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JujuB Offline OP
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So, I did hear from ex via text but in a how’s it going sort of way - he did remain friends with his exes so I would like that for us maybe. I don’t think either of us like the idea of discarding people from our lives. I know we won’t work as a couple though. I felt anxious and depressed the last months of our relationship. But it’s weird for me to not have someone to do things with.

I got my hair cut and balayaged, signed up for some yoga classes, signed up for a monthly massage service. I feel a little guilty spending like that but It falls under a self care thing and I pick up extra cases to cover it. I do feel a bit lonely. My friends are al at busy times in their lives so I’m not really socializing.


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So, i was talking to my best friend (who has been the leaver in many of her relationships- not marriage). She was asking me how I felt and if I was ok and I told her how I felt fine. A huge sense of relief and no doubt or desire to go back.insteqd, I feel like I should have ended things even earlier then I did. How I was looking forward to moving on after taking a break. She told me that’s how the person that wants out usually feels. That by the time they get to that point of leaving, that they are done. She reminded me that she had told me that back when my ex had left me...

When my ex husband left me , there was no temperature taking. No trying to sleep with me. No calls to me. He was done. I pursued and that made it worse. But I doubt not pursuing would have helped either.

I told her my ex husband leaving had to have been different. We were together for over 15 years. Had a kid together. That he was hiding a habit and tons of debt he had in secret that I was asking questions about after seeing our tax statements. But from my ex’s perspective - it wasn’t. He wanted out.

I know with my ex bf I am not gonna regret it in 5 years. Yet I keep wanting my ex to one day regret it. And it makes me feel really rejected and unloveable (that’s a corny word but I can’t think of something better) that my ex left me that way. It makes no logical sense to feel that way. My ex was an a$$hole. All the selfishness. I wasn’t like that at all. But when he left, I felt like it was all me. How could it not me cause people don’t just leave good relationships. Our relationship was really bad. I resented his selfishness which really was extreme - not just little stories that I cherry picked. He wasn’t a partner. Yet I was the one rejected.

So how do people get past the feeling of being rejected? How do you not take it personally when it’s from a spouse (versus dating- which is bound to have rejection) I’m even wondering if I went for someone that I would not have cared so much if he did reject me? So I feel all types of messed up.


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Originally Posted by JujuB

When my ex husband left me , there was no temperature taking. No trying to sleep with me. No calls to me. He was done. I pursued and that made it worse. But I doubt not pursuing would have helped either.


My XH was the same way. He said he was done and that was it. In our case, though, I did NOT pursue because I'm pretty stubborn and I just thought after all I had done for him if he could so callously drop me, I didn't want to pursue. A few weeks after he'd moved out, he called me for something and more out of habit than anything, as we ended the call, he said "I love you". That got my hackles up in a big way and I just responded with "no you don't" and hung up the phone. I found this site pretty early and saw all of the advice about not begging and pursuing and honestly, those things just never occurred to me. Once he said he was done, I wouldn't have gotten back with him if he'd showed up at my house with 10 million dollars strapped to his body.

Originally Posted by JujuB


I told her my ex husband leaving had to have been different. We were together for over 15 years. Had a kid together. That he was hiding a habit and tons of debt he had in secret that I was asking questions about after seeing our tax statements. But from my ex’s perspective - it wasn’t. He wanted out.

I know with my ex bf I am not gonna regret it in 5 years. Yet I keep wanting my ex to one day regret it. And it makes me feel really rejected and unloveable (that’s a corny word but I can’t think of something better) that my ex left me that way. It makes no logical sense to feel that way. My ex was an a$$hole. All the selfishness. I wasn’t like that at all. But when he left, I felt like it was all me. How could it not me cause people don’t just leave good relationships. Our relationship was really bad. I resented his selfishness which really was extreme - not just little stories that I cherry picked. He wasn’t a partner. Yet I was the one rejected.

So how do people get past the feeling of being rejected? How do you not take it personally when it’s from a spouse (versus dating- which is bound to have rejection) I’m even wondering if I went for someone that I would not have cared so much if he did reject me? So I feel all types of messed up.


