Thanks for the message, it was really helpful. It made me feel less hurt, more able to take it less personally, and also gave me an insight into what I want - I want to follow your example. I want for her to eventually look at me and think, "hang on a minute...". I LOVED your story about dinner and how the OW was looking pissed off. Oh please please PLEASE may that happen for me one day, to be in that scenario.
I have detached a bit more to the point where I feel able to stop looking at emails. Ginger1's message about my hurting myself and delaying recovery really helped bring the message home. I will contend that the snooping was productive in that it helped me detach and see WH in reality as opposed through my fog of despair and longing. He's still playing me, but now because I know what I know, I'm able to look at him and go mentally 'yeah, whatever', and not obsess for hours about the smallest throwaway glance, the most innocuous phrasing of words.
I maintain the WH is still trying to mess with my head. He went to see marriage counsellor guy on Saturday, and sent me a text on Sunday saying thanks for sending him his way, what an amazing guy. I just agreed and left it at that, didn't do the probing my old self would have done.
Saw WH at mediation yesterday and he brought up seeing marriage counsellor again. He said he had been really ill with a cold and so wasn't able to think about what he said to him. I feel he knows this would normally catch my attention - that he's willing 'to think'. Sometimes I feel he's acting like a cat playing with a mouse. But because I've seen the level of cosiness between him and OW through their messages, I know this is just a front - to destabilise me while he organises himself. I just shrugged and said "oh ok".
During mediation, I mentioned I've 'caught up' - the mediator said in our last session when I asked WH to reconcile and WH remained silent, that he saw this often - one spouse leaves and the other is mentally lagging behind. I said I am not looking for reconciliation any more. And then proceeded to pin him down on maintenance. Which I really enjoyed.
I am no longer looking actively for reconciliation, because I see now so clearly that WH has to be the driver behind this, he has to be convinced this is what he wants and until, if ever, he reaches this point, I need to just get on with living and healing - i.e. GAL. I am going to actively engage in doing things to make me happy now - am going to go swimming on Thursday, start working out again, joining the gym at work tomorrow, and reading stuff that isn't related to relationships etc. WH has taken enough of my past from me, I'll be damned if I'm going to let him take more of my present and any of my future.
BUT...
I still find there's an ember glowing, in my little war torn heart. A little ember of hope. I've been reading PsySara's threads - her turn around is amazing. It's inspiring and raises conflicted feelings in me - hope, positivity, and at the same time, hopelessness and feelings of failure. Because her WH looked pretty gone to me at certain stages. But the start of their piecing as she's described it, just a month after he said he wanted to D, is a dream come true - it's my dream too.
I spoke to a friend about it yesterday - described PsySara's sitch and turnaround and how it made me think I wanted to try that and I should keep hanging in there. Hanging in there means not relocating to my country of origin, where I have better job prospects, all my family and my oldest friends, a great support network, and where I feel truly myself, my strongest, best self, with my son. I've been hesitating because as much as I hate WH at the moment and hate this city, I love my little boy so much the thought of doing anything that would hurt him is killing me, even though I know he would adjust and will see WH, albeit less regularly.
When I cited PsySara's example, my friend pointed out statistically, her sitch is probably v rare.
I want to ask - anyone come to the conclusion that stories of restoration are very much in the minority? JujuB has affirmed this to me. Anyone else can tell me what's happened to them, what they think?
WH is going on holiday with OW on Saturday. For four days. They will be spending Valentine's together.
Since my last post I have not made any overtures to him. Mentally I am not detached, still thinking of him 100% of the time, but I don't contact him unless in response to a message he sends me, always about our son.
On the advice of a friend who's been through this, I tried an antidepressant on Tuesday. BIG mistake for me. I'm sensitive to stuff like this and it really threw me. Within 3 hours of the first pill, I was trembling, heart palpitations, feeling really really bad. This is my third go at ADs, not ever going to touch them again. I had to have the day off work on Wednesday and have dragged myself in today, but still feeling v lousy. V fragile.
On Friday, WH wanted to speak about mediation and the upcoming holidays. I asked him where he was taking OW - he lied and said they were going to somewhere local. I forgot about my reaction here - not DB, so haven't been applying the principles as strictly as I said before. I said to him, 'Why are you lying?' Then he admitted he was taking her away, abroad, and said it was because he didn't want me to think he was spending loads of money on her.
