...you'd be welcome x
I used to live in another country too and remember one time when I'd just got back, jet lagged about 3am, suddenly realised I was driving the wrong way round a roundabout!
Thoughts? (I think I use this board as an 'am I crazy too?' check!)
If my STBXH doesn't respond to the £ agreement HE asked for by tomorrow, my L will want me to go to Court. I've been thinking about doing a 180 and doing a NC/NOTHING for a month. Why? It will leave H worrying that I'm going to do it. It's about time he gets a taste of his own medicine. It will be fun to see how long before he breaks cover. I need a break from this s**t to focus on more useful things. And it is a real 180 for me, and a bit of control.
Consequences? Nothing in the £ agreement is s/t (pensions, equity in house still on market, replacement for the phantom swimming watch) so won't make a difference to my immediate £ worries. He might apply for the Absolute but nothing I can do about that anyway, and I'm not sure I care as I did because this childish sociopathic version of my H really isn't a catch to hold on to.
Hi Treasur
If it makes no difference then do it. Like you say you need that head space for other things and court is going to cost so unless necessary do nothing.
I'm East Mids can I visit :-)
SJ x
Ugh. I hate all this so much! One thing I have learned is that life is a process. It has become my mantra. When it all hit and I was in a tailspin, things seemed to be moving so quickly (especially husband's now defunct OW1--or at least I think so. Could still be holding that candle). Anyway, I have learned that it is ok to slow things down as the situation is fluid and if you are in no financial danger and your gut says wait than wait. It gives you a breather. Yes, I know, I am no poster child of successful marriage!
If you already had financial disclosure forms swapped than you have an idea of what is going on. He can't start creating financial Armageddon. I am having exact same discussions with attorney. Lawyer feels we have been patient enough and our credibility will soon be in question if we don't act. Husband has not submitted financial disclosure which was due in March. Filing in court puts pressure to meet deadlines and will cost a bundle but sometimes it has to be done. So if you need to wait a few days or a few weeks to be ready for that, than wait.
It is out of our hands if they go for the Absolute. I don't know about you, but that is the greatest cause of my anxiety. I flip flop all the time: want it over and want my old husband back. Not doing anything in my case seems to give him security in that. Feel like I spend way too much mental energy on him and this. Are they delaying to hedge their bets or are they being financially sneaky?
OMG on the roundabout thing! Lol. Will look up where Liverpool Station is. Are you up North? I am southern Hampshire, an hour from London. Not sure what we are allowed to reveal.
All welcome! I'm in Southwold...very posh seaside with lovely beach and noisy seagulls!
He can't start creating financial Armageddon. I am having exact same discussions with attorney.
My H has pretty much done that already. Took him 6 months to produce a partial £ disclosure and it was shocking. If we go to court, he will basically be bankrupt and lose his job because he works for a bank and a whole bunch of dodgy stuff will become public knowledge...Because I've asked for pension/house equity, doesn't impact me if he loses his job actually as it will be a clean break agreement, but going to Court is ridiculous in our sitch. But then I've tried (and failed) to get him to respond to every other option over the last year - y'know, talking like adults, email, mediation, L's letters....He has consistently behaved like a f**kwit and really messed up his own life, but nothing I can do about that.
It is out of our hands if they go for the Absolute. I don't know about you, but that is the greatest cause of my anxiety. I flip flop all the time: want it over and want my old husband back. Not doing anything in my case seems to give him security in that. Feel like I spend way too much mental energy on him and this. Are they delaying to hedge their bets or are they being financially sneaky?
I did worry about this. I never wanted a D. I loved my H very much and felt compassion for just how broken he was. I wish my H still existed but right now he's a self-destructive unrecognisable mentally ill stranger. As time has passed, I guess I think that a) no point worrying because there is nothing I can do to stop it and b) maybe this last severing of the link between us is the price I have to pay for not being collateral damage to more of his WTF chaos. Sad though. I would have chosen a different calmer path even if we still ended up divorced.
