Absolutely. That's exactly how you should let him know the door is open if he just happens to look.

It's a bank deposit.

How old is your H?

I'm just wondering. My ex is involved with a really young guy. I feel he'll be less enthusiastic about things when he has to deal with the instant family and the responsibility of taking care of 3 toddlers. The crying, pooping, yelling, laughing, breaking, throwing, and all the other wonderful sounds of kids are a lot more grating on a person when they're not their own kids.

Who knows. I don't want to thread jack. Feel free to check my thread out if you want to throw in your two cents.

Keep your door open to him. I think you did it well.

Afterall, this is the father of your children and someone you did not choose to walk away from but who walked away from you.

Personally, the idea of reconciling with my ex is a bit repulsive to me right now. It would be like choosing to wear someone else's dirty underwear, if that makes any sense.

But years have passed for you and you guys have had a very amicable relationship.

How did you get past the feelings of anger and betrayal towards him?

I have a hard time imagining getting to that point with my ex.

He's 42, he'll be 43 in the fall. I'll turn 40 tomorrow *gulp*.

He was involved with a 35-year old with 2 kids, 2 different dads, one XH that I know of (first child) and my DD is quite sure she had a 3rd child (between the 2 she had with her) that lives with her father. DD gathered this from conversations with GF's 10-year old daughter, referring to her sister. That child is also an aunt - she told me about her niece once so I presume that her father was much older if he had a child old enough to have children. GF and each child have different surnames. (Confusing...).

I got past the anger. That's my nature. My mother's family has had feuds going on for generations, and I just decided that life is too short to walk around with a chip on my shoulder - I've seen how destructive that can be. That and my own parents divorced - my father is a serial cheater on his 3rd marriage - the last one has stuck for over 20 years now, so I guess he finally found "the one" (I can't stand her she helped him purge his own kids from his life, but that's another post...).

He's a good man. He did some stupid things. He didn't have his depression diagnosed or treated til after we split, and in hindsight, a lot of what went wrong between us can be chalked up to behaviours that the depression "encouraged" and both of us handling it badly because we didn't know how.

Now, as friends, we handle things much differently. When he had a "bad day" before, he'd make me think it was my fault, and I couldn't fix things, I'd push him to tell me what I'd done wrong (because I hadn't done anything "wrong") and we'd fight.

NOW that he understands his depression, he's on the right meds for it and has been for about 2 years (one year of trial and error to find the right medications), and he can recognize a "bad day" and own it. If he's in a mood and I ask him what's wrong, he'll simply tell me he's having a day, I'll ask if I can do anything, he says no, and I let him be to process it on his own. He no longer blames me for his mood, so I don't feel like I have to fix something, and I don't push him to tell me what's wrong because it may not be anything specific. I offer support, but most often he just needs time to get past it himself, and I give him that time and space to do so. No fight, no blame, no problem.

If only we'd known this 10 years ago. I think the EA he had (during our time in MC) wouldn't have happened, as well as the other crappy stuff he did that eroded the M and depleted both our love banks. He hated himself, he hated me, I hated him, hated myself... it was a horrible mess.

Shortly after we separated he shared an email exchange he had with his mother, and he owned all that stuff. He didn't spell it out in detail but he admitted that the depression was the root cause of our issues. He never told me directly, just shared that communication with me. At the time I was too angry and hurt to see that as an olive branch - wish I had - but I do think that we've both *had* to take the journeys we have taken, to learn some hard lessons in life. At least that's how I feel about me. Now that I've seen for myself that the grass isn't greener, I can better appreciate the *good* in him, and the good in our relationship. I am praying that he sees this too.

It's kind of hard to explain, but that's the best I can do. I love him. I married him for life. Things went wrong, and I went into defensive mode because I had to. At the time of the D, I wrote to him and told him that this wasn't the outcome I wanted (I filed - to protect my kids and myself from the irresponsible stuff he was doing at the time), and it was the right choice at that point in time. I tried to reconcile before it was final, but he wasn't ready to hear it.

I figured that I'd do what I had to do to protect the kids, myself and our business, and IF at some future point it was reconcilable, I'd be open to it. Told him that then - but I don't know if he remembers this. I don't know if he even still has the capacity to forgive it all and try again - but that's what I'm trying to explore now.

