Kid activity today means I have to spend half the day with STBX including probably lunch. I am so, so disgusted with him for disrupting our lives so profoundly while he sits back and plays video games. It feels like a ten ton weight in my chest. I wish I didn't have to see him at all while I'm going through this. He looks at me like he wishes I'd be friendly to him and I just want him to leave me alone so I can get on with things. I wasn't perfect, but I shouldn't have had to be. I'm not a mind-reader. I wish I didn't have to carry all this by myself because I married a shallow jerk.
Me42, H40 D12, S8, S7 A revealed: 7/13 Sep 4/14; Agreed to D 1/15
I am sorry you have to experience this. Try your best to ignore your shallow husband. My suggestion is to focus on your kids. I would only talk to him about kid related issues only. I know it will be hard. You can do this!
I would also be upbeat and happy while you have to share the day with him. I would not show any emotion towards him at all except that you are fine without him.
Yesterday went POORLY. I couldn't look at him or talk to him. He kept sitting next to me and it made me sick to be near him. I am SO disgusted with him.
I know I have to live through my anger. It's one of the unavoidable stages of grief. But I'd like to navigate it more gracefully so that everything else in my life is easier. It was hard to recover from being around him so much. I'd like to be more impervious to his presence. I'd like to get to acceptance and meh. I'm tired of him having this power over my emotions. Time to take it back.
There is a book on the NYTimes bestseller about Decluttering your home. It says to only keep the things that give you joy. Like Edith Wharton's criteria of having in your home only those things you feel to be beautiful or know to be useful. My mission for the next six weeks is to apply those standards to my home systematically. So when I move into my new home I can take only those things that make my home feel tranquil and welcoming, and as little as possible of what makes me feel overwhelmed. And as I do that physical exercise I'll try it emotionally as well. I need to live MY life, not a crippled version of our old life.
Wishing you all peace, hugs, and smiles on this almost-spring Sunday.
Me42, H40 D12, S8, S7 A revealed: 7/13 Sep 4/14; Agreed to D 1/15
Maybell, I'm sorry you are hurting. I get it. For a while, I found myself being sort of "phony" nice to WAH. Hopefully in a not very obvious way, but I knew in my heart I was acting. And then, when he left, I would give him a not - so - nice gesture on my side of the door, mutter "@$$ h0le " under my breath, and then put that anger in a separate compartment in my mind and move on.
And now...I don't feel that intense anger so often. But it took a while.
Maybell...I'm there with you. Sometimes I feel like I've gotten to "meh" about my WAW, but I think I'm just really good at repressing anger.
This morning. Sunday morning. My mom came to visit and spent the night last night. We woke up this morning and we had TWO adults taking care of the kids. I was able to read in bed with a cup of coffee for a few minutes. Then we had some adult conversation with the kids joining in and learning from it.
The most important thing in my life was having a partner that I could do this with daily. Instead I see my kids 4 days out of 14 and they get to model themselves after a broken marriage. I feel my WAW has done irreconcilable harm to my life and the life of my children. And if I want to borrow trouble from the future I could speculate that she'll be pregnant again soon, or will be shacking up with a guy with his own kids, etc. At some point I'll probably be in a future M, and we'll have a very goofy family tree with step relatives, etc. We'll make it work, but I am still grieving the loss of the family we had, and I think it is beyond criminal that someone breaks it up.
Yes, the M was bad, but you stick it out. Maybe in 2 years it would've felt different. If your only two alternatives are a bad M and a good M eventually you might make it good, when you throw in a "blow up the family and search for happiness in alcohol, flings, and rediscovery of your life" then your M doesn't have a chance. I went through a MLC when I was 31 and REALLY had trouble sticking to the M, but I sucked it up because I GOT this. I'm devastated that she didn't, with the loss that resulted, and still overcome with anger that she would make that choice. Yes, I contributed to a bad M. But to me that feels like saying I provoked someone that murdered my family. The harm is so disproportionate. I want to grow from my failings, but I did NOT make those choices.
I don't feel that anger often because as you said I don't want to give her that power, so I usually just take a breathe and go back to what I was doing. Yes, I will still be a good dad, I will be a good H to someone. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't consider WAS's right there with the Nazi's as far as some of the worst people that ever walked the planet.
That means I still have some work to do on myself. That is GOOD. That means that as I work through this and grow as a person, I won't always have to carry this much resentment. I plan on getting some books on forgiveness. I get that it only hurts me. And frankly she is out of my life, so it is up to me what type of energy I want to stew in all day. But I am trying to be more honest about my feelings so I can become better at dealing with them.
If anyone has any good book recommendations for forgiveness and acceptance please send them to us!
And Maybell...you're not alone. Keep making good choices and steering towards acceptance. You'll get there and you can still have a pretty good life in the meantime as well!
Me:38 XW:38 T:11 years M:8 years Kids: S14, D11, D7 BD/Move out day: 6/17/14, D final Dec 15
I was thinking about my last post. One thing that has bothered me is when people try to "find the positives" in the situation, or talk about how I will find love again, etc.
After thinking about it, I feel like my wife was murdered. And I feel like my WAW was the killer.
