YES YES YES

It sure is.

"Gaslighting" is just Passive/Aggresssive behaviour taken to extremes.

I'm ashamed I didn't post that myself.
Mulan

SB: so long as I'm phat, not fat...

WH had called earlier tonight while we were all gone, his name was on caller ID so I decided to do the "right" thing and tell the boys that dad called. DS11 was excited, and called WH over and over, even though the call kept dropping. Finally, WH got to a place where he could keep the connection and he talked to the boys for a total of about 20 minutes.

As I was walking around taking care of laundry, etc., I could vaguely hear WH's voice on the other end, chatting all happily.

I'm sure he's all patting himself on the back over what a GREAT dad he is for talking to his sons on the phone for 20 minutes. Aren't they LUCKY? Oh, BTW, WH took this opportunity to tell DS8 that the baby rat that DS8 had REALLY wanted to bring home, the one he first became attached to...well, she's dead.

Yep...like I said...lucky.

Mulan, WH actually said those incredibly hurtful and stupid things just after I was released. I mean the MORNING after. And he repeated them every once in a while if the whole "incident" ever came up.

I finally revealed the whole "incident" to my support group tonight...so it was pretty emotionally draining.

LS,

Wow these are very big holes he's blown in your heart. He sure knows how too inflict pain.

I am so proud of you for doing your plan B.

Do you feel any of your feelings diminishing here for him?

Your self esteem has been rising. Glad your mini break was pleasant!

Read your letter to CL. I really liked the honesty. Clears the air.

Psalm 55 is another comforting anchor. (Trust in God Concerning the Treachery of Friends.)

Vs 12: For it is not an enemy who reproaches me.
Then I could bear it.

Nor is it one who hates me who exalted himself against me. Then I could hide from him.

But it was you, a man my equal. My companion, and my acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together.

Sis, my WH has said sooooo many horrid things to me, and when I repeat them, those that have known or do know him are aghast. They cannot BELIEVE that he has said these things. I bought into them for so long, right up until Plan B really started taking hold, as it seems to be with you. Anger replaced much of my sadness.

I'm much more focused now. I don't talk to many about it outside of this forum, but I still hope that my M can be saved. I am also prepared for D. It's strange to be in both places at once, but I'm FINALLY there, peaceful. I'm much more proactive.

I didn't like this though



WHAT? You're not there for the boys. SAY WHAT? Um, I, uh, I'm URG, confused? I think you HAVE been there for the boys. Are you the one that walked away? Silent doesn't get it <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

Sis,

Sharing your story with your support group is HUGE! Great job! I know that can't have been easy for you, but it is a big step in letting it go!

Your facing the fear of what everyone "thinks", putting it out there and finding out that the hurtful things WS said about it are NOT true!

Despite being draining, I hope this help boost your Self Esteem! It's been grand to read and see how you are feeling so much better about yourself.

YOU are absolutely being a GREAT 100 Percent Mom. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise!

hey silent...the quote you pulled out was part of an email to my sister...who knows my mom in exactly the same way I do, so it was said with a virtual eyeroll. My mom tends to be very critical of us girls in whatever we do, including our parenting. She takes note that I'm not my "same old self" with the boys, that I am sometimes down, or a little short, not quite as cheerful as I used to be. My mom loves me, I know, but there's "always room for improvement!!"

Anyone else have a mom like that? (and love her anyway?)

I am relieved to hear, silent, that you also believed your WH's lies; that you were also a victim of that same form of manipulation. I think you hit on something...that the lies/manipulation becomes clearer now, in Plan B.

I must be getting stronger...I was able to lay it all out there with P. I was honest with CL. And tonight I reached out to one more person, a single cop who works with WH, for whom I did some contractual design work for a couple of years. He was the only one who called me after jail. The ONLY one.

So I called him, just to talk...he and I can be very blunt with one another, so I wasn't afraid to pull punches and I knew he wouldn't either. We talked for about 45 minutes, not so much about WH, but about spirituality, morality, choices, our responsibilites towards people who have extreme moral failings...anyway, it was a great conversation.

I asked him straight up how his opinion of me has been impacted by the incident, and he pretty much scoffed. Of course he wishes it hadn't happened, but he understood totally how it happened. That was another relief to me.

I do not like the fact that I take so much creedence in what others think of me. I do not like the fact that I am validated not by some internal barometer, but by the temperature outside. I think it is a weakness. I should just be able to love myself, knowing that I am loved by God.

skylite: Thank you for the reference to Ps 55.

