It's get better!!

PBL? What the heck is that? Peanut butter and lettuce. That sounds nasty! How about EHM. Eggrolls and hot mustard! Now that is worth celebrating.
Plan B is to detach to retain what love is left. Plan B is a step away from the chaos and destruction. Plan B is for the time to mend your heart and become the strong YOU!

RT -

Hey - way to go!! See, you CAN do this too!!

Now, can you get it arranged so he is only contacting you through an e-mail or letter? Hearing your voice most likely gives him a bit of a fix.

RT's SAGA


OK, I've finally written my story up! Just thought I’d post it for the record. It’s LONG, but here goes:


Everything seemed to happen out of the blue. When I say “out of the blue”, I know exactly what that sounds like. Every time I’ve heard that phrase applied to relationship breakdowns in the past, I’ve thought, “Out of the blue? Nothing comes out of the blue!” So yes, I know it must have been coming, for a couple of months, but the force of this, the destruction, the totality of it, as taken both of us by surprise.


First, you a potted history of our relationship. WH and I have been what I can best describe as passionate best friends. I’m challenging to live with: fiery and hopeless at resolving conflict. Because my mother believed that crying in front of your husband was manipulation, I grew up believing the same, so that whenever WH hurt me, I either lashed out, or withdrew, or both. WH used to be a wonderful person, warm and open, but has also been challenging to live with: he has a very demanding job, where he has had to put me and the children second, if not in his heart, at least in actions. He’s had many crises throughout his life, and I used to joke that he’s been having a midlife crisis every year since we met. But despite that, there’s been a lot of forgive-and-forget, love, intimacy, support, and belief in each other and the relationship, and of course the family as a whole. We had strong convictions about the importance of marriage and families. Our children are living testament not just to our love for them, but our love for each other. People often commented on how close and affectionate we were. So yeah, we were both pretty smug in our relationship. We also said that we’d never, ever let things get to the stage where we couldn’t work them out.


In the past couple of years, WH went out on his own and opened his own business. He’s busier than ever, putting in tremendous hours and effort, and as always, getting personally involved with just about everyone who walks in the door. But a couple of months before he left, I started to notice him withdrawing, which he’s done many, many times in the past. Spending less and less time at home and with the children, not talking to me much, and he was ultra-tired (he suffers from sleep apnea so I’m understanding of him in this). He seemed down. He didn’t seem to be enjoying anything much. He was spending most of his time at work. But this time there was something different: he was not including me in business decisions, or in the paying of our household bills, or even telling me much about his day, I just felt more and more unnecessary. I was hurting like I’d never hurt before, but I did what I always do: I lashed out occasionally, and withdrew. Major LB’ing. (Although granted, there were periods of closeness during this time. We still made love, and went for walks, something we find very unifying. As a matter of fact on one of these walks, we were talking about the marriage breakup of a couple we know, and once again we discussed how we always said we’d work things out if they got unbearable. I said to him, “Is there anything about our marriage that you’d like to change?” and he replied, “I wish the dog wasn’t allowed inside the house.” When I told him I was serious, he said no, everything was to his satisfaction.) This situation continued for weeks, and finally, those last three weeks, things became unbearable. We weren’t friends any more. He wasn’t drawing closer to me, I wasn’t drawing closer to him, I was rude. When he said, “I love you”, I’d say, “No you don’t. You don’t spend time with me, you don’t listen to me, so what exactly do you love?” There are probably other things I cannot recall. I know I was beastly those three weeks, and hold myself entirely responsible for my actions. Finally, when things got nowhere, I gave an ultimatum: “I’m leaving”.


When he asked me what I hoped to achieve, I said, “I need some distance. I need to regain some sense of control. Then maybe we can get some help.” And he said, “I’ll have to think about it.” That made me see red! I felt he was controlling everything, and now HE had to think about ME leaving? I stewed over it for a couple of days, and gave him an ultimatum. I either left, or we got divorced, and I’d take the children away, and I was giving him a couple of days to think about it. Horrible, horrible things, I know. A couple of days later, we had a huge fight, and I pushed him, and pushed him, and when he was about to say “I love you”, I gave him the same old spiel, but this time I added, “You don’t love me, do you? Why can’t you just say it?” And he did. And he said it was over.


It killed me. You see, for whatever has happened, we have always said we’re the love of each other’s lives. And then what did I do? I backpedaled as fast as I could, of course, bloody idiot that I am, to try to fix things. He told me that my withdrawal was the worst thing I ever could have done to him. It is abuse, and for me to ask him to come back was like asking him to live with his abuser. I pleaded, pleaded, and pleaded. I promised to put the behavior behind me. And although after a few days he admitted that yes, he does love me (“Although it’s not the same”), the answer was no: not for me, not for him, not for the children, not for the family unit, not for anything, not with counseling, not with anything. I don’t know how, but finally, I extracted a promise that by virtue of the twenty years we’ve spent together, and because of the children, he would go, but think about things while he was gone and see whether he really did want to end the relationship.


