I don't know. Tell me. Apologize when he comes home Sunday evening? Shut my mouth in the future? I know I haven't done irrepairable harm...but I have to back up and stop the harm and move forward.

I need the words. And the actions.

Poor little thing....he tried to dry his eyes and he said, 'I'm looking forward to our trip to visit (my sister) in August. Aren't you? We will have fun right? What do you want to do most when we go to NYC?'

Your son is trying to make it all better for you. He's stuck in the middle.

I don't think you should keep quiet about what your xWH did wrong, but I do think the crying and any attempts of manipulation of your DS need to stop. Allow him to feel and react as he does.

You should apologize for your behavior, but not for believing what your xWH has done to your family is wrong.

Have you given your son permission to love his dad? It is important that he knows that he doesn't need to choose between the two of you. That you will ALWAYS love him.

You've been a huge help to me tonight. I've been sobbing...dried my face when I knew my parents were about to stop by..I'm dry now...and feeling some better.

I have a problem with when to stop. I am fine with the fact that I don't lie to my son about what happpened...I just don't know when to shut up. THAT is my problem. So until I can control myself a bit, I do just need to SHUT UP. SMile, bite my tongue.....smile some more, bite my tongue....hug my ds....and move on.

I did tell him I didn't think it would always be this bad.

I am thinking of writing XH a letter trying to call a truese. He has said things to ds he shouldn't have...discussing legal stuff and all that...I'd like us to both shut up and be more gracious...I'd like all the other junk to go away that is in that nasty letter from his attorney.

Don't know if that is a good idea or not.

Mostly I have. Today I sucked. Today I actually said, 'I wish you never wanted to see your dad again.'

Yeah, bad mother of the year.

NOPE HUMAN MOTHER OF THE YEAR.

IMVHO, it would be horrible to write to your XWH about not talking to your DS. Besides, how would you keep it under 5 words?

Seriously, SW. You need to get out of the drama and stop creating more. You have had a few bad days. My suggestion?(not that you asked for it). Get off of the computer and go DO something. Don't come back for a couple of days. Take some time away from THIS drama and focus on the things you CAN control. You CAN'T control your XWH and you can't control your DS.

GO HAVE SOME FUN. THAT'S AN ORDER.

Ok. I agree. Off the computer and on to real life.

Thanks all. Feel free to post....I will be back on Monday to post an update.

At A Gurl. GO LIVE.

Right on! Enjoy your weekend!

DO NOT WRITE TO YOUR xWH. Dark dark dark.

Smiles - did you download The Art of War and start reading it yet?

Mama Thunder gave you some tremendous caution and advice. This can always get worse and will unless you do some serious course correction.

Your son becomes the casualty of every open skirmish you have had with your WXH, and it will continue until you learn The Art of War. So it is imperative that you learn to fight your battles a different way so that you remove harm to your son as a consequence of you losing control. Especially because your intention is to protect him.

You misread his loyalty and love to his father as disloyalty and lack-of-love to you. And as a result you teach him to choose between two people he was wired from birth to love and be loyal to. You put that love into him from the womb.

As you gain control of yourself this weekend, it's time for you to become a new woman. You have exactly 1.5 days to do this.

When you apologize, you don't even bring up your son's father or OW or OW son. Instead you hold out your hand and tell your son that you are sorry for losing control of yourself and that it will not happen again - pinky-promise. And mean it and follow through.

Spend at least one hour a day investing in studying and practicing The Art of War. Supplemental books that teach mental toughness include "Excuse Me Your Life is Waiting" by Lynn Grabhorn, "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill, "You Were Born Rich" by Bob Proctor, "Working With The Law" by Raymond Holliwell" and "Toughness Training for Life" by Jim Loehr. In this order! AFTER you read and study "The Art of War!"

There's very little in these books that speak directly to the issues you are having with your x. Instead they talk about an emotional mastery that focuses the mind exclusively on what you want rather than on what you don't want.