I know it! Just under 3 hours drive from me, put the kettle on :-)
Fab, citygrl - do you fancy planning a weekend? I stopped drinking for ages so I have a ton of wine!
Sounds good but I don't know how we message privately and can't disclose too much publicly?
SJ
Hmmm...I don't know how to figure that out between the three of us either...ideas?
Not sure I'll have a think
We could all agree a weekend & time to meet at a specific train station...have only got a 2 seater though so only room for one passenger, but SJW, you could follow us home?
Hmm. Just checked trains. You are a little over 4 hours fro me but hey travel is fun. Unless we all meet in London? How to figure this out??? I trust you all know the country better than I! It would be nice to give typing a break and actually speak.
I'm happy to go with whatever. I agree with Citygrl take a break from typing!
What Ownit and I did was to meet at a Starbucks at a specific mall, time, date, and told each other, like I'll be wearing a purple scarf. That worked great for us. I think the train station idea would work for you, but maybe a little more specific. Just somewhere public like that but specific enough. (We later realized there's more than one Starbucks in that mall, so it took us a bit longer, but she figured it out!) Good luck! It really is cool to meet IRL.
I think my L's bill (see vent fest) just flipped me to the F**k it phase. Is there one of those for an LBS? I'm not angry with my STBXH. I don't need to mind read. I'm not in pain. I don't want to save my M or get him back. I just want to stop the craziness. It feels like the Bay of Pigs here...
So I just sent the following email:
Dear H
I've just paid my latest legal bill. I’ve spent £3500 so far on a divorce I never wanted. Money I don’t have that I need to pay rent. I assume you’ve spent as much if not more. I’ve not had any response from you or your solicitor about the £ stuff and today is the 7 day deadline. I don’t know why.
Why are we doing this, H, really? We could have spent less on a round the world trip, talking things out over cocktails in a beach bar or climbing mountains or learning to surf or eating street food in Singapore. A few thousand more and the divorce will cost more than our wedding but with less kisses and cake.
Obviously you weren’t happy with something about how life was, as the link says. I wasn’t either, I just didn’t think it was your fault, so I didn’t think leaving you was the answer. Please can we cut through the crap with love and find a better way? We really loved each other and this mess is crazy. We’ve both made mistakes. There must be a better way than this. I don’t hate you and this all just doesn’t feel right to me. You? Can we just take a breath, start with a calm clean slate and figure it out together?
Shall we start placing bets on a) if he responds at all or b) how he might read this through MLC goggles and react? I'm open to 'doodler' like fun suggestions!
PS link was one from a divorce site that essentially says the real reason for marriages failing is because we get unhappy with ourselves...
Treasur, I really like your email. It's honest and direct. It seems to come from a healthy place, not a reactive or fearful one. And it mostly just feels "real".
My money's on him responding with something like "I'm sorry, this is just something I have to do".
OK, holding, are you up for a virtual £5 bet??? Any other bids?
Thanks. The good thing about the F**k it stage (I wonder if I missed that in DR) is that it feels pretty liberating. I feel like me again, my voice, the woman I was before I got married.
And F**k It too, if I hear nothing, I've lost nothing....I'll just go NC for a few weeks, give myself a break and let him stew/bake/spew via his L
I like this F**k It stage. Especially because I don't feel angry or trying to get a specific outcome, other than not raffling the cat or robbing a bank to pay L fees. It's like a whole new kind of detachment, sort of Zen F**k It...
I LIKE this Treasur too. That's the way to kick in that old sparkly girl who's been hidden inside you!!
Seriously, I think righteous anger is better, at least for me. It gives me some energy back to fight/stand up for myself, which gives me a better deal in the end.
I'm rooting for you, girlfriend. You keep me in your positive vibes, took as I move toward this crazy weekend. I'm sure I'll be hiding in the closet, asking for help from you friends, at each turn of events.
One of the things (just one!) I find so bewildering about STBXH's behaviour is how he says he wants x but then acts in a way which is almost the opposite.
