Hindsight

[trippi1432]

Hang in there and cut yourself some slack...you do post some very helpful and insightful information....and yes, cheaters/liars (like my exH) can seem to drive you mad sometimes. I think because we try to apply logic to their actions when there is no logic. We look for answers or the truth because they will not give it to us and they tend to lay blame at our feet to knock us off-balance leading us to this state of mind. It's when we realize that there is absolutely nothing we can do about them, only ourselves that we finally break through to the other side of indifference and acceptance with internal introspection and push on with our lives and let go...even let go with love because at some point in our lives, we did love them and that's okay too. You will get there Yas...it just takes time. It does get better.

 

Hugs!

 

Hi - nice post....you are truly correct when you say we all seem to need to learn this hard lesson on our own. Wish it were not so! So much energy given to a person sooooo long gone. Pointless but perhaps part of the journey.....I am doing OK - I am glad he is gone but I have been left with the sad legacy of fear....

 

It's the fear of loving again...of trusting again...of giving so much to someone to have it mean so little....again. Yeah, I know. I've started looking at it another way though...and that is only because 15 of those years it's hard to find any of the good memories (people truly think that it is because I am bitter, but why then can I remember the good times with my first exH and with the boyfriends...but not this one man that spanned more years than the rest of them put together), I was with the wrong person. But that means that now that I am not with him anymore, I can be open to finding the right person for me.

 

That's not to say that the next person will be the right person for me or me for them...but it's probably more hope for a normal life that I didn't get for those 15 years. I would love to find some good memories of my exH...but for every single good memory, there are two or three bad ones that go with it. It's like the love bank...the good stuff fills it up, but the bad things deplete it.

 

So, I am trying to learn to remember the fun times...the backyard BBQ when our son attacked the adults with the water hose and separate them from what happened later. I remember when he was happy to have a job and get up for work...he danced around the room and sang silly little songs. And the irony is that he noted in MC that I wasn't the same person I was back then anymore, but neither was he. He had to go find himself...and with someone else....today, I am just happy finding ME...and that is good enough for now.

[Yasuandio]

Hi you all. I did not want you to think that all that sage advice went to waste. On the contrary - Trippi, Jane, Dot, all of you have reached me. However, I am very depressed by facing up to the reality here. I feel really sicker than normal - and no appitite at all.

 

I am so very thankful for this thread, where it has lead me, and advice contained herein. I am still soaking it in and don't know exactly how to respond yet. Yas

[trippi1432]

Yas - facing up to reality is part of the healing process...it is the beginning of getting to the four healing emotions, anger, fear, sorrow and sadness....and it is easy to get stuck in one or more of those emotions - even stuck in cycling through them. You start climbing out of the hole when you finally start getting to acceptance...when you let yourself heal.

 

Jane, Dot and I are each at different stages of the process. Jane - at acceptance, me - more so at forgiveness and letting go. I know why things didn't work between my exH and I and why they do work with his girlfriend he left me for. I've stopped self-blaming because I realize that I could not fix him and he was not going to change. While he claims he has by not drinking anymore, not smoking ....etc. He truly has not because now he sneaks those things that she denies him. That was truly the key in my finally understanding the dynamic and why he and I did not work...believe it or not.

 

My exH liked to instigate to get attention...not that he didn't get attention from me, it was left over from his childhood because being one of five kids to a single mom and a dead-beat dad, he got no attention. He was 24 when we met and I was 26...yet he was still in that immature stage of being an adult coupled with hidden vices of drinking, gambling and drugs (things he did since he was 12 years old). That first year together...the woman that he said I no longer was in MC was the woman that gave him all this attention that he never got. There were still moments in that first year...some violent ones even until I put a stop to them in the second year.

 

Where he stopped getting that attention was after the birth of our son. To get attention, he would act out and instigate...I fell back on learnings from Al-Anon and held him responsible for his actions...he continued the dance because he felt that it was the only way to get intimacy. To him, intimacy was chaos...create a chaotic situation then demand a make up session. Granted, a really skewed view of Chapman's five love languages...not sure where it would fit in. These behaviors were ones I could never wrap my mind around...to me, true intimacy is spending time together, enjoying each other's company, feeling peaceful, cared for, loved and safe....these were the things that I had known during the most formative years of my life growing up.