It is hard not to take the whole thing personally. My XH and I had been through a lot of crap. Now, granted, mine wasn't an addict who was straight up hiding money, but mine had some serious medical issues and actually almost died about 6 months into our marriage. He was in and out the hospital and had countless surgeries over the years. In our first year of marriage, he spent nearly 6 months of it in the hospital. I was the caretaker, nursemaid, EVERYTHING. I was the cheerleader when he was down. I was the breadwinner. I did everything for him and the girls to the point that I was totally drug down and worn out. But I did it all because I loved him and I loved the girls. So, when he told me he wanted out, my instinct was to shout "how dare you?" He even said to me on more than one occasion what a good woman I was for sticking by him through everything. Then, in the end, he was the one who walked away. I don't think he ever realized (and I STILL don't think he realizes) how taxing it can be to be the constant caregiver for a spouse, particularly when that spouse is super emotional and prone to great mood swings. Granted, I have never stared death in the face like he did, so I would imagine that somehow gives you a different perspective, but I did the best I could through all of that and then he walked away. I kept wondering why ALL I had done wasn't enough.

I think everyone copes with things differently, but for me, counseling was the key to get past all of those feelings of inadequacy and guilt and all that negative baggage. The other thing that helped me was NOT dating. I had to focus on myself in order to get back on track so that I could, some day maybe, focus on someone else again. I don't necessarily lose myself in a relationship, but I do tend to put other's needs before myself, so in not dating for awhile, it allowed me to just solely focus on me. Ultimately, my XH left me because he found someone else and while that didn't come out until after he was gone, it hurt and I took that personally, but again, counseling helped. The other thing that still helps is knowing that now that I'm a few years out from the experience, XH is finding that life with his new partner is not all sunshine and roses like he thought it would be when he walked away from me. Just like ANY relationship, there are ups and downs. I think sometimes the WAS forgets that because they are in that glow of "the grass is greener". Once the glow wears off, they realize that the grass is pretty much the same color everywhere.

You are a strong person, Juju, and I have no doubt you are going to come out on the other side shining as brightly as the sun. I wish I had a magic pill to give you to help you get there, but like I said, everyone copes differently and different strategies work for different people. I'm very stubborn, so that actually worked to my advantage in my case. You just have to find what works for you and roll with it.


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Hey Juju - I totally empathize with how you're feeling.

Just like Dawn said, counseling helped tremendously in the beginning just to get me straight and out of feeling continuously blurry. I haven't been to counseling for the last five months because I got out of it everything I needed to. However, it helped me get good grounding for sure. I have a research background and so I sought out everything - from clinical studies to personal growth books. I focused a lot on emotional health and how to stabilize life by working through past traumas and also BD. I learned a lot about myself, my behaviour patterns, and where they were stemming from. Once I got to the root causes of my behaviour - abandonment and rejection - I was able to really work through a lot of my built in instincts and move from living in survival model to just breathe and live life with a sense of calmness. Also helped me to re-story my life and truly figure out how much strength and resilience I have after all that I've been through for the past few decades. I was able to understand and name my depression and its roots.

The other major point, which is so counter-intuitive, is that I haven't dated yet. Just as Dawn mentioned, I needed to take the time to focus on myself and get my life on track before I opened myself to the world. I did get a dating app to survey the landscape and I wasn't too impressed. I also didn't get any hits on my profiles, which was super annoying. I realized that the dating apps weren't for me right now because it was fueling my rejection traumas and that wasn't healthy for me. I have gotten quite a bit of interest in-person from women. This is partly because I come across a lot differently than an online profile. I also don't know if me mentioning I had kids was a turn-off for women on the online apps. Anyways, I am not dating right now but I tentatively plan to dip my foot back in sometime in the fall of this year. I still need time to get some things right in my life and I want to dedicate time to that.

I feel you on the rejection from the angle of a spouse. My exW is already dating someone and it really stung in the beginning when she told me. I had to take a week for my emotions to settle and reflect on this new turn of events. It was like getting rejected all over again - but now with a name and a face. The only way I have been able to fortify myself is working on my self-value and worth. There is no way to directly attack the sense and feeling of rejection. My path has been to do things that bring me joy, happiness, and a sense of personal value to mitigate rejection. Cultivating emotional fitness and trust that you have value and self-worth is the path. I crush it at my work, my health, my parenting etc and those give me data points to tell myself that I am worthy and that I have value. So, when I see rejection in my face, I know that it is just exW's preference, not an indictment to who I am. I also remind myself that I don't want her back which helps.

So it's a lot of things done daily and over time that builds that self-value. I know that it doesn't make me immune to feelings of sadness, hurt, anger. But I know how to navigate them better now.