When it was good, it was VERY good. We built a good life, a decent home, and we have two of the most awesome kids that God has ever blessed a family with. It could be all that and more again... IF he wants it. That's the big IF.

JinGA

Many of your feelings are reflections of what I have felt about my ex. The difference is that I still have very tender and exposed nerves and am vulnerable to triggers. I had one last week.

She battles depression as well and I feel she has unfairly placed her depression on me. She blames me for the unhappiness in our marriage. I did the best I could. I wasn't perfect, but none of us are. I've owned up to my faults and promised to work on them, but she felt they couldn't be fixed.

I looked past all her flaws and accepted them and simply settled for how she was and chose to behave. There were many things that were LBs for me, but I simply accepted them as the reality I had to live with because she was my wife. I have no idea if this would have taken its toll over years and made ME vulnerable to an affair years down the road.

She has many unresolved issues. There's childhood abuse she's never received treatment for and it has had a very definite and observable impact on her and her perceptions of relationships and marriage. She had cancer as a teen, which left scars of their own. I'm sure that it is horribly traumatic to go through that as a teen, right in the middle of some of the most vulnerable years of your life. She never had a normal teenage existence.

She lived these teen years the moment she decided to end our marriage. Suddenly it was ok to leave the kids at home and go clubbing and partying. She did this for a few months and thought it was acceptable behavior for a mother of 3 kids.

Now she has a boyfriend. She believes the grass will be greener with him. He's young. He's 25. They are playing house right now. I expect he will hang in there for a while and give it the old college try. I expect an engagement in the next few months and a possible marriage down the road. But what is the reality for him? He'll have an instant family with three kids that aren't his and a wife who will expect him to be constantly romantic with no expectation for her to be the same way towards him. She'll lay the burden of affection and romance at his feet.

I can see this as being very draining on a young man. 3 kids are hard to take care of when they're your own. I can't imagine dealing with the chaos and noise when they're not yours.

I could be wrong, and he is her knight in shining armor who will love her and our kids as his own and be a great step dad who will be able to be romantic with her 24/7 and keep her happy. I live in the real world, though, and am skeptical. I'm sure he'll give it a shot, but he's awfully young to take on such a burden.

I'll admit that I want her to be on the receiving end of what she put me through. I want her to know that pain so she can empathise with what she put me through and quit accusing me of being crazy for expressing my hurt.

Your ex is on the receiving end now. He may be seeing things he didn't see before. He is now in his 40s. I expect my ex to one day see the same thing, probably in her mid 30s.

Me? I've learned huge lessons from this. I've learned how normal women act in marriages and my ex isn't it at all. I can see now how codependent our relationship was. I can see how dependent she was on me for her own happiness. I can see how insecure she really was and really is. I can see that she hasn't resolved these things and this man she's with now will disappoint him. The little I know about him tells me that he is basically a version of me, only 10 years younger. He's ethnic, educated, and likely a good guy. I'm sure she thinks he's leaps and bounds better than me, but that is amnesia and fog at work. She forgets she loved me very much once. She forgets she wrote me a love letter just months before her infidelity where she told me how her love for me was so deep it was indescribable. She can't see that going from making statements like that to suddenly not loving me and not wanting to have to do anything with me is abnormal. To run from a marriage with three kids and not even make an attempt at marriage counceling is not normal.

She's quit everything she's ever done if it presents any kind of challenge. She quit college. She quit the school progam I signed her up for. She quit attempting to breast feed because it was slightly challenging. She quit our marriage. Quitting is acceptable and normal for her whenever anything becomes challenging.

I'm the opposite. I don't know when to quit. I keep at it until I persevere. It's a great trait to have when it comes to jobs, school, and things outside of relationships. It is a bad trait when in an abusive relationship.

I don't mean to thread jack and I'm sorry if you feel I am. I just see myself in your shoes years from now after she's had a few more failed relationships or a failed marriage. The difference is that I expect to be happily moved on myself and in a healthy marriage of my own. That's what I'm hoping for anyways.

Good luck to you. I hope he has found the maturity he needs to find and that he will lay his demons down for good.

