True love is worth cheating for

[Delia]

Thanks everyone for your advice. I really appreciate it. I tried to see a counsellor at my university today, but they were booked until next week. Um, tried phoning my friends, but they are all busy, not picking up phone, voicemail, answering machine, etc.

 

I had an anxiety attack in my sculpture class today and walked out of the room. I thought I was going to pass out and was trying to control my breathing. I started hyperventilating and sat on the floor of a washroom stall for an hour and a half. I feel like I can't handle school and all this other **** at home. I don't even know if leaving home will solve anything, but I plan on moving out of my dad's place. If I don't I may end up harming myself.

 

This thread is going off on a tangent, but I guess this is all still related to my mother's affair and my father's response to it. It depresses me that my father is this ghost. Sometimes I find him sitting in the dark in the kitchen drinking beer and just staring at the wall.

 

And I can't really reach out to other family members, because, well, they don't get it. No one sees that the people who suffer the most are not always the parents. One time when we were out to dinner with my uncle and his wife, my uncle asked me why I couldn't decide on a major and gave me this look of disgust, disappointment. He said, "you have to be able to support your father in the future." No one thinks that we (my sister and I) are affected by anything, because they never ask how we're doing.

 

I know long posts can by tedious, but I was never good at editing myself.

[Trimmer]

Delia - this is your thread, and it hasn't gone off on a tangent. I think it's gone where it needed to go for you to tell us what is really happening with you. You have had this burden thrust upon you, and it sounds like it is getting to be too much.

 

Your job now is to take care of yourself. For the moment, this isn't about your mother or father - before you commit any energy to anyone else, you deserve to feel safe and whole yourself.

 

Do this for me - call back your counseling center again when they are open, and tell them what you told us - that you had an anxiety attack, trouble breathing, sitting on the washroom floor, etc. and that you don't know what to do. It's OK to be a little firm and tell them that you think you need to see someone right away. If that doesn't raise enough alarms for them to get you in there, well, I don't know what would.

 

Let us know if any of your friends got back to you - I hope you left some messages.... When I was in college, I felt like I had a few friends I could count on through thick and thin. Do you have any like that who you can count on? Is there someone stable you can stay with, someplace safe you can go for a few nights?

 

You are not responsible for your mother's actions, then or now.

 

You are not responsible for your father's actions, then or now.

 

You are not responsible for cleaning up the mess.

 

You deserve to feel safe and whole, and if a little distance will help that right now, do it.

 

Your sister is, what, around 17 now? Is she living at home with your father also? Do you know how she's doing?

 

Keep talking - let us know what's going on...

[sylviaguardian]

This thread is going off on a tangent, but I guess this is all still related to my mother's affair and my father's response to it. QUOTE]

 

Delia,

 

Unfortunately, this is probably not all related to your mother's affair. I suspect it is much bigger than that - your parents' inability to take responsibility for their own lives and to raise children in a secure environment. Stuff like that stinks when you are a kid because you literally can't get away from it. It's only when you can distance yourself from it a bit that you can stop internalising everything that's happening.

 

At the moment I would guess that you are feeling pretty down and when we feel like that sometimes it's not easy to reach out to people but try not to get isolated. I would agree with Trimmer - you need to contact the counselling service and speak to someone as soon as you can. Try to at least find one friend that you can chat to. If you don't feel like chatting to others at least try to get out and meet people for a quick coffee together.

 

Hang in there. I always feel so sorry when I hear about young people stuck in their parents' mess because they don't have the same resources that adults do. My guess is that your father is probably pretty depressed just now. Maybe he will improve in time. In the meantime you need to find some support for yourself.

 

Sylvia

[Delia]

Well, I tried contacting my friends, just so I could have someone to talk to. No luck. Most of my friends are always hard to reach.

 

I do feel better now, because I've made the decision to move on with my life without my family. It's sad, though. I don't think any of us can reconcile our differences. We'll be forever estranged from each other. Oh well, pain is pain, and I've felt it before, so it's not like I can't handle more of it.

 

Do any of you ever feel guilty for being depressed? I feel that way all the time, like there are millions of people out there who are in far worse situations than me.

 

I feel like I'm just a quitter, a wimp, weak.

[Trimmer]

Delia - the decision to move on and take the reins in your life while creating some separation from your family is not quitting and it does not make you weak. Weak people stay in bad situations - it takes insight followed by strength to pick yourself up and get out of them. I hope we helped a little with the insight part, but the strength comes all from you, and I believe you've got lots of it. I hope that just the act of making this decision will give you some sense of increasing control, and that this will build on itself as you move towards the future.

 

Did you try your counseling center again? Please get in there and find someone to unload on. LS is great, but I believe that connecting with another person face-to-face to unload your burdens is really valuable, and I think you should have someone with a trained ear listen to your comments about your sadness, feeling depressed, anxiety, and so on.

