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Maybell #2543290 02/28/15 04:02 PM
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Originally Posted By: Maybell
Sometimes I wish I had the sort of morals where I could just say "This isn't what I want. I need to feel passion in my life. Good luck to all of you."


Sometimes that's tempting for a moment, isn't it?



"Don't look back, you aren't going that way"
SunnyB #2543305 02/28/15 04:43 PM
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Sooooo, I think your restatement of his need for passion statement requires more thought.

When H left I was so blindingly angry and part of that was because he had done something I had thought of many times. Just saying "I'm done" and walking. I don't know many long term, married people who haven't had these thoughts. There's a book by Anne Tyler, Ladder of Years in which Delia, the main character, takes off while her family is on a beach vacation, lives in a small room, gets a job and starts over. (it takes her family a while to miss her, which says something). When I read the book, my kids were small, H and I both working, no time or money really for any thing not necessary.

I could relate to Delia in the book. Having a quiet room of my own, choosing the people I let in, finding a job that didn't involve life altering decisions, all sounded very appealing.

I didn't leave my family but when H did, there was a lot of anger around "I stuck it out, why do you get to go when I put in much more effort than you. There's my judge voice. I can recall one of the vets calling me on it when I first started posting here. I think he asked "Are you angry because he beat you to the punch?"

To deal with our feelings we have to know where they originate.

And in digging for where mine originated, I realized that my crap was my problem. I was being a victim and blaming where I was and my decisions on other people. If he hadn't, if they didn't, If she had only...

I'm not saying that your H choosing to have an affair is your "crap" please don't misunderstand. I know it's hard to not take that personally but it's not about you. It was also hard not to take H walking away for "no one" personally. It's all betrayal of trust.

I think at some point soon, you're going to be able to look at him and think, "You're really a sick little goober right now. I hope for the kid's sake you get it together. I wish you the best because we have lots of work to do to raise these kids. But if you don't get it together, I'll be fine cause I'm not longer carrying your stuff along with mine."

If you don't have time to find an IC right now, go to some AlAnon meetings. You're worth it.


Me 57/H 58
M36 S 2.5yrs R 12/13

Let me give up the need to know why things happen as they do.
I will never know and constant wondering is constant suffering.
Caroline Myss
labug #2543319 02/28/15 06:00 PM
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Hi Maybell

My H said something similar to me at BD - 'I want to feel passionate love in my life everyday. To hold hands on the couch - not be able to watch TV, because I want to tear someone's clothes off.'

People have pointed out that this may not be very realistic in a LTR. And I do accept that we became a bit 'routine' in our LM. But it's hard to accept that he 'gave up' on our R so easily, you know?

Last edited by Toots; 02/28/15 06:01 PM.

T 13 M 7
Me 48 H 46
SS 15
BD 7.14 PA
D final 5.16 (H filed)

We receive & we lose, and must try to achieve gratitude & embrace with whole hearts whatever of life that remains after the losses - Dubus
Sotto #2543387 02/28/15 10:43 PM
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Quote:
When H left I was so blindingly angry and part of that was because he had done something I had thought of many times. Just saying "I'm done" and walking.


I am very confident I'm not angry at him for leaving first. Because when my third child was a baby, and I had just moved cross-country against my desire after two years of pulling the almost single parent thing while he was doing his MBA program, I seriously reached the end of my rope. I fantasized about leaving. I pictured my quiet cottage away from it all. I was SO, SO angry with him. (Which I'm sure was no fun to live with but I did try to pull it together when he was around. All postpartum and breastfeeding and diapering two babies with no friends in a new city that I didn't even want to live in...)

Anyway, I started to think about it in real terms. How I would support myself. When I would go. And when I started to think of it like that, I pictured my kids. Those demanding, tiny little kids. And I pictured his face when he realized what I'd done. And I knew I couldn't live with myself if I made that choice. That was when I started thinking about how I could make things work for myself within the marriage and I made myself stop those thoughts.