Transparent yes, but not necessarily a bad move. I have been reading through your thread Jin and I am holding out some hope for you guys. Not just that he'll be receptive to an R, but that he will be willing to do the work necessary to make it successful. Can I assume that you aren't merely looking for things to return to how they were before?

That said, I have a suggestion regarding the "ILY" slip from a couple of weeks ago. While some folks' first reaction might be to ask why he said "ILY", perhaps you can instead ask him why he apologized for it. That might clarify just what kind of a slip it was, if it was indeed a slip at all. Was it just an old habit that he hadn't quite broken based on environment and time of day? It's possible that he wanted to throw it out there, and then chickened out before he even got the reply.

Regardless of the answer, I think he has a metric ton of work to do on himself. That goes without saying, but I hope that you don't overlook that in your eagerness to have an R with him.

Not a hijack if we can learn from each other. There are many similarities in our situatons, but there are also many differences. However the similarities can definitely be learned from. I did read your thread a couple of weeks ago, I didn't respond because I'm at a loss myself and I'm trying hard to figure out these things for myself.

It's the hardest thing knowing that the person you love is overtaken by depression. People are responsible for their own choices, but depression can lead a person to do things they wouldn't normally do. I can see that now that my XH is behaving more like the man I married, instead of the alien he became at the end of our M.

Time will tell if your WW does the same. For you, and for all of us, I hope and pray for the best outcome for each of us, whether that means reconcilation or not.

One thing I did learn in my relationship after my M ended, not all relationships are meant to be. I met a good guy, and we gave it a shot - but it just wasn't the right relationship for either of us. It's over, I'm over it, I've learned from it, and I believe that even in that God had a lesson for me. I'm hopeful that my XH sees his situation in a similar light. I had to go through that to understand and realize what I had lost too - even though I wasn't the initiator of throwing it away.

Don't get me wrong - I own my share of LB and I'm not laying it all at his feet - we *both* did plenty to unravel the M, but even by his own admission to his mom, a lot of our problems stemmed from the depression. *I* think that a lot of the other stuff, that we both own, could have been fixable if the depression wasn't a factor.

Time will tell. He never answered the email I sent him - but he could be busy at work, or he may not want to answer. That's OK. A LB deposit was made anyway. I won't pester or chase him - if he read the email he knows I was thinking of him and right now, that's enough. It plants the seeds, and seeds take time to grow.

JinGA

Thanks <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> If there's one thing I've learned, it's that sometimes you have to wear a neon sign for menfolk to hear the message. We women-types think and overthink everything, and men don't seem to invest as much grey matter on certain things. As many mixed signals as he's sent me over the last few years, without realizing it, and perhaps even as many he intended but I wasn't ready or willing to see, I'm hoping that for once we might just get our timing right.


Right on all points. I am seeing him doing the work even now. Getting treatment for the depression and recognizing his own issues with it was a HUGE one, and it's not recent. The fact that he's stayed on his meds, and learned how to cope with the condition, without exploding all over anyone and everyone is a HUGE step forward. Yes there is still much for him to do, but even his telling me about taking care of his credit card yesterday is VERY big for him.

What I'm seeing lately is him dealing with things that during the M, he left for me to pick up after him. Now he's doing it on his own, taking responsibility. That's big too.

There are other things too, that I've had solid proof that he's fixed. There are some things that I have yet to see if he's fixed - maybe he has, maybe he hasn't, but we aren't on that level yet for me to see or know. Could well be that he's still got some major issues to deal with, but just the fact that I'm seeing him moving forward on some of the other big stuff, is very encouraging to me.

No I don't want things back in the miserable rut we were in at the end. I do believe that things could be as good or even better than they were when the M was strong and we were a team - in work, and in daily family life. We still make a good team here in the business. We're good parents. We're still good friends, now that he's "allowed" to be that friend since GF is far away and can't pick at everything he says or does. I'm hoping we can build on that, and re-learn how to fill each other's ENs the way we did before, and in ways we didn't do before. At least that's my approach to it. I know I fell short, and I'm determined not to let him down again, if I'm fortunate enough to have another chance at it.


