I hate to be a pest and I deeply appreciate all of you responding!!! Do any of you have advice on how I handle the comments he makes about loving me or how he made a mistake or when he goes into how depressed he is or when he wants to talk on the phone??????
A small part of me wants to say........are you kidding, you have hurt me so bad then lay into him about what he has done to me like my comment back to him about not being able to replace me. But what good does that do! I truly feel like he is in a bad place and has been for the past three years. We spoke on the phone a few days ago and he seemed desparate to get out of the pain he is in.
This is where we are now and I always tell me daughter to be a part of the solution not a part of the problem! If he is wanting to heal it would be best for all involved, whether or not we get back together, for me not to add to his problem. Again, not rescue but also not hurt.
I know some of you have said to be more like a friend but some of his comments are very intimate!
Ahhh. Now I see. So my X almost always makes intimate or sexually related remarks when he sees me. Infuriates me. Confuses me sometimes too. He has told me that he wants to lie in bed naked with me, that if he saw me at a party he would hit on me and try to pick me up.
I tell you this not to take focus off of your question but to show you that the behavior is rather symptomatic...
With that said I usually say something like "thanks for sharing" which acknowledges their feelings but does not affirm or deny anything else. You can ask him why he is saying those things.
Sydney, it is really, really important for you to first, work through what appears to be latent anger for your husband.
It's different if you were "piecing" and going to couples counseling. You aren't. Neither of you are in a position to have anything other than a friendship R at this time.
It sounds like he's working things out and is very confused about what he wants and if you get involved, you are cheating on your BF and enabling him to cheat on his GF.
He needs to go through this and he needs to work this out for himself, with the help of the therapist. If anything, let him know that intimate conversations with him are making you uncomfortable. Set boundaries with your conversations with him. Let him know that if he crosses those boundaries, you will hang up, or whatever consequences you set.
You need to know what you want (or what you are open to; and what you are prepared to risk). But he could just be working things out in his own head, confiding in you, and then you take the bait, leave your BF and find out that he just wanted to get things off his chest and doesn't want any new R with you.
if you and your h are somehow destined to be together, it's not like this.
He's in no position to be in a mature r and that is clear. Your desire to rescue him is something to discuss with your t and see if it's co-dependence
or just wanting him in a postion where he does not have the power and you do.
If your h gets the help he needs and you become someome who can stand on her own feet (and not someone who gets so thrown by his comments and loneliness)
then he can call you in a year. I hate to see a good man, ie the man you are now seeing, be discarded b/c your ex is ready for round two
but forgot to change or repair himself. As he is, he is bound to repeat his mistakes.
And you have a lot to work through that HE does not want to hear.
How can you realistically think that would work in the long run?
I believe people can change -yes I do- but your h is not there by a long shot -
and in some ways neither are you. Hang in there, tell him to keep seeing the t and call you next year and go explore the OM relationship
and see what a mature loving r looks like, without an OW....
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
Hi, we are none of us perfect here - and most of us are blundering about doing the best we can in difficult circumstances.
First off, well done in getting out there and dating.
I can understand your confusion and hurt at your xh calling you. How can we be married to someone for a long time, see a terrible change in them, and then apparently see them start to recognise it? I believe it would throw most of us.
It sounds as if your xh could be waking up, or it could be a 'touch and go' which is a reassurance that although their journey isn't over, they still want to check that their ex spouse is still there.
Also you are dating someone. Now dating isn't 100% commitment, but you like him and this guy has feelings. I am never sure quite what people mean by dating. There is a world of difference between someone you see fairly regularly and may or mat not have a more intimate r with, and a r which is pretty committed, and which is on the road to marriage. But whatever level of commitment is there, he is somewhat, or a lot in your life. This makes a difference
Overall i tend to agree with most others have said. Continue to live your life, work on yourself and deal with your anger.
I think we need to acknowledge and deal with very understandable anger that we have been very badly treated, lied to and cheated on by someone we loved, and who had made promises to us. The letting it go and forgiving is hard. If someone has done something terrible, it is not a question of trivialising what they did - but recognising that it is a lot to get past. And still getting beyond it. I wold suggest that anyone who tells you this is easy hasn't actually done it!
Finally your xh. Friendship with boundaries is OK. He needs to recognise that these are his issues, and cannot dump them on you. You have yours and he has his.
Why not work on friendship, and tell him honestly at this stage that is all you can deal with, and get to know each other again? I only know one divorced couple who are really friends, but they are, and good ones.
