Zelda - hang me up to dry

[Zephyr]

Z, as far as I can see, your sitch has little if nothing to do with STBX right now and has everything to do with this wonderful woman. So for me, i would not describe it as watching paint dry, unless you are into that kind of thing, but rather watching a flower blossom out if the weeds.

Here is to better days ahead!!!

[Zelda09]

Thank you, Zephyr. Very kind.

[Fogg]

This wasn't about me. It's him, his journey.

I just don't understand why he is dragging it out. There are no signs he is 2nd guessing or missing me - heck he has been nasty and told me how much better off he is. So why?

It's possible he doesn't know/realize why hes dragging it out either, might not be intentional. There could be no specific reason.

Point is, your right. This is just his journey and has nothing to do with you.

Whats going on is your journey is turning into awesomeness

[Zelda09]

Everything feels so raw again today. Really wish this process was linear or I knew how not to go in circles.

Gem from last nights group:

Ask yourself only the questions that will assist with your healing. Knowing what hotel, what she was wearing, when he fell out of love, these answers will likely do little for you.

[Zelda09]

Someone, tell me what this looks like to you, please:

I'm getting reports that STBX is now a gym rat, and driving around like it is his job. As if it wasn't just two months ago, he claimed he had no ability to do these kinds of things due to the accident he had years ago.

It's all so strange. Him trying to stay relevant to my friends and family through loving 'caring' texts about me (as he's actually cursing me out via text within the same hour), poking around the back of my home, scheduling random tours of my friends' workplace, being nasty to me, yanking my chain all the while over getting his things and signing the papers.

What is this!?

I feel so defrauded. Who was this person. I was closest to him and maybe that was the mounting tension over the last year of our M, I knew something wasn't adding up and I got so frustrated. During DR I blamed myself for my lack of empathy,criticism for the things he wasn't doing but was capable of - but I think my gut knew he was trying to play me. The more resistant I got, the more I pointed out the inconsistencies - the more he pushed me away. There was a lot of emotional abuse, him all the time psycho-analyzing, just being hurtful about things, hinting at suicide if I didn't play caretaker.

In July last year in my journal, I wrote that the driving thing, the helplessness, the increased dependency as well as the coldness/disrespect, that I felt it was all building for his move for a D. I wrote about how used I was feeling, even then.

I wasn't wrong. He just wasn't happy, for years. Even before we were M he would throw our R up as something we should end if there was any conflict. I wish I'd not have made so many excuses. Oh, he just said it out of anger. He loves me as much as I love him.

Why won't he move forward on the D he drew up. Why do people do this when they have no desire for the M or person they left behind, it makes NO sense.

Why is he dragging this out??

[gan]

Hmmmm:

Ask yourself only the questions that will assist with your healing.

I fear you will drive yourself nuts with this question, Z!

[Zelda09]

Gan, thanks for stopping by.

I am having a great, great start to the week after an even better weekend. The air in my house feels different. Lighter. I met some great people over the weekend, laughed a lot. I feel happy. Me from years ago is returning a little stronger each day.

STBX used to complain that I was an unhappy person and he couldn't make he happy (like that was his job?!). It almost makes me laugh now, when I think about where some of these lines in my face came from - being confused at his adoration of me/his online behavior...the crazy hurtful irrational things he'd say in most conflicts, well, I could go on.

I am trying not to fight my thoughts, just watching them pass by like cars in traffic (thank you Headspace). And I feel assured he is probably finding himself miserable and lonely as he was before I met him. I know that's a jackal thought. But I don't care, it makes me happy. Just not at the point to wish someone who threw me away under a lot of pretense and manipulation much good will.

Got some goals for this week, life and work needs to step up to match the healing GAL stuff.

[Zephyr]

I am excited for you that you have been having positive time...really I am, makes me smile actually!!!!

used to complain that I was an unhappy person and he couldn't make he happy (like that was his job?!).

I would bet there are a ton of guys here who have used those words...I can't make her happy, myself included. We thought it was our jobs. We now know better.

