I don't feel right in my head anymore, does this pass?

[GirlStillStrong]

Yes, rage is fine, considering what you've been through. Just make sure you don't do anything stupid (illegal) while that way. You might want to avoid driving or talking to people when you are raging. Anger is fine, especially since you normally hold it in. But try to get some new perspective so you don't turn bitter. Recognize that your expectations of him (however rational) are higher than what he is able to deliver. It's disappointing, I know, but he is never going to be what or who you want him to be. I'm sorry you are hurting. Don't forget to breathe. (((Hugs)))

[GoldieLox]

It is normal, and it will last a long time. The trick is to find healthy ways to deal with it and not let it consume you, like any other emotion. I don't think there's a day that goes by when I don't feel it; most of the time I breathe through it, but sometimes I have to find other ways to let it out. The other day I was having one of those moments and I texted my friend and said "I need to run. Let's go, now..." and I just ran it out. Whether it's something physical or calming, like meditating or reading, just find an outlet and don't let it build up. Keep your head up.

[eye of the storm]

Kieraglass, feel the rage, let it wash thru you, allow it to keep you warm at night.

 

Then let it go.

 

I am so sorry for what you are going thru. I have no experience with your loss. And my heart aches for you.

 

But I know rage.

 

After my ExH left me for my best friend I raged. I ate it, I drank it, I cuddled it at night. It kept me on my feet. It allowed me to function. But eventually I realized it also kept me from moving on. The rage served a function. It protected me and shielded me when I needed it. But in time, you need to move on and rage will try to keep you locked behind its protective walls.

 

If you hold onto rage past when you needed it, it eventually starts to eat away at you. It will turn you bitter and hateful. It will make you hard.

 

Let it protect you for now. Don't let it control you. And when you are steady on your feet, walk away from it.

 

You are in my thoughts. I hope peace finds you soon.

[Giggle]

Rage is easier. Easier than crying because he doesn't care. But rage eats away at you. Feel sorry for him. He lost out. He broke what you had. A pitiful individual who is so disconnected that it didn't matter to him.

[kieraglass]

I just got a single text. She found a card my little boy made for him. An innocent little card.

 

Anyone who's read my story knows why I'm kind of laughing sadly at this. A card. I had his child prematurely last summer and he stayed with her. My marriage fell apart, I ended up sleeping in my car two nights, then my mother took me in. It's been a horrible year living in grief and shame with everything I knew just gone. Poof. Rebuilding from nothing. I love him so much, despite his cowardice, and we've stayed together through it all. We've been with one another three years now. He's always told me his plan was to be with me after his youngest left home, which comes this september. I vaguely believed this before the baby died, but the past ten months, I don't. I knew, as you all told me, that any man who could leave me to thus mess, leave me alone during the agonizing delivery, and the aftermath, was never going to have the balls. But I stayed.

 

So, she found a card, I got a single text. "The sh*t has hit the fan. So and so found x's card. I am in a very very bad place. You may not hear from me for a while. I do love you."

 

Two summers ago, when both of us were married, I made us a picnic, a great feast, and he was quiet in the woods, distracted.

He finally told me that she'd been asking questions, and that she was getting close, suspicious. He told me that if it got hot, he might have to disappear for a while. I remember crying, and thinking, what? He held me as I cried and we got over it, and nothing came to fruition. But I remember that.

 

He's always prepared me. He will disappear if she finds out, ho dark.

 

I can't help but remember the night last may when i told my abusive volatile husband if eight years that I was carrying another man's child. How frightened I was. How I wept and wept but stayed strong, knowing that I was doing right, and honoring the baby, and my love for MM. How I texted him from my car in the driveway where I was sleeping, unwilling to leave my six year old inside. How I was upbeat with him. How clean I felt, despite my shame and fear.

 

She found a card from a little boy.

 

Oh, the horror. Yes, that's sarcasm. I can't help but feel little for his predicament. When I read the single text he sent, I barely felt a thing. I would have given my left arm for my husband to have found some silly homemade thing with child's scrawl on it. He found a baby. A card?

 

Poor you.

 

I responded darkly. Told him to save his life and deny, deny, deny. "I don't exist."

 

I told him he'd prepared me for this vanishing act long ago.

 

I also mentioned how ironic it was that I kept him in the loop and did not disappear for a moment as I told my husband about his child and everything around me imploded.

 

I said I knew, I'd always known, and i thanked him for the best three years of my life. "I loved every moment with you. "

 

(Almost every moment. I can think of a few I'd gladly return.)