Those first few weeks I still pleaded, still entreated, gave him all the reasons why he should come back, but something strange was happening: he was revising history. Suddenly, he was saying that I have been making him feel about himself for twenty years, that I had NOT been a good wife. That the children don’t need me, and they’d be fine without me. All the promises I made, he said, “They’re everything I’ve waited to hear for twenty years, but they come three weeks too late.” Despite him saying that we’re best friends, he started behaving like a real jerk, jumping down by throat for any little thing I said, finishing my sentences without knowing actually what I was going to say, devaluing every opinion, getting this little smirk on his face when I was opening my heart to him, and many other things which are just too hurtful to recount. We’d decided we’d have two family nights together per week, to keep some sense of closeness with the children, but his attitude, his body language, his everything, it was so clear he didn’t want to be here, despite the children. Fifteen days after he left, he said to me, “I’ve been visiting old girlfriends, trying to rekindle old relationships”. This amazed me – and tortured me inside – but I put it out of my mind.


In the end, I had to shut up, basically. He told me that I made him feel manipulated when I talk to him, and I had to leave him be if he was to make the proper decision about coming back. So I did. What did I do for the rest of the time? I worked on myself. Hard, hard soul work, making changes, taking care of myself emotionally, spiritually and physically while maintaining a normal life for the children. Things at home began to get better: there was a good spirit here rather than the oppressive, “Dad’s gone, mum’s going nuts” spirit of before. I was hopeful that WH would feel this when he visited, and begin to crave it. I was loving, friendly, and warm towards WH, not pressuring him in any way.


But things didn’t change. On a trip away for a specialist appointment for S10, he broke the news: he wasn’t coming back. And he said EXACTLY the same things he said when he left: that he didn’t trust me, and had no reason to trust me. That he was protecting “little WH” from me. Rather than concentrating on what we have, he just kept going back and back to everything that had gone wrong during our life together. He made it sound hellish. He said I’ve spend twenty years making him feel bad about himself, that he DIDN’T know I love him and want him in my life, could see no evidence of it. When I said he was being selfish, he smirked and said, “Sorry!” When I said that he was putting himself ahead of the children and the family, he was so offended! And he went on to say that the children were not a consideration, because his psychologist (who has no children, by the way) said children suffer more in a home where the parents are unhappy with each other. He said he’s felt alone for the past seven years or so, which was news to me. And he was nasty. He would NEVER come back. Why – people down at the street had stopped him and said, “I don’t know how you stood living with her!”


A little while after that, WH had an episode I can only describe as insane. He became irrational and took it out on me and ALL our three children. We were left quivering and frightened, but it was suddenly obvious that this wasn’t just about the marriage. There was something else going on. A professional suggested MLC, and I would have fobbed the idea off if it hadn’t been a professional, because my idea of MLC was something that happened to superficial jerks and it involved a blonde bimbo, a sportscar and a toupee, right? Wrong. I studied up, and lo and behold: this was my WH, following a script, to the letter.


A month later, he reveals the existence of an OW: “just a friend”. An old friend, she rang him up, shocked, when she heard we’d separated, he said. She was helping him through his “grief”, he said. Nothing had happened yet, he said, but it looked like the relationship would develop. I hadn’t met his needs, and now he was going to have someone who did, he said. I reacted fine. I told him I didn’t judge him. But I treated our meeting like an interview. What made him think he could begin a new relationship before the old one was finished. He said that he’d considered our marriage over the minute he walked out the door. I told him what he thought he could give another woman’s children when he didn’t make time for his own. I told him there was no room for a third person in a marriage. I asked him to stop seeing her. He didn’t reply, just got this little smile on his face. I was devastated, but I kept on keeping on. He began parading her in town straight away.


During all of this, since I decided to “shut up”, I took the high road. I was loving, warm, friendly, and light in our everyday convos. I decided that anger and bitterness would have no place in me, and I would act accordingly. When he’d left and told me his reasons, I was able to see through the pain to where he had a point, and set about making the changes. Changes he refused to see, or trust, but that wasn’t the point of them. I truly wanted to become a better person, with or without him. I suppose this was my Plan A, before I knew anything about it.


Things went on. Even though he was short-tempered on occasion, I set boundaries and learnt not to address “the man in the black hat” and only addressed WH when he was normal, and polite. The normal and polite person began to make more and more of an appearance. Our communication increased. I was able to open up a dialogue about MLC and IMS, and he was receptive. He was suspicious, and took any of my attempts to help him as a ruse to lure him back into our marriage, but I assured him that I wanted to help him because I love him and care about him, not because I have any vested interest.


Then, something happened. On our 20th wedding anni in October, I decided to write him a love letter. It was an open heart surgery of a letter, and I put a lot of time and thought into it. I gave it to him that morning. That night, I was at the supermarket picking up a few things, when I see him at the end of an aisle. Good, I thought, I’ll be able to say hello. I round the corner… and he is talking and laughing to a young woman, blonde, pretty. I say hello, and he introduces me to the OW. He was spending the night of our 20th anni with the OW! To this day I don’t know how I managed to nod and smile. I walked out of there, barely aware that my legs were moving. I paid for my purchases, without my brain working. I drove home, and amazingly didn’t run off the road. I got home… and collapsed. D18, who was there, said that I “made a noise like a wounded animal”. She rang him up and called him a “f*****g a**hole”, yelling things that I was too boggled to process. I thought I was going to die from the pain. Somehow I slept and made it through the night.