It helped that at that same time he started stepping up in tiny little ways. We had a few hobbies we shared. We started spending time just sitting in cozy ways together. We developed a shared taste in music. There were maybe 2-3 years like that?

I don't know what ended those years. He decided he needed to change jobs and then when he did it didn't work out the way he thought it would. That was about when he started doing the one-night stand thing, I think. However, other people have dealt with setbacks in ways other than sleeping with co-workers and strangers. I'm describing the timing rather than the causes. But I don't think it had to do with me because things between us had been pretty good for a while.

I asked him the other day why he'd started sleeping around. He said he didn't know what he wanted at that point. I asked him to tell me about the first one, how he decided to cross that line. He said it was complicated and he didn't want to tell the story in a public place. (But he's not so sensitive that he won't suggest telling the kids we're divorcing while we're out to dinner.)

I'm sorry, I don't know how on earth the decision to have a one-night stand is ever complicated.

When we moved back east to where we are now, I had a lot of rationalizations for why things between us weren't good. I felt like this move was what we both needed to get back on track. Finances eased, his commute is all but gone, we were closer to family, and the kids were older. I felt like we'd be able to really rebuild. Instead, he started that affair before I even got here, and he'd started sleeping around before that even.

THAT is what I'm angry about. Neither of us was happy. But he chose to be the sort of person who can throw his responsibilities to the wind and pave his path with the suffering of people who love him and that I can't be OK with. Lots of things could be done to fix the amount of excitement and passion in our lives and none of them were. We didn't even need to have gone to counseling -- so far as my reasoning went. We just needed to spend more time together and being more intentional about caring for one another. He could have communicated his boredom with our sex life to me. I was pretty bored too. I would have liked to have explored being more erotic. We both had some forgiving to do. But instead he chose to be as hurtful as he possibly could. (Still chooses that, he told me the other night that he would have left me even if we'd never had kids.) Maybe I'm angry with him for being a birch tree when I thought he was an oak. I have no room for birch trees in my life.

I will find a way to cope with my anger but it will take some time.

D11 went a little nuts this morning again. I did the best I could to stay calm and unemotional. Dragged her and the boys off to karate where the instructors have been great male role models and also encouraging and supportive to the kids. The head instructor was the child of divorced parents himself. I asked him to have a private meeting with D11 and me and we went through what her behavior had been like, what he expected of her, and he talked about coping, among other things. She's been a lot nicer this afternoon. I think she was surprised that instead of me sitting there "tattling" on her I said "She's been having a tough time but what she's doing is intolerable." And we dealt with it from a position of validation, compassion, and boundary enforcing. She's still pretty darn angry, but she's showing a little more restraint.

When I said "patting myself on the back" I meant what most parents say -- I think I've got this parenting thing down and then I get sort of kicked in the teeth.


Me42, H40
D12, S8, S7
A revealed: 7/13
Sep 4/14; Agreed to D 1/15

She believed she could, so she did.
Maybell #2543518 03/01/15 03:30 PM
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So, what will be the right answer for you about why he did what he did? What will it change?

Your anger might come with a different specific causative factor than mine but it's still refusing to accept the reality of life. I was there, I kicked and screamed and cried and held on for a long time.

A friend said to me at one point when I was rehashing the whys and why nots and things said and not said, "What if you never get an answer, what if you never get an apology? Will the rest of your life be about that? Sometimes we have to be OK with not knowing because even they don't know. WE have to let go."

What will his answers tell you that you don't already know?


Me 57/H 58
M36 S 2.5yrs R 12/13

Let me give up the need to know why things happen as they do.
I will never know and constant wondering is constant suffering.
Caroline Myss
labug #2543525 03/01/15 03:56 PM
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I think I've heard all the answers he has. I think at the end of the day he's stuck at around age 15 and maybe doesn't totally believe he can hurt people (more than just me) in ways that matter. His sister said it must have been difficult being married to him because he never shares anything real (they are reasonably close and she's married to his best friend).

