I can do this...

[irishblessings]

Hey all...

Today I worked my arse off - decorations down and moving furniture! Kind of created a new environment for S and me.

Didn't feel like it - but did it!

Brooklyn - thank you for your take on the judgment versus anger. Just my next question that comes to mind through this process.

Good friend gave me 4 books for Christmas - moving me forward from "why" to "what now":) Much needed!

Back to work tomorrow! For the first time - not sad about it!

[irishblessings]

Frustration continues....H calls S at 10:30pm - wants to build a healthy relationship with him. S is fed up, tired, frustrated - why now, why this late, etc. I let him handle it.

Next H starts texting me - just in case I wasn't home - he just talked with S and "pushed" him kind of hard and left him pretty upset. I responded - yes, I am home. More texts from him - just seeking healthy relationship with "all" of us and if not "all" then at least with the kids. I call - don't want to text. Ask for him to please follow schedule of Weds evening and Saturday morning. Let that be consistent. No, he wants S to spend the night. S does not want to. I let him know that the decision is up to S - he is 17. He says "why wouldn't he want to come" - I say "well, why doesn't he want to come stay with you and see all your new furniture, tvs, etc.? maybe some of it has to do with the fact that when you left - you left our house in disrepair. We haven't had new furniture, etc. in YEARS - rooms aren't finished, etc." H goes silent. I said "yes, I know here she goes being the b**ch again - then I said - you know what, no I am not a b**ch. I am here everyday for S and I'm keeping this home going. I'm not interfering in your access to any of the kids - your relationship with them is your responsibility."

I'm just venting here. I know that I could have just as easily stayed silent. And to be honest I caught the old voice in my head going "oh no now he'll never come back" - I HATE that voice! I know that he is not coming back. I read a great book yesterday about runaway husbands. Not a hopeful one for reconciliation - but very brutally honest about the narcissism, arrogance, and detachment with these men. The more that I have read about the connection between MLC and dysfunctional childhood - the more I can see it.

Anyway - blah!!!!!!!!!!! What I really wanted to say to him was the best thing you can do is stay as far away as possible. But I didn't.

Thanks for listening!

[dl443322]

Ok sweetie, you got that off your chest. You know, I dont do 2 x 4's for a couple of reasons.

Here's the thing. You are just spinning your wheels trying to get him to understand anything. All he heard was blah, blah,blah.

And please get that, now he will not come home voice out of your head. serves no purpose.

It would have served YOU better if you just didnt answer the text or just answered I'm home. Please deal with your son regarding this. And that's it.

Because now you're upset, h is not seeing the IB we see, and you have not allowed your son and h to figure this out. You told h what son was feeling. Son needs to do that. And if h doesnt hear it, well, then son has to do what he must.

And I know you want to understand what you're h is going through, but, dont get so bogged down in trying to figure it all out. It is what it is.

,So you backslid, you're human. Maybe think about what you would do differently next time. For you.

Get back on the path, IB. Get out of his head.

Keep going.

[beatrice]

IB please don't beat yourself up over this. The situation is not of your making. Brooklyn says some sensible things. I would add that we are allowed to be human. Until you are fully detached he will find ways of getting to you.

Remember with these people it is their actions that count. If he genuninely wants an r with your son his actions will show it. If it is just words in response to how he woke up feeling the world should be on that fine day [as it so often is, sadly] then all of it will soon be forgotten, including anything you said.

Except that sometimes what we say goes in, like a shaft of sunlight penetrating a dark forest! There is a bit of them that realises what they are doing.

I am not sure that anything we do or say to them, except in the very final stages, really changes anything. There is a DBing view here, which I completely understand, that we can somehow 'save' our marriage. With MLC I am not sure. There seems to be no rhyme or reason about who comes out of it. Because it is actually about them, and how they handle this.