He said he wanted to 'move on' and to not go to Court. That going to Court will bankrupt him and cost him his job. He asked me to propose a £ settlement. I did as he asked. He's had a week to say yes/no/alternative. No action at all. Even in a crazy MLC head, how does that make sense? Why wouldn't he just do it to get what he says he wants, to be done and free? Any ideas?
I'm really tired of mind reading crazy but I can't completely disconnect yet because of the D process. Not only have I let go in my heart now, I actually want him to go away now. I just need him to let me go so I can get away from this madness...sigh
Hmmm. Like the letter and I get it but will say I am not sure how he will take it. I can only relate this to my situation and husband. (Why does it always come back to me, me, me! Lol). I hope he will have a moment of clarity and man-up; however, that is not his track record. My husband has been unable to articulate or truly explore his feelings and what happened with out marriage. As a result, he just runs from any kind of confrontation or exploration of his feelings or demons. Your husband may, in his warped mind, think the reference to your marriage is you not giving up hope. Not because that is what you meant but how warped their thinking is.
So, I think you should prepare for not hearing anything from him, or for a surprise Absolute (ok, that is my paranoia). I hope I am totally wrong and not knowing him or how your communication has been or his state-of-mind, that he will agree with you.
Have you considered phoning him? That is when I have had the most productive conversations. I think my husband hears the detachment as I am friendly but businesslike but also show I am looking to work as a team to resolve this. Sometimes I think they are so afraid of our anger as they know we are justified in having such.
At least you got to get some of it out there and on paper and hopefully that makes you feel a little lighter. It's on the record that you are being the bigger more mature person and trying to move forward. Good on you.
Keep us posted.
Ok, got this reply. I hate him this morning. Does prove a) mind reading was wrong and b) he absolutely wants this D above all and has no feelings for me at all.
Dear W
I agree that we should take a breath and sort this out calmly. I'm sorry you haven't heard anything from your solicitor though - the reply went to Lucy and then to whoever is on her out of office on Wednesday afternoon so hopefully that's cleared up. I don't think it was an unreasonable reply so hopefully we can get this agreed soon and then move forward calmly.
H
Sorry, just having a gulp-y moment. Stupid I know after so long, but it is bewildering that this cold s**t wears the same face as the H who loved me. Not hurting as such, just shock. I really can't get how anyone can act this way towards someone they loved for so long. I didn't deserve it.
You'd think from his response that this was a normal amicable kind of divorce, not one where he has put me through crazy hell and ignored me for almost 2 years.
I don't really hate him but I hope somewhere inside him he is suffering or will. I'll allow myself that for today, I think
Never thought I would be this person. I assume his response is a counter-offer. Right now, I feel like saying f**k it and taking us to Court. It will just finish what he has done to destroy us both but I'm not sure I care. I don't really have anything left to lose.
Oh Treasur you poor thing and no you don't deserve this.
I think you need to go practical mode. Find out what his response is and go from there. Try and step away from the memories and emotion and treat it like a business arrangement just while you find out his response. You can't deal it all at once and you need your wits about you to ensure you get financially, what you can from this. I don't mean that maliciously but you need to protect yourself.
SJ x
I'm hurting here. I don't know what to do with this anger and helplessness. I want to do something which hurts him, even if it hurts me too. Crazy lady today.
I'll wait to see the response, SJW. I've chased my L for it.
And I'll keep the crazy under wraps until Monday at least.
I'm so sorry you're hurting and if I could get in my car and drive to you now I would. I so hope you get a response today really don't want this hanging over you all weekend. I'll check in later. x
Thanks, SJW. I think I've just run out of brave and compassionate and logical. I kind of don't care about anything really but a bit of me wants to fight back.
So sorry he is being a D&*k. I agree with SJW. Wait to hear what lawyer says. Would not be happy if he did send response and your lawyer didn't forward it to you. Frustrating.