The next day, on the way to the city, I get a phone call from WH. He says, “I want to apologize for last night. I told OW that it was our anniversary, and I didn’t want her to visit me that day [she lives 1 1/2 hours away and visits are usually overnight], but she rang after I’d read your letter, and I was crying and couldn’t stop, so she decided to come and stay and help me through it.” I laughed, but still thanked him for his honesty and apology.


A few weeks later, it was D18’s graduation. He behaved like an absolute JERK. He barely made an effort to be anything other than a sad sack. He kept going outside for fresh air because he felt "sick", and inside, did a lot of texting (the OW, I assume - who else? He never used to text anyone). Then he refused to have a photo taken with his daughter. He had one dance with her, and left without saying goodbye to me or anyone at the table. And even though I was just lovely all night, soon after he leaves, I get the following text: “Can’t believe what an idiot i was to put up with so much s**t for such a long time. Thanks. Hated every minute tonight."


Since then, he’s been an absolute nightmare. With hindsight, I've come up with a theory: what I believe happened is that the OW felt incredibly threatened at the letter I sent him and the fact that he had feelings for me there there, and decided to step up her efforts and move from a supportive role to that of lover and wife, and that's where the PA began. (Not excusing WH's behvaiour, but she's a definite predator. Her first H left HIS first wife and children for her when she was 17 y.o.) This, to me, is what caused the change in behavior in those few weeks between our anni and the graduation.


And although my behavior has been exemplary all this time, I didn’t take his behavior at the graduation lying down.


After that text message, I rang him back. He tried bringing up the past, and I was assertive, and he hung up on me. I rang him back, he answered, and hung up on me again. So I went to his place, and we had it out. For over an hour at his front door we had it out. I didn't get angry, but I was in an assertive, logical place. He, on the other hand, was all over the place. I stood up for myself, set boundaries again, and felt very empowered. Here he was, supposedly "moved on", and we're supposedly not together anymore, forever and ever, so what was he doing bringing this stuff up? He thought it was perfectly within his rights to express the anger he suppressed for twenty years! I told him he gave up the right to express any anger at me the day he gave up on our marriage. He insisted he did, I gave him a kind of "What UNIVERSE do you live in that this is acceptable?" reply, and after a lot of back-and-forth, the "DO NOT TRESPASS" sign was up. I told him next time he was angry and wanted to take it out on someone, that he should ring up the OW and be rude to her instead. It's her job now. He said he couldn't blow up at her. I said, "Who are you pretending with? You're either pretending to her that this is not you, or you're pretending to me that it is. So what is it?" He had no answer.


He’s been so nasty since then – ringing up for no reason, just to blow up, and taking offence at ANY little thing I did, even when it doesn’t concern him – that I had a couple of “I’m sick of your crap” moments. At no point did I get nasty, but I was assertive, and I told him exactly what I thought about the situation, and about our marriage from my side of things. A month or so ago, I wrote him a LONG letter (8 pages!) which was designed to bring me closure. I rang him up and read it to him, and then e-mailed it to him for good measure. While he took the letter in his stride at the time, bits that he was offended at have been coming out in conversation ever since. I felt I was doing the right thing at the time, but now I have to wonder whether the letter and things I said destroyed the good work I did all these months. (Though sense tells me probably not. Even when I was behaving beautifully, he STILL got angry, for no reason anyone could see.)


Last thing was on the 24th of December, when WH was unspeakably nasty because I refused to allow him to play happy families with S10, he and the OW on Christmas day. He was so nasty (details elsewhere in other posts) that I knew I had to retreat away from him as fast as possible. On the 25th of December, I saw him at church; gave him a kiss on the cheek, wished him Merry Christmas, and left. In the couple of days after that, I contacted him through email about the children and finances; rather than email me back, he would ring. Shortly after THAT, I found this site, found out about Plans A and B, discovered that I've unwittingly been following Plan A all this time, and decided to implement Plan B straight away. I sent him the letter through e-mail on 30 December.


I knew I had to cease contact with him, for my self preservation as much as anything else: since this woman has come into our lives, his guilt makes him strike out at me, and so it’s clear that contact is impossible while she’s in the picture, although I’ve tried. Indeed, I think guilt hit him straight away because of the THOUGHTS of adultery he had from the beginning, after all, he started seeking solace in other women with his “visiting old girlfriends, trying to rekindle old relationships” just a couple of weeks after leaving.


From day to day, I veer from hope to despair. As far as my marriage goes, that is. I have no doubt that I’ll come out of this far better than I went in – already this is true, such is my personal growth – and there is a purpose to all of this.


And that’s my story. If you’ve read this far, full marks for stamina!