I'm really not comfortable with revisiting that slip just now. Maybe down the road, if we get to a point where we can just put all our cards on the table, I will go there. For right now, I'm not making any kind of fuss over it. He hadn't had a "slip" like that of any kind in well over 2 years, and the last "slip" was that he called me "dear" when we were at work. I think I handed him something he asked for or whatnot, and he said, "Thanks, Dear." And that was nothing more than an old habit and I don't believe there was any meaning behind it at the time.

The ILY slip - well I'm still not sure what to make of it, except maybe his subconscious was working on him. I do believe he still loves me - his behaviour demonstrates that. However, he might not even know if that love runs deep enough still to let me back in and risk being hurt all over again. I'm trying to show him that he's safe with me. When he told me about the GF leaving him - that said that he trusted me enough to tell me, that I wouldn't ridicule him or gloat in his pain. On some level he knows I still love him and care about him, or I'd have been the last person he told. His demeanor with me has changed 180 degrees from the angry, defensive, closed person he was during the D. He hasn't blamed me for anything, he hasn't accused me of anything - he's owning his own junk, and now I'm watching him do what HE needs to do to fix his own junk, and that's something I first saw in him when we first got together, but it got lost somewhere along the way.

It's very attractive to me to see him taking charge of his business and doing what he needs to do - that was a huge LB in the M, and it was something I needed to see had changed before *I* could open myself back up to him.

His telling me about fixing his finances - he didn't have to share that with me - it's none of my business. He told me, and I told him I was glad for him that he was regrouping and getting things in order. Positive reinforcement. The fact that he did tell me says he's letting me back in, where he would have told me before that it was none of my business.

If we can talk about stuff like that and I'm not giving him heck for getting into dire financial straights in the first place, not asking him questions unless he invites them, creates more safety that he can talk about more personal things and feel comfortable about it. Baby steps. It's the only way. I'd be silly to think at this point that we could just wake up one morning, have him move back home and everything would be perfect. Life's not like that. However if he's moving forward, I'm moving forward and we can draw closer together in a loving and supportive way - well that's a good foundation for reconcilation and NOT repeating past mistakes.

I don't expect pefection. I don't expect that there won't be struggles at times, but with a better foundation and more maturity on both our parts, I don't see anything that can't be overcome. The small stuff doesn't matter to me as much anymore, but ironically, the small stuff is what he's paying attention to right now. I'm trying to pay attention to the small stuff too, and keep it on the right track.


I'm not. And I am still a work in progress too. But as I've said - I am seeing him doing the work, and that makes him soooo much more attractive. I don't even know if he realizes it, but that's OK because like I said, he's doing these things for himself, and that's the *right* reason. He shouldn't do any of it for me, the kids, or anybody else. He needs to do this stuff to better himself, and from all that I've seen, with the occasional exception, that's what he's doing. My road hasn't been a straight line, and I don't expect his to be either, but I can recognize the good and give credit where it's due.

I have a good feeling that if I just keep on this path, and he keeps on his, the two will converge again.

JinGA

That's great to hear Jin. I am impressed with the sense of clarity and practicality you seem to have. I enjoy reading these kinds of threads because they give me hope for my own situation.

Earlier you seemed to express some frustration at the lack of feedback here. I feel the same way in my thread when I post back to back. But for me, just putting my thoughts and feelings down into words and being able to go back over them as time passes is a comfort for me. And educational... Is the same true for you?

Seabird, yes it is. Even if I feel like I'm talking to "myself", it helps me tremendously to put what I'm feeling down in print, and then sometimes I go back much much later and re-read what I've posted.

I'm encouraged by the feedback I'm getting now. It also helps to hear of others in similar - or even different circumstances. My heart goes out to all in pain, and I wouldn't wish anybody to be in pain, but it helps to know that there are others feeling the same sorts of things that I'm feeling, and to learn how they've coped, how they've grown, even if the outcome is different, or not what they wanted or expected, we all manage to get through this and that's inspiration unto itself.

I don't normally post here during the work day - but I'm my own boss *g* so I've stuck around on here today *because* I'm getting feedback, and I'm encouraged by it. Thanks to those who chip in - it helps a ton.