I wish there was a simple answer to it, but life is way more rich and complex. All I know is that I have the ability to change my narrative and the perspective that I can take on any given thing. I always listen to what my initial feeling and response says, but I choose to take a wider perspective.

As Viktor Frankl says - "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." I wholeheartedly not only believe that, but I have seen it through personal experience the power behind it.


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How could it not (be) me cause people don’t just leave good relationships.


Oh yes they do. My ex and I had a good relationship. Intellectual companions. Great sex life. Yes, in retrospect he was a narcissist but I was a good match for him because my strong sense of self could withstand that. Of all our couple friends, we were probably the couple people would have picked as having the strongest relationship.

My marriage didn't break because the relationship wasn't good, it broke because my ex couldn't be satisfied. Nothing made him happy enough - he always needed new challenges, change, including new young women so he could fool himself into thinking he wasn't aging. I think my marriage lasted 24 years precisely because it WAS good - I doubt he could have made it nearly that long with anyone else.

Stop second guessing yourself- you're a good mom and partner and this last guy wasn't right for you. You made the right decision.

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Originally Posted by kml
[I think my marriage lasted 24 years precisely because it WAS good - I doubt he could have made it nearly that long with anyone else.
I never looked at my own marriage like this kml. Boy oh boy does this make perfect sense in hind-sight. And also why my ex seemingly can't capture the OM she left me for and why her prior relationships exploded so dramatically. Everyone always said that we seemed like the perfect couple - obviously devoted to each other.

Sorry for the thread-jack - but this stood out for me - and perhaps will resonate for some others here regardless of what our actual realities were.


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Dawn - I really wish I had more pride when dealing with my ex at BD. He was distancing for a while, and I was chasing and appeasing him and not complaining about disprespectful things like coming home at 2am or disappearing to help with son when I had kidney stones. I was following all these relationship books that were not geared for people in my situation. He had twisted things around though, so I thought that my needs in a marriage were too much and unfair. He was gaslighting. And I love hearing stories about how things aren’t quite the paradise our exes thought they would have.

Marika - thanks for posting. I think for me, I used the dating apps and dating as a form of ego gratification and as a way to prove myself as not being this abusive, difficult person to be married to. Problem was, I didn’t communicate and argue. I just accepted too much.

I think my issue is that I am really acceptable to gaslighting. I remember a year into our relationship with ex husband, I was upset that he wasn’t making much time for me. He broke up with me cause he said I was being too controlling. I was questioning why when we barely saw each other he wasn’t making more time. He broke up and I was in tears begging him to give me another chance (we were in our early 20s.) A recent therapist pointed out to me that I had communicated my needs to him and he handled it by breaking things off. I felt like I was the one that was wrong. I felt like I should not have needs in a relationship. It makes me easily manipulated and complacent and I became the perfect companion for a secret addict that needed to disappear and hide stuff. Cause I believed that I should have no needs. Then when I became pregnant and had our son, I had very appropriate needs again (help and someone that could partner and be responsible) and that’s what ex could not handle.

(Reviewing this makes me disagree even more with that Stanley video on YouTube. You shouldn’t just accept someone when they tell you that you aren’t worth compromising for. That you should not have needs and if you do they will break things off. . )

Also you are on point with the rest of your advice as well. I don’t want my ex back. He is beyond selfish and only looks good on paper. He is a liar in a really deceptive slow boil sort of way though. I know my current state is a matter of perspective. Sometimes I find it hard to change perspectives when I get caught up in that “ woe is my life”state of mind but it’s something I have been working on.

KML - thanks again. The last guy definitely was not a match for me. I was trying so hard to change my perspective - focus on good things about myself and my son because of everything I said above - and there he was - criticizing me for it! I should have ended things earlier. And will hopefully do so in the future. I am not doubting my decision only wishing I did it much much earlier.

I wasn’t like you and Andrew though. I didn’t have a good marriage I was satisfied in. I think I knew things didn’t make sense. I just didn’t have the vocabulary to recognize a lot of crazy behaviors. And I didn’t have the power or the thought even that I should and could leave.... You know how children act out when something is seriously wrong in their family - cause they don’t really have the ability to know what’s wrong as they haven’t seen enough or experienced enough yet had the bad luck to be born into a bad family? The difference between me and a child is that I have the ability walk away from a guy. I just never saw that.


