I don't want a divorce II NEW THREAD Pt 17

[Traveler]

NOW, he is texting me at 9pm asking me to leave the stuff outside.

I'm not responding...

You respond and ignore emotionally, creating drama. This is another opportunity to detach. "They're outside." All done in two words, no need to every communicate over these again.

He called... I answered... discussed options... said he would figure something out.

Another live interaction. Skip if you can. The stove is hot.

I did ask for favor today --------------- blew me off.

Favors lead to more reasons to contact when your goal is less contact.

[LH19]

What favor?

[SteveLW]

What favor?

Picking up more yarn for her.

[KitCat]

Yes - he surprised me with yarn in January --- I mean total surprise!

Its from a local farm from the town he lives in. Always told me that if I needed more he knew where to get it.

NOW - the last time he was here I was making a sweater with the yarn we bought together when traveling out of state. H brought up all on his own - what about the yarn I bought you. I stated i was working with that next.

So I'm sort of creating my own pattern with this beautiful suri alpaca. So I showed him how far I was and he commented it looked small - I stated that's because I needed 2 more skeins of yarn. I handed him him the label with a piece of yarn/actually put it in the box of stuff he was taking.

Yeah, he took it out.

I didn't say another word.

I've been so accommodating through all of this. Only a crazy person stuffs so much down to be able to move out her H on several occasions. Always being pleasant an upbeat.

I just want to tell him of a POS he is.... and then part of me is telling myself patience... this will take a lot of time and no need to burn bridges that may want to be crossed later... so I stuff it back down.

But, I don't want to acknowledge the text. I no longer want to acknowledge him. He doesn't even see me as a human being at this point.

[LH19]

KK,

I know you are not going to like this but you are being manipulative. Your husband has showed you from day 1 who he is as a person. Starting with the obituary and ending with the FB posts. You have bent over backwards to accommodate his moving out and his divorce. So now that you see that it isn’t working (even though we told you a million times it wouldn’t) you want to call him a POS. That’s manipulation.

He’s got you where he wants you and quite frankly I thing he’s enjoying it. You have to get your respect back.

[KitCat]

You are right LH ---- I'm the one being manipulative.

Control comes from fear. What was I fearing about the actual move out process with H? Well I didn't want OW at my home at all. This is my safe place. Why not his friends - I don't know them and having them come in and out of my home felt like a violation to me. Why not his parents - This was a highly personal matter between H and I and I wished to poison as few wells as possible. I feared being judged.

So I did control the moving out - and I recognize those fears. The move out took more trips than either of us imagined but I took every opportunity to be looking my best, and acting my best. I did the heavy lifting and packing up. I never cried, begged or pleaded and any weakness I showed were brief and not repetitive. I'm sure there are many who could not have done that.

I suppose I wanted to also prove to my H that I was not his XW. I was not going to act irrationally and destroy his personal effects. Maybe if I could remain calm, cool and poised he would walk away respecting me... wondering did he miss judge me?

Your right H is selfish. He doesn't even look at me like a person right now. He asks for this or that and I stuff it down and get it done (then come to vent here). You are right to call me out on my BS. I asked my H for a favor - testing his level of interest? to see if he would say no (because he could not say no to me previously)? Maybe all of that. So I got what I deserved there.

You are probably also right that he's siting up pretty tall liking his view point that I'm still under his thumb.

I need to sit with my feelings. Yesterday was pretty painful. I need to remind myself that doing nothing is doing something. That so long as I remain in contact with him he gets all the time in the world to get over me.

Its time for me to toughen up.

[11dmnds]

Hi KC,

Just checking in and reading through your thread. I missed out on all of Part 16 while I was moving into my apartment and getting settled!! I feel like you and I are in similar situations, H's that took off with no attempt to try to work through counseling for the M, very selfish behaviors, still completely married but with other women.

