I feel like I disappointed myself and the wonderful people here for handling the situation like I did. On the other hand, I felt a little bit better letting some things out.
Another positive, was I really got a glimpse into his MLC mind. He took so much of what I have said in the past and twisted it around and then turned that into his justifications for why he was doing what he was doing. It was scary to watch him do this. He'd make a great criminal defense attorney if he ever decided to switch professions. If he chooses to think this way, so be it.
The level of gaslighting was also horrifying to me. The ability to lie like that never ceases to amaze me.
You're all right, what goes on insidethe mind of a MLC is awful.
I have made an appointment to start EMDR therapy next week. I am really looking forward to it! I am hoping it will be helpful. Has anyone here tried it?
The only person that has to be satisfied w/the way you handled your situation is you. You are still learning to detach and are becoming more aware of how they rewrite history to justify their behavior.
You do not want to be inside the mind of the MLCer. It is scrambled and they are truly very lost and unhappy souls.
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
Is it wrong to just want him out of my life? Most of the time I wish he was a vanisher. I wish he would just go away. The grass is always greener, huh. I know there are LBSs who have spouses who were vanishers and may wish for what I have. I must learn to accept what is.
Detaching has been so hugely difficult for me. I have read a lot about it, but find myself still struggling. I explored some of the reasons why with my therapist on Friday. It seems that I have been dealing with things as a wounded little girl. I had a difficult childhood with some physical and a lot of emotional abuse at the hand of my mother and lack of protection from my father. While my feelings are my feelings, they are being experienced as though I am little again. It's hard to understand and even harder to explain.
Right now, I feel like a discarded piece of trash. I can hardly believe how easily H can turn off his emotions and turn his back on me. It's like a light switch.
Sometimes I hate myself for feeling sad over him. Especially after the way he has treated me. I need to ask myself, am I hanging on because I am that lost little girl just hoping that someone will love me? At times I find myself thinking, who in their right mind would want this man back after all he has done?
God has given me an out . . . physical infidelity. Am I standing for the right reasons? I don't think given my emotional state, I can answer that question. On the one hand, I say I made a promise to this man and to God. I made a commitment and I am not a quitter. Just because something is hard, doesn't mean I should turn my back and walk away. On the other hand, is this more than just "hard." Is it toxic? Is it hurting me more?
He says he doesn't love me anymore and boy, does it show. I can feel it. I feel his hatred toward me. I did things wrong, but nothing deserving of how I am being treated. It's incomprehensible to me. But then again, maybe I'm looking at this and thinking about it from the perspective of a little girl.
Unfortunately, I am finding the minds of a MLC'er are the only lost and unhappy souls.
Are they really that lost and unhappy?
Last edited by job; 02/28/1706:50 AM. Reason: Added spacing between paragraphs
Is it wrong? ... short answer no, its no more wrong to want to have him out of your life than it is than pulling out a sliver that causes your hand pain. Its called self preservation and its one of those primal instincts we all have.
Detaching was very difficult for me aswell. Heck I am not so certain I am fully detached all this time in, but I can tell you I am light years removed from where I was. I found as much as the GAL stuff seemed like hogwash at first, its taken over my life, made me so insanely busy that I really have little time to sit and think about my MLCr nor the sitch.
reading this last post, seems you are starting the mirror work, I too had that scared little boy I needed to deal with, the one left by his alcoholic parents to tend to the 2 younger brothers, dinner, shower, bed while they drank themselves into oblivion only to come home and fight half the time, or clank around the pots and pans making their own meals. It took a good deal of dealing with that little boy before I started to really get myself back on track ... so in a very strange way this "Gift of time" (again I rolled my eyes at hearing the vets chime this about the boards) truly was a break I was not aware that I desperately needed, time to fix the little scared broken me that I forgot was even there until BD.
I too struggle with the "out" God seems to have given me. I can not tell you what it means for you ... for me every prayer I have sent up has been returned with a "Wait my son" message tied to it. So not sure if its me who needs more time to work on my stuff, if its her, maybe both .. all I know is I am personally not where I need to be, I am no where healed enough but I keep working every day to be better than the last which is the ONLY thing I have control over ... this took a very long time to learn and even longer to accept.