 

Your journey may not be easy, but you've taken the first steps; you shouldn't have to figure it all out alone.

[sylviaguardian]

Well, I tried contacting my friends, just so I could have someone to talk to. No luck. Most of my friends are always hard to reach.

 

I do feel better now, because I've made the decision to move on with my life without my family. It's sad, though. I don't think any of us can reconcile our differences. We'll be forever estranged from each other. Oh well, pain is pain, and I've felt it before, so it's not like I can't handle more of it.

 

Do any of you ever feel guilty for being depressed? I feel that way all the time, like there are millions of people out there who are in far worse situations than me.

 

I feel like I'm just a quitter, a wimp, weak.

 

Delia,

 

Don't write your family off yet. True, none of them are able to support you at this time but things may change. I have seen people in terrible relationships with their family who've managed to have some sort of a working relationship eventually. But at the moment you need support for you.

 

Don't feel guilty...but I know what you mean. My husband's affair broke my heart and today I was at a function talking to a woman whose husband died suddenly a couple of months ago. Did I feel guilty? Marginally - I am sure if she knew my circumstances she would swap. Does it make my pain any less? No.

 

Also guilt tends to happen when our self-esteem is low. Don't feel guilty - you are a young person in a very difficult situation. Most parents are able to get help from their parents at such a time - you can't. I really feel for you. Are you able to talk to your mother or do you have no contact to her at all?

[Delia]

I haven't seen my mother for about a year. Before that I might have met up with her for dinner or something maybe 2 or 3 times in a year. It was just too hard to see her, because I was just starting university, living with my dad to save money and every time I saw her I had to lie to him, or sneak out. If he found out he would go on his rants along the lines of: "why don't you just leave, then, live with her, blah, blah."And then we would end up screaming at each other. I hate her new husband, who cheated on his wife (his 2nd wife!) to be with my mother. I can't stand the jerk. OH, and my mother married him the year she left my father, and didn't even tell me or my sisters about it! We were over one day a year ago and I saw the wedding pictures framed on the wall. I started laughing hysterically because they were so unbelievably cheesy.

Now if I see my mother at the mall coincidently or something, we barely say two words to each other. It's too weird.

 

I know this sounds awful and ungrateful, but sometimes I think it would've been better if I was an orphan, because having parents and yet not having them like I do now, feels even worse.

 

And the most horrible thing is that occasionally I have seen somethe family members of the cheating bastard that my mother married (walking in the mall or on the street, or at the subway etc)not only has my family been destroyed but theirs as well. The guy is completely selfish. My mother is his third wife!! And he's had other children with his past wives!! And left them!!

 

Oh!! And the year when we were sensing that something was up, my mother took me and my sister out to dinner, and then in the middle of it, HE happens to show up and she pretends like it was such a lovely coincidence! She introduced him as a FRIEND and he joined us!! I was seething. I wanted to leave the table and ask for a separate table, but instead remained polite. And he had the nerve to be all friendly and smiley. And she lied to our faces!

 

Adults can be such dickheads. Here I am, trying to grow up and be responsible when my own parents are complete clueless imbeciles.

[Outcast]

Then why, after all this, would you ever think that cheating is ok???????????????????????????????????????

[Trimmer]

Then why, after all this, would you ever think that cheating is ok???????????????????????????????????????

 

Why would she ever think it? Because a wounded soul will try anything to make sense of a screwed up world.

 

Does she still think it? It may be presumptuous of me to speak for Delia, but I think if you follow her thread, this isn't really about "cheating is OK" for her any more. Specifically, go back and look at post #18 and post #19. She's kind of turned the corner from "cheating is OK" to trying to figure out how to make herself safe and whole again after growing up in that nasty environment. So I'm not holding her to account for her original premise that started the thread (cheating for true love is OK), because it seems like she's beyond that now. I think her original premise was a kind of a call for help that eventually got us to the important stuff - Delia deserves a healthy, safe life of her own.

 

Delia - correct me if I'm wrong about the above.... And tell us how it's going - did you get in to see a counselor? How are the anger and depression balancing out? Are you feeling stronger than you did last week?

[TonysTemptress]

Your mother left a 14-year-old child to be with her 'true love'? IMO that is a totally egocentric self-obsessed person. No wonder your father hates her.

 

I'm leaving my 3 1/2 year old daughter and Tony is leaving his 10 year old daughter. Selfish? Perhaps. But the children will be better off without parents that are miserable, walking around leading half-lives.

 

I have joint custody of my daughter, and Tony has joint custody of his. My H (still) knows all about Tony and me and our situation, and lets me have access to her whenever I want. Tony's wife is still a train wreck after being dumped for the OW (she was a SAHM and Tony has been her sole support), but Tony still has access to his daughter as well.

