Milestones of Moving On (?)

[TJT]

So I'm a winner today and did some personal / individual backsliding (nothing that actively involved my H or pursuing). Fair warning, this is a terrible update and I know I have a lot of 2x4s coming.

One of them all started because I've been looking for a way to export all the text messages from my phone. I found a program that does it and spend the early afternoon connecting my phone and getting the content downloaded. Then I exported it to PDF. And then, as one clearly HAS to do, I read about 2 year's worth of texts between me and H.

There was even more evidence than I thought of our LOVE for each other. Even in the year leading up to BD, which I did think was a rough year... there are messages like this:

In 2017 (all around halfway through the year or a little later, around the time we decided to start building our house):
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H: "Love you too my super awesome and hot wifey"
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H: "Love you"
W: "Love you toooo"
H: "Glad we're married"

GLAD WE'RE MARRIED!! This kills me! I instantly cried when I read that. I had forgotten all about this message. And then I remembered other times where he said something like this as he was telling me a story about the owner of the place he worked for going through a divorce and then overworking my H - he told me he pushed back on him and said something to the effect of "I actually want to stay married" or something like that. WTF changed here?!

It's also slightly random of a message to send and on one hand I wonder if this was because he was starting to get involved with OW and this was him rethinking it all and appreciating me more for a minute..so again, what changed!?
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In September '17:

H: "I'm so lucky to have such a great woman in my life! I talk and brag about you all the time. I'm proud of the person you are. You make me a better person just having you in my life! I know you're a little stressed right now but know that we got this. We always do. Things will work out at work for you. We just took a huge step personally in purchasing a house which I have no regrets. We've both worked so hard for this and I'm happy that we're able to get something nice that's ours. I love you so much babe!"

W: "Morning babe. Thank you for sweet note. I love you and happy to have you in my life too. I just get nervous about new things but that's why I need you. I don't know what I would be doing without you sometimes because you are my best friend."
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H had just told me about a good lunch he had from work.

W: "Yeah I think we need to go on a date"
H: "For sure! I apologize for not dating you as much. Been too focused on saving house money but dating you is more important."

Same day, different convo about my work where layoffs were happening and I was worried:

H: "You should be proactive babe. I don't like what I'm hearing."
W: "I am"
H: "Me too"
W: "I think I'll be okay until we get in the house but I'm def gonna be looking after that"
H: "I have no doubt you'll find something. I'm lucky. I have a smart and hot wifey."
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I also have 3 separate convos, from varying points in time, where I had been having dreams about him either leaving me or cheating on me. Clearly it's a fear I've always had subconsciously, which makes the fact that he actually did it even worse. Usually he hated that I'd have dreams like that and this message makes me even more sick:

W: "I had a dream you were leaving me because you couldn't stop thinking about another girl."
H: "You are retarded"
W: "That's not nice"
H: "Dreaming about me leaving you for another woman isn't nice."
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I want to send all of these to my H, or maybe OW would be even better, and be like WHAT IS THIS?! WE WERE FINE!! I don't get it. I really don't. I don't know how it's possible and it really emphasized the good parts of our M that I adored. Anyone else who would read our entire 2.5 years of texts would NEVER have been able to predict this, I'm sure of it.

The second backslide is *winces* I looked at OWs pins again. And she continues to save memes and gift ideas that specifically mention "HUSBAND". Like:

"Home is where my husband is"

"When I wake up and look at him, I still can't believe he's mine. How did I get so lucky?"

"Finding your soulmate is a blessing, but finding your teammate is a whole different blessing. You can love someone and they can love you he same way, but them being committed to never leaving you is priceless."
CAN I SCREAM YET?!

Valentine's card idea she saved to gift board:
"I love you. You are my rock, my number one, the good ending to a bad day and the best start to a new day. You are my:
H andsome
U nique
S upportive
B uff
A musing
N nurturing
D edicated"

I seriously want to know WTF is going on that this girl is so set on "husband" stuff... my H isn't even divorced and even if he was single dontcha think she's rushing a bit??? And it took my H 5 effing years to propose to me, would he really be talking marriage with this girl before even being divorced?? I mean yeah I guess anyone can say whatever they want, doing it is another thing, and if they're so infatuated with each other maybe it's all talk.

I'm actually getting a little pit in my stomach just thinking about all of this. And it's one thing that makes me WANT to stay married to him, just out of the principle in making HER look stupid that she thinks she's gonna marry someone who won't even divorce his current wife!