They will tell you they do not love you, that shark like blank stare their eyes will confirm to you the spark is gone, they are gone .... I would not put alot of faith in anything a MLCr says ... good/bad/ugly .. none of it really, they are desperate to stop the pain and will do/say just about anything they can think of to stop the pain even if its a short term fix. Yes ... they are so very lost and absolutely miserable and those closest are the ones they will blame for all this .... its just the way a MLCr behaves.
Turn that focus inward ... deal with that little girl who was abandoned and realize this BD has resurrected suppressed demons you have held at bay till now. Its time to work on that part and let him and his crisis run its course.
As lost and unhappy as you can imagine they are, in reality it is much, much worse.
Often they are back to the emotional age of their deepest trauma which they never fully healed.
Quote:
Detaching has been so hugely difficult for me. I have read a lot about it, but find myself still struggling. I explored some of the reasons why with my therapist on Friday. It seems that I have been dealing with things as a wounded little girl. I had a difficult childhood with some physical and a lot of emotional abuse at the hand of my mother and lack of protection from my father. While my feelings are my feelings, they are being experienced as though I am little again. It's hard to understand and even harder to explain.
I completely understand as I, too, experienced the same - emotional and physical maternal abuse while my father just let it all happen and didn't protect me. Believe me, I get it. I've done so much work to heal the relationships with my parents, but there was always that deepest wounding of abandonment. I know now that I put up with a lot from exh because I was afraid he would leave. Guess what? Nothing I did or didn't do changed whether or not he left. But by abandoning myself - not standing up for myself - I caused myself more harm.
I finally understand that one cannot truly be abandoned unless one has abandoned oneself. It was a hard, painful lesson.
Quote:
Right now, I feel like a discarded piece of trash. I can hardly believe how easily H can turn off his emotions and turn his back on me. It's like a light switch. Sometimes I hate myself for feeling sad over him. Especially after the way he has treated me. I need to ask myself, am I hanging on because I am that lost little girl just hoping that someone will love me? At times I find myself thinking, who in their right mind would want this man back after all he has done?
I bet most of us have had those feelings at various times throughout this process. It's important to remember that your feelings aren't facts and they will change -
No one can tell another when to stop standing. The very best thing you can do for yourself right now is to think about all the ways you may be abandoning yourself and that little girl inside of you and do your very best to be present for her and you.
You can do this. I have faith in you. xoxoxo
M 20+ T25+ S ~15.5 (BD) BD 4/6/15 D 12/23/16
"Someone I loved once gave me A box full of darkness. It took me years to understand, That this too, was a gift." ~ Mary Oliver
CaliGuy and Bttrfly - great posts. Thank you for the reminders. I just wish my heart could accept what I know in my mind.
I am sorry you both had troubled childhoods. Thank you for opening up and sharing your experiences with me.
I thought I resolved the issues from my childhood long ago. Or at least made peace with the fact that it was far from ideal and my parents did the best they knew how. As my marriage and other adult relationships hummed along, it all felt like it was safely handled and put away. I had no idea that lurking deep inside was that abused little girl. All it took was something traumatic to wake her up. Now she has taken over.
She feels unloved and scared. Scared of so many things. Scared that this is all her fault, that she is "bad," unworthy, and unloveable. Scared the world will find out she is despicable. And the proof is in how her H treated her. He found someone loveable, empathetic, and everything else she isn't.
What's also so scary is someday maybe her son will find out. Her son will hate her. He will love his father more. He won't want to live with her and he will wish she wasn't his mother.
My heart bursts with love and pride when I think of my S. I love him so. I've already lost one love, I can't bear to lose another.
So I attended my first EMDR therapy appointment yesterday. We are in the information collecting phase so all the therapist did was get some preliminary background. That will continue for another couple of sessions before we actually start the reprocessing stage. Nonetheless, it was cathartic. I probably spent 3/4 of the session bawling. The therapist told me that H is emotionally out of control. There is clearly some issue he is trying to escape facing. Despite my knowing this, therapists telling me this, you all here telling me, I still struggle with self blame. The work continues.
A positive to come out of my session yesterday is that I felt like my load lessened a little bit. I felt more free. H was late coming home so S and I ate without him. While H was eating, S and I were playing in another room. I had a genuinely good time. I haven't felt this way in a long time. It was nice. I miss that feeling. I hope to get it back on a more consistent basis.