Are my feelings diminishing? I think maybe? I have been reading IHC's thread with care because this is of great concern to me. Perhaps it is more that it's becoming easier to separate WH from H now that I don't see either of them, ever. It is becoming more and more clear that the man now in our presence is WH only; that H is gone gone gone.

The thing that most troubles me right now is the impact on the boys. I could deal with all of this if it were me alone. I am an adult. But the boys are innocent, they were brought into this world in love and with the expectation that they would be raised in a family with a mom and a dad who would love and protect them...not hurt them.

The lifetime impact on them is so painful to consider. Cop friend was saying this tonight...he's the adult child of divorce and is convinced that's why he's not married now, at 39. He could never trust, and it all goes back to his parents' splitting up.

It's all so ugly. I long for beauty in my life again...I mean the kind of beauty that is the first thing in my mind when I wake up....instead of the instant UGH that I feel now.

So are you ready to call your lawyer, do a "MIMI" and see what it takes to sell your house and move BEFORE the divorce is final?

Read up - Mimi sent the message without intending to "send a message" that she was DONE.

I realize there are a couple of difficulty points emotionally for you. First of all, you've said "you don't want them to win" when you talk of their daliance on the sofa. However, what you didn't say spoke louder to me - the loss of your father, and his involvement in helping you fix up the house. That's harder to let go of. Can you get some assistance from your IC to bring out the whole situation there so you can find some peace with moving on from that place of memories and torment?

I know you're probably not ready for this step yet - you don't need to be. But it's probably close to one of the next steps you take in reclaiming your self-worth, your peace of mind and your life.

Mimi is the Queen Goddess of this step - I read her progress as she put her house up for sale, sold it, bought a new place unsullied by her WS's stench and began her life from a total place of freedom! She knew that she did not have to take back a WS - he had to be gone for good before her husband was welcomed back into her life.

You mentioned you are reading the Psalms.

I found so much truth when I read Psalm 119, especially from The Message translation.

Here is a link for you, I hope you find some truth there you can hold on to.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm%20119;&version=65;

Kayla: You are correct, and I appreciate you understanding this and bringing it up. There are a lot of complicating, difficult and painful issues with regard to the house and the possibility of selling and moving on. A lot. It's just not that simple, not only realted to the divorce. It is my home, it is my children's home.

I have talked to my IC about my issues with a sense of "place." We moved a number of times when I was a kid, and I always experienced such a sense of loss. I have lived here, in this house, in this town, longer than I have lived anywhere in my life.

That raises another loss...the sense of roots that I finally established when I got married. WH has a large family, many cousins in town, and a family homestead up north where everyone gathers on Memorial Day. My family is dispersed everywhere, and I only have three cousins whom I haven't seen or spoken to in 20 years (and have no desire to). I only have one aunt....that's it. My dad's dead, and one sister lives in Japan and another is an 8 hour drive away.

I'm glad that you say I don't need to be there yet. There's a lot I need to deal with before I take that step. I can't deal with any more loss right now. I keep feeling the losses.

Sometimes it feels like so many losses that I will NEVER be able to deal with all of them.

LilSis,

Just a general question as I approach Plan B. Do you still miss your H ? Or does that get easier?

This is a hard thing for me to deal with... seeing him hug and kiss our children and our dog then turning around and leaving. I really miss him. Although I know in my head that he's not my H now. But my heart just won't go there.... maybe I need a heart transplant <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

I'm scared so very scared.... I know you were to but you seemed so ready when it happened. Do you still get scared. It's really hard to picture him not in my life.

Still

Sis - This reminds me of something my son once said to me. His first year as a firefighter they switch every 3 months to a different station. He really liked the first one he was assigned to and had heard some bad things about the next one he was going to be going to shortly.

He kept telling me - I know I am going to HATE it over there. Finally, I said to him -

Yep, you are right. You keep saying that you are going to hate it over there. And, you are right ~ you will

I wouldn't put your house up for sale just yet.
Not if your heart is still attached to the house AND Not if your WH has expressed interest in buying you out......that would only cause more problems.
follow your gut on this one.
when and IF you come to a point where you feel like you want out and you wan tto start new.......You will know it......but, for now, i think you should sit tight.

good morning.

Morning nia, still, carn.

Still: Yes, I desperately, desperately miss my H, but he's not ANYWHERE...not even in that body. I miss the good man, the admirable man, the honorable man, the man who would never have hurt me, who would have defended me. I thought that was the man that I married, but maybe he never really was. Maybe all the adolescent crap that we see now was always there and he was just pretending all those years, doing what he was "supposed" to do.

I would give anything to have THAT good man back, just for a while, just to help me get through this, just to hold me and tell me everything is going to be okay. But he is dead.

