Ah, SJW, you just made me cry. I haven't cried in months and the is the third time this week. I know this is not my beloved, he's broken and is like an anti-H. And who knows what will happen to him. With this next step in detaching, I feel like I'm grieving all over again. Which [censored].
Me: 53 H:38 T:20 M:14 BD ILYB etc 10/15, H diagnosed severe depression S 1/16 PA 4/16 H filed 1/17
Crying is good for the sole my lovely and it gets rid of unnecessary salt in the body, lol. Seriously though you are having a little bit of a down day and we can all have those. You have been through so much but focus on how much you have learned from it. Cliché I know but what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. You sound like a very beautiful compassionate woman and 53 hell that's the new 33 you bagged a younger model why not go for an older one who will spoil and adore you or let's just give it a wide birth for now.
Hope you feel better tomorrow. I will try to catch up but summer holidays start so I'm children bound.
SJx
Me 46 H 39 M 11 T 14 S 10 DO 8 ILYBNILWY 11.06.17 Separate rooms 11.06.17 ILW OW A ongoing 12.06.17 Kicked H out 23.6.17 H came home 20.8.17
I don't believe "That which doesn't kill just makes you stronger". I think it makes you bitter. Angry. Disillusioned.
When I look back on all the stuff my XW heaped on our marriage with the PAs and EAs, I have to shake my head at the amount of pain it all caused.
What matters is how we choose to react. I am a firm believer in "as if". I told my XW to do what she was going to do but I was done playing. I told her that it was going to hurt, that I was going to cry, that I was going to grieve, that I was going to get over it, and that I was going to get on with the rest of my life. If she wanted to be a part of that then that was great and if she didn't, that was okay, too.
What I have found is that a lot of WASs do is listen to advice from people that have no vested interest in the situation. These people will tell them to dump their spouses and live this magical life. Funny, at the end of the day, they go home to their spouses, their kids, and live in their homes whilst the WAS is often left out in the cold wondering why they listened to these people to begin with.
I have a feeling my XW is based on what these great people have told me afterwards. Look, I feel sorry her life is what it is and she is shacked up with OM pretending to be happy but that is the path she chose.
I won't tell you my life is exactly what I want. Heck, I rent the guest wing in my sister and B-I-L's house. I freelance work and stay busy. However, I have learned to make the best of what I got and have no illusions. I am in a happy place as far as my mind goes.
Well, I have rambled on long enough...
“Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out” ― Art Linkletter
Thanks SJW - I was having a super bad day yesterday, not sure why. I think when I cry some of it is just about the horror of it all, at what he's become, and the pain for everyone including him. I saw some mutual old friends at the weekend who loved us both, but people don't get it do they? They think it is just a standard H runs off with a blonde game. That would have been much easier - easier to be angry too - but it is all the mad stuff that goes with it. It means I have to take a step back and remind myself that no, this crazy stuff isn't normal. That it isn't me deluding myself. That I'm not mad. My uncle said to me recently that if you put this stuff in a book, people would say it was nonsensical and too far-fetched. Yup. But I still have to deal with the practical effects of it. (That does make me angry sometimes.)
I think I'm with you, MrCAS, but I think what doesn't kill you makes you weaker for a while before you get stronger. I feel like I've been hard pruned like an old climbing rose! Like you, life is far from rebuilt and I'm still limping, but I am rebuilding slowly. I'm lucky that I have pretty good self-esteem and strong values and faith. Without those, I would have got lost in the mad confusion of it all. I don't know what will come next for my life but I've always known that this wasn't down to me.
I suppose what has mattered to me most is to not let my H's dark rollercoaster suck me into becoming who I am not or rewriting my reality. I can't control either my mother's dementia or my husband's chaos. It hurts when she spits in my face because she thinks I'm the devil. It hurts to see that my H lies and steals and sees me and our marriage as worthless. But I know I'm not the devil and I know I'm not worthless even if the crazy people think so! I can choose to be compassionate and rational, even when I feel hurt and attacked and overwhelmed. Still, I miss my mother as she was just as much as I miss my beloved.
I guess sometimes it is all so horrific that, like you, I just shake my head at the pain and destruction of it all, at how extreme it all is and how little I can do to change that other than turn away from it. And have a massive umbrella to protect myself from my H's storm!
Me: 53 H:38 T:20 M:14 BD ILYB etc 10/15, H diagnosed severe depression S 1/16 PA 4/16 H filed 1/17
Hmm, the detachment journey is an odd one. It has kicked up some quite intense emotions in the last few days which felt like a step back but actually is a step forward.
For perhaps the first time since this inconceivable chaos entered my life, I feel content to let things unfold. Or the bits of my life that still have my H's hands in them.
What's changed? Well, I still love my H and wish this wasn't our story but I am genuinely ambivalent about wanting what he brings now in my life. When I read about the timescales and how hard it is to know if reconnection is real, how they can bolt again and how much effort and emotional discipline is required in piecing...it's exhausting to just look at it. So, even if the unlikely things happened, I truly don't know if I would want to invest the time and effort now even though another bit of me wants a 'happy ending'. I don't know but I'm comfortable to know I don't know, and know I don't know how things will unfold, but that I can see positives in all the possible routes forward. It feels ok to say I'll stick that all in one corner and I'll be fine to decide how to respond to whatever happens, between high-conflict Court case or more WTF surprises or my H reappearing again with a clearer purpose.