Thank you for your kind word! This has been the worst three years of my life and something no one can prepare you for. I am dating and by that I mean I go out with this wonderful guy but there is no commitment. I am healthy enough to know I am not in a place to give that to anyone. When your world gets so turned upside down by the person you love and trusted the most it takes awhile to get yourself right again......at least for me. I am not healthy enough to love someone else!
I do believe my XH went through some psychological breakdown. Throughout all of this he has been extremely depressed and often stated life got out of control. Several times I thought he might do something to himself. I know many would say........then he should have gotten help. At the beginning he tried and I believe the T made him worse because she didn't understand what was happening.
After that I don't think he knew how or what to do. Plus I believe most men do just what he did to relieve his pain....throw himself in work, drinking, have women. Anything to distract them from the pain. He said the other day that he can't run anymore and has to face the pain and emptiness inside otherwise he knows it will never go away. Sadly I think he also realizes that he wants to be loved and he knows my family and I loved him very much. I think he would do anything to have it back.
So where does that leave me???? In some ways I am in a great place since I have had the opportunity to learn so much about myself and meet some terrific people. But you are right about the anger. It is still there. Not like it was before but I honestly think time is the only thing that will take it away. It seems as the more my life moves on the anger is abating. In some ways it is easy for me to forgive him because I do believe he had some type of breakdown. Other times it does come out especially when he seems to minimize what has happened. I have told him several times that I don't think it is good that we talk since he can't seem to hear anything negative and I don't want to walk on eggshells.
Sorry to ramble!!! Him coming around and doing a 180 has been strange, good and awful all at the same time. I don't want to hurt his progress. I have a daughter and I would love for her to have a healthy father. But I also don't want to mess up the progress I have made!!
Many have suggested trying to be his friend so obviously that is something I need to try. I am just not sure what that is going to look like........I guess it needs to look like what is comfortable for me!!
Again, thank you for your words of wisdom and your understanding of my pain!
You are getting great advice but FWIW your XH is NOT in acceptance stage of MLC.
Sounds more like he is still in REPLAY or at the tail end of REPLAY looking to see if you would accept him back.
Crisis is still in full swing and if you were to get back together he would still need to got through the remaining stages of MLC. Depression, Withdrawal and then acceptance. There is no avoiding them.
Keep listening to everyone that is giving you advice here they are spot on.
Cadet is right, it sounds like he's just at the very beginning of depression, or contemplating finally "facing" depression with his comment about not running away anymore, but also falling back into replay with the minimizing of the havoc he wreaked.
Think about how long it took you to get yourself together and feel good with your identity and independence after he shattered your view of the world--he has to face the same thing. I have the same situation in my life as far as family or friends who might abandon me or see it as a betrayal if I started anything with my XH were he to come back. That's a whole other thing that he would have to face.
I think when they hit that stage--if they do--of finally seeing what they did and desiring deeply for people to just love and accept them again, they have to realize that it will take serious work on their part to mend those fences. You cannot simply go to your family or friends and say "well, I decided that we should welcome him back, so do it." Some people might NEVER welcome back a betrayer, no matter what he does to try to repair things, and he'd have to accept that outcome.
I like the suggestion of saying that you are uncomfortable by his intimate comments. You are simply not tied to him intimately anymore in the present. Your tie is in the past. And you don't have to have a boyfriend to say that intimate comments make you uncomfortable, either.
This sort of behavior reminds me of what I saw when my XH began his MLC...the sort of "fix it for me Antonia I don't know what's wrong with me" stage that was mixed with horrible mood swings and a quick temper any time I ever showed that I was getting exasperated with him.
If you think of this as similar to the early stages of MLC, and as most of us did, we tried to do everything in our power to help, which might have included changing our behavior with the wind every time they acted like it was our fault, well, you see where it always ends up, with their breaking down worse.
So it's almost like you have to do the opposite and just stay out of his path. You're in a much better, stronger place to do so now because if you've really changed yourself and you life for the better in the past few years and gotten rid of some issues of codependency and the desire to "save" someone who needs to help himself, then it should be easier for you to walk away from incidents where he's trying to pull you back into the vortex and lean on you instead of himself.
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
If Cadet is right, and I suspect he is, that your spouse is coming out of Replay and thus is still very much in crisis, then friendship with a MLCer is tricky. I think it is more a question of being pleasant, but not too involved in their drama.
You own question to yourself - where does that leave you, is a good one and shows a healthy focus of attention.
And yes, anger fades over time if we don't feed it. It becomes less important, and we see the bigger picture.
I would take it as it comes, with no expectations, and kindness and good boundaries.