I heard Tony Robbins tell it this way: If what you focus your attention on were a bungee cord that is connected to you physically and to that point of attention, you're going to get pulled toward it. If it's something you don't want with all your heart, the more passionately you don't want it, the more you are pulled into that vortex. Just like the further you stretch a bungee cord, the more powerful the snap back. You have to disengage the bungee cord from the "I don't want that" target and attach it to the target of "I want that".

If you will spend AT LEAST your first 30 minutes a day studying from these books and the Bible, and the last 30 minutes of the day as well. If you can give more time then do it. You are trying to retrain deeply deeply ingrained auto-responses to evil stimulus from your x. You HAVE to give this much attention to changing those auto-responses to something YOU CHOOSE because if you don't - and your subconscious mind fires an auto response you can't control because you haven't practiced, you WILL LOSE CUSTODY! You know that this is the inevitability of you not changing and I think that's what frightens you so much about what you did today.

You can do this. You were strong enough to say No to his abuse of your marriage last year (more than just the adultery); you can remove your buttons so far that he will never be able to push them again. That's the beauty of having an Art of War game plan.

I read your post twice and then again. I've downloaded A of W and will read closely in the a.m....

Called XH....he said they had just arrived and he let me talk to ds...he gave me the room number but I forgot to write it down...called back SEVERAL times....an hour later he answered and I spoke briefly to ds. Was cordial and kind to XH and especially ds both times....

I will get up in the a.m. and read Art of War....and my Bible...focus focus focus.

Thanks all.

Oh yeah.....suppose to be off here.

YES dear, you ARE.

Your son will be okay and he will be home Sunday. Do something to better yourself and for yourself between now and then. NOW GIT.

SW, Hopefully you are not peeking to see the advice till Sunday.

You are too emotional to either speak/write to your XH or your son.

I think if you start another conversation with your DS even to apologize it will get out of control.

Be still.

When DS comes home.

Only question you may ask? Did you have fun.

Only listen. tune out anything about XH.

Don't ask about sleeping arrangements, don't ask for every detail.

Otherwise it will be a no win situation for your son. Only be concerned for your son's well-being instead of the A between XH and the OW.

You do not want your son worrying about you why he is with his father. You don't want your son to feel guilty because he still loves his POS XH.

Make a point to tell DS about something fun YOU did even if you have to embellish.

Have a smile and funny story ready. Pretend you are picking him up from a friends house.

You can do this

Neaksis is down from MT to help me pack for our move in a couple of months. She read this over my shoulder and said, "That's BIG Mama Thunder to you!"


This is what I worry about. The conversations described may start out with emotional control, but they very quickly devolve. Unless you can say, "I'm sorry I got so upset on Friday, OK?" and then immediately get off the subject, I think you should not bring it up until you're sure you can keep a handle on your feelings. And whatever you say, whenever you say it, should be short, to the point, about YOU (not him or his dad). The pinky promise is a nice touch.

tl

Good Morning, SW.

Did you know God's mercies were new every morning?

Yup, says so right here...

"This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is Thy faithfulness."
- Lamentations 3:21-23

Love that verse!

God's compassion is new every morning. They are fresh in our lives every day. They are in full strength. They do not deteriorate, spoil or go stale.

AND, the Bible says He is RICH in mercy.

What a wonderful thing to be rich in, huh? I'd rather serve a King who was rich in that than rich in anything else.

Have a great day!

SW, your child is learning that his mom has no boundaries with him. you are going to cause damage to the boy that he will have to get 20 years of therapy for.

You have been dealing with your ex for a year now yet you still react in infantile ways and then the son cannot have a MOTHER, he has a person with no boundaries that he has to live with.

Please get a hold of yourself for your precious son's sake. If you have to tell yourself to accept the other woman and welcome her seeing your son, then it would be better than what you are laying on your son every day and every hour.

It is not just about YOU AND YOUR FEELINGS> It is about the son having a mentally healthy home to be raised in. So keep your home mentally healthy and act like the ADULT that you are and quit whining and crying. Be glad you are away from that husband and start discovering boundaries between you and the son.