 

Logical correlation - Looking at Chapman's love languages, I tie in 3 areas, words of affirmation, quality time and physical touch. My exH would most likely score high in acts of service. Since this thread is entitled hindsight, this is what I have learned. Quality time with my exH and the kids was always met with chaos, yelling and screaming...after several years of this, I stopped doing anything with them all together because it was too chaotic. I chose to spend quality time with the kids on my own while my exH valued quality time as time in the bedroom instead. That takes us to physical touch, I valued this, my exH valued sex as the only form of intimacy he knew....I felt that was where I was most valuable to him and it was the only time I got a skewed version of intimacy. However, it never met with my idea of true intimacy. I had questioned him many times as to why we couldn't have true intimacy...why was it that the only time he touched me had to lead to the bedroom. If I were upset about something, his way of dealing with it was not by consoling me with a hug or understanding, it was let's have sex and fix that. Words of affirmation - this is truly where it rapidly transgressed to a downhill situation. When he criticized, I refused acts of service. He criticized what I cooked for dinner...I stopped cooking. He criticized the way I folded his laundry, I told him to do his own. He criticized the way I cleaned house, I told him hire a maid or help. He criticized, I criticized back....he wasn't getting his needs met, he acted out. I wasn't getting my needs met, I reacted with stubborness and a lack of caring. Eventually, I stopped playing into his instigating for attention and held him accountable for his actions....it didn't alleviate the frustration though. I actually found LS back in December of 2007 and made one post here in the parenting thread as lesMiserables. The marriage was actually breaking down only a year and a half in, but truly, that was because it was broken way before we got married. http://www.loveshack.org/forums/t138471/ Ironically, there is not one mention in that post about alcohol...my IC even pointed that out, but in everything written there, he had been drinking or was high...I accepted those vices because I knew I couldn't change them, it was the behavior I could never accept and didn't realize that I could do nothing about that either until recently. The only thing I could control was my reaction and subsequent actions to that behavior....I know that now but am relieved that I don't have to deal with it anymore.

 

So, why does his relationship with his girlfriend work and our relationship and subsequent marriage not work? He claims to be a better man, not drinking...not smoking anymore...she appreciates him and everything is so much better with her. Well, for one, it's the newness, but it is also because she is much better at enabling and plays into his instigating behavior. Like a child, he sneaks a beer or a cigarette knowing it will "upset" her. She reacts by getting in her car and driving around for a couple of hours while he and her two sons and our son laugh about her and call her the Little Princess. She comes back and he begs for a makeup session with promises (that he doesn't intend to keep) to never do it again. She may never tire of it as I did, her background is two alcoholic exH's. I know these things because he makes our teenage son an accomplice in his instigating behavior.

 

Eventually, you get to acceptance Yas. Eventually, you realize that with the dynamic at play, there is nothing you could do alone to fix it...it does take two to fix it and if the other person is not capable or is unwilling, you can't control that for them. Even when they say things are better elsewhere, their behavior does not change...they will continue to do the things they did before, cheat, lie, drink, gamble, do drugs...all the vices that you could no longer tolerate. Eventually you will get to a point where it becomes more important to work on yourself and heal and let the other stuff go because it isn't about them anymore.

 

You get to an understanding of yourself Yas....what you value, what you truly want out of life, what you will tolerate and what you will not. You will start making wiser decisions and choices because you will learn more about yourself and stop self-blaming. You will become stronger and you will eventually learn to let go with love because you can get to forgiveness of yourself and eventually for them. It's a process, it doesn't happen overnight...for now, cut yourself some slack and know that even when things look their darkest it won't be that way forever.

 

My apologies for such a long post.....:o

[Yasuandio]

WOW! Thank you Trippi! Never apologize for a long, thoughtful post. Therein lies much more reseach and continplation for me to absorb during what appears to be a transition stage. I regret to say that my narcissistic husband withdrew most of the 5 love lauanges from me for years. And add in another 2.5 years of just no human touch, and complete isolation, it is no wonder I am sick. I am going to read everything you have noted, and let you know where I'm at. Thank you again. I wish so much I could respond deeper, as I am a writer myself. I do not have very good focus at this time however. Yas

[PollyIvy]

This whole thread is amazing. Thank you so much, wise people.

Let them make their own decisions and live with them - this.

You are right - it is sooo exhausting being the over-active member of the marriage relationship.