 

I basically said goodbye without saying it. I may be a fool, but I'm not stupid. He's going dark, telling me he has to disappear for a bit....

 

I had your child. You are a chickensh*t coward. Whining about your world going bad over a card my son, who has only met him once, made out of love. He liked the MM so much. It's sad.

 

So, I'm assuming it's over. He has none of my strength. He was never going to have any strength to make a break for me, for his son, not last summer, not afterwards, and certainly not now as she rages and pins him down .

 

He won't bring me to life, not ever. I did him, and i never hesitated.

 

I can't say I'm sad, really, which is funny if you've read my posts. My heart can't break anymore. He's treated me like I'm nothing, and no one, for a woman he swears he's never loved.

 

I'm shrugging. He held onto his lifestyle and his lies as I literally bled and bled the past year.

 

Karma may be kicking his *ss.

 

I don't expect him to contact me again. Over a card a sad little boy made him. My kid has been through hell, and he liked this man, his kindness and engaging personality, so much.

 

Good thing she didn't find the single picture he kept of our baby, from the hospital. Him denying me, and the baby, if she'd found that, would have driven me to psycho land. I would have went after his comfortable fake little life with a bat.

 

Oh well, folks. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

 

I don't give two s**ts what he's going through right now. He never gave two about what I went through, as long as he stayed safe and his marriage stayed safe and his children looked up to him....

 

Maybe it was supposed to play out like this. I see him. See who he is, and what I am to him. I should have the day I drove myself home from the hospital alone, bleeding and screaming and crying, but I didn't. I've always been so soft and forgiving with him. God, I really loved being with him. Even now. We are incredibly close. Sounds inexplicable some of you have asked, how could you love a man like this? A cruel coward?- but I did.

 

Disappearing over a card.

 

If she knew the truth. My goodness.

[darkmoon]

you have no control over his life, but you have yours

 

do more with your life

 

keep an eye on good jobs and how to get them, join a mom and baby group, plenty moms are single like you, hard time for mistresses, so just say the dad left, but get out more xx

[Satu]

How much is it reasonable to expect from a man who lies to, and cheats on his wife?

 

Very little, in my opinion.

 

I'm sorry for you in your pain, but sometimes things end badly because it's the only way they can end.

[Popsicle]

Why do you play this game with him? You love him but you resent him. Deeply. See the writing on the wall for what it is, and tell him to get lost.

 

PS-he will never leave but he will contact you again.

Edited June 26, 2015 by Popsicle

[gettingstronger]

Not to beat you over the head, but I will say that the BS seeing a card from your child was probably as double blow- for her, the fact you two involved your child is something that will stick in her crawl-

 

As for you, you have paid a heavy price for loving this man that does not have the backbone to give you what you need- please, continue to heal and work on what ails you- get better each day and stay strong-

[RoseVille]

I responded darkly. Told him to save his life and deny, deny, deny. "I don't exist."

 

I told him he'd prepared me for this vanishing act long ago.

 

I also mentioned how ironic it was that I kept him in the loop and did not disappear for a moment as I told my husband about his child and everything around me imploded.

 

I said I knew, I'd always known, and i thanked him for the best three years of my life. "I loved every moment with you. "

 

...

 

So, I'm assuming it's over.

 

You didn't respond darkly. He didn't receive your entire OP, he received these limited messages. You let him off the hook, easily. As such, he'll be back.

[aliveagain]

The only way this coward will leave his wife is if she throws him out. Sounds like he's been planning your removal for the last couple of years. Are you sure she knows or is this his way of ending the affair?

[kieraglass]

Got out of it slightly. Said he almost came clean and it felt SO good but he didn't entirely, but will, he will. He said she's hot in the trail now and it could go very south very fast, and that he wants to keep me out of the fray.

 

I laughed. My life IS the fray.

 

I see it all for what it is, guys. I'm not upset, I feel strong, and i don't care what happens.

 

He asked to see me for coffee and to give me a hug.

 

I said no. For the first time in three years I said no.

 

Denied my importance, and our reality again. Again.

 

No coffee today, thank you. Enjoy your weekend trapped in the house with someone who is enraged and on the verge of discovering just who you really are.

 

I'm done being a bandaid.

 

I do resent him, and i have every right. I'll consider him as my future when he is ready to be a man. Not now. Let his walls come crashing down. It's about damn time.

 

My resentment is the only strength I have, and I'm happy it's there.

