Still on the Emotional Rollercoaster

[dgiirl]

Man, i'm still on this stupid ride, and i cant wait to get off. After having a brief phone conversation with my ex today, I broke down and cried like I did from day one. I prayed and prayed for either my ex to come back or for guidance to show me the way. Logically, I know my ex mistreated me a lot, but there were some good things too, and thus the emotional struggle between acceptance and denial. I prayed for help. I then received an email from a mutual friend. It was a joke. He had forwarded a joke onto me privately, but I still saw the headers of who he had sent it to originally. He sent it to my ex and the OW. This is the first time I found her email address, before this, I never had a way to contact her. I didnt even read the joke. I started bawling again, and getting angry of being reminded once again of my ex's infidelity by our mutual friend who unknowningly introduced them together, and I took the higher road and refrained from telling him the truth. After my cryout session, i read the email. Like i said it was a joke. Somehow the sick irony of it comforted me. I hope they both had a little bit of conscious and realized that I know them very well too. I wonder if our mutual friend knows or was it the sign that I had asked for?

 

-------

Southern grandma

Lawyers should never ask a Southern grandma a question if they

aren't prepared for the answer.

 

In a trial, a Southern small-town prosecuting attorney called his

first witness, a grandmotherly, elderly woman to the stand.

 

He approached her and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know me?"

She responded, "Why, yes, I do know you, Mr. Williams I 've known

you since you were a young boy, and frankly, you've been a big

disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, you

manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think

you're a big shot when you haven't the

brains to realize you never will amount to anything more than a

two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you."

The lawyer was stunned! Not knowing what else to do, he pointed

across the room and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense

attorney?"

 

She again! replied, "Why, yes, I do. I've known Mr. Bradley

since he was a youngster, too. He's lazy, bigoted, and he has a

drinking problem. He can't build a nor mal relationship with

anyone, and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire

state. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different

women. One of them was your wife. Yes, I know him."

 

The defense attorney almost died. The judge asked both counselors

to approach the bench, and in a very quiet voice, said, "If either

of you bastards asks her if she knows me, I'll throw your sorry

asses in jail for contempt."

-------------

[debilou]

So is your divorce final? Are you still in counseling? My stbxh has been gone for more than 18 months and there are moments when I want to cry and feel sorry for myself.

 

My counselor tells me that I'm in the last stage of grieving. Acceptance. I still have triggers that take me back to anger, sadness, questioning everything that happened. And wonder if I couldn't have done more to save the marriage.

 

I'm not the person I was 18 months ago. I'm at peace with myself. I'm REALLY better off without him. It will be better when it's finally over!

 

 

Take care and know you're not alone.

 

I was in love with a fantasy of a family and relationship. He was just there. I don't believe he ever really wanted to be a part of my life. Still I feel crappy for wasting so much time on someone who never loved me.

 

I'm happy to be back at love shack. You guys are the best!

 

Debilou

[witabix]

Very painful dgirl.

 

Of course there were good things too, but the bad outweighed the good didn't it?

 

You did the right thing in keeping your thoughts to yourself at the time, and also in letting them out here. You do not need to show your hurt to anyone who may make something of it.

 

Be strong, the ride will end. You will come out better and stronger. Trust yourself.

[dgiirl]

Hey Debilou, glad to see you back!

 

No, our divorce is not final yet, I'm still waiting on paper work, but we barely speak to one another, and when we do, it's only regarding the sale of our house. He's a complete stranger to me, there was no chance for reconcilation or counselling. He simply left a little over a year ago, and isnt willing to try anything. And there's only so much I can do.

 

Like you, i'm coming to peace with myself and do realize I am better off without him, but I still have those triggers that take me back and make me angry, cry, etc. This was one of those days.

[dgiirl]

Be strong, the ride will end. You will come out better and stronger. Trust yourself.

 

Thanks witabix. I'm trying so so hard to be the "better" person and not seek revenge or lash out. It is so extremely hard. I just feel betrayed and walked all over and that I'm the one being punished in this whole thing. I know that if i want to be happy again, I need to ignore his fate and concentrate on mine, but these reminders just keep bringing me back to day one.

[witabix]

Yes dgirl, it can be hard to gain real seperation from the past when it keeps smacking you in the face.

 

You are right, concentrate on YOUR life, YOUR happiness and YOUR goals.

[serial muse]

Hi dgiirl. Just wanted to say I know how you feel. My exH and I separated two and a half years ago now (he was having an A); since then, I've had one rollercoaster of a relationship and a whole new batch of heartache, and I really barely thought about the exH anymore, except for passing annoyance.