There have been some wonderful people on these boards over the years whose spouses stayed stuck, and other great success stories. Of course we think the successes did something 'right'. They certainly displayed great patience and compassion, but their other actions? There doesn't seem to be a magic bullet

One thing I regret is that I spent too much time hoping my h would wake up, and come back. Now I do not really think about it, or consider it a possibility, but for a very very long time the hope is there, and it sustains us, so I wouldn't wish it away.

If he doesn't wake up you will be OK, I promise, more than OK. It takes time, and although we can do things to help ourselves grow, we cannot will ourselves entirely out of our feelings of loss and grief. But they will pass, even if it seems forever. One day you will look back at all of this mess, and see the pattern in it for you. Success isn't only a restored marriage, as you know.

[punkin]

Irish,

Very wise words of wisdom above from Beatrice and Brooklyn.

Looking on from the safety of miles and Plexi-glass - I wouldn't have responded to H's text. He is just doing his best to involve you in his mess. Keep the leash on, so to speak. 2nd - you did great by letting son handle it. You know, your son also knows the 'off' and 'ignore' buttons on his phone, as well as you do.

3rdly, and most importantly, as Brooklyn said, GET OUT OF HIS HEAD. It's not safe in there. It's toxic. The fumes alone will get you.

Finally, and most importantly, quit kicking yourself in the a$$ all the time, you are going to pull a muscle. LOL

[ericmsant2]

Irish,

Happy New Year Irish. May 2011 be a year of tremendous growth and healing for YOU.

I've been reading along for most of your posts and you should be very proud of yourself for the personal progress you have made throughout this difficult journey.

First off….I second Walkings comment up there ^^^^

I want him to be happy - I want him to be OK.

WHY Irish does it still seem like you are more concerned with HIS happiness OVER YOURS? What does this say to YOU?

Kind of created a new environment for S and me.

Good for YOU!

H goes silent. I said "yes, I know here she goes being the b**ch again - then I said - you know what, no I am not a b**ch. I am here everyday for S and I'm keeping this home going.

1) Stop mind reading….you have no idea what your H was thinking.
2) YOU do not need to TELL him you are not a b**ch. Actions speak louder than words. In addition, Irish standing up for WHAT YOU WANT in YOUR life is not being a b**ch it is being a healthy individual with healthy boundaries.
3) “the I am here everyday” statement was not needed IMO. Are you still looking for HIS approval? Are you still hoping he is going to say that he has seen you change? Stop it! Live and do for YOU Irish and only YOU and YOUR son.

"oh no now he'll never come back"

At some point in the future Irish….your mind will start to rephrase this to….”do I want his a** back.

Get back on the path, IB. Get out of his head.

Irish, read this ^^^^ what B wrote…over and over again.

Do for YOU IRISH….

DO for YOUR Son Irish

Do what IRISH wants

Please DO NOT BE AFRAID to stand up for yourself!

DO NOT BE AFRAID of completely dropping the rope!

You can do this….IRISH….it really is inside of YOU.

You can read every book known to man about relationship, about MLC, about affairs…

The ONLY thing that matters thought is HOW and WHAT YOU WANT IN YOUR LIFE!

God Bless,
Eric

[irishblessings]

The remarks are well deserved and welcomed! As hard as I try - the fact is I am hitting the anger stage (finally) and I have to do a better job restraining myself.

OK friends...I'm going to share a story with you.

A year ago today, my H left the house at 6pm to attend our S's Confirmation Parent Class on Catholicism and Sexuality. I stayed home with S to feed him and get his homework done. H and I had spent the weekend developing our new "plan of action" on how we wanted to be so structured to achieve our "post kid" goals. H comes home at 9pm and S and I have not accomplished all of our "chores" - we were exhausted from our first day back to school/work. H comes in and goes off. I try to calm him down and he turns on me. I'm a mess - I'm a failure (these are my words).

Fast forward 3 weeks. Bomb drops - H reveals "addiction" - come to find out H didn't attend the parent class. He picked up a prostitute that night.