I really, whole-heartedly, recommend you get an IC. I see mine completely online, I've never met her in person It makes a world of difference of getting different perspective and she points things out to me that I can't see on my own. You are spending all this time with the weight of it all on your shoulders and letting him off free with no accountability. I tend to be the same way. And it is good to look in the mirror and realize what you could do better and what you need to work on, and those are things I talk about with my IC, but also I think you still have rose colored glasses on with H. And I'm saying that because it's something IC and I are working on for my own situation.

Just this last session with her I said, "I feel bad for the next guy in my life because I'm going to have trust issues after trusting H and he walked away". She replied, "why do you say you've trusted him when he has had multiple EAs over the years? What makes him a person that you could trust when he did things like that?" Those were boundaries that I didn't set for myself over the years (not very self respectful for myself and not very respectful of him) and those sort of things I need to look at more clearly to realize that I sugar coated or ignored a lot of bad behavior and I deserved better than that. I could have been the best or worst wife in the world and neither of those options would have any impact on the fact that he is the type of person to feel that it was okay to have an EA multiple times and now a PA (I would never). I don't respect that type of behavior.

I realized that for years I was trying to mould him into being a person who I thought was worthy and just and good. I would nag about doing the right thing, or not treating someone a certain way, and now I see all these extremely selfish behaviors coming out and until recently, I thought "where is this person coming from? Who is this?" and now I am realizing, it was the person he truly is and I was trying to make him into a better person instead of letting him be the selfish mean person that he is. All these things that I see now are who he is and who he wants to be and I was trying to control him into being a different person.

I have gotten a little off track with the above information, trying to turn it into my thread But I wanted to share that information with you because I am learning and growing with that information with the help of my IC.

I think you and I are cut from the same cloth in a lot of ways, where we try to fix everything ourselves, but I would not be where I am without my IC. And 'bless his heart', whoever ends up being my next companion, he is going to have to do pre-counseling with my IC before we head down any sort of path of long term commitment. And I did say, that if my selfish H ever had a change of heart and he really put the honest work of fixing his end of the situation (because of course everything is my fault because he refuses to take accountability for his half) that my IC would have to give her blessing that he had really worked through his issues before I even CONSIDERED taking him back. And even then, I might not. (my IC was our MC before he decided to pull the plug without trying to put real work in, I'm not sure if she is seeing him individually anymore. But I would have to know that he continued IC as one of the conditions for me to consider a 2.0 with him.)

At least look into online options for IC if you don't feel like you can do in person sessions. Mine is done over video chat and I tell her all the time that I dread the sessions when they are upcoming because I hate talking about myself but I enjoy my time with her during it. And I walk away feeling better after each one and it gives me things to think about throughout the week. She and I are peeling the layers off the onion so to speak.

My heart hurts for you because I see you still spinning and I know you have been in this for YEARS longer than I have. I wish we could just press FF through the pain but I also know that those of us who use pain as a tool to learn from will be healthier at the outcome. But KC, girl, you are not moving forward. He doesn't deserve you. Let him be with OW, if she is fine with a married man having a PA then she obviously is at the same level of low values that he is. Why would you want to lower yourself to that standard of being Plan B.

I *know* I'm being vilified as the mean "ex" wife (completely married still of course, because he wants to run around with his GF but doesn't want to do the work of getting the D) and I'll be damned if I give any impression to him or GF that I give 2 cents about either one of them. I'm sure their relationship is going to work out great, it was built on a really strong foundation (sarcasm) He deserves the messy outcome from that because he doesn't want to look in the mirror and examine his issues and work at them and learn from them. As for me, I'm learning what it is like to not be an extension of someone and finding out who I am as myself, and I know that when I am ready to start dating that I'll be looking for an upgrade, someone who holds the same values and ideals that I share.

[LH19]

You are right LH ---- I'm the one being manipulative.

I may not always be right but I am never wrong lol. (Corey Wayne joke)

I suppose I wanted to also prove to my H that I was not his XW. I was not going to act irrationally and destroy his personal effects. Maybe if I could remain calm, cool and poised he would walk away respecting me... wondering did he miss judge me?