So to answer your question, it is YES.

I think you will find it MUCH easier, though, to be dark. I know EXACTLY what you mean. To see WH--this alien--hug and kiss OUR children (I mean mine and H's) is heartbreaking. It is like a stranger who gets to take my children away when he has no business doing so.

In Plan B, at least I don't have to witness it. I don't SEE the alien body and get confused because he looks and smells and sounds like my H, whom I miss so desperately.

Still, you will be okay in Plan B. I don't know how I would have gone to Plan B if I didn't have that "moment" when I knew I had to do it, though, so I don't know how to help you there. Daze told me once that I would know when the right time was...and I did...but I'm sure it's different for everyone. Sorry I can't help you more.

I know you are scared. I am, too. I don't think that goes away...it's just a different scared.

(((still)))

You are referring to the power of positive/negative thinking...correct? My head tells me that I can manage this, just like I manage everything in my life...any kind of challenge. Define the problem, develop a strategy for addressing it, and begin. Step by step. Work it.

What I'm feeling today, though, is the sheer magnitiude of the things that I have on my plate to deal with...I hardly know where to begin. The loss of my H, the D, the impact on the kids, the reality of this ugly WH who will be in my life forever, the potential of needing to get out of this house, the loss of my family connections to ILs, having to drive past the coffee shop (although as often as possible I avoid it), feeling the burden of raising the kids alone, how to manage child care when I go to full time...and on and on.

I know that I should deal with each one, one at a time. But I feel like it's this huge knot, and I keep teasing one thing out and it just leads right to another knot, I just throw up my hands in exasperation. Out of exhaustion.

My IC calls that resignation, and he pushes me to NEVER go there. If he hears it or sees it, he starts to challenge me, almost talking meanly, just to get my fight back up.

Sometimes the burden just feels too heavy, and I don't know how I will ever carry it to the finish line. My IC would say, "Stop it. Stop looking at how far away the finish line is and look back at how far you've come." But honestly, that doesn't make me feel any better, because I'm stil right here, right now and I want to be across the darn finish line!

Did anyone else feel that way?

I have to KEEP reminding myself that God is with me, helping me. But He feels so far away sometimes, and I can't really cry on his shoulder, and I can't get a hug from Him. And why to I have to keep reminding myself? Why don't I just feel His presence all the time like some people seem to? What's wrong with me?

My "anon" sponsor was pregnant when she found out her husband was cheating on her for the nteenth time. She had been a SAHM all of their marriage. Their oldest of soon to be 4 children was only 7.

I learned from her. During that stressful time, she couldn't kick him out; she didn't want to alert him and have him shut down the finances just yet. So she did just one thing as she could handle it. One day she'd take a file of papers with her to copy; those went in a safe place away from the house. One day while shopping, she bought new sheets for a new home and new bed that she one day planned to have - sheets he'd never had his wayward body in. Another day she bought a set of flatware. She got a credit card in her name only on another day. Started working on her credit. Bought nothing she didn't already need to run the household and would pay it off 5 days before the payment was due every month...

Then she read Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend. She started setting small boundaries; such as, "I will either wash your mugs or fill them the next morning but I won't do both." She defined what she would or wouldn't do; she didn't impose anything on him. She made him clean up his own mess from the nteenth affair - which cost him about $50k to fix. She was the one who taught me about the plexiglass wall - with all the garbage he threw at her landing on his side of the wall while she remained clean and spotless because his cr*p wasn't about her at all - the visual helped her remember that.

She worked on strengthening her body for the coming workout delivering that baby. She made arrangements for a birthing coach in case WS was still wayward.

She was preparing herself to eventually move on. But she didn't try to do it all at once - that would have put her into an emotional crisis that she didn't have the physical base to handle. She just said, "This is all I have to handle today". She really exemplified mastery of self-care.

I guess I have a lot to say this morning.

Something that I was wondering about as I reflected on my conversation with Cop Friend last night...and it also relates to Sadmo's thread about the carefree single life.

Sometimes I wonder if WH's behavior is not so much related to RT, it's just that he's decided he's done with being Mr. Responsible and wants to be a kid again. RT started it, RT gave him the "out," but now he's just enjoying the fact that he's single. Going out to the bar, hanging out with other cheaters, not caring about anything, not being a real father, taking off for Arizona because he "feels" like it.

That would answer the question of WHY he went to Arizona: because he COULD. Maybe he DOES hold the power in the relationship with RT. Maybe he's just an a$$ who allowed her to "drag" him into this lifestyle, and now that he's there, he LIKES it...which means that RT will be left in the dust, too, as she has kids and a house and all.

