Hope everything is going well and you're having a great weekend, Sis.

I had a nice morning/early afternoon doing some good for some really good people, with a group of really good people. Tonight I'm going out to dinner and a movie with friends. Tomorrow is church.

Still.....I HATE weekends without the boys.

I feel bereft. That's the only word that captures it. So bereft.

What is that all about? It is as if that sense of LOSS just come roaring back over me, and it doesn't recede until the boys come home. My family is GONE.

I received WH's attorney's offer in the mail last night, cc'd from my attorney. I hadn't expected it so quickly. He's coming around on the major financial stuff (only because the judge told him to). It still includes the school day overnights, but I expected that at this point. There are also some minor financial things that need to be negotiated.

I am a little concerned that WH feels that the weekday overnights are his only bargaining chip, and he'll hold on to it for one of three reasons
(a) to twist the knife because he enjoys hurting me--even if it's through the kids, or
(b) to get something he wants in another area of the settlement (not sure what), or
(c) for the sole purpose of reducing his CS.

Apparently he thinks he's getting $crewed (he told my sister). Since this is the case, I can see why he'd push the overnights...just to spite me. So he can WIN something. (I thought getting away from me and being with RT was the prize? Wasn't that is what all this is about?)

90% of the time, I am in a really good place. I know I am better; I feel happy a lot, I laugh and enjoy my boys, my friends, my job, my life.

But these times, alone...when all of that is not around to distract me. It is when I start to feel cold and lost and the fear creeps in. Thank God that I now know that it will go away. The warmth and the belonging and the courage will return.

BTW...

My absolute bottom? One year ago Thurs. through today