I totally get your anger, hatred, and disgust towards him. You put out the olive branch, and I assume this wasn't the first time, and he ignored it. But like SJW said and you have before, this is business. This is your future your negotiating. Blah blah blah, be the bigger person, you are growing as a person, blah, blah, blah. All true but let's state the thing we aren't supposed to say. He caused this mess. You don't deserve this. Yes, they (MLC) are truly suffering, etc. But they have an adult enough brain to function in society so there really is NO excuse for them to be so selfish that their needs come first and they are selfish for not dealing with whatever issues they have and in fact causing innocents to be collateral damage. You can be mad. You have every right. If we didn't know them before and how wonderful they WERE we would be swatting them away like a fly.
I also think he probably didn't know how to respond to your letter. In the back of his mind he knows you can blow up his career.
So dear, Treasur, rage and get it out and then be kind to yourself. Go take a walk on that beautiful beach and feel the sun. Buy something for yourself. It doesn't have to be outrageously expensive: some nice chocolate; the super venti caramel, mocha choca coffee something; or, a goldfish! You get my drift. Look for signs the universe is good and I bet someone will contact you out of the blue and change your day. Or, get in the car and come see me!
You'll get through all this. It can't be as bad as BD. Maybe his behaviour is to help you detach utterly completely and then you can proceed without remorse.
Hope that helps. I am always afraid I am going to get kicked off. I am routing for you.
Thank you, citygrl. My L is on hols, so it's cock-up by her assistant. I've left her a VMS.
I'm just fed up of feeling so powerless against this monster of a human being who has ripped my guts out and blown my life up. Logically, he obviously hates me and wants to just trip off to his 'new' life with no discomfort. I can't tell you how different this is from the person I knew who would have given me his kidney! The man he is now wouldn't spit on me if I was on fire. And I'm angry, and frustrated, and I want to punish him...feeling so spiteful is a really unfamiliar feeling for me and I don't like it.
You're right; it's business. But business with someone who lies and steals and then does fake normal emails, as if he has been reasonable throughout this whole process. Awful but real. And it is a reminder that he just isn't a decent, reasonable human being any longer. I hoped for the longest time that the man I knew still existed somewhere behind the fog, even if our M didn't make it. But he doesn't, does he?
Breathe. Walk. Good idea.
STBXH has just emailed saying he will write to me this weekend, the goodbye explanation letter he promised me over a year ago...
Well, it might give us all some MLC insight. Don't know what it will give me, maybe painful closure and a window into the head of this strange creature my beloved became? I'll post it when I've read it...unless it's a long list of Treasur's Top 100 Failings!
And now he wants to talk about it on the phone mid week (presumably when OW is not around!)...promises not to be 'unkind or hurtful'...hmmm, which probably means I'll just get anodyne word blah like 'we just grew apart'...
Why does this still hurt so much after almost 2 years of madness? I think I'm just bone-tired. And I think there must have been a bit of me that I didn't even know about that was still hoping my H would come out of the MLC fog a bit. I just miss him and I hate this.
My logical head says that D is the only way to save myself from his MLC chaos. My heart just wants to see my H smile at me and not have dead eyes. When I pray every night, I recite the Serenity prayer, ask God to help me be wise about the difference between what I can and can't change, and ask him to let me see my H's face looking like H again before I die. Oh dear, self-pity party alert! Sad
And now he wants to talk about it on the phone mid week...
He's undoubtedly cock-up. Maybe you should invite him to the pub for a pint and some spotted dick.
Not self pity!! Totally get it. I guess we just need to be kinder to ourselves. You have been so strong and you are moving forward. Like I said, if the MLC change wasn't so sudden and drastic, this situation would be easier to accept and deal with. You are doing great, ride out the mild relapse. Read your posts from last week. You were so strong. Xx
Treasur,
Thinking of you and sending hugs. I'm so sorry for this latest little relapse into pain. But it's SO normal, and unfortunately there's no short-cut around it. Just be the same, brave, strong treasure that you are, and walk straight into it. I PROMISE you will come out the other side stronger.