 

Thank you everyone. I really appreciate your words.

[eye of the storm]

Kiera, you are still connected to him. And when he calls again you will go. Why? Because of the words you use. "Ill consider him my future" Why would you want someone like that to be your future?

 

You say you are done but you are leaving the door open and a place set for him at your table. You are only waiting for him to leave his BS. He won't and even if they separate, it will not be because he choose you it will be because he has no other choice. It will be because SHE removed herself from the playing field. With this man you will never be his choice, you will always be his left overs.

 

You should want better. Better for yourself, better for your son.

 

Please decide that you are better off without him than you will EVER be with him.

 

Please decide you want peace and happiness in your life and then work to achieve it.

 

Wishing you the best.

[whichwayisup]

Denied my importance, and our reality again. Again.

The thing is, your version of reality may be different than his version of reality. He is/was your everything and involving him in your life, allowing your son to get attached to him is on you. Your MM has a wife and children, a life built with someone else. You aren't his 'everything' as he shut you out of his personal life (friends, family etc).

 

I do resent him, and i have every right. I'll consider him as my future when he is ready to be a man. Not now. Let his walls come crashing down. It's about damn time.

 

Yes resent him all you want. You can sit and wait on the side hoping that his marriage will implode and someday he'll come crawling to you, begging you to take him in because his wife woke up, and kicked him out. He obviously does NOT want to leave and divorce her, start a new life with you. I'm not saying that to be mean, people who want to divorce, do so! Your MM had the opportunity to come clean and he chose to lie.

 

If his wife contacts you directly, will you be honest with her?

[Satu]

The phrase, "No good could come of it," seems to fit.

[kieraglass]

I was kind and calm and rational and we spoke for forty five minutes.

 

He told her the card was from the son of some woman he knows, that her little boy had a writing project at school and he decided to give it to him because he met him and liked him.

 

Wife said, well, she must like you, too.

 

He said, I guess, and said I was just some woman he knew, it was nothing, just a thing, no threat.

 

I was so, so calm and understanding. I was honest about what BS this is, and how it feels.

 

I didn't rage, as I wanted to, tell him off, rant. There's no point.

 

I see him.

 

He said he will come clean soon, that the kid is still there for a couple more months and it's not the time.

 

I said I implicitly understood, sure, sure. Yes, I get it.

 

I hung up pretty certain that he just changed it all, for good.

 

How cowardly and disgusting.

 

There was no point in rage.

 

Like my counselor said, I can't expect him to get anything, to give me what I deserve after all this pain he's put me through. She said it's like going to Sears expecting to buy milk. It ain't gonna happen.

 

I'm not debasing myself by trying to reason with a coward, a cad. It's a complete waste of breath.

 

I think he might be a bit mental. Telling me, me of all people, how he denied me, and my little boy, giving me details.

 

I see him. He's a cold, selfish SOB.

 

He and his sexless marriage, his quarter century "practically a roommate situation", deserve each other.

 

May they get adjoining plots.

 

This sh*t is entirely sick.

 

I feel very removed and unemotional and detached from him. I see him so clearly. And I'm glad.

[Cymbeline]

I just got a single text. She found a card my little boy made for him. An innocent little card.

 

Anyone who's read my story knows why I'm kind of laughing sadly at this. A card. I had his child prematurely last summer and he stayed with her. My marriage fell apart, I ended up sleeping in my car two nights, then my mother took me in. It's been a horrible year living in grief and shame with everything I knew just gone. Poof. Rebuilding from nothing. I love him so much, despite his cowardice, and we've stayed together through it all. We've been with one another three years now. He's always told me his plan was to be with me after his youngest left home, which comes this september. I vaguely believed this before the baby died, but the past ten months, I don't. I knew, as you all told me, that any man who could leave me to thus mess, leave me alone during the agonizing delivery, and the aftermath, was never going to have the balls. But I stayed.

 

So, she found a card, I got a single text. "The sh*t has hit the fan. So and so found x's card. I am in a very very bad place. You may not hear from me for a while. I do love you."

 

Two summers ago, when both of us were married, I made us a picnic, a great feast, and he was quiet in the woods, distracted.

He finally told me that she'd been asking questions, and that she was getting close, suspicious. He told me that if it got hot, he might have to disappear for a while. I remember crying, and thinking, what? He held me as I cried and we got over it, and nothing came to fruition. But I remember that.

 

He's always prepared me. He will disappear if she finds out, ho dark.