And ALL of these things DO sound like my H. I can see how she would feel lucky to have him, aside from the whole irony of commitment thing...it makes me feel like I did truly "lose" against someone else. I know that sounds so stupid but I also know how it feels to have my H around, and it feels just like I imagine her feeling and I am so mad that she gets to have that with MY husband!

How does one go from all of those sweet messages, loving being married to me, to THAT in a matter of months?? It doesn't seem real. It makes me want to pursue H and show him and hope that he remembers.

I won't. I know I can't. But I hope with all of the life within me that H is just burying all of those feelings and lying to himself and that one day they will bubble up like a ton of f#$^ing bricks. It should NOT be possible for someone to be like that and then be able to live their rest of their lives as if it never happened.

Sorry guys. I know I just did all of this to myself. And now I'm trying to think how I can make 2019 a way better year and start it off on the right foot and I just have no idea how with all of this still hanging in the balance.

Guess I'll try to check in tomorrow and work on making it better news..

[Phoenix9]

T,

I sympathize with you.

Today was a very rough day for me as well.

Let’s just get through, one minute at a time.

(((TJT)))

[SoTorn]

Same here (((everyone)))

I also have messages like this. I have been receiving a lot of Linkdin requests. I opened my messages and my first message two years ago is from WW saying "I love you sweetie". ☹

[Twofeet]

TJT,

Who knows what the WS is thinking. I have a text 1 month prior to BD where my W was telling me she wished she still could have my babies. (For health risks after S3 she was surgically made to not have kids). Plus A LOT of other text craziness.

[Yail]

TJT, you are a logical, feeling, intelligent woman. You know this is not a healing activity.

Please please consider this activity to be "out of your system", and don't revisit it. Don't even continue to revisit your own blogging here. I say this as an internet-friend. Consider it unearthed, mourned, and put away.

And please don't apologize to us, because it's not our job to scold you - just point you in a positive direction.

OW is indeed a "symptom". Of what, I can't say. No matter what it is that your H is experiencing - she is a symptom. Someone said something very helpful on this board that I read somewhere: the OW is getting the very worst of our spouses. We got several great years with them, but whatever insanity they are living right now - that's what the OW/OM gets.

Pathetic crumbs, and THEY are the ones eating it up. It may not help today, but hopefully it does at some point.

I know you have a lot of questions as to the why and how. We don't know. Just think of your H as ill. He is going through something major, and you can't heal him. Leave him be to search for his own medicine, and maybe he will find it someday. Hint: It lives inside him - not within someone else.

I hope you find something calming to do this evening. Something that is a comfort to you. A movie or a book? I know I've been watching WAY too much Harry Potter. Something so comforting about being transported to a different world!

[TJT]

Thanks everyone. HUGS HUGS HUGS.

Yail, I am definitely about to go take a bath with a stress candle. I did the same last night. And I guess I should spend some time planning my day tomorrow because I really don't have plans. I might call my mom and see if she's available although she's been sick for the past week. The weather is also supposed to be crappy. Anyway, thanks for reinforcing that positive direction.

I have found myself looking forward to summer. I think the sunshine/longer days will be good for me.

My new neighbor has moved in though and that's not helping either. He is overwhelming and it's hard to deal with him without an H of my own to help buffer. He has a bunch of security cameras he just set up and I am all for that (I have some of my own) but a few of his get MY property in the viewfinders... my driveway, fully, and a good chunk of my back side yard and a small bit of my back patio. So now I have more stress trying to plan how to plant trees or get some kind of patio curtains/shades so that I can at least still have some privacy..

I'm just not liking my life right now. No I don't mean it like that (not suicidal or anything) but I just really don't like it. It's not fun, I don't have help for things, I'm lonely, I am financially squeezed because I'm paying for a big house by myself and have no savings left... god forbid an emergency come up.

I literally feel like I just have to live minute by minute to get through it all and even when I GAL it's like I'm anticipating the moment it's going to be over and what my plan will be after that. I still like my alone time and I need that quietness to myself, BUT I am also realizing that it's gotten harder and harder for me to focus when I'm alone. I just end up feeling stuck and can't seem to get anything done.