My anger now I think is me accepting that this is real, it's going to happen, and it can not be salvaged because he is who he is. It's not so much about answers, because if he could give any then he would be a completely different person. It's also about my kids' sadness, and about the total waste of it all. The waste he's made of his life with these chicken sh!t choices and the challenges the kids will face because of them.

I don't think I'm refusing to admit the reality of life. I think anger and hurt are reasonable responses to what has happened. I trusted him. He betrayed my trust horribly. He seems unable to comprehend the enormity of his actions. Yes, there are things I could have done better in the marriage. There are things I could do better now. I am committed to doing them. He hurt me within the marriage as well, with way more than just sleeping around.

I think I need to experience my anger, live through it, not try to argue it away or down. I have lost something that was very precious to me, and the hope I carried for how it could be better. I have a lot of unknowns in front of me that are scary for right now. None of this is insurmountable but I think I have to face it for what it is to be able to conquer it.


Me42, H40
D12, S8, S7
A revealed: 7/13
Sep 4/14; Agreed to D 1/15

She believed she could, so she did.
Maybell #2543527 03/01/15 04:00 PM
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But I will try this:

Here is an exercise that I did for me that really supported me in moving past the anger towards acceptance. Lay in bed one night all alone in the peace and quiet of the darkness and ask yourself this question: "What would it be like if I could move past this anger and accept that this is what my life looks like right now?" Be with it for a while, and notice how you feel. What would it be like?

From there, when you begin to feel the lightness and relief that comes with acceptance, ask yourself this: "If I could accept this, what I do differently? How would I act? How would I move forward with my new life?"


Me42, H40
D12, S8, S7
A revealed: 7/13
Sep 4/14; Agreed to D 1/15

She believed she could, so she did.
Maybell #2543634 03/02/15 12:51 AM
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Maybell,

What you (and I, actually) are working through is not easy at all. I think you (and/or Labug) have asked me some version of the same question you were asked above: is there any answer to the question of "why?" that will somehow make this understandable? And I am right there with you on all the same points-- it all *could* have been worked on and improved.

But that's such a loaded thing. Could have been worked on... if only your H was a different kind of guy... and it's easy to look back with 20/20 vision. I don't know, I'm still working out these thoughts in my head so I apologize for being so inarticulate. I'm working up the energy to go into this in more depth on my sitch. I am still working on the anger... SO MUCH ANGER.

But at the end of the day... I think it takes a really damaged person to do what our H's have done. Would we feel better if somehow there had been more conversation, and a real attempt at working on things... and somehow WE had been given a chance to come to the same conclusion (that we cannot have a happy marriage with this person). Is it mostly the fact that this major decision was just THRUST upon us, despite the fact that we weren't happy either?

Just some stuff to think about. I am going to try your visualization exercise tonight when I go to bed tonight. We are the only ones who can free ourselves from our anger and pain. And we can...


Me 38 H 40
D 3
T 8 M 6
BD 10/2013

claire7 #2543652 03/02/15 02:15 AM
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Somehow I think my anger has broken. At least for the moment. I'm tired and I just want to move past all this and be moving on, not in the middle of it anymore. I've done everything I could do. I have a nice little family and it's past time to just think of shaping my life.


Me42, H40
D12, S8, S7
A revealed: 7/13
Sep 4/14; Agreed to D 1/15

She believed she could, so she did.
Maybell #2543712 03/02/15 01:08 PM
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Maybell, I like the exercise that you suggest about moving past anger. I do need to work on that. I waste so much mental energy feeling anger toward my H. It serves no purpose and holds me back.

It's interesting that your SIL would say that your H never shares anything real. My H is the same way. This is something to look out for in other potential partners in the future: a lack of emotional depth, and a lack of close, long-term friendships. I think those traits are indicative of a person who is not capable on a deep level of having lasting, loving commitments and empathy.


M: 43 H: 39
D: 14
Married 15 Together 16
BD: 6/2014
S: 8/2014
OW revealed 10/2014
Instigated dissolution 12/2014, in progress
So over it!
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