Next, that poor son will become a "substitute husband" for you. He already is that in many ways. You are going to turn him dysfunctional and you will not even realize it when it is happening.

It is happening now, can you see it?

Please get a hold of yourself, get some IC, get this resolved in your mind so you can quit laying it all out on your young son. He has had years of this garbage, why should he put up with 4 or 5 more years of it.

Please help yourself cope maturely to every situation so you can be an effective mom for that precious boy.

SW,


I've been very busy for a few days.

I can see that you have been busy, too.



Read back thru the posts, to about Wednesday. There is plenty of back and forth between yourself and yourself (no typo there) about your

EX

and what he is up to
what he is thinking
why he is doing what he's doing

and all the rest.


I think I know why.


You are at about one year post d-day.

At about this point, the whole deal comes back at you, with a vengeance. Doesn't matter if you are married, in Plan B, separated, trying to reconcile, working on a great recovery plan, or anything else.

Still seems to be about the same reaction with every BS, at about a year or so - give or take - after d-day.


We get angry, we return to that hurt place, we return right back to that place where it all began, to that moment of discovery and that point at which our life crumbled and would never be the same again.

An anniversary date that hits hard that first year around. Very hard.

For you, there are some extras involved that many on the boards aren't necessarily dealing with. Your husband and you divorced rather quickly, yours was a long marriage, and now the OW and he are still in your face on a regular basis due to the fact that you and the XH have the custody sharing deal.

You cannot get away from him, in any real sense.

The fact is that whether you stayed with him, or separated from him, or divorced him, you would still be going through the same phases of "recovering" from the affair. The same sorts of feelings, the same kinds of timelines - the anniversaries are the same, in many senses of recovery, as if you had remained together and tried to reconcile. I hadn't caught that at first, but now I that I have, I can see why there is an upturn in the drama factor, and the heightened concern added to the situation that you are in (that isn't to say that your situation doesn't already have enough factors to consider!).

So, HOW do you get yourself past all of this?

And HOW do you get yourself back to - what passes for "normal"? At least to where you can find yourself not losing it emotionally with ds, and how do you repair what happened before the trip with ds?

next post.

SB

First, how to repair what happened with ds.

My advice is to keep it simple. Your ds spoke words of wisdom when he asked you about your upcoming trip to New York. What he was trying to do was tell you that


He loves you AND his father. That he is in the middle, that he understands what has happened between the two of you. And, that he has to have

both of you in his life.

He cannot CHOOSE one over the other.

He was asking you to see the balance - that he is GIVING of himself to his father by going on the trip with him

and

ALSO to you by going to New York.


He wants you to see that. He asked you to see HIS sacrifice. He knows what the OW and his father have done, he sees your pain, and he completely understands the situation.

He also knows he is in no position to control it. The choice he has made is to try to deal with it by "making" you happy, and his dad happy - by doing what each of you ask him to do....comply with trips, visitations, meet other people, try to understand the points of view of each parent. Lots to ask of a kid his age. And he is doing a great job of it.


So, now, your job?

To tell him that he has done a good job, and that YOU won't ask him to do it anymore.

Your end of the pressure cooker will be eliminated - as of the apology.

You say:

"The other day before your trip I was completely wrong when I said I didn't want you to ever see your Dad again. I shouldn't have said that. I was angry, upset, and just plain weak. Sometimes when people are feeling this vulnerable they say things they do not mean, and then regret saying them. This is one of those times, and I do regret saying it. Please know that I did not mean it.

I also want to let you know that I am working harder on not being as emotional regarding my relationship with your father. My plans are to get better at working through things with him so that your life can be more pleasant and happier. My goal for us is to have a strong relationship with one another, and for you to be able to one day be a healthy, independent adult. I'm sorry I was so emotional, and I don't plan to do that again."



Don't go into "why" you lost control, justifying it, explaining the situation, none of that. You don't need to. Just tell him that you plan to STOP IT.