 

I can't help but remember the night last may when i told my abusive volatile husband if eight years that I was carrying another man's child. How frightened I was. How I wept and wept but stayed strong, knowing that I was doing right, and honoring the baby, and my love for MM. How I texted him from my car in the driveway where I was sleeping, unwilling to leave my six year old inside. How I was upbeat with him. How clean I felt, despite my shame and fear.

 

She found a card from a little boy.

 

Oh, the horror. Yes, that's sarcasm. I can't help but feel little for his predicament. When I read the single text he sent, I barely felt a thing. I would have given my left arm for my husband to have found some silly homemade thing with child's scrawl on it. He found a baby. A card?

 

Poor you.

 

I responded darkly. Told him to save his life and deny, deny, deny. "I don't exist."

 

I told him he'd prepared me for this vanishing act long ago.

 

I also mentioned how ironic it was that I kept him in the loop and did not disappear for a moment as I told my husband about his child and everything around me imploded.

 

I said I knew, I'd always known, and i thanked him for the best three years of my life. "I loved every moment with you. "

 

(Almost every moment. I can think of a few I'd gladly return.)

 

I basically said goodbye without saying it. I may be a fool, but I'm not stupid. He's going dark, telling me he has to disappear for a bit....

 

I had your child. You are a chickensh*t coward. Whining about your world going bad over a card my son, who has only met him once, made out of love. He liked the MM so much. It's sad.

 

So, I'm assuming it's over. He has none of my strength. He was never going to have any strength to make a break for me, for his son, not last summer, not afterwards, and certainly not now as she rages and pins him down .

 

He won't bring me to life, not ever. I did him, and i never hesitated.

 

I can't say I'm sad, really, which is funny if you've read my posts. My heart can't break anymore. He's treated me like I'm nothing, and no one, for a woman he swears he's never loved.

 

I'm shrugging. He held onto his lifestyle and his lies as I literally bled and bled the past year.

 

Karma may be kicking his *ss.

 

I don't expect him to contact me again. Over a card a sad little boy made him. My kid has been through hell, and he liked this man, his kindness and engaging personality, so much.

 

Good thing she didn't find the single picture he kept of our baby, from the hospital. Him denying me, and the baby, if she'd found that, would have driven me to psycho land. I would have went after his comfortable fake little life with a bat.

 

Oh well, folks. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

 

I don't give two s**ts what he's going through right now. He never gave two about what I went through, as long as he stayed safe and his marriage stayed safe and his children looked up to him....

 

Maybe it was supposed to play out like this. I see him. See who he is, and what I am to him. I should have the day I drove myself home from the hospital alone, bleeding and screaming and crying, but I didn't. I've always been so soft and forgiving with him. God, I really loved being with him. Even now. We are incredibly close. Sounds inexplicable some of you have asked, how could you love a man like this? A cruel coward?- but I did.

 

Disappearing over a card.

 

If she knew the truth. My goodness.

 

 

 

I'm sorry for your sad situation but your expression is dramatic and over-romanticised. When you are able to see this grand romance as others do - a very sad but sordid tale of the pain people choose to inflict upon each other - then you might be able to start living your life for yourself and your surviving child. I hope you manage to do this.

[anika99]

I was kind and calm and rational and we spoke for forty five minutes.

 

He told her the card was from the son of some woman he knows, that her little boy had a writing project at school and he decided to give it to him because he met him and liked him.

 

Wife said, well, she must like you, too.

 

He said, I guess, and said I was just some woman he knew, it was nothing, just a thing, no threat.

 

I was so, so calm and understanding. I was honest about what BS this is, and how it feels.

 

I didn't rage, as I wanted to, tell him off, rant. There's no point.

 

I see him.

 

He said he will come clean soon, that the kid is still there for a couple more months and it's not the time.

 

I said I implicitly understood, sure, sure. Yes, I get it.

 

I hung up pretty certain that he just changed it all, for good.

 

How cowardly and disgusting.

 

There was no point in rage.

 

Like my counselor said, I can't expect him to get anything, to give me what I deserve after all this pain he's put me through. She said it's like going to Sears expecting to buy milk. It ain't gonna happen.

 

I'm not debasing myself by trying to reason with a coward, a cad. It's a complete waste of breath.

 

I think he might be a bit mental. Telling me, me of all people, how he denied me, and my little boy, giving me details.

 

I see him. He's a cold, selfish SOB.

 

He and his sexless marriage, his quarter century "practically a roommate situation", deserve each other.