Maybe that is a better way to explain how I feel about her. And maybe that is a better way to feel explain about how I feel about the situation.
You wouldn't tell someone who's wife got murdered that "they deserved better", or "good things were around the corner". You'd acknowledge that there are things so terrible they shouldn't happen in the world, and it will never be ok. That while life goes on and must be celebrated, it will always be a loss so horrible it will change the survivor's life forever.
And you wouldn't expect someone to just "get over it" and not be emotionally impacted by the person that pulled the trigger. While it is noble to aspire to forgiveness, some things are so horrible they are unforgivable. The only reason that destroying a family should be forgiven is that forgiveness is a gift to the forgiver.
That's how strongly I feel about this. Maybe I'm dramatic. But maybe if more people put a similar value on M we wouldn't need these forums...
Me:38 XW:38 T:11 years M:8 years Kids: S14, D11, D7 BD/Move out day: 6/17/14, D final Dec 15
Maybell, I am feeling exactly the same thing -- disgusted by WAH. Our lives are disruptive, but he is happily cruising along, leaving a path of destruction and tears in his wake. All the more reason to get away from him and stay away. NC is the only thing that helps me. I try to be professional toward my H while managing the business of the dissolution process, but I am hating him every second. The anger is good for helping me to see him for who he really is, for not wanting him back and moving on with my life. Be glad for that. It makes it easier. The anger will pass and you will reach meh.
M: 43 H: 39 D: 14 Married 15 Together 16 BD: 6/2014 S: 8/2014 OW revealed 10/2014 Instigated dissolution 12/2014, in progress So over it!
I'm ok when he's not around. It's when I have to interact with him, like yesterday, that I struggle so hard. Not because I want him back but because I am so disgusted with him.
Zues, I've been thinking about your murder analogy. I agree with some of what you said -- about being forever marked by this experience and wanting the loss to be validated. In my case, however, I DO feel I've been validated. And that the closer I look at my marriage the more signs I see that he was never as committed as I was. He liked the status of Family Man a lot more than the life. He wasn't murdered by an alien so much as revealed for his true self ("Who is Kaiser Sozé?")
We had a super busy weekend and by the time things shut down this afternoon the kids were SPENT. They started down the tantrum road but I stopped us all, held a quick family meeting, and showed them the light at the end of the tunnel. S9 had the hardest time because he lost a privilege that was very important to him. I was proud that I enforced my boundary with him, and then when it was done he and I had a talk about how to communicate effectively. I would not have had the knowledge necessary to teach that lesson if we hadn't lost my husband. That's a pretty enormous silver lining.
I am in recovery from parenting from a place of fear. I don't feel that fear with my kids so much anymore. It makes a big difference in how quickly these little crises get settled. I hope that some day I feel that peace and strength in my heart that I will find a strong loving partner for myself some day. I look forward to exploring that when I have moved through this experience. I feel less impatience and more hope than I've done in a very long time. But I still worry that a great marriage like that might not be in my future.
Patience, patience, faith and baby steps.
Last edited by Maybell; 03/16/1502:34 AM.
Me42, H40 D12, S8, S7 A revealed: 7/13 Sep 4/14; Agreed to D 1/15
Yesterday went POORLY. I couldn't look at him or talk to him. He kept sitting next to me and it made me sick to be near him. I am SO disgusted with him.
I know I have to live through my anger. It's one of the unavoidable stages of grief. But I'd like to navigate it more gracefully so that everything else in my life is easier. It was hard to recover from being around him so much. I'd like to be more impervious to his presence. I'd like to get to acceptance and meh. I'm tired of him having this power over my emotions. Time to take it back.
There is a book on the NYTimes bestseller about Decluttering your home. It says to only keep the things that give you joy. Like Edith Wharton's criteria of having in your home only those things you feel to be beautiful or know to be useful. My mission for the next six weeks is to apply those standards to my home systematically. So when I move into my new home I can take only those things that make my home feel tranquil and welcoming, and as little as possible of what makes me feel overwhelmed. And as I do that physical exercise I'll try it emotionally as well. I need to live MY life, not a crippled version of our old life.
Wishing you all peace, hugs, and smiles on this almost-spring Sunday.
Hey, I read that book and followed it. The hardest part for me was the photos of my kids growing up, knowing which to let go. It's a process but it's been good for me. I live in a small home and have always been on top of weeding out clutter. The book took it to another level.
About that anger, why not express that to your H?
Sometimes here on these boards it seems people get a message that they should never be angry with the WAS or express that anger when I think the real message should be to not ACT out of anger, or overreact out of anger and to be clear about where the anger comes from.
In the early days just after BD it's important to keep a lid on things cause everyone is hyperemotional.
Anger is an honest emotion in reaction to a threat or an injury. What if you told him "It's hard for me to communicate with you/be around you because I have a lot of anger about what's happened to my family. You've not always been honest with me in the past and I can't trust you right now" or whatever is the root of the anger. Then add whatever you need to say about how much time you spend with him. Don't keep carrying the anger.
Me 57/H 58 M36 S 2.5yrs R 12/13
Let me give up the need to know why things happen as they do. I will never know and constant wondering is constant suffering. Caroline Myss