 

Then I found out last week that he and the OW applied for a marriage license.

 

For that one night, I lost it. Not because I remotely even want him back anymore - after the first six months, I got past that point. But the injustice of it all, after the crappy s*** he pulled and the nasty way he treated me and my family, and feeling how unfair it is that his asinine relationship should work out when mine fell apart so dramatically and hurt me all over again so badly...well, I sort of fell apart that night.

 

But I got past the shock, and am moving forward again. It'll be OK. Really, it will. You're moving on, even if it's in fits and starts at times. I do not want to punish myself any more than I already have, and I don't want to let him "win" by letting myself experience fresh hurts related to him. I just have to keep reminding myself that it really doesn't have anything to do with my life anymore, and that's all to the good.

 

And I think, perhaps, it was the sign you're looking for - he's not worth mourning over.

[Yamaha]

You have to take him off the pedastal. You remember the good things because you still want him so you block out the bad.

 

Let me ask you this. If you could get him back would you want him or do you just want to think you could?

[dgiirl]

Thanks serial muse! I'm sad that you had to hear that. This is why I dont want to be involved in my ex's life. I dont want to know anything. I was reaching a point where I could careless what he does with his life, as long as he's OUT of my life, I can focus on myself and heal. But I can relate to the feeling of injustice, how the hell could a relationship born from infidelity last. But more importantly, I dont WANT to know that.

 

 

Yahama, I know I had him on a pedestal, and I still do to a point. But there are moments when I realize what a complete idiot he is and how thankful I am to have him OUT of my life. I dont think I really want our relationship back, but more of the dream I HOPED our relationship would be.

 

 

I finally broke down and emailed our mutual friend and simply said thanks for the email, it was hilarious and that I knew my ex and her very well. f*** it, there's only so much I can take, and every time our mutual friend emails me, i keep getting reminded of this secret i'm keeping and why? Because my ex told me to keep it secret. Karma's going to get me back, but atleast it wont haunt me forever.

[Trimmer]

both serial muse and dgiirl: Don't be too quick to jump to the conclusion that his new relationship is going to "work out" or last... On one hand, I wouldn't ever explicitly wish ill on someone (at least not publicly ), but you have to imagine that unless he really did/does some work to change himself, he is likely to repeat the patterns of his past in terms of how he behaves within a relationship, and how honestly and honorably he treats those close to him.

 

I have worked really, really hard on letting go of my wife and accepting my life looking forward, and I can actually imagine feeling some good will for her to find whatever it is she's looking for, but in that, I also fear for her ultimate happiness if she continues to repeat her patterns and behaviors (I'm the second husband she's left; I met her and we started our relationship after she was separated and her first marriage was "all over but the paperwork", so she certainly jumped right into her next one with me; she had one affair early in our marriage, and whether her current man was just an EA or also a PA, she started with him at a time when I understood her to still be committed to our marriage.)

 

I hate the triggers, too... but I am finding that I am getting more and more desensitized to them as time goes on. It might be partly because I get a lot of exposure to them because of our kids and the need to continue to interact diplomatically, so the various triggers' effects on me are starting to diminish - the kids help keep me focused beyond myself... Unfortunately, as my counselor pointed out, I have a bit of an emotionally masochistic tendency sometimes, so the line between desensitizing and masochism can be a fine one...

 

Remember your best days, dgiirl - you will have more even better than those.

 

And dgiirl - the whole keeping it a secret thing... I have tried to balance that (in the interest of keeping a good working relationship for the benefit of the kids) and it's a tough one. My wife thinks our whole situation is none of anyone else's business, etc., which I can agree with, but she thinks that means we shouldn't share our situation with anyone. My attitude is that I can share my own situation with anyone I choose... And so if I share things with my close friends, I avoid talking about what she did or about what I assume about her or her feelings, but I completely reserve the right to talk about me and my feelings. It's a fine line, and I don't share anything I know about her current life moving forward (again, totally about the kids here...)

 

In your case, though, it sounds like your STBXH has you convinced that it's his secret and that you are obliged to hold it. I don't agree. You own this one too, you own your life, you own your experience. There's no sword of karma with its pointy end hanging down over your head here. He dumps a load of manure in your lap and then says, "don't stand up???" I don't think so.

 

In fact, isn't this just one last hook he has in you, one last bit of control he is exercising - as long as you allow him to - even from this emotional distance?