 

Egocentric and self obsessed? Maybe. Happy? More than I've been in my whole life.

 

Thanks to mental_traveller for "getting it."

[Ladyjane14]

Egocentric and self obsessed? Maybe. Happy? More than I've been in my whole life.

 

Maybe Delia's mother is happy with her choices too. But Delia wouldn't know much about that.....because Mom left her holding the bag years ago. Now their relationship is more or less bumping into each other at the mall.

 

I can't blame Delia a bit if she wants to keep it that way either. Time will tell if her mother can ever overcome her own toxicity.

 

Personally, I just can't wrap my mind around choosing a man....and a cheating one at that....over my own child. But that's just me.

 

It's just too bad that young folks like Delia end up being stuck, trying to make sense of behavior that is incomprehensible even to many adults.

[Delia]

Trimmer, you are absolutely right. How I began my thread was me trying to reconcile my conflicting feelings about my mother's betrayal. I'd like to think that her being in love and happy with another man would make a difference, maybe make me feel better, but it doesn't. It's like the romantic and the cynic in me are at battle and the cynic is now winning out.

 

I don't see the point of seeing a counsellor. How the hell can a stranger help me? Asking for help is admitting that things are messed up. At least in a state of denial I can function day to day. If not for that I'd just be withdrawn and emotionally unstable all day. And there's always that cynical bitter voice in my head that tells me, "WTF, why are you being so whiny. Just suck it up and deal with it." It appears like my mother is not as torn about the situation as me.

 

I hope you all don't think this thread is misleading, considering how it began.

[Trimmer]

Delia, don't worry about the thread being misleading or anything like that - it's not. I think this thread records the first steps of a journey you're on.

 

It may work in the short term to bolster your denial, to push down the hurt and anguish, and try to ignore the pain, but Delia, dear, you deserve better than to have all that eating you up from the inside for the rest of your life.

 

Let me ask you: why did you start this thread? I think your original post was itself a call for help, and I'm really glad you did it. Look at all the "strangers" who stepped up with support and encouragement and challenging counterpoints....

 

You should have no embarassment about asking for help. Is it admitting that things are messed up? Well yes, but you sound smart and capable of self-examination, and so you already know that don't you? How are you able to pour out your troubles here on LS? The distance, the anonymity of our interactions makes it safe to really bare your soul, and that's a good start, but you need a real human, sitting in front of you, looking you in the eye. A counselor gives you that, while maintaining just enough distance that it still feels safe to open up and dump out what is boiling over inside you.

 

Delia, listen - you deserve better. You deserve to unload your burden, and you deserve to get through a day without having to deny or supress your feelings. Just like a lawyer is a legal advocate, a counselor is a kind of an emotional advocate, knowledgeable about feelings, relationships, etc. and looking out for your best interests. Couldn't you use that right now?

 

Please consider it. I think if you go in with an open mind, it could help a lot (and I speak from experience.) You don't have to go in with the attitude that you are submitting to counseling, or putting yourself at their mercy - go in thinking they are working for you, and look forward to using them as a tool to help get yourself straightened out.

 

Don't settle for being stuck in the mud on your journey. Get some help taking the next steps.

 

And in case I haven't mentioned it yet, I think you deserve better.

[Guest]

Delia,

Dont you feel that how hurt your father? Try to understand him also from a point of

betrayed husband. Betrayal is very difficult part and depression shows in terms of raze.

try to understand him also. I know killing your mother is terrible to yuo. Bue what your

mother did is most selfish. She did not think of you both. Having affair still in reltion is

not the right way to solve. She could take divorce and then start a new life.

I shall never support such mother in my life. Perhaps, you are not married and have no idea

what is the pain of betrayal. "he drinks ans stares in the wall" means he feels extreme emptiness. You both can fulfil that void and turn him into good father. Trust me.

Did he hurt you anytime? Never.

[Trimmer]

Hey, Delia - how's it going? Feeling any better; any different? - T

[tonyp56]

My wife left me for another man after being with me for 11 years, almost 7 married. What hurts me the most? Her acting like I never meant anything to her, like she could care less if I died tomorrow! It wouldn't even hurt me as bad if she would just step to me and say "I wasn't happy being married to you, I loved you from the beginning, and I still love you now. I want you in my life, but I can't be your wife anymore." But she instead says things like "I was never attracted to you, I never really wanted you, I just took you because I didn't want to be alone, we've only been together for 10 years not 11, the first year didn't COUNT," last one being something that both of us agreed on from the beginning. I can understand the feelings that Delia's father feels, the emotions that I've felt in the last 5 weeks and 1 day, include, anger, hate, sadness, abandonment, loneliness, depression, rage, feelings of being out of control, feeling like I will never find anyone else that will love me, etc... Rage and anger is not the same thing, sometimes I've got to go outside and hit something, to keep myself from hitting her which is rage--and I never hit her, EVER. In the last 5 weeks I have felt like my life IS GONE, now it is getting better, but I don’t know when I will be able to go through a day without thinking about her, then getting mad because of what she did, then feeling remorse for getting angry, then sadness, then finally closure. Only to have all those feeling to happen again when something makes me think of her, this happens at least 50 times a day (some movie, song, our kids, our entire house, etc.).