Also, on a practical note..... I've not said much in a long time on here about my first marriage, but some of the things you've said the last few posts resound with me about how I felt getting out of that marriage. It lasted 22 years, and for the most part, the first 11 or so were OK. I have two beautiful children, and they are the best things that came from those 22 years. He was a narcissist to begin with, but became worse with each passing year, until the last few years he was a straight up bully, besides the narcissism. By the time we split up, all I wanted was OUT. I had become dead inside, and was dulling the pain with AD left and right. I didn't hate (most of the time) but I did feel very apathetic and absolutely did not care about the financial repercussions of the D. I thought nothing would ever matter.
Here's the kicker- Later, it DOES matter. Once the apathy goes away, and it will, the anger comes back, but for me, it was anger at myself for just laying it all down and walking away. I could have gone the rest of my life and never worked or worried about money again, but I gave it all up, just to get out and be done. That is a huge mistake. Later, once you begin to feel alive again, and want to embrace the whole world and start to really live again, it will be SO much easier to do that with some financial security. I know right now it doesn't feel that it will matter, but please try to be smart and wise with your finances and settlements, because when "life", a GREAT ONE, begins for you again, you'll thank yourself.
Hugs to you today. Hang in there.
You deserve a day of self pity with everything going on. It happens to us all and I have the feeling you will be back on things by tomorrow.
Ok, gets weirder. STBXH just called me. He sounded...dunno...bit cold and hints of emotion. Here is what he wants/is offering me. He wants us to talk f2f. He says in the last couple of months he has reached a point where he can be more honest and clear than he has ever been in his life. That he wants to talk to me because he thinks it's the right thing to do and he owes me that.
He also says he has a 'gut' feeling that he can't be really honest if the conversation happens before the D is final, that there won't be 'consequences' and he wants to be free to be honest without that fear and he can't do it without that line in the sand. That it's important to him and he wants to talk, but sees it as him answering my questions rather than needing to ask me anything. That he also thinks if I don't want to do it, he can live with the 'dishonour and shame' if I won't talk, but he'd rather we did. And he'd rather do that f2f than write a letter or talk on the phone. That he is sorry he 'hasn't behaved well' (!) and that he's not happy but 'thinks he can be happy at some future point'. That he thinks he will be in therapy for years to come.
I was surprised he rang. He is ringing later because he had to go into a meeting.
What did I hear? He is in a different place. Finalising the D is an important line in the sand for him. He doesn't think he deserves my forgiveness and won't ask for it. He thinks he 'should' talk to me rather than wants to talk to me or see me. I don't think he wants to be nasty to me, but I also don't think he regrets leaving me or misses me or cares about me. I think, for him, I/our M is old news and he sees removing me from his life as a necessary good for him even if he thinks he did it in the wrong way. He thinks he's behaved badly, I guess, rather than feeling bad about what he's done if that makes sense.
What do I feel? I think my M is done and I'm talking to someone who doesn't value it as I did. I think he feels no need or interest to talk to me; just thinks (albeit too damn late) that he should. If I said no, I suspect he'd be fine with it and just press on with his new life. I imagine, with his talk of 'consequences', that some of his honest perspective might be pretty tough to hear, that he might be saying he now realises that it wasn't real love and our M was a mistake for him and he's better off without it/me. That he feels sorry but does not miss me or want me in his life in any way. I'm also aware that it is a chance to hear his truth - or what it is now - and a chance for the kind of closure I have wanted for a long time. And that I'm brave. And that his truth doesn't have to be mine. And that what has happened to him, whatever that is, has profoundly changed him so he will not be the person I knew.
So, my choices? Three really.
1. I let my p****d off inner child out with all her wounds and create armageddon for both of us by going to Court.
2. I keep my boundary of not talking once the D is final, and decide that anything I hear from him is not useful or necessary for me to move forward, or not worth the emotional risk
3. I accept that D is inevitable because he wants it so much, but also accept that being his ex-wife may free him up enough to explain and try to make amends by talking in a way he has not been able/willing to for almost 2 years
Thoughts?
Treasur, I'm impressed you got a response. Mine would have completely ignored that and said nothing.