I am doing everything I can to keep this family together, but am taking the kids and doing a separation now. I hope he spends time alone and comes back, but it's ok (for me) if that doesn't happen. It's just so not ok for our children.

Lying, cheating, angry man who doesn't love me anymore. Maybe he does, maybe not. But I am trying to not think about it - I've got a career to resusitate and a family to raise...

[JaneDoe35]

This whole thread is amazing. Thank you so much, wise people.

Let them make their own decisions and live with them - this.

You are right - it is sooo exhausting being the over-active member of the marriage relationship.

I am doing everything I can to keep this family together, but am taking the kids and doing a separation now. I hope he spends time alone and comes back, but it's ok (for me) if that doesn't happen. It's just so not ok for our children.

Lying, cheating, angry man who doesn't love me anymore. Maybe he does, maybe not. But I am trying to not think about it - I've got a career to resusitate and a family to raise...

 

PollyIvy - great post! I, like you, tried everything to save my family. But I was destroying myself in the process. My child knows I gave it everything and is so grateful for that. But even she knew it was time to let go...take care...Jx

[trippi1432]

Actually, children are a lot more intuitive than we give them credit for.

[JaneDoe35]

Actually, children are a lot more intuitive than we give them credit for.

 

They certainly are......it was partly because of her understanding that I felt it was OK to let go and move forward. She wrote me a sweet letter saying thanks to me for trying so hard but she would understand if I couldn't try any longer. She also wrote how she would never forget what I did to try and keep her family intact....

[trippi1432]

Aww, Jane, you have a wonderful daughter. :love: my daughter told me that recently...and how proud she was that I am the strong women that she has come to know...was the best Valentine's present a mother could ask for.

Edited April 18, 2011 by trippi1432

[Craig2425]

Is it wrong of me for wanting to save the texts and emails I have from myself and stbxw showing that wanted to try and she could care less?

My daughter is only 3 so by the time shes old enough to ask(if she even would) I dunno if it would be worth it or not.

Maybe I'm just upset that why I think about it.

[Yasuandio]

Is it wrong of me for wanting to save the texts and emails I have from myself and stbxw showing that wanted to try and she could care less?

My daughter is only 3 so by the time shes old enough to ask(if she even would) I dunno if it would be worth it or not.

Maybe I'm just upset that why I think about it.

 

Craig2425, I don't have kids, but I'm following your thread, and am totally feeling your pain. Soon everyone here will respond specifically to that inquiry. But for now, could you consider that it may not be a good idea to try to make such difficult decisions when you are in the middle of a crisis? This is one thing you do not have to worry about at the moment. Deep breaths. You gotta get a grip. You're spinning. You don't want to say or infer anything like that to your wife. Posters with children will have to advise you on that. Try to relax.

[JaneDoe35]

Is it wrong of me for wanting to save the texts and emails I have from myself and stbxw showing that wanted to try and she could care less?

My daughter is only 3 so by the time shes old enough to ask(if she even would) I dunno if it would be worth it or not.

Maybe I'm just upset that why I think about it.

 

Difficult question Craig.......by the time your daughter is old enough to ask/be told about what happened between you & her mother you may not even care anymore....you might even be happy with a great woman.

 

Keep them for now. You will know when the time is right to delete it all.

 

Try hard to be strong for your little girl. She needs you so much.

 

Jx

[trippi1432]

Craig - I think that it's more important to your daughter that she know that her parent's were together because they love/loved each other....not how they split up or who tried to save it. To be honest, that would be a topic that would probably be shared once she becomes an adult and may ask why the two of you didn't stay together. I know when my daughter was little and asked why her daddy and I weren't together anymore, my standard answer was that we were just too young and things didn't work out. She was 3 when he left.

 

I recall years after my parents split up, my mother let me read her diary of when she and my father met in high school. It made me feel secure in the fact that they loved each other at one time. Eventually that is the memory that you will get to once the hurt and pain subside in time.

[PollyIvy]

I recall years after my parents split up, my mother let me read her diary of when she and my father met in high school. It made me feel secure in the fact that they loved each other at one time. Eventually that is the memory that you will get to once the hurt and pain subside in time.[/QUOTE]

 

Thanks so much for this important perspective. I used to keep a notebook called 'I love H because...' and on each page I wrote one thing I loved about him, and drew little pictures. I will keep this and show it to the children so they know that our family started with love.