And then


STOP. IT.

SB

SW,

How do you get back to feeling "normal" after the affair????


1. Time. It just takes time. You are past the one-year mark, just barely, and that means the rollercoaster and flashbacks will begin to level out. But you are also dealing with a divorce, which means you have to deal with the ride that throws in the works, too. Time brings about some help, but you have to expect to ride it out.

2. Time for yourself. You have to build in time to grieve, time to focus, time to pamper, time to just be free, time to do the things you enjoy, and time to not do anything at all. This is hard to do, but if you look at your day in terms of 10 minute slots, you can find those little minutes and use them - for YOU. I found that if I put away a few little "times for me" and used them, I felt better at the end of the day, even if those times were only 10 minutes!

3. Time to be angry. This one seems loony, but hear me out. I got over being angry by focusing on BEING ANGRY ON PURPOSE. Yep. It seemed like I spent lots of time drifting off and finding myself getting angry about the affair. So, I set aside "time to be angry", and sat myself down and said, "Okay, now, focus on the affair. Think about the affair right now, and get your MAD ON." Funny, but it was HARD to get angry when I focused on it, but EASY to do when I was drifty. After a week or so of "time to be angry" and focusing my anger on the affair, that anger level tuned wwwwaaaayyy down. I spent my anger bucks fast.

4. Tune down the drama. I found that I spent a lot of time focusing on talking and thinking "affair". For you, it seems you spend lots of time talking and thinking about the WXH/OW relationship, custody, visitation, etc., and how this has impacted your life. The contacts with WXH then escalate because the emotional level within you is already primed because of the thought process that has taken place prior to the contact. In other words, you have anticipated much of the emotional content - even before WXH contacts you. You are emotionally charged before the contact takes place - and therefore read into his contact your ready emotional state, and respond with defensiveness or anger, or whatever state you have predetermined.

It is a no-win situation, because you may not actually "read" his communication correctly, given the pre-primed emotional state you are in.

Thus, to dial down the drama, you must reduce your contact and communication level with your WXH. It is the only way you will be able to dial down the emotional priming that is happening with you.

The less you see of him, the less contact you have with him, the less you will THINK ABOUT HIM. This should reduce the emotional charge inside of you, and therefore help your state of mind regarding visitation schedules, furniture issues, and the like.

Once you are indifferent towards him(more or less), you can return to a more casual interaction level, and you will find yourself much more in control.

In the return drama with WXH. And he, the drama queen, is thriving on it. You are meeting an emotional need for him, and you need to stop. It is draining YOU. It is hurting YOU (and ds).


5. Change the way in which you play the game with WXH. Look at how ds is dropped off, picked up, etc. If you can have someone else do it, then change things. DS can certainly walk himself from car to door, he is old enough, and you can watch from window (flash the porch light, good idea, my girls did that for their dates in bad weather). Keep emails VERY SHORT - reword everything - think TELEGRAM.


6. If you must talk to him on the phone, and he begins to yell, you say, "I called to speak about X. If you wish to yell I will hang up. Do I need to hang up?" If he continues to yell, remind him calmly. On the third try, say CAALMLY, "Please call me to to talk about X when you find no need to yell at me. I will be most happy to talk then. Let me know when you are ready. Good-bye, WXH." And HANG UP.

Follow up with a polite email: "Let me know when you are ready to talk calmly about X. It was difficult for me to be yelled at, but when you are ready, I'd be happy for you to try again. Sincerely, SW" Puts him on notice that you have it in writing, that you are not going to be yelled at, and that he is in time-out...also that HE has to let YOU know when the time is to talk again. Not your issue anymore.


7. Control. One of the hardest things to learn was that I only controlled one person in the relationship - and that was myself. There were many times that I thought I didn't even control myself (like, I lost control a lot!), but I learned over and over that if I just controlled my actions, my reactions, and my message, I could handle ANYTHING.


Control your actions, your reactions, and your message.




SB