[DejaVu6]

(((TJT)))

There is no real explanation unfortunately. When I found out about my H’s secret life, I purposely deleted all of his text messages from my phone for exactly this reason. I did not want to be able to go back and reread them and wonder what was real and what wasn’t real. My H and I went to the boat show in February and talked about buying our dream boat when we retired. He periodically sent me texts and pictures of boats right up until BD. Lots of I love you’s. Maybe he had one foot in and one foot out? I don’t know. The two weeks after I confronted him, I know he was conflicted. He struggled significantly. But I think when he was around me, the guilt and shame was too much to deal with and he just could not access his feelings for me underneath all of the heaviness. Then, when he went to his hideout, he felt relief from all that. Making me the reason for all of his behaviour has enabled him to let a lot of that go...for now. Like you, I believe it will return one day. Right now he is bending over backwards to be a good dad...trying to make up for his years of neglect, I think. Also...they are blissfully unaware of everything he has done so he feels good around them. I am happy for my children that they have their dad back but sad for them that they have to settle for 50% parents. Not sure I will ever truly forgive my H for that.

Anyway...don’t mean to hijack your thread. Like Yail said... please do not do that again - for your own sake. And don’t let him rob you of your memories of your relationship. It was real. His cheating is not about you...it is about him. I can tell from your posts that you are a fantastic person and I KNOW you have a great future ahead of you and you will get through this. I get what you mean about not liking this though. Like you, I am living in what was supposed to be our forever home. It is not the same without him here but maybe one day it will be better than when he was here. Sending you lots of (((HUGS))).

[Joe2017]

Hey TJT,

Yeah “jankity” is my own word, obviously derived from janky. Other variations include jank and janked.. but they only exist in my vocabulary. Lol.

So I caught up on your thread. I know how you feel. I kept every single love letter my wife wrote me. Every birthday card, anniversary card, father’s day, everything. In fact, they are on my book shelf right now. I threw away and deleted all of my wedding photos, but kept the writing. I also kept all of the text messages. EVEN THE BAD ONES. Yeah, as you would expect they are polar opposites and make no sense when read next to each other.

I have the “I can’t wait to live the rest of my life with you” as well as the “I hate you, you were never a real man” texts. I’ve read them all a few times, but for various reasons. I can’t say that revisiting them helped more than it hurt. It depends. Back when I felt more vulnerable, and had pity parties for myself I’d read the hateful ones to reaffirm how I didn’t need that in my life. Now that we’re piecing, I have read some of the handwritten stuff to see if I can recapture that feeling. So... :shrug: I dunno.

SO ANYHOW!!! I see you are trying to analyze your STBXH’s behavior. Well, let me save you a bunch of time. A) IT DON’T MATTER. B) YOU CAN’T UNDERSTAND IT.

Part A is easy enough. It’s the past. The future matters. The present is where you shape your future. Don’t waste your present dwelling on the past; use the present to plan your improved future. See? EASY. (Lol)

Part B is the weird stuff. All waywards and walkaways exhibit the same general behavior. You get the ILYBINILWY crap. You get the wild out-of-character behavior. You get the God-awful affair partners. You get the gaslighting and the blame shifting. You get the history rewriting. It’s all part of the same playbook. None of it makes sense... And at least in my sitch, I’ve come to find out that it didn’t make sense to my XW either.

She asked me recently why she doesn’t remember the same things I remember or our kids remember. She said it’s all fuzzy to her. She doesn’t remember A LOT, and some of the things she remembers is wildly different than reality. She can’t explain why she left me for an absolute moron who was 10 years older with no job and ED. She doesn’t remember any gaslighting at all. She doesn’t remember the truly heartfelt conversation we had on the last night that I ever spent in my own home before I moved out and the OM moved in. But she does remember the absolutely hateful verbiage she used to insult me. She remembers trying her best to rob me of my masculinity and self-esteem using the most rancid behavior known to humanity. She remembers telling her son that he could not call me Dad anymore. She just can’t explain why she did it. Any of it.

Don’t get me wrong... waywards know what they’re doing. They can be calculated, they can be manipulative, they can be cunning... but it is ALL within the context of their condition. They will fit the Wayward Playbook, which is your survival guide. You will be able to understand that you CAN’T understand why they are doing what they do. You will know that you can only believe 1% of what they say. That they don’t really care about you IN THIS MOMENT. They are narcissists, through and through. They weren’t always like that, but they are now and they may stay that way for a long long time.

