KGirl con't

[25yearsmlc]

Remember your own words...

So thinking more about my last post... I knew all these things about H, I just chose to "forgive him" (which really meant holding on to it and hanging it over his head later/bringing it up when he did a similar thing again) and hope that he'd not do that stuff again. But he kept doing it anyway - IMs to a girl from our high school saying they could get together during Thanksgiving and I wouldn't have to know, breaking up with me in college to email a girl in one of his classes to ask about getting together now that he didn't have a girlfriend (and then wanting to get back with me when she said no), breaking up with me again to "see what's out there", and so on and so forth. Now it's a pattern

First of all, it IS a pattern. That's not really in doubt, is it? He isn't the type of man to be true, to YOU.

IMO this is a character flaw in HIM, not you. But if he ends up being true to someone else, that still says nothing about you. It MIGHT mean he learned a lesson but frankly, chances are he'll keep cheating until if and when he can't anymore.

Second, HE SAYS/ACTS LIKE he wants out of the marriage. So, what is it that you feel you need to work on in terms of your interactions with him? What does "not" giving up look like?

The real question is, what are your options NOW?

"Giving up"....versus what?? Pursuing him? Waiting around for him to wake up?

Even if pursuing him was somehow a desirable goal, --you already did that, and the pattern was established. It did not work b/c he breaks boundaries when they don't suit him, and you forgive him, sort of, and he does it again...

So what indication is there, that pursuing him would have a better result now?

I don't think You want that dynamic in your life.

But are you are still hoping that he will change and become what he has never before been, i.e. a man who cherishes you and places high value on your company? A man who will keep his vows? I would love to encourage you in that vein, but I can't.

I don't get any of that from what you're saying about him.

At this point, he's not indicating any interest in changing in a way that improves your situation. I mean, he says it's over, correct?

I know you came here hoping we'd have the magic bullet but it really does boil down to working on ourselves and becoming our best (and most content) selves and generally that attracts most other people into our lives.

But not all of them. The good news is that by becoming our best most content selves, the less healthy people in our lives tend to matter less, truly.

How are your GAL activities going? They really do help. That's why we hammer them so much- B/c they work. DO give that a serious effort b/c you owe that to yourself.

As for what to tell others, gosh LaBug has some good points. Actually I think the two types of people who will ask

will mostly be those who really care -and those who value gossip.

Even the latter group are not usually "Evil", they might even shy away from wanting to know more b/c you'll hit close to home if you show that you did not want the divorce.

Once I overheard a CEO answer a question about his divorce, from someone I Think was a friend. They sounded surprised that he was "no longer married to Suzie" and the CEO said "she wanted the divorce, not me..."

And there was a silence in the room b/c a lot of us over heard it. Then the friend said something like "Well, HER loss" and the two went on their way...

my point is that as soon as we realized "oh, ouch that must have hurt", we did not pry OR judge as far as I know....we just felt bad for him. And a few of the women almost immediately began to think of who to set him up with!

You know, that could happen too....Why do you fear that you'll someday think he did you a favor? B/c it will mean what, about you? That you were foolish or blind?

Why can't you just see it as a gift? I still say - better late than never.

I'm sorry for your pain. Yet when I say "His loss", I really mean it.

[KGirl]

Thanks, 25 (can I add that I'm not sure if it's a good thing or bad thing you've been posting on my thread because usually I see you posting on the people who are really struggling?? :S). Yes, there is a pattern. Lots of other people (friends, family) have seen it and commented on it in the past and still today. H himself even said around the time of BD "I just think I'll end up cheating on you at some point if we stay together because I'll always be wondering what else is out there." I guess I've been willing to always keep trying because he's never actually physically cheated, at least not that I know of. I think I'm just still angry that he or I didn't figure this out and end things before we got this far down the line (marriage, house, pets, etc.) Maybe we just didn't know what else to do. My mom even said recently "You guys were together so long.. marriage seemed like the natural next step.. and you'd think given how long you were together you'd be able to get through anything."

You are completely right that pursuing has not and will not help. All of the other times I pursued him so hard that I may have just convinced him to stay with me, and I shouldn't have to convince someone so hard to do that. It doesn't bode well. And you are also right that I still am secretly hoping he'll change and realize how great I am and how much he'll be losing and rededicate himself to our M. But there are surely no signs of that being likely to happen.