He will be. WH loves staying in 5* hotels. No way he would take anything else. Plus he's only given me a quarter of the maintenance we agreed he would give me at the last mediation session. I haven't referenced it - am just going to bring it up at next mediation session that he's breaking promises as soon as he makes them.
After he 'fessed up about taking her away, I asked him why he was still lying, and he said he was still lying to 'loads of people'. Which made me feel better because I guess he's lying to her too. She's not getting a better deal out of this than me really.
He asked me for a legal separation. I said I didn't see how this would benefit anyone really and I don't really see the point of it. I told him if he wanted a D I would file if he wanted to rush things through (he can't file unless he lies about why we are getting divorced), but on the condition he pays for my lawyer's fees. He said he would think about it.
I then said I had been thinking of taking S3 away as well, because it's been rough going for me and I haven't had a break for a while. To a seaside town an hour away, but it was expensive getting a hotel. WH immediately said he would pay for it. I expressed appreciation.
On Saturday when WH came to pick S3 up for the day, he mentioned he would look online for a hotel for me and S3. I asked him if he meant what he said, that he would pay for it. He said yes, and I said, so how's it going to work? He said he would book it for me, which he did. I know he's done it out of pure guilt because he's taking OW away, no reflection on me whatsoever. This is reinforced by the fact that he's effectively taken it out of the maintenance money he's meant to give me - I know when I bring up the depleted amount in the next mediation session, he's going to say it's because he's forked out for the hotel.
I am struggling. I haven't posted in a while because I have been trying to do what I know I should be doing - detach, GAL... and I have been trying. Unsuccessfully.
In my real world I'm reaching a point where everyone is getting sick of me. Of how down I'm being. He left in November and apparently I should be over it by now. Should I?
I can't believe my husband is going away on holiday with another woman. That another woman tells him she loves him. It feels so wrong. Here I am sitting at this keyboard literally crying into the keypad and he's planning his little jaunt away with his OW. I want to rip my heart out and burn it.
On the advice of a friend who's been through this, I tried an antidepressant on Tuesday. BIG mistake for me. I'm sensitive to stuff like this and it really threw me. Within 3 hours of the first pill, I was trembling, heart palpitations, feeling really really bad. This is my third go at ADs, not ever going to touch them again. I had to have the day off work on Wednesday and have dragged myself in today, but still feeling v lousy. V fragile.
Exercise - real, exhausting exercise - is THE single most effective anti-depressant there is. Nothing even comes close. But you have to really exercise, none of this piddly stuff.
Quote:
WH is going on holiday with OW on Saturday. For four days. They will be spending Valentine's together.
Since my last post I have not made any overtures to him. Mentally I am not detached, still thinking of him 100% of the time, but I don't contact him unless in response to a message he sends me, always about our son.
It is difficult to think of them. I still do. Not as much as I used to, but I guess part of me always will. Just be the best 2016 you can. Remember, your road is lined with gold. Own it.
There are moments in this life when you are so confident in the rightness of your actions, that not even for a second do you consider the option that you might be wrong.
A friend had this advice to give me today. She said to get through this I have to harden my heart. I asked her how to do it - she said to think of all the bad times. But when I do, I feel hate for him. And he feels it when he sees me. I can't be the cordial neighbour with this hate in my heart.
A friend had this advice to give me today. She said to get through this I have to harden my heart. I asked her how to do it - she said to think of all the bad times. But when I do, I feel hate for him. And he feels it when he sees me. I can't be the cordial neighbour with this hate in my heart.
I would say that's not the best of advice. That would only lead you to becoming bitter - and it will be a bitterness that will extend well past him.
There are moments in this life when you are so confident in the rightness of your actions, that not even for a second do you consider the option that you might be wrong.
So glad to hear from you. Thanks for the response. I take the point about exercise. I've joined the gym at work. Going to bring my stuff in tomorrow and give it a go.
So glad to hear from you. Thanks for the response. I take the point about exercise. I've joined the gym at work. Going to bring my stuff in tomorrow and give it a go.
I needed that reminder. Thanks.
No problem. It not only releases all sorts of feel-good chemicals, it forces you to concentrate on proper form, too. Not to mention the health benefits from it.
There are moments in this life when you are so confident in the rightness of your actions, that not even for a second do you consider the option that you might be wrong.