 

By definition, by your husband's insistence, and soon by legal declaration, you are living your own life now. You decide with whom you will share the secrets you own, and whether and when you will hold them in. Once you decide and truly believe you have control over this, you may decide not to reveal them anyway, because it might be vindictive or spiteful, but whatever you do, do it because you take control and you make the decision based on what you want to do, and the person you are. He has walked away and said, "we don't share power any more", well, don't give him any over you. go! Go! GO! (I feel like I've built to a kind of a locker-room pep talk crescendo here... )

[dgiirl]

Trimmer, you are so right in that it is just one more control he's had over me. I've always feared doing or saying anything because he wont like it. He's always judged me throughout our whole marriage, and although he never comes out and is direct with his judgements, it is still very obvious what he thinks. I wrote a list of all the nasty things he's done to me over the years, and i came up easily with 72 items. All the good things, was very short, and basically was one thing, when he wanted, he would give me a little bit of attention, and that made me estatic. Like a little puppy dog, you keep kicking and kicking it and once in a while you give it a bone. When I look at the realities of the relationship, it was horrible. Absolutely horrible. He was extremely selfish and always planting in my head how demanding and selfish I was so that he would get his way. I really dont want to go back to that. And multiple people tell me that I was emotionally abused in this relationship. And I feel guilty because I feel I should still be protecting him. I dont know how to kick that pedestal over, stand up for myself and not fear the consequences.

[Craig]

...i keep getting reminded of this secret I'm keeping and why? Because my ex told me to keep it secret.

WTF??? You have no obligation to violate any personal standards you have for telling the truth AND be an accessory to his lying ways.

 

Dgiirl could this keeping his secret a manifestation of the power and control he has over you? Still.

[dgiirl]

I feel absolutely horrible. I feel the depression pulling me down fast, and I've been crying so much that my eyelids are poofy. And I know all the reasons why I shouldnt be crying over him. And I'm trying to play all the positive tapes and stop the negative ones, but I feel out of control right now. I feel like I'm being suffocated. I emailed our mutual friend and they said nothing important about it. So they must know, and he must still be with her, and that made me physically sick to my stomach. I look at myself in the mirror and I see the depression all over me. And I see such an ugly person with that depression on. A few weeks ago I was doing so well, and now i feel like I'm back at square one. Was I just fooling myself this whole year? How can I let go of this anger? How can I forgive him and let it go? How can I stop feeling sorry for myself? I feel absolutely worthless and I have no goals for my life. I have no energy to even want to do anything. I'm sinking into the darkness once again.

[witabix]

Hope you are ok dgirl.

 

Don't let this persons intolerable behaviour drag you down.

 

It is a hard place to be, I know, but you have to see the light. You must,for your own sake, remove the darkness and think about your own future.

 

Peace and love......

[Ladyjane14]

I feel the depression pulling me down fast....

 

 

Sweetie, that might be a chemical depression and have nothing to do with your divorce. See your doctor, please....and rule out physiological causes. Something as seemingly simple as PMS can make you feel like your whole world is a bad place.

 

Sure, you've got things left to grieve over regarding the marriage. But you're a smart girl and you KNOW that time will improve your outlook in that regard. You've got a great awareness of how the process works, and how relationships work in general. What that tells me is that there might be a separate cause for this sudden downward spiral.

 

Hang in there, kiddo.

[dgiirl]

I really want to thank everyone for your support and pms. I am feeling a lot better this morning, although I'm still down. But once again, I think LadyJane nailed it, mix pms with 4 days of lack of sleep mixed with news i didnt want to hear and stress about my house and you get a depressed dgiirl.

 

I did speak with my best friend last night and found out she got a job offer back in our home town, where I'm also planning to move once the house sells. Although I wont get what I want in terms of my marriage, I have to keep focusing on the fact that I'll be home soon with my family and friends, and I think that means more to me than anything in the world.

[Ladyjane14]

I'm glad you're feeling better today. That's good news.

It sounds like you've got a lot of good stuff to look forward to.

[kitten chick]

I wanted to respond to your thread yesterday dgiirl but I wasn't in a good place myself so I'm sorry for that. I'm really glad that you're feeling better today and you're looking forward to the positive things in your future.

[dgiirl]

I'm making an appointment with my therapist... i havent seen her in over a year, she's not even at the old place, but they're forwarding my number onto her, hopefully she'll call back soon. I dont know why I'm doing this, but everyone keeps telling me to go back into therapy, so I will. I'm scared she might put me on meds, or by the time I see her, i'll feel perfectly normal, or she'll just tell me things I already know. I dont want to go back into therapy but when 3 different ppl tell me I should go back, i guess i should go back.