What's helped? Saying no thank you to his last 'let's chat' plan by being clear with him (and me) about my boundary. That irrespective of the reasons, I can't chat to people who can't treat me with respect and who lie to me. Simple. If my H - for his own reasons, whatever they are - wants to talk to me, he will choose to take responsibility for acting in a way that respects me. Or he won't. Not my circus etc. But for me it also means that, for the first time, I am truly not trying to 'get' him to do anything and I don't feel as if I am waiting or watching to see what he will or won't do. My boundary is clear and I'm comfortable with the consequences of it for me, so I can put it aside and focus on my own goals and priorities. There is a deadline of sorts (which I'm sure my MLC H hates!) but it's a function of the legal process he started and how he has failed to engage with it, so again not my circus and not much in my control. I'm comfortable to let it unfold and it does feel better to have some timescale when things will take one route or the other. And going NC - even with the practical fyi stuff about the house sale I've done in the past to be transparent - really helps too. Dropping the rope to him and a bunch of other outcomes is quite relaxing!
So, a new week and my focus is on work, GAL, revising some of my goals and running by the sea.
Me: 53 H:38 T:20 M:14 BD ILYB etc 10/15, H diagnosed severe depression S 1/16 PA 4/16 H filed 1/17
Just found out that a neighbour's husband has just died. Not unexpected, but she's in that shellshocked grief stage. I called her and we chatted for a bit. About love and loss and being gentle with yourself and how you can't think straight. I think it helped her to be able to talk to someone other than her grown-up children and I've known them both for almost 40 years.
And then I got off the phone and howled.
Me: 53 H:38 T:20 M:14 BD ILYB etc 10/15, H diagnosed severe depression S 1/16 PA 4/16 H filed 1/17
My emotions are all over the place this week. Weird. I have to go through some paperwork here, have been avoiding it for a couple of days because it has some joint stuff in it. Right now, I feel sick...you know that sick anxiety feeling? Haven't felt that for a couple of months. I actually feel frightened but I don't know of what. Truly weird feeling.
Pre-WTF world, I used to be quite a rational woman, not one for big emotional extremes. I think I have become the opposite and I find it exhausting.
Me: 53 H:38 T:20 M:14 BD ILYB etc 10/15, H diagnosed severe depression S 1/16 PA 4/16 H filed 1/17
I think a lot of the legal process (even if you have trustworthy lawyers) brings out these emotions. Now we have to act as opponents with people we still love and with whom we lived and grew with. We still want to love them and care for them, but they are now people we need to fight against in court. This brings out a lot of difficult emotions. It is hard. And I believe normal.
We still love them, but they have and continue to do horrible things to us. We can't trust them. I remember how greatful I was when my ex was suddenly nice and normal acting with me...but it was always right before he needed something, or was trying to soften me during negotiations.
And it's hard to come to terms with their manipulations. Because we still love them, because it's hard to accept that they don't have the same feelings and respect for us or for narriage and committment that they once did. They are different from us and it's hard to understand how they no longer feel for us the way we do for them. And that commitment waste enough for them to work through those feelings.
Is it some form of Stockholm syndrome? Is it similar to how a parent who has to turn away their heroine addicted child feels?
You're story and sentiments are very similar to my own.
When my coworkers husband died, I cried at home too, because I imagined that being my husband.
I can see how this is a double whammy for you though. Your mom, changing with Alzheimer's and now your husband changing from who knows what. Like me, you don't have clear cut answers and it is traumatizing.
I don't have advise, because I am going through this as well. But I do understand the feelings of loss. It's not just a death. It's not just rejection.
It's someone that we loved that made us into an enemy and it's hard to understand that.
The D process needs to be separated into two pats... emotional and financial. One side should not be consulting with the other.
As far as us being our S's enemies? The onus for that is on them.
When dealing with an MLC, I feel a hard line and distance is what works best.
Quit trying to make any rational conclusions regarding the MLC spouse. Whether they are operating their though process through lower posteriorally inverted brain matter or their nether regions, the thinking is illogical and you will just end up with your head spinning or hurting...
“Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out” ― Art Linkletter
I'm fine with the D paperwork and seeing it as a process to get some financial stability actually. My L is tough but calm, and I'm being the same. My H is acting like an idiot, of course. Tbh, his responses are more as if I had filed out of the blue and he was trying to drag everything out... No idea what he's thinking. As MrCAS says so wisely, not worth the speculation really. I just deal with the facts.
The paperwork that upset me is other stuff, but it is still a shocking reminder of what a great loving team we were until this stuff started brewing in my H. I just miss him and miss being on the same team, but it hurts because it feels like ancient unreachable history. But at the time, it was just normal and rather lovely. Seeing his handwriting (which bizarrely has changed too in MLC - who knew?) hurts. It is like he is dead.
Me: 53 H:38 T:20 M:14 BD ILYB etc 10/15, H diagnosed severe depression S 1/16 PA 4/16 H filed 1/17