 

Though she did take the kids, we are trying to share them between us. However, it seems that when she gets tired of them, she comes knocking wanting me to take them. Of course, when she don’t have the kids, her and her new man can you know what until the sun comes up, and they do. She doesn’t call when I have the kids, she doesn’t act like she cares. So in a way, she has left our kids too, though she has them more than me, but only because she has to.

 

Anyways, I am sorry for the OP’s situation, and I understand some of what you are feeling. When it comes to your dad, I think I can understand how he feels; I’ve had the same kind of thoughts. Good luck,

[sylviaguardian]

I'm leaving my 3 1/2 year old daughter and Tony is leaving his 10 year old daughter. Selfish? Perhaps. But the children will be better off without parents that are miserable, walking around leading half-lives.

 

I have joint custody of my daughter, and Tony has joint custody of his. My H (still) knows all about Tony and me and our situation, and lets me have access to her whenever I want. Tony's wife is still a train wreck after being dumped for the OW (she was a SAHM and Tony has been her sole support), but Tony still has access to his daughter as well.

 

Egocentric and self obsessed? Maybe. Happy? More than I've been in my whole life.

 

Thanks to mental_traveller for "getting it."

 

I am struggling to respond to this. What do you mean that your children will be better off without parents that are miserable, walking around leading half-lives. Why could you not have a full-life with your daughter in the picture?

 

I don't know what to say. Your happiness doesn't come into it. You had a child, with that child comes a responsibility. YOU are no longer the most important person here - she is.

 

You just have to read Delia's thread to see that damage that is done to kids who have no understanding of the situation, no choice or say in their lives and no way to make themselves feel any better.

 

Quite frankly, it appalls me that grown adults will put themselves before vulnerable children.

[Delia]

hello everyone. um. Well, things are going ok I guess. I ended up dropping two of my classes during that week I had my anxiety attack. I didn't really describe what my relationship with my dad is like since the affair. I barely ever see him, more than compared to my mother. I think he's been depressed for a very very long time. He sleeps a lot when he's not at work. My relationship with my younger sister has degraded to her calling me a bitch for sometimes no apparent reason. To say that we don't get along is an understatement. She feels like I don't have to deal with the issues and **** involving my dad (his rants, emotional, psychological issues) because I'm never home, either at work or school or just out. But just because I'm not there doesn't mean I don't have to deal with it mentally. And I've had to deal with the same stuff as her, so I don't know what she's talking about.

 

I'm not exaggerating when I say that I'm just as estranged from the family I live with as much as the one I don't live with. Also my mother is living with my youngest sister (not the bitchy 15 yr old) who has Down's Syndrome. I don't know how she's handling everything since I never get to see her.

 

I appreciate everyone's concern. I did have a talk with my friend today. She told me I should see a counsellor, but I'm doubtful about the whole counselling, therapy stuff.

 

You know I did some research on depression and I've come to realize I'm an Imposter. An Imposter is someone who pretends to be happy in his or her daily public life, but is actually depressed. Sometimes I think, though that maybe I'm just sad. What's the difference between sad and depressed?

 

A few weeks ago, when at work ( I work for the Salvation Army part time) I saw my mother and sister, but they didn't see me. A part of me wanted to go up and say somethng, but instead for some reason, I hid behind a rack of clothes.

 

I think what my family is a prime example of, is everyone being too consumed in their own pain, so much so that we are unable to help everyone else who is in just as much or even more pain as us.

[Delia]

oh, and Tony, I hope things work out for you. I hope your kids our handling the whole break up better than how my sister and I have handled our situation.

[Outcast]

but I'm doubtful about the whole counselling, therapy stuff.

 

Why? Millions of people have been helped greatly by counselling. Look at it this way; no human is an expert on human behaviour - it takes training to learn how to manage difficult situations just as it takes training to fix a car or repair plumbing. The human brain is a complex organ and dealing with all of its issues is the expertise of trained counsellors. You are no more qualified to repair your own self than you are to do plumbing so why not hire an expert to help you out?

[Yikes]

I expect that couselling can help if you go into it with an open mind and realistic expectations. There is no guarantee that it will fix everything that is wrong in your life. If you think that it will, then you are pretty much guaranteed to be disappointed.

 

Hopefully you will gain some coping skills to help you better sort out your past, learn to avoid problems in the future and move forward being happy with who you are.

 

Yikes