After S went to bed, H told me he was leaving to go to a gathering of work friends. Everyone was getting together because of his deceased colleague. He told me this as I was cleaning up and he was getting ready to walk out the door. Lol! Of course, right? I told him that in the future I would appreciate it if he would tell me about these things in advance and to please not spring them on me at the last minute. He immediately got defensive. First he said, well, I just found out about it this afternoon. I told him then he could have texted me to let me know. Then when he realized that was a losing argument he tried to turn it around on me. He said, well sometimes, you decide to go to your mom's house and you don't tell me in advance. What is frustrating for me about that statement is he knows that at least every other weekend I will take S to see my parents. He knows this. Often, because my mother is in fragile health, decisions about whether it is Sat or Sun or at all, aren't made until the last minute. I tell him when I know. He knows all of this. Rather than go into all this, I just told him that I would like to be treated like how he would like to be treated. I brought up the golden rule.
Ugh. I have to get better at this. I have to learn to anticipate that this is how these types of conversations are going to go from here on out. I should have known. I keep thinking that I will be able to have a rational conversation with an adult. Instead, I'm talking to a teenager. I have to pull my head of my *you know what* and keep remembering what I am dealing with.
Perhaps the better approach would have been to just ignore this behavior? Should I just let these things go and chalk it up to MLC. Maybe I just have to wrap my head around the fact that he is not going to behave like an responsible adult. I feel like he is taking advantage of me and I don't like it. He hasn't even thanked me for the fact that I have picked up a lot of his slack since he colleague died. I do it happily because I imagine it is difficult for him, but a little gratitude would go along way. My expectations are way too high, aren't they? I am certain if I shared my feelings with him he would just turn it around on me and say how incredibly selfish I am being during a time like this. Am I being selfish for wanting some gratitude or recognition? It would probably just be easier to ignore his behavior and then vent here and to my therapist?
What do you all think? Should I just let these kinds of things slide?
Why are you expecting him to be rational? MLCers only think of themselves, i.e., like teenagers and don't have a clue about being polite and keeping their parents apprised of their schedules.
Was there a specific reason that you needed him at home? I can understand wanting to be apprised early on about meetings, etc., but unless he has something planned w/you...I would just wish him all the best and let it go. The more you try to rein him in and get him to tell you about the things he's doing, the more the resentment and anger are going to build and, yes, you did sound a bit like his mother. You can't control him. The only person that you can control is yourself and how you react to his comments/behavior.
Keep your expectations at zero because he's not the same person you married. That person is gone away for a long time.
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
Thanks Job! I have to get the message through my very thick skull.
I think I am experiencing some cognitive dissonance. When I see H and listen to him, most of the time he sounds, looks, and seems somewhat normal. It all of his wacky behavior that is inconsistent. It's hard for me to grasp.
I am so sorry he is treating you that way, I know too well how it feels, my WH used to behave exactly the same, he was on his own agenda only. Sadly there is nothing you can do to make him see your point of view. He will resent you for everything you will say or do that engrave his schedule.
My own way of dealing with him when he was behaving so selfishly was just to live as a single mom, I didn't count on him for anything. If the kids had an event I used to mention it to him, but I stopped asking him if he wanted to come/participate and if I needed the kids to be watch I used to find a solution by myself. I made sure not to make any comments on it. I wanted him to know that the kids and I could live/thrive without him.
Since he wanted some space, I gave him some space but with boundaries. At least he couldn't accuse me anymore of controlling his free time.
Stop thinking you can make him see the situation the way you are seeing it, it won't work.
No you are not selfish to want some recognition but MLCers don't care about their LBS feelings at all. It's hard to wrap our mind around that concept but sadly it's the reality.
Also I made sure to never ask him about his own schedule which gave me the advantage of not sharing my schedule, this allowed me to detach and Gal even better. I stopped being the pursuer, it doesn't mean it was not itching me to ask him what were his plan or to feel sad/depressed but at least we had fewer arguments which made our cohabitation more liveable for me and the kids.
I stopped being a beggar for his attention.
MLC is a journey, there is no shortcut, not magic potion, time is our best ally is we can manage it wisely.
I totally understand/feel your pain and your frustration I went though that phase. Take care of yourself and your son, make sure that your interests are fully protected. Surround yourself with good friends, it's very important to feel being loved and worthy.
Your worth is not related to him. You are lovable. I know very well how they can destroy our self esteem and make us doubt ourself on a constant basis.
Last edited by job; 03/02/1703:08 PM. Reason: Added spacing between paragraphs
Me 52+ WH 57+ Married 20 + Piecing since 2016 (ready to give up...)