XH never did reply to my morning email. Sometimes he says my mail gets sucked into the spam filter (that's what he does for a living, supports an anti-spam hardware/software device)... he may not have had time to respond, he may not have seen the email yet or it may have got sucked into the void. That's ok... I'm not about pressure right now. If he saw it he knows I was thinking of him - I believe I said that earlier (sorry for the reruns - my thoughts race sometimes.).

But yes - it does help just to get this stuff out there, to be able to revisit how I was feeling hours/days/weeks later, and when somebody offers up ideas, that's wonderful too <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> This community is very supportive, and I appreciate it very much.

JinGA

There is certainly a repeat of patterns in people who can't fill the voids in their lives. She shops a lot and overspends. I never had a debt before until I married her. It was always something. We had 3 new cars in 4 years. New furniture (we needed some of that), curtain rods that sat around for some future project she never got to, 2 dogs, 2 cats, rabbits. All given away.

Friends we had intense moments with. Her best friend in England, a woman who was at her side through medical problems and who my ex helped with on the day she gave birth. Dropped like a sack of trash and never spoken to again. Her college roomate irritated her at our wedding. Hasn't spoken to her since.

Best friend from college, to my knowledge, also dropped because the terms of that friendship were not what my ex wanted.

Friends are things to be dropped and abandoned when they no longer meet her needs. I was dropped after 7 years and have been treated horribly for the past year. I'm blamed for all her troubles. The finger is never pointed inwards. It's always someone else's fault. It's always someone else that is making things difficult.

I really hope this attitude isn't turned on the kids someday. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if the kids become as expendable to her as everything else in her life.

Anxiety attacks, fake illnesses (very real to her), constant drama and cries for attention. Words such as, "if you do x/y/or z then we will not be friendly/married anymore!"

There's a yearly medical scare. It happens every single year without exception: Skin cancer, breast cancer, krohn's disease, memory problems, MS, brain tumors, anxiety attacks, liver problems, diabetes (this one was real when she was pregnant), IBS (also real), depth perception problems, constant cancer scares. These instances are always very real to her. I stood by her side through every single one. I fought with my leadership in the military, who quit believing her after a while. (Rightly so)

I very much loved my W. I still do. The exWW, that's a whole nother beast. I have finally realized that my W is truly dead. I don't know where she went, but I haven't seen her in over a year. I will likely never see her.

Your H is showing himself as the man you knew when you married him. I never expect to see that woman. She's now a calculating woman, planning every move against me and, consciously or not, poking at me to watch me squirm in pain or discomfort.

I have to take that power away from her by ignoring her pokes and prods, but I was completely unprepared for last week's poke, which struck a tender nerve.

Did you and your H perform this dance for years? For a while? When did it end?

It's gotten better with time, but you obviously still have feelings after all these years. I can't even imagine her and I going bowling with the kids. Can't fathom the thought.

Did things get better when he opened his eyes to his depression and his own issues and quit blaming those around him for his unhappiness?

Again, I don't wish to threadjack, but I do enjoy the exchange of ideas and experiences.



Do any of these things sound familiar? Did your H do these things as well?

BD, has your wife been examined for bipolar disorder? The man I was with post-M was diagnosed at the end of our R, with bipolar, and a lot of what you're describing is a good fit for the symptoms of bipolar. If that's the case, there's help out there for her if she wants it. The man I was with took the meds he was prescribed, but when we last communicated (we are NC now), he hadn't followed up with therapy or anything else, and as far as I know, he's stagnating now in his condition.

Luckily I didn't get my money tied up with his, because he would spend all that he had on dropped projects, big ideas... it sounds a lot the same.

Back to my XH... for me I saw changes once he got treated for his depression. It was up and down for a while as the doctor tried to find the right meds for him. Some worked for a while, and wore off, some made him feel worse and not better - it really is trial and error with that stuff. Once he owned the depression I think he was relieved to have a name for it and an explanation as to a lot of what he felt and how he dealt with it - or didn't deal with it. He did do a bit of IC but didn't stick with it - and I was disappointed in that, but sometimes people just have to figure things out for themselves, and I think he's doing that now. Could he have figured it out sooner with IC? Probably.