I've been tempted at times when talking with people I know a little better to say "he wanted it, not me," but I felt like that was really throwing him under the bus and not being my best self by saying that. Maybe I shouldn't worry so much about protecting him? I'm not really bad mouthing him, just stating the truth, in a pretty simple way. And yes, I think I am fearful about truly believing he did me a favor because that will mean I made a poor choice in choosing who to marry first.. and how can I ensure I don't make a similarly poor choice in the future (especially since I don't really know what I should be looking for the next time around, given he hasn't been able to articulate "why" he needed to do this, beyond looking for someone that just loves me/wants to marry me without me having to convince them).

I posted on FB about how this year has been the toughest of my (relatively short) life so far, and how I am so thankful for the friends/family/colleagues who have been there to support me or lend a hand or give a shoulder to cry on.. and how I am thankful for the basics (food, transportation, food to eat) as well as the knowledge and tools to turn adversity into a learning experience. I got an outpouring of messages and comments that were very positive and loving.. it's been very comforting to know there are so many people out there that care, and I shouldn't let one [insert some sort of negative adjective] person bring me down so much.

On the downside, this morning at 6am I logged into my bank account to see how much money I had for Black Friday. Some of you might recall that I posted about a month ago about H still not changing the electric bill to his own account (which he was supposed to do back in July). He had assured me several months in a row that THIS was the month it'd definitely be taken care of. At the end of October I stated my boundary - if he did not change it again, I would cancel my direct deposit, and withdraw my money from the joint checking, so he can do whatever he wants with what's left in it, not my problem anymore. Low and behold, this morning I discovered it deducted again from the joint account. I'm somewhat embarrassed to say I did not handle that very well... but it could have been much worse (I am still pretty furious). My first email went something like "The MG&E bill deducted again from the joint checking. Help me understand what's happening. Is it not working properly or did you forget to do it? Please change this ASAP and send me confirmation that you did it. You had told me that one of the things you were unhappy with was me nagging you to do things and I have been working very hard to let things go/not ask you about things, but this is getting ridiculous." Not good, I know. But could have been worse.

A half hour later I wrote again and said "Now that I'm a little calmer I can respond to this more rationally.. I'll be moving forward with what I said I'd do before if this wasn't changed. I'll be submitting the paperwork to cancel the direct deposit from my paycheck and once that's confirmed, I will take my half of the money out of the account. You can do whatever you want with your half. If you leave the account open, though, you may have to pay monthly fees if it's not below the minimum balance." So, boundary will be enforced, I gave him fair warning about the implications and what might happen with the fees. I'm starting to look forward to the D in some ways because I am tired of dealing with all the downsides to being M (worrying if bills are paid, my name on a house and wondering if it's been taken care of, etc.) and none of the positives (having a partner, shared income, etc.) And, I'm really anxious about his reply, though I don't know why exactly - maybe because I'm worried he'll somehow put it back on me/make me think I'm crazy or being unreasonable (which is a pattern for us, too). Before when I questioned him/pushed him on something different he responded with "I thought we could do this amicably, are you not going to be able to do that now?" which I think was a little bit unreasonable in the context, so I guess that's what I'm worried about - he'll see it as being adversarial and then get adversarial back.

[labug]

He can only put it back on you if you let him.

About next time, this is a good start: someone that just loves me/wants to marry me without me having to convince them.

That and giving yourself time to believe in your worth.

[KGirl]

I spent some time today working on my grief/rebuilding work. I'm putting aside the books on relationships and Ms and all of that, and instead am reading about rebuilding when your relationship ends. What I'm reading walks you through different phases/steps and encourages you to do as much work as you can in one before going on to the next. I feel confident in saying I'm definitely past the denial stage, and have identified my fears (being unloveable, financial concerns, being alone, what will people think) and am working on embracing them and thinking about if they're really that scary. I worked mostly on the grief section today and wrote a "goodbye" letter - not only as a goodbye to H but also to the other things and dreams were lost (but hopefully will be regained one day!) The example letter also said goodbye to the negative things, so I pondered that for awhile and said goodbye to H's disloyalty and constant need to stray. I said goodbye to fantasy sports and video games, too It was good to put it out there, and then be able to put it aside. I think I've moved past the biggest hurdles and am ready for the next chapter: anger (sounds.. fun?? :S). One of the sections talked about why relationships may end, and one that struck a chord with me was the over-responsible/under-responsible dynamic, particularly when the under-responsible person feels like they're being "parented" and then has to rebel/"be free." Even though H can't tell me why for sure, that helped add some insight into what may have happened, and things to keep in mind for the future so as to not repeat this.