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Originally Posted by JujuB
Dawn - I really wish I had more pride when dealing with my ex at BD. He was distancing for a while, and I was chasing and appeasing him and not complaining about disprespectful things like coming home at 2am or disappearing to help with son when I had kidney stones. I was following all these relationship books that were not geared for people in my situation. He had twisted things around though, so I thought that my needs in a marriage were too much and unfair. He was gaslighting. And I love hearing stories about how things aren’t quite the paradise our exes thought they would have.



Well, I'm pretty freaking hard-headed so this was one time when it truly worked to my advantage. It is not always a good thing, but in this case it helped a LOT. I'm definitely one of those people that if you tell me I can't do something, I'm going to do it, just to prove you wrong. So, it was like "you're done with me, ok, screw you, I'm done with YOU." And I never looked back. To this day, honestly, I couldn't care less if my XH burst into flames walking down the street. I would feel bad for the girls because they love their dad (as well they should), but I wouldn't give 2 sh!ts for him or his skanky new wife. I don't talk about him often, but when I do, I usually find myself referring to him in the past tense as though he's dead and it strikes me that, in many ways, he is dead....at least to me.

I think you handle yourself beautifully.


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Thank you Dawn - I still wish I had more of your pride during BD though. I’m gonna try to go easy on myself though cause I did not know about all ex’s secrets back then and he had been gaslighting.

So journaling cause I’m home alone on a Saturday night. I kept myself happily busy during the day. Homecares, a yoga class, bike riding and a trip to Trader Joe’s (my favorite store ever). But now I’m feeling lonely. My friends all have babies or IVF treatments or live far away (although maybe a few are always looking for nights out) and I haven’t really reached out to them.

I’m gonna have to date soon just for the socialization I think. But I need to get myself in a better place. I have been comfort eating and I am now almost at the same weight I was after my son was born. I need to lose 7 pounds and i will feel much more confident and I will fit in a lot of my post BD clothes. Not all. I actually dropped down to my lowest weight ever post BD which was less then when I ran track in high school. I remember my boss was begging me not to lose anymore weight. And going back to that weight would require starvation and I was losing my hair at the time so that’s not what I want. But I actually liked how clothes looked on me at a closely anorexic weight. That’s not mentally healthy. Now I’m in the opposite where the numbers on the scale keep going up. I notice I am eating when I am not even hungry. And I read cook books while I eat which is like eating pornography and makes me over eat. I do fine during the day and then it’s when i come home from work. Or when I’m stressed at work and people bring in bakery goods.

The truth is, guys don’t seem to mind weight and sometimes prefer more weight and curves but I feel so much more confident when I have low body fat. I know that logically it’s a stupid thing to focus on and my confidence should not be based on my weight. It’s always been the 1 thing I could control though.

I also need to become fun and happy again. I have been depressed the last several months and just feeling unsettled. I feel better now that I am single but still not quite there yet.

I was looking at the potential people on the dating sites. I feel like I would have a better selection if I was younger, so that’s a bit frustrating. I am realistic. A successful guy that is good looking is gonna date 10 years younger. I get that. I go more for morals and personality then for looks. This time around, I want to date someone that is more compatible with me in terms of activity level and interests. I never end up dating guys that like to read or hike or bike. One of my friends said I need to date an athletic guy, another one said a soft spoken nerdy type. The last guy I dated and my ex husband were more blue collar background, into mechanical things and very arrogant.

OLD is really the only option I have to meet people. The activities I like tend to attract all females or really weird effeminate guys or younger guys and it’s really hard for me to make time for meet up groups. People always say work on you. I don’t even know what that means. I’m just doing nice things for myself - like yoga and exercise and reading for enjoyment. My attention span is only allowing me to reread favorite books I find around the house though. But that’s better then a few years ago. ( I used to be an avid novel reader prior to BD and then became hyper focused on divorce and cheating)

Ok. Sorry for boring everyone l. Maybe in a month or two I will have some interesting stuff to talk about.


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If you have time to date why don't you have time to attend a meetup? What about a hiking group? Sounds to me like you could use a larger group of friends right now.

Also - if a mere 7 pounds is making the difference between feeling good about yourself and not, you're still stuck in anorexic thinking. Do you think you could benefit from some therapy around this?

A guy who reads and hikes sounds perfect btw. Funny, I was commenting on another thread about compatibility, and about the two most compatible guys I'd dated since my divorce (both of whom were Love Avoidants though and ultimately not available).

Both of them were very interested in books and good movies though. Smart and good conversationalists. It was nice.

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