Very sorry to hear it 25yearsmlc. I've been divorced now for three years and you are correct -- there are definitely upsides once you heal enough to enjoy them. Like you I also had a reconciliation, although mine was only three years. During that three years, I was an H that only a fool would leave (although really I wasn't that bad before that either )
The great gift and blessing in that, which I'm sure you have or will see in your own situation, is that I was able to leave the marriage without regrets, knowing that I had done the best I could. If things had just ended without the reconciliation, I have no doubt that I would have been tortured by guilt and self-doubt for a long time for things I'd done, not done, or imagined.
The gift that you and I share is that we got to go into a reconciliation with eyes wide open and bring our best, and that is an absolute positive.
A ten year reconciliation is a "successful relationship" in its own right. It takes two people to stay married, but only one to get divorced. You don't own that and there is no shame in it, as I'm sure you realize.
You've spent hours and hours helping countless people here and I'm confident that you've changed and improved many lives. If anyone will come out the other side in a better place you will.
Acc
Married 18, Together 20, Now Divorced M: 48, W: 50, D: 18, S: 16, D: 12 Bomb Dropped (EA, D): 7/13/11 Start Reconcile: 8/15/11 Bomb Dropped (EA, D): 5/1/2014 (Divorced) In a New Relationship: 3/2015
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
I went back and reread my notes on some threads although there are some missing ones. If I had been contemporaneous with you then I would have asked have you seen an IC who specialises in cPTSD?
The reactions you had at that time seem to indicate that is a factor. Your recent comments about your anger enticed me to reread my notes.
Over the weekend I will seek out some threads and think again.
V
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose. V 64, WAW
I went back and reread my notes on some threads although there are some missing ones. If I had been contemporaneous with you then I would have asked have you seen an IC who specialises in cPTSD?
The reactions you had at that time seem to indicate that is a factor. Your recent comments about your anger enticed me to reread my notes.
Over the weekend I will seek out some threads and think again.
V
Hi V,
when my mom died, youngest went off to college, we heard/found a murder victim and then moved for h's job, (again) all in 6 weeks, it was a lot.
One weird thing was that I found myself not able to recall my mother's face in the coffin (she'd have hated an open casket b/c she had been a stunningly beautiful woman in her youth and she had a vain streak).
But I could vividly recall the murder victim's face, & still cane. The victim's face haunted me in the middle of the night and I could not sleep well. I missed my mom, I missed my children and my youngest was so far away,
look^^ obviously that was a lot. And that was 18 months ago.
Yes, I saw a PTSD therapist who was incredibly helpful. She did some EMDR therapy I thought sounded gimmicky but I trusted, and it helped. I saw her all the way until October when I left the west coast.
The seizures were not psychological (my father was epileptic. I hope I'm not).
But generally, the resistance to seizures is lowered when sleep is affected. So in that sense, I simply must keep negative thinking and stressful things that obstruct sleep, at bay.
Plus, I do have to become more open to the upsides of what life offers now - to be happy. (But I took in what you said about legal strategies, which are a drag, but justified).
Some of the things I've said 1000 times --
The best things in life are usually simple but hard.
That GAL is the best (only?) way to detachment
and that detachment is the only way I can shed the past and open myself to a better, happier life.
I've said these^^ things and believed them. I still do.
But when you get a gut punch, (and I know the fb posts really hurt me more than I expected, actually), you fall down.
Implementing my own advice is actually what I have to do.
It's actually simple. But damn, it's so hard.
What helps me most at the moment? Knowing I will be better & happier soon, helps me now...and my son telling me "good riddance to lunacy" reminds me that the marriage I'm legally ending, was not a marriage that was going to lead me to the hoped for marriage, nor was it the marriage we once had.
So it's not the present day marriage I mourn losing. And by embracing that, I hope, I'll implement my own advice and push myself to a life I want.
Besides, It's axiomatic that I would not have had the future with h that I envisioned.
When I'm real about what I would have had, if we were staying in THIS m, hey, that really helps me.
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
I'm not in la la land or doing a lot of "Zen forgive H' things. I'm only dealing with what is, and what I will create.
What IS, is legal crap that you're hideously familiar with. H wanted to mediate of course, but we have no custody issues or real estate.
So it's a numbers game only and given that h was the breadwinner and there are state legal formulas that are very fair to me, I saw no advantage to mediation for me.
I don't want to mind read too much but h SEEMS to feel the minimum the Federal law requires is more than fair. After all, his father gave nothing to his mother after 18 years of m. .
I enabled H to earn the big bucks of the double board certified MD, and won't even bother defending why I deserve more than H's version (about 1/9 of his earnings).
It speaks for itself.
THAT^^ makes me angry and THAT makes me fill out the reams of gross paperwork and stay on top of my L's but the costs are mounting. And being very aggressive, is also very expensive.
But at the moment I don't see a choice to it, b/c I now believe h would hide money. I mean,
(AND OMG as I write that^^ I'm slapping my forehead & saying '"of course he'd hide money!")
Yes, there is value is journalling out loud here.
Thanks, V.
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 My namesake. I've been meaning to stop by with some words of encouragement, and like Sandi, my words are failing me!
I'm sorry you are going through this. I think you are amazingly brave. You've been through this rodeo before and you have done the work, and you know what you need to do now.
I know this must be hard on the kids, but it just kind of shows how he is living in his own little out of touch with reality world, when everyone sees his insanity except for him.