[Little]

Hmmmm. That might be a dynamic in my R.

One of our R issues was that I was definitely the only responsible party, to the point I felt like if -I- didn't do things, they wouldn't get done. It was a major part of why I started to pull away from him, because talking about it turned to nagging about it turned to being pretty upset I was living with a purposefully helpless adult when I needed a partner.

Anyway, when we split he told me he felt like I was his mother; I cooked and I cleaned, but we were "never" physically intimate (a gross exaggeration, I note). I asked him if he thought I enjoyed that role, and he had no answer for me.

Maybe some of the same stuff is going on in my sitch.

[KGirl]

Little, I think it's popped up as a pretty common dynamic here! That same theme is also in a lot of the codependency literature - feeling like you have to have control and take everything over, helping people when they don't ask and getting upset when they don't acknowledge it, etc. But, you know.. even when that's the case, H had opportunities to tell me how he was feeling. He didn't. He made choices. And I did give him opportunities to take care of things on his own.. but then he did not do them (see all of my posts in the past few months about changing the electric bill which as of today he finally took care of... almost 6 months later). What I've been trying to do is think about WHY I felt the need to be over-responsible in hopes of trying to reduce that. I think it stems from a few things:
-needing to control the situation ("If I know exactly what's happening and what's in the calendar and where I put this and what I bought for dinner, bad things can't happen to me")
-fear of rejection and abandonment ("If I do all these things to take care of him/our household, there's no way he'd ever want to leave, what more could he want in life??")
Obviously, neither of those things were resolved by being over-responsible. I had a history of feeling rejected/abandoned by H so I don't think that came out of nowhere/was a crazy fear... so maybe the only way to truly resolve that is with someone else (unless things drastically change).

Interestingly my H told me he wanted someone to be like his mother (take care of things for him and not expect him to do things) but that he would also feel a spark with and be sexual with. Not sure how that all works together.. I doubt he knows, either. His mom basically took care of everything for him and then he treated her like cr*p (SIL's words, not mine) and she just put up with it because she was devoted to her kids. The most recent example was last winter before BD, we bought a big snow blower and he asked his mom to come pick it up in her minivan and take it to our house. She lives an hour away from us. Then he complained about how she loaded it into the van and she just said "I'm sorry" and fixed it. I don't know what exactly he's looking for but based on what I do know, that's sure not me.

I think I need to go read some of my earlier posts to show 1) that things are really better and I can handle this, 2) to remind myself of the reasons H told me why he didn't want to be M so I don't feel so much like I have no idea why this happened. I know there were things he told me but I think I kind of blocked them out or dismissed them as ridiculous. I need to get a better picture now that I'm farther removed from that time (when we lived together and I was asking a lot of questions/pushing for answers).

[KGirl]

PS - H responded to my inquiries about the electric bill and said he had changed what he could online but he actually had to talk to an employee there to finish it. He then went on to say we had to "meet to take care of everything else" but that he wouldn't be filing until mid-December because he's "traveling a lot for work in December and January" and so didn't know if I'd rather sign now or wait until when he'll actually be filing it. Not sure why that matters but whatever. And then ended with "Let me know if you have any questions." I actually started typing "Yeah, I do.. why exactly do you feel like this is the only answer for you?" and then deleted it before sending it :|

[claire7]

(((K-Girl)))

You are so going to rock the next phase of your life.

[KGirl]

Thank you for the vote of confidence, claire! I just got done eating dinner and for most of it I struggled with thoughts like "what the h*ll am I going to do? How can I go on? How will I ever date anyone else? I'm going to be thirty soon and single. There's no point to any of this." Your message came at just the right time

[Wonka]

I just got done eating dinner and for most of it I struggled with thoughts like "what the h*ll am I going to do? How can I go on? How will I ever date anyone else? I'm going to be thirty soon and single. There's no point to any of this." Your message came at just the right time

28 years old is a babe in the woods. I am pushing 50, single, and I am okay! You've got your whole life ahead of you so make the most out of it, KGirl.