When things finally came to a head with us and I filed, there were many dynamics that came into play, and as I've said, I did what I felt I had to do to protect my kids and myself and our business, from his downward spiralling behavior and fiscal irresponsibility. I needed child support in place and court-enforced - and events of last year cemented my notion that I did the right thing about that even though I felt awful for feeling that I needed to do it. He went on a big road trip with his GF that he couldn't afford. When I asked him how he was going to pay for it, he said, "according to YOU"... well I did the math - x number of miles, gas at $y per gallon - hotels, meals - didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the trip would likely run him $1500-2000 without frills. In the end there were longer term reprocussions to that trip, which he's finally starting to sort out now. By protecting my child support and property settlement, that kept my kids and I from being victims of his folly.

NOW he's working to get himself out of the hole. He stayed in the hole for nearly a year after that trip because he was supporting his GF and her 2 kids, as well as meeting his obligations to us. That legal safeguard I took actually ended up saving a ton of grief, even though the court had to get involved again on my behalf at one point - but that was the lawyer and the court, not "just me". There's no ill will there on my part anymore, and he knows he had to comply, so it's a non-issue for us now, and I didn't make it a personal fight then.

I read many threads about WS making stupid decisions and overspending on an A - well this wasn't an A because we were divorced, but the consequences were pretty similar. I have stayed afloat with a bit of help from my family and the legal system. I was NOT going to be dragged down as he was.

Now he's picking himself back up. He's intimated that he sees some of the error of his ways, and now that he's getting his finances back in order, he'll likely be able to get along just fine, keep his bills paid on time, and have a few bucks left at the end of each week. He clears enough for that - but not with 3 extra bodies to feed when he got no help with that from her.

I'm angry at GF for taking advantage of him like that. Yes, he let it happen, but he took it on faith that she was the real deal - but it was clear to myself and others that she was looking for a free ride, and when she sensed the money tree was bare, she left. Sad. I don't know how people can do that, or drag their kids along with them - but again - that's another post, and I'm trying not to waste any energy on thinking of that.

Hopefully he is the wiser for the experience, and it may help him realize what a good thing he did have with our children and me. Sometimes we just have to pee on the electric fence for ourselves, right?

He'll likely stop in at work this afternoon, for a little while - hopefully I'll make a few more love bank deposits if I get the chance.

JinGA

Bipolar could be a possibility. Same with borderline personality. I wanted my lawyer to pursue a psych eval. I was pretty confident about the results for me. I feel a real psych eval would reveal her problems and her depression problems and PTSD for the abuse.

I believe people like his GF don't consciously do what they do. They do it thinking they are looking out for their kids best interests or they have other motives that are driving them. I am still baffled by how my ex could simply shut her emotions after so many years together and then not understand the reaction I had to her actions. It's as if she expected me to flip the same switch in my head that she could flip on and off. That's not how i love. She and the kids were my world.

I follow your thread with interest, mainly out of the hope that people can come around and quit demonizing you and that a WS can eventually have the fog lift and realize that the grass was pretty green on their end when they chose to walk away. It happened to my father, but it is unfortunate that it came at the expense of his marriage.

I love him very much, but he's a serial cheater. All of his kids want to see him end this behavior and really settle down.

Good luck and keep us in the loop.

BD, I don't feel demonized by anyone. I don't think I understand that comment.

I have felt that people here have asked valid questions that I need to examine, and that's why I'm here - to talk about my situation and get other, unbiased opinions of it. It's been extremely helpful, and if someone asks a tough question, I'd better be prepared to answer it.

This thing that I'm trying to do is not to be taken lightly and it affects an entire family, so I'm trying to think before I do, so there's no more hurt. There's been too much of that already.

I appreciate *all* feedback, no matter what side of the fence it comes from.

And I do know that not all Ms can be saved, not all should be - but I do think the ones that can, should be.

JinGA

I meant that as a general statement. I don't know if your ex painted you in a negative light when having his A. I meant it more as a general obervation on how waywards demonize the BS.

I think it is great that you and he get along as you do. It must be great for you kids that you do.

Yes it has made it easier on the kids. I've been between hateful parents and I was determined NOT to do that to them. He's tried a couple of times in the past (when we first split) to play divide and conquer but we didn't play and it didn't work. Now there's no reason to do that anymore. There were times when it wasn't easy, but my kids are worth it <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

JinGA