WH is just acting like an adolescent...plain and simple. Living at his parent's home. Going out. Doing what he wants. Coming and going. Just what I did when I was in college and for a couple of years after, when I had my first job, an apartment, and all my friends were single. Being thoughtless and self-absorbed and irresponsible...just like a 17 year old.

So what if it isn't the A? What if he's just totally regressed somehow? Is it possible for someone to have used the A as an escape hatch from adulthood, and choose to STAY there, even if the A ends? To live on forever in unreality?

After talking to Cop Friend last night and P last week...that was one thing I picked up on from BOTH of them in their comments about WH. They barely mentioned RT...to them, she's not nearly the issue...the issue for them is that WH has just turned his back on everything and everyone that had any value in his life so that he could play and have fun.

They view him as not so much an "adulterer," but as an adolescent. That he's cold and rude and glib...so totally, completely shallow.

Cop Friend said last night when I asked him about his opinion of me...he said there is a huge difference between someone who makes a mistake, acknowleges it, and works to make things right (me)...and someone who lies and decieves, acknowledges it when he's caught, and keeps right on doing it.

He could respect the first, but not the latter. No way. It speaks to "character," he said, or lack thereof. True, true.

So I guess it just really raised the issue for me...maybe RT isn't as much the issue as is his state of mind, his new "world view." In which case, it's probably some kind of psychological problem that MB principles won't address.

Anyway, just throwing that out there for consideration...and to sort of process on my own. I don't raise it in terms of its impact on me...I still feel like this course of action...a nice, dark, cozy Plan B...is the right thing for ME and MY recovery. It protects me from WH...whatever the root cause of his behavior is.

Reactions?

From Penalty Kill


Bingo. LilSis, I read your thread all the time and marvel at the ways in which you have grown in such a short time. I have had the feeling for some time now that your WH's actions are so much less about OW than they are about *him*. People change, and it's not always for the better. The A, IMO, is secondary to your WH's mindset which is all about regressing, living a free and easy and unencumbered life.

And he's even living in his parents' house, with little inclination to change that.


I don't think that RT is the issue, I wouldn't surprised to find out that she's been relegated to the periphery of your WH's new immature life.

You, on the other hand, taking care of your children, the house, receiving a promotion....wow. What a contrast.

Take care.

I have wondered about this also.
remember back when you gave him the first letter?....he had been spending quite a bit of time w/ you and the boys...but all on HIS terms....a few of us were beginning to feel that maybe it was cooling down w/ RT..... you even mentioned it.

it is all about HIM right now....the single life...the trip....and who knows...RT may be behaving the same way..... my SIL left her H for a man she had been having a n affair w/ almost a year.....they talke dabout marriage etc....he even got a vasectomy becuse she knew she didn't want anymore children.....and then after her divorce was final, things slowly started to fall apart....she regressed...it was like she went back to her HS days....partying and dating etc....eventually broke it off w/ the OM.

I think you may be on to something as well. That seems to be the situation in my case also. My now XH had a candidate in mind when he left, which apparently didn't pan out. But I guess he wanted a taste of all that green grass on the other side of the fence that was just waiting over there. For all the talk about how the kids were/are the most important thing in the world, he made no attempt for anything more than every other weekend with them. I often wonder if I married the imposter, or if the real H is just lost.

I have to admit to not reading VERY CLOSELY...

BUT..I still say that your WH is GARDEN VARIETY WS and you are GARDEN VARIETY BS...

I keep hearing for some reason..and I may be reading and hearing this WRONG..that you want to see your situation as being SPECIAL OR DIFFERENT...

WHY????

You have NOT faced ANYTHING that I have not faced..me and other BSes..I had to start working FULLTIME for the first time in 20 years..I was betrayed by friends...I had to start living my life ALONE..everything you have faced, Sis...I FACED...AND HAD TO DEAL WITH...

I want to throw in this..

TURNS OUT my H'S BEST FRIENDS were the very worst CONFIDANTES for me..turns out that they had their OWN ISSUES...ONE FRIEND(?) TOLD ME: "FACE IT...IT'S OVER"...

My H is no longer FRIENDS with them...We are making NEW FRIENDS....

They both encouraged me to DIVORCE HIM...

They both ended up being INTERESTED in ME...for themselves...YUCK...

I was AT RISK for having EAs with BOTH of them...

One of their wives who was one of my best friends no longer speaks to me..uncomfortable with her H's interest in me...

Be careful about your WH's friends....

I SAY HE'S MORE NORMAL THAN NOT....

and like you say..it makes no difference in terms of YOUR PLAN...