What happened? Where did my dream go? How did I not see?

Today...I wonder where is my heart?

[dl443322]

Honey, listen carefully, you did nothing wrong. You just love a man who is really and truly broken. And he tried to hold it in so long until he couldnt any longer.

Nothing you did or didnt do, said or didnt say would have made any difference. He is broken.

As you travel on this journey, things begin to happen. Things start to become clearer. You start to "see" things in a different light. Yo begin to understand why things werent exactly as they seemed.

It's hard sometimes, these realizations.

What happened was, you loved this man and that's what you saw.

Do not blame yourself for not knowing. How could you have known that?

But, IB, your dream included a man who respected women, who was whole and well. That was not your h.

Let me tell you a story.

Two week before the bomb, my h wrote me a beautiful card. He wrote wonderful, warm, loving things in it. We still had a very affectionate. loving, physical relationship even two days before the bomb.

Why did I not see? I saw what he showed me. I saw the man I loved being loving. The fault was not mine.

As my story unfolded, slowly, over time, I have come to realize that my h was never really who I made him out to be. He was just a man, with faults, who didnt always make me feel good about myself. Who put me down and blamed me and all of this made me feel unworthy. I allowed myself to be made to feel that way. I take ownership of my part.

My point is, when you are living life, when you are in the thick of it, and love is involved, we dont always see it clearly.

So, stop being so hard on yourself. You did the best you could with the tools and info you had at the time.

As for your heart. It is right in there. Your friends and family see it, your children, those of us on here.

It is intact, albeit, bruised. But I promise you, as you go through this, that you will realize so much about you, your worth, your abilities and your compacity for compassion.

And hopefully, you will learn to forgive yourself. You did nothing wrong, IB. You just loved.

[AntoniaB]

You and I are peas in a pod or separated at birth or something, because the whole "how did I not see" thing replays in my head all the time. Earlier tonight I was reading a book that a friend lent me--Eve Green, a novel by Susan Fletcher. I copied down a quote for my fb page that seemed very relevant. Here it is:

"Some things just happen, Evie! They aren't meant to make sense!....We just have to put our heads down and get on with it...Don't fight what's gone. Don't look for reasons, because that serves no purpose and it ruins things. Move on."

I put that on my page because I need to remind myself of that message every day. Sometimes often in one day. Like you, I am trying so hard to find reasons, and try to pinpoint the times that I was in the past and things were starting that I didn't see happening.

There is another line in this book that gets me: "What if...? A question we ask to hurt ourselves."

Isn't that true? Is there anything positive that can come from "what if I had known" or "what if I had done such and such?" NO. I mean, I guess it helps us feel like we've gotten to the bottom of the puzzle. If we figure out the puzzle, we feel that we have a sense of control gained in a situation where we feel we've lost control.

But maybe the ultimate sense of control we can gain is by saying that we are going to drop the rope on trying to figure all this stuff out. Maybe THAT is the ultimate power, because it is so UNLIKE who we are.

I'm telling you this because I need to tell it to myself. If you saw TAMF's reply to me earlier today, you can see that she correctly sees that I can give a lot of supportive advice that I have terrible trouble internalizing myself. I think a lot of us are like that. We are very supportive with others. It's what makes us tick. But we fail in supporting ourselves.

We have to stop failing at that very important endeavor.

I know it's so tough to say "IB, stop blaming yourself for not seeing."

But maybe say to yourself, "for the next 24 hours, I'm not taking that blame on me anymore." Just do that much. Baby steps, they'll start to take hold.

(((HUGS)))

[irishblessings]

Thanks Brooklyn - I needed to hear that...I needed to see a different perspective.

I'm afraid of the number of times I will feel that way this year. When H was "coming clean" - he shared way too many details about way too many experiences. I don't want to "dodge" certain dates.

I know this is part of the process. I'm better today than I was 10 months ago. I know this to be true!