If you want to reconcile, you're in a waiting game, and the only course of action that leads to reconciliation, IMO, is emotional distance and not actively trying to fix *anything* between you because that ship has sailed. That is quite literally all you can do, and that, my friend, is a very bitter pill to swallow.

Your right H is selfish. He doesn't even look at me like a person right now. He asks for this or that and I stuff it down and get it done (then come to vent here). You are right to call me out on my BS. I asked my H for a favor - testing his level of interest? to see if he would say no (because he could not say no to me previously)? Maybe all of that. So I got what I deserved there.

Oh that hot stove that you love to touch!

You are probably also right that he's siting up pretty tall liking his view point that I'm still under his thumb.

After all those years that you had the control he is enjoying being the puppet master.

I need to sit with my feelings. Yesterday was pretty painful. I need to remind myself that doing nothing is doing something. That so long as I remain in contact with him he gets all the time in the world to get over me.

You don't have to get over something you can have at anytime you want it. How can you change the dynamic.

Its time for me to toughen up.

You have been saying this for months now. I think it's time.

[11dmnds]

I wanted to throw one more thing out there, I realize that I don't sound like I am advocating 'saving the marriage' and I didn't want to come across negative in that way. But the marriage is over. Your marriage is over, my marriage is over, and what I want and hope for you is that your truly understand you are worth more than sitting around waiting for his scraps. Maybe there is a chance for a 2.0 in the future but the only possible chance for it is to let this one go. When you finally can let it go you will realize that no matter the things you did or didn't do, you don't deserve his actions of walking away and being with the OW. You deserve better and unless he puts real work into fixing his issues (doesn't sound like he has any desire to do so. Probably like mine who thinks its all my fault and nothing is wrong on his end!) then there is nothing there that you should be hanging around for.

You deserve better. Hold your head high and stop holding all the blame on yourself. It takes two to tango and he is running away from his accountability and responsibility and that is not a man worth chasing. Maybe if/when one day he does face those issues then you have something worth your interest.

[KitCat]

I wanted to throw one more thing out there, I realize that I don't sound like I am advocating 'saving the marriage' and I didn't want to come across negative in that way. But the marriage is over. Your marriage is over, my marriage is over, and what I want and hope for you is that your truly understand you are worth more than sitting around waiting for his scraps. Maybe there is a chance for a 2.0 in the future but the only possible chance for it is to let this one go. When you finally can let it go you will realize that no matter the things you did or didn't do, you don't deserve his actions of walking away and being with the OW. You deserve better and unless he puts real work into fixing his issues (doesn't sound like he has any desire to do so. Probably like mine who thinks its all my fault and nothing is wrong on his end!) then there is nothing there that you should be hanging around for.

You deserve better. Hold your head high and stop holding all the blame on yourself. It takes two to tango and he is running away from his accountability and responsibility and that is not a man worth chasing. Maybe if/when one day he does face those issues then you have something worth your interest.

Thank you for weighing and giving me some serious advice.

I can only work on myself. Being with him 10yr I know he has issues. I also know the damage he suffered from the long commute and sleep deprivation and the lack of a social circle. I'm grateful that he has found a way to manage that even if its in my absence. Though he shows no emotion with me --- I know he has found some happiness and peace and we all deserve that.

I recognize my short comings. I was a controlling B. I didn't see how that communicated how badly my H felt disrespected. Does that make his actions ok??? Of course not. Not by a long shot - would I have behaved that way?? NOPE. And, there were times I was very frustrated in this M too.

But if you are drowning you save yourself first before you can save anyone else. H felt like he was drowning. Yes, his head got turned by the first woman who stroked his ego... yes, it had been too long. I forgive him for needing to save himself.

I will continue to do the hard work. I had an appt with a life coach yesterday and after talking with her I was way ahead of the game when it came to where I'm at and what I need to keep doing. Maybe I'm struggling because I'm not allowing myself to forgive me???

Either way. I'm a long way off and I need to hunker down and stop getting distracted. I need the mindset that he no longer exists.