My hopes for you are to get what is rightfully yours and to continue to live an emotionally rich life, which you did build for yourself aside from your H during his crisis. You'll come out on the other end with flying colors. For now, you need to feel what you feel and do what you gotta do and we are all here for you.
Very sorry to hear it 25yearsmlc. I've been divorced now for three years and you are correct -- there are definitely upsides once you heal enough to enjoy them. Like you I also had a reconciliation, although mine was only three years. During that three years, I was an H that only a fool would leave (although really I wasn't that bad before that either )
The great gift and blessing in that, which I'm sure you have or will see in your own situation, is that I was able to leave the marriage without regrets, knowing that I had done the best I could. I think^^ this is true but atm, I'm reeling from feeling that h was out the door for longer than I realized and that I must have really been a fool for believing this would not happen again.
I will work on this^^. Because as much marital revision as h must have been doing to justify this, again, I don't want to do the same thing and deny what was, actually very good at times. (Even in the past 10 years).
I just hate that sick "WTF was I thinking?" feeling. I did not have that before.
If things had just ended without the reconciliation, I have no doubt that I would have been tortured by guilt and self-doubt for a long time for things I'd done, not done, or imagined.
The gift that you and I share is that we got to go into a reconciliation with eyes wide open and bring our best, and that is an absolute positive.
A ten year reconciliation is a "successful relationship" in its own right. It takes two people to stay married, but only one to get divorced. You don't own that and there is no shame in it, as I'm sure you realize.
Only in my head do I feel no shame. In my heart, there is fear and shame.
Even though I THINK I will be more than okay in time, perhaps my fear is that some of his justifications (whatever they are), are valid.
The shame and fear that at some level I really let him or our family or myself, down. That somehow I deserved this. If I'm so great, how could he do this AGAIN?? Cognitively, I know this ^^ is not true. I'm just trying to process what my worst emotions are and where they come from and how to get through them.
I don't know how, other than to pick them up and stare for a bit and then learn from, and forgive myself and or, let go of what simply isn't mine. It is brave work I often wish to avoid, but I think I am healthy & self aware and strong enough to feel vulnerable. To face it and own whatever is mine, and to move forward. God help me (literally).
I know and feel and am certain that h's decisions to leave us back then, and the secret trips to Alaska and his irrational obsession with it, and the many many other secrets he has, and the cruel indifference he has shown the past year, are all on him.
This^^ I know to be true.
You've spent hours and hours helping countless people here and I'm confident that you've changed and improved many lives. If anyone will come out the other side in a better place you will.
Acc
Thank you. I can honestly say my own growth & self awareness is peaking, and it would not have been able to do so, if not for the intense therapy, and workshop and HERE.
((( )))
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
Thanks. I keep doing the equation of what is fair and how unjust this feels...and what if he IS happier and what if he DOES live well and what if he NEVER regrets this..."???
Which then goes to the "How could I have been so blind?" obsessions.
I then tell myself, "Well, all you control is you so take down the scoreboard and add points to your own life. Life well, without regrets."
These ^^ are some things I must limit the time allotted to, each day. Consciously.
In some ways this is not rocket science. The best and most healing things we can do are not complicated.
In many ways this is simple. It's also so very very hard and deeply painful.
Feels like h died, but I don't get food brought over or life insurance.
(But when I remind myself that I should treat MY Choices as if h is truly gone, and not factor him into the choices I make, I must say things do become clearer. So that helps me).
This process also Feels like childbirth without an epidural, but with NO cute baby at the end.
Maybe I need to see the rebirth of my life as the cute baby?
Good timing for Easter.
Ginger, again, thank you for stopping by. It means a lot to me.
I need this place more than I would have expected (no offense guys).
((( )))
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
"what if he IS happier and what if he DOES live well and what if he NEVER regrets this..."???"
Yes I struggle with this sometimes too. Actually, I wouldn't want someone that I had loved and who loved me to be unhappy. At least from my best self I wouldn't. And in many ways I have moved on and I enjoy my life and wouldn't really consider reconciling with XH in any case.
So, why does it matter? In our case, OW's previous R was also an A, and the family was broken up and then she cheated on that guy with XH...and XH booked a flight to see her and never came back. There doesn't seem to have been any regret and I believe they are still together..that doesn't feel just...that you should be able to build a happy life on that foundation. And maybe they won't - who knows?
I just try to see our lives as completely separate now and that does help. He is leading his life (in whatever way he sees fit) and I am doing the same. But we are D'd almost a year and I guess all of that gets easier. I was also pretty lucky that XH was reluctantly cooperative when it came to the D and a settlement too...
You are right and things will feel much, much easier in time. There are some things to get through between now and then, but you'll do that too..
Xx
T 13 M 7 Me 48 H 46 SS 15 BD 7.14 PA D final 5.16 (H filed)
We receive & we lose, and must try to achieve gratitude & embrace with whole hearts whatever of life that remains after the losses - Dubus
"what if he IS happier and what if he DOES live well and what if he NEVER regrets this..."???"
I would not want to bet on that, in fact I would take the bet and give you odds on the other side of the bet.
Switching partners without doing any work is a recipe for disaster.
If it was so easy then the second marriage divorce rates would not be higher than the first time marriage divorce rates.( and third time marriages(divorce rates) even higher than that.
)