My XW lived in the fog the entire time, for an entire YEAR... Until reality kung fu kicked her in the throat and knocked her flat on her ass. That’s when she finally gave me a real apology. She had apologized many times before, but they weren’t asking for forgiveness. They were those empty selfish apologies that are ego-based to make themselves feel better about the horrors that they have incurred. I told myself I’d never talk to her again until I got a real apology asking for forgiveness regardless of the outcome. You know, a REAL apology. She finally admitted to everything and more. And I felt it was genuine because the truth she unwrapped for me was dirty, nasty, disgusting, and overwhemingly immoral. Embarrassing doesn’t even do it justice.

So I wrote all that to let you know that if you are confused about your H’s behavior, it’s normal. They don’t make sense. If you can’t understand why he did what he did, it is because you’re an intelligent and rational person. Waywards are not rational except in their own minds. Don’t be shocked if your H becomes like an arch nemesis for a while. Just do not reciprocate. Waywardness is almost like a mental disorder. It has symptoms and observable common behavior traits. You don’t engage a schizophrenic within their own delusional world. You approach them from a rational point of view based in reality.

Also, it takes a long time to feel alive again. It can be lonely, even with tons of friends and family around. That’s normal. You are going to be OK. Keep journaling. Keep working on GAL and 180’s. Check with churches in your area for free group divorce counseling, even if you aren’t religious. You will find out that there are others in the same boat that have the same feelings and they are OLDER than you, they are YOUNGER, they are from other cultures, they are parents, they are single. Divorce hits 30% of America. You need to use all of the tools at your disposal to keep your boat right-side-up so you can navigate these rapids. (Sorry, I saw Bird Box the other day.) You will roller coaster, you will get hit with waves of grief. You will take two steps forward and one back. Everyone here has gone through this.

It will be alright. It really will.

[DejaVu6]

What an awesome post Joe. Thank you for that. Interesting... my H had what I call a “six-month MLC” in 2014. He left the home for a month at the end of it and when he returned, he said he was better and in love with me again. I asked him a few times over the next month or two about things that had happened and it was the same story as your XW. He had very little memory of the things he said and did. He said his memories were “fuzzy” and that it didn’t feel like it was him. He also had no explanation or any real reasons for doing what he did. In hindsight, I wish I had insisted on counselling or something but I was just so grateful that he was back that I left him. And a few months later...he was gone again. I realize now that he hadn’t really faced anything or done the work. He just retreated until the feelings weren’t as strong and overwhelming...but they didn’t go away. Fast forward four years and he is convinced they never went away because we stayed married. Again...he made it about me and not about him. But you can’t divorce yourself so I guess your spouse is the next best thing.

[Phoenix9]

T, I pulled this from ST's thread but will put this here in yours:

I dont believe my WW is strong enough to try and heal our MR. WW has never been one to own up to her mistakes. I dont see her changing that at all.

I am so glad you have this clarity, Torn. I kind of feel this way about my H but I can't truly bring myself to accept it.

Everyone takes their time to fully accept the situation. It took me 10 months to fully grasp the weight of WW's A. I'm still finding out more details with adds to the pain, but also is helping me paint a clearer picture of who I am dealing with.

Another woman told me that she has been looking for a man my age for awhile and that every si gle man she has met my age that is not married is not emotionally mature or financially stable. This woman said that I am so far ahead in maturity than most men my age because of the life I chose.

She also said most men live with their parents or with roommates and are desperately trying to hold onto their youth.

And this is why I am terrified of not having my H back...seems everything is relative and if my H was at least willing to come back to our M, however hard it may be, I feel like it'd be better than being a single woman experiencing what these women are telling you about! I've heard this type of thing more than once and no matter what people say, or how young or how pretty or how XYZ I am, I feel screwed.

I also sympathize with you on this from the male end. I have not been hit on since this whole thing started, so I really do not know if most women our age think like the women ST encountered. You're not screwed at all. You're 30 and just starting to get into the prime years of your life ( I hear it continues into the 40s). There are many many many men who would love to get to know you. You have the tools to be AWOAFWL (A woman only a fool would leave).

And you may not feel it now, but down the road you'll look back and ask why would anyone want to get with THAT (your H)? I still am infatuated with my previous image of who my WW was. She looks like the woman I loved, but that's about it. She is a totally different person. A cheating, manipulative, lying, gaslighting, hypocritical, awful person. I'll read your sitch soon but I just want to put it into your mind that the two of you have changed. You for the better, H for the...worse.

We'll get through this, partner.