What is the real hope? That he will resolve the money issues or that he will declare it a mistake and come back. I thought the wording of your email quite interesting. Just don't set yourself up for a fall and your expectations very low. My guess is that if you do hear from him, it will be a vague mess of a conversation that doesn't really resolve anything.
Well, I've just seen the letter from his L. She is basically arguing for a 50/50 split. Some way from what H verbally said a couple of weeks ago and a long way from what seems fair given that as a young man he walked into two properties and a lifestyle completely financed by me for the first 10 years. And given his financial behaviour. My L is on holiday until the 4th Sept so nothing will get resolved for several weeks yet.
I think he is coming out of the fog/breakdown, Own It, enough to want to stop hurting me, but as a different person who sees our M as a mistake and has no shred of love left for me. My secret hope? Not that he would want to come back, but that he would have a whisper of doubt I suppose. Enough to wonder if there was something worth trying for, but I don't think that's true. For whatever reason, I have to accept that he doesn't love me and sees our M as a forgotten bit of old history which no longer matters. I have to accept that either he now sees our shared life as a mistake or that he thinks it was a different him and not who he is now or wants to be.
I think when he calls I'm going to have to say to him that the financial stuff is going to be a stumbling block. We can either try to talk about next week and understand each other's POV, or it will all be delayed for a few weeks and we'll have to spend more money letting the L's duke it out. Or go to Court. Sigh. It would have been easier if he'd just said ok. The money can't make good what I've lost but he chose to create this chaos for us.
Interesting wording how, Own It? What did you see that I didn't?
I need to do the final bit of letting go, don't I? To absolutely accept that the person who loved me stopped loving me and wants a life without my face in it. To trust God that, even though it hurts, I deserve a person who loves me without reservation and who sees me as a joy and a blessing.
I guess it's just hard because I honestly believed that was what I had for a very long time, and I thought that kind of love was worth ignoring the age difference.
The irony (does God have a weird SOH do you think?) is that 20 long months after this nightmare started, my STBXH got to the point where he began to be capable of talking.
And now 22 months after it all began, now that he can talk like a rational person and wants to talk, all there is left in the rubble of our life to talk about is money, possessions and the last bit of paper in our divorce. Because he spent 20 months destroying everything.
And divorce is still his only option. It feels so unfair that he couldn't talk when he had his breakdown and give us a chance to try. And now he can talk, he doesn't want to give us a chance to try. I feel suckered by a really s**t Catch 22.
I suppose God would say that, because he does the whole God thing, he knows stuff I don't. That maybe he is getting rid of someone who is still unwell and not capable of loving me properly. Or maybe he's saving me from further pain and damage. But he obviously things this is the best route...I just wish I could get a preview of the next chapter because this one has broken my heart.
Am open to any happy post-D joyous stories to keep my spirits up!
Treausr, it reminds me of this email I sent to my H almost a year ago. Like yours, I think mine asked him to stop what he was doing without ever actually telling him what you want. My response, "What do you want Own?"
It is my fervent hope that you will awaken from the heady fog in which you find yourself and reevaluate all that is at stake.
We've spent our lives in a shared mission for the pursuit of excellence and have achieved much together for ourselves and our children. To abandon that journey at this critical juncture is to endanger the legacy of that life's work.
As I hear the latest news of XXXs imminent demise, I am reminded of the ephemeral nature of any institution that fails to properly value its membership. It is often true that the thing which appears to be shiny and new lacks the staying power and dependability of the tried and true. Quality endures long after novelty is gone.
I'm sure that like me you want our childrens' biography to be one of dedicated parenting paving the way for success rather than scandal for public consumption, or worse yet another tale of what might have been.
I often wonder what each of us could have accomplished had we had the type of parents who put our needs first rather than slavishly giving in to the same dysfunctions which plagued the generations before us.
I do know that it is hollow to strive to become a pillar of your community when your own home is broken and you have made no effort to fix it. Personal victories are meaningless when they come at the expense of others.
I'm heartbroken at the time we have all already lost, by the exciting news you have not yet heard, and the joys and sorrows you will not experience in the coming days. I ache for the missed connections and the lost opportunities.