But to the point, I felt like $hit for a very long time trying to please my wife. I couldn't. It drove me to a sorrowful place knowing that I was not man enough to make her happy. It was almost too much to bare. Wish I knew then...what we know now.

[Vanilla]

Z

I doubt H knows anything at all, as long as you are safe my dearest Z. Unstable STBX may be random and that's not good for you.

Easy my lovely one. Analysing may not help you in the slightest.

Thank you for your loving caring words on my threads and please be ultra careful. H has lost control of his sitch.

V

[Zelda09]

This is a long post, I don't know if it makes a lot of sense, but I need help getting my head straight.

An update in the sitch and a shift of emotions. A friend of ours met with my STBX last night to see if she could help. She is lawyer, and offered to diffuse and see if she could be an intermediary.

I haven't cried like this in weeks. Been almost an hour of sobs, getting it together, more sobs.

Apparently STBX is very, very angry. I heard this and it made me confused. What has he got to be angry about? He is out and about, to people that used to be his friends, acting like life is rosy...until she sits down to talk with him about all this. She says he felt like he really tried and sees the sitch very differently. I asked her if it seemed like false anger. After all he sat across from me that day at breakfast smug and cool, seemed to be showing me he was well at peace.

In any case, she shared with him that she had seen the texts and though he seemed like a nice guy, he had no right to talk to me that way, regardless of how communication with me made him feel. He made a frustrated face for a long time.

He reported he won't get his things b/c of a space issue (though he has told me it's fear of losing rights to it if he signs issue). He told her that my desire to be done so quickly marked a sudden shift and he worries what angle I'm working. (And we both agreed that is ludicrous, considering all I'm asking him to do is sign the papers he drew up - that detail how it all resolves - there's no more 'angle' to work.)

Supposedly in the course of the conversation he said "it'll be done, it'll be done soon enough," and she told me that if I go NC for a while and let him cool down he will probably move on it - just her impression. I haven't contacted him for a week and a half, I figure what's a few more.

So, this is what has shifted in my heart. I know that this board, and my counselor, and all kinds of wisdom says that it doesn't matter what your ex was thinking. How do you process something if you don't understand what it is you're processing?

I was better off in December, when I first read DR. And I thought of him teething, I thought I had a handle on what was going on. I would have been ok if we had divorced then, I felt like I knew WHO I would have been divorcing.

He became this monster to me the week his check came in, and he claims to my friend he was really trying - that is the essence of what is so traumatic to me, because I thought so too. I really believed despite the threats of leaving me again, that I saw equally weighted glimpses of him loving and working it out. It all seems so calculated now.

But it does matter to me, what exactly this was. I have thought so long on his apathy, cruelty, smugness, his words and actions and posturing. And in talking with her I realized he may* be hurting, as well. One doesn't cancel the other. He doesn't seem to understand why he got kicked out or see himself responsible for the things that happened that night, his own feelings of wanting to be 'done,' or demise of this relationship in general - the disappointment he felt in our communication, in me, the supportive person I supposedly wasn't, the unhappy person I supposedly was, he doesn't see his part in any of it. (victim)

but whether he is acting cool with me or acting angry with her - he has a mess going on and is human. Like me. I loved him. I must have feelings still or I wouldn't be such a wreck this morning imagining he is not so cold. I guess it goes back to what he always told me about not having the ability to have conversations with himself. My friend suggested he maybe was acting fine with everything that day at breakfast bc he didn't know how else to act...and wanted to hurt me for his own hurt.

I feel like the past may be resolving itself and things may be settling better in my heart because of this. But man, it hurts. How could he just not know it was not acceptable to treat me like this, that I didn't cause his abusive words, threats, actions?

If he really believes he was the nice guy and he was justified...it allows him to be the man I loved, that I knew, despite his actions and attitudes when he came home.

I don't know, I can't figure out how two people who say they loved, who are both angry, how we get here. If he is actually angry...that implies he did care. If we both cared, why are we here? Why couldn't he care when I asked him to get help for the anger management, to work at our marriage?