 

May they get adjoining plots.

 

This sh*t is entirely sick.

 

I feel very removed and unemotional and detached from him. I see him so clearly. And I'm glad.

 

 

Kieraglass, with all due respect I think you are being a little bit cowardly too. I think the reason you continue to be so kind and calm and understanding with the MM is because you are still holding onto that tiny sliver of hope that he is really going to leave his marriage for you. You are afraid to be honest and risk possibly rocking the boat or pushing him away. If you are done you would just tell him that. That doesn't mean you rage or attempt to reason with him. It just means you end it.

[eye of the storm]

If you truly see him clearly, then do something about it. Take an action.

 

Block him. Do not contact him. Move on. Find a better life for yourself.

 

Actually, screw that last one. MAKE a better life for your son. You have shown time and time again that you are willing to debase yourself for you. Stand up and decide you are going to take some actions that will benefit your son. And that starts with moving on from this episode.

 

You can do this. The question is, will you.

 

I'm routing for you.

[Satu]

He and *his sexless marriage, his quarter century "practically a roommate situation", deserve each other.

 

*Bearing in mind the fact that he's a habitual and unashamed liar, what grounds do you have to believe that thats the true state of his marriage?

 

If he lies to her, why wouldn't he lie to you?

 

He probably tells her whatever he needs to cover his tracks, and tells you whatever he needs to keep you available to him at some future time, according to his convenience.

 

I'm sorry for the hurt you've gone through, but I wouldn't trust him to tell me the right time if I asked it of him.

 

The resolution and closure to all this lies squarely in your hands, not his.

 

It ends when you end it.

 

But its obvious that a part of you still hopes that he will give you a happy future by leaving his wife, and fully committing to a monogamous relationship with you.

 

False hope is a cold and cruel thing.

 

I know. I've been there.

 

***************************************************************

 

*No direct contact in either direction. No sending or receiving of messages. No replies. Block any means he might use to contact you.

*No indirect contact through third parties.

*De-friend or delete from all social media.

*No monitoring of him on social media.

*No 'little birds' feeding you news.

*Tell people that you don't want to know anything about what he is doing or saying.

 

***************************************************************

 

Take care.

[Goodbye]

I hope you are ok. Heart wrenching stuff. Can't say I can relate to the loss of a child with a MM...extremely upsetting, but shows his character. I can relate to a lot of your emotion, being put "in the dark" to quell a suspicious "roommate" wife. It doesn't feel like it now, but you will recover from this. Try and stay busy and focus on ANYTHING but him. Anything. I ate, watched tv, read stupid books, ate more, talked to people...finally exMM is out of my system. A long, painful withdrawal, but you can heal.

[minimariah]

I see him.

 

you really don't -- you'll be back & asking him for more.

 

i dare you to prove me otherwise.

[81West]

I'm sorry for your sad situation but your expression is dramatic and over-romanticised. When you are able to see this grand romance as others do - a very sad but sordid tale of the pain people choose to inflict upon each other - then you might be able to start living your life for yourself and your surviving child. I hope you manage to do this.

 

Her expression is dramatic in the sense that she crafts her thoughts with some degree of poetry, but underneath is a normal and expected degree of feeling. Many people in this section of the forum began with true love stories and sustained them for a time. It's the weakness of the humans involved in them that turns them sordid, painful and ordinary. The man I had an EA and grand plans with eventually said that 'we aren't the first two people who have to live with our circumstances', and he was right. But he's the one who made us ordinary and part of that sad, squalid majority. Some of us certainly trust in the power of love and courage for a few beats too long, but that can be forgiven. If there's a feeling better than being in love with the person who feels like your soulmate I haven't felt it.

[minimariah]

If there's a feeling better than being in love with the person who feels like your soulmate I haven't felt it.

 

oh, but there is a better feeling -- being in love with a person who is in love with you too & who treats you with respect... like an actual human being. who isn't afraid to make his love for you KNOWN, who isn't afraid to make what it takes to be with you. who isn't afraid to let you go if he knows he can't give you what you want.

 

every love story was "true" at some point.

Edited June 26, 2015 by minimariah

[Satu]

A large part of all affairs is fantasy.

 

They function as an escape or respite from an unhappy life in most cases.

 

But secretly, deep inside, both know that it's a fantasy.

 

Defending the fantasy and denying reality leads to incredible inner tension and conflict.

 

Both parties are pretending.

 

Thats the root of the problem.