On the 50/50 split issue. A hard thing to do, separate yourself from the wrongness of the situation, and ask yourself if you litigated what you would get. What does your lawyer tell you?
If the law there is likely going to resolve it with a 60/40 split but you spend thousands getting there, is that a worthwhile fight? If your lawyer advises that you are entitled to a disproportionate share, then that is one thing.
How long do you want to drag yourself along in this journey. I know I'm not one to talk so consider that in what I say, but you spend an awful lot of time worrying about what he thinks of you and your life together and do a lot of mindreading for the worst possible scenarios.
I doubt he is coming out of his fog. If he is, I doubt he sees his marriage to you as a big mistake. My guess, he is still running and getting this divorce is just the next attempt at making the emptiness go away because nothing else is working.
Treasur, you are a class act and no sane guy would let you go. That much is apparent for your writings here. He's sick. He's not your H. Let him go. Spend that time walking those beautiful shores, looking at sunsets and focusing that precious time on you.
Hello Treasur,
Just stpped by to thank you for your comment on my thread. I asked you a question about your depression zorry i got confused and realized aftwr it was your h that was depressed.
I do not have a stories i can share but i do think our faith will get us through most things
God has gave us free will your h is using it to shot himself and the M in the foot.
Please use your free will to improve and find that this could be the start of the best chapter in your life my prayers are with you. If you cant think long term embrace the small things a moment, an event, use you free will and prove to yourself just how special you are..
That being said i am going to try and use my own advise and make some memories...
On the mail, Own It, I see what you mean. Yes, I suppose I was saying essentially - can't you see how mad this is, please stop if you can'. I had no hope he would and therefore there was no point saying what I wanted because after 2 years I was sure he wouldn't listen. But I see your point.
Ironically it does seem to have made a dent in some way though, so it might stop me financing lawyer's holiday homes at least. (see below)
Pray hard, Nrthman - I need all the prayers I can get. You're right, it was/is my H's depression. He just fell apart and was diagnosed with severe OCD & severe depression. He was suicidal for months and I regularly thanked God that I didn't get that phone call.
Ironically, my H was more devout than me before this. He actually talked about becoming a vicar. I have found my faith has become much stronger in these last 2 years. At times, like the story of the footprints, I have genuinely felt God's hand being the only thing that has kept me alive.
Please start a new thread
On the 50/50 split issue. A hard thing to do, separate yourself from the wrongness of the situation, and ask yourself if you litigated what you would get. What does your lawyer tell you?
My L says that because of our £ history, age difference and his behaviour with stealing/hiding money from our joint a/c, there is a solid argument that it should be more 70/30 to replace resources he stole.
If the law there is likely going to resolve it with a 60/40 split but you spend thousands getting there, is that a worthwhile fight? If your lawyer advises that you are entitled to a disproportionate share, then that is one thing.
The shift in his behaviour (part mental, part fear of court, part wanting the D done) linked in with my email. When he called this evening, I suggested that we put the issue of talking to one side for now and focus on the practical stuff. That rather than spending thousands on Ls or going to court, perhaps he was now able to have the kind of £ conversation we couldn't have a year ago. So, we could try to agree something between us and tell our Ls what it was. Which is a big step given that he wouldn't even answer a question about furniture a year ago. I shared a couple of bits of my POV about what seems fair, he did the same and we're going to talk again on Weds to try to work it out. I was pretty calm, so was he, actually he got a bit emotional at one point when we were talking about how I'd had to guess about some possessions that used to have sentimental meaning for him. He said that 'my judgement had always been impeccable'.
He asked if he could keep some things - photos and letters etc - that I'd assumed he wouldn't want because he did want them. I got pretty tough about the swimming watch though, that he could have chosen not to take it, or to return it when I asked, or if he'd told the truth in January, we could have claimed on the insurance. That I had no control over any of that and it seemed reasonable that he walks into Cartier and buys me a replacement. And that how he finances it is also not my business but it is an emotional deal breaker for me.
How long do you want to drag yourself along in this journey. I know I'm not one to talk so consider that in what I say, but you spend an awful lot of time worrying about what he thinks of you and your life together and do a lot of mindreading for the worst possible scenarios.
The awful thing about the silence of a vanisher - and the added complexity of knowing he was being treated for a mental disorder - left me stuck for a long time. I just didn't know what was going on. For months, the only way I knew he was alive was if his salary appeared in the household a/c. And because you don't see or talk to them, you're not faced with the reality of v2 which maybe leaves you stuck with your original in your head? I was just bewildered and poleaxed by losing my parents too. I think it was all so painful that I just couldn't shake myself out of denial. I tried, but I couldn't for over a year, I think.
And you're right too about mind reading & worst scenarios. Thinking the worst is really because I felt frightened and he looked like someone who hated me and wanted to hurt me. Some of the mind reading about the past? I couldn't bear to let him steal my memories too and 20 years of things that mattered so much to me. But it was so hard to reconcile what was with what is, in silence from him, that I had to fight my own brain for it. I just couldn't bear to think that he never loved me, that I imagined a fake life. Even if he thinks that now, and he may, it isn't my truth or my life. I worried that if I let him steal that too, I'd never find myself or be able to love or trust again.
I doubt he is coming out of his fog. If he is, I doubt he sees his marriage to you as a big mistake. My guess, he is still running and getting this divorce is just the next attempt at making the emptiness go away because nothing else is working.
At the same time, I can't stay where I've been. I have to let go, I know I do. It has been too long, too hard and too much loss all at once. I have no idea where he is at. I may never know. I think I do have to accept that, based on what I see, he doesn't see any value in our M worth effort and that he believes he will be happier without my face.
Treasur, you are a class act and no sane guy would let you go. That much is apparent for your writings here. He's sick. He's not your H. Let him go. Spend that time walking those beautiful shores, looking at sunsets and focusing that precious time on you.
Thank you. I think I am too, which is amazing given the circs. My H used to think I was a jewel and that he was lucky. He is sick still. He may always be; he certainly thinks he will need therapy for a long time and to be on ADs forever. I deserve a man who is capable of love and joy and who sees me for real. I had one, but he isn't that man any longer. I know that. Even his voice sounds different.
In an odd bit of MLCness, he is now going back to the old house to 'air' it every Sat morning from 0900-1200, he announced to me...the house he avoided for 18 months...and it really doesn't take 3 hours to open windows does it? No idea what he's doing. But he did tell me that 'whenever I go, I've always been on my own and that will continue to be the case' (MLCers do use pompous awkward language don't they?). I told him I appreciated that, that it was respectful. Actually I believed him too.
So, good things? An end to this painful rollercoaster is in sight for me. We might be able to agree the £ stuff without another 6 months of L's letters or litigation. He seems capable of conversation and taking some responsibility he wasn't willing to do even 3 months ago.
Not so good? I have lost my H. I didn't find a way before it was too late to make a bridge between us, but I tried my best to honour my M. It just wasn't possible. The D I never wanted is inevitable and I never got the chance to try any other option because he wants this.
I will finish my pity party tonight, have a good cry and pick myself up tomorrow again. Time to focus on beaches, sunrise and how the hell I'm going to keep myself financially afloat for the next few months.
I really appreciate the time and support, particularly because I'm so wordy xxx
Ah, is that a sign cadet? Should I go to MLC or divorce now? What do you all think?
Stay on this one. More action here.
Yes, I could see that delaying progress. When mine was doing nothing I mistook it for him having doubts. When he didn't seem to want the divorce or agreement, I too took that as doubts. I think it is just paralysis.
I know that I need to move forward and my kids need me to do so. I think you are coming to that point. Stop focusing on the other stuff. You can't worry or change it away. It will be what it will be. Take the active steps you can take today to improve your situation and leave the tea leaves to another day when you are better able to handle the tea.
Treasur,
I think if you keep posting on this thread Cadet is going to make you sit in the corner for an hour (without a cell phone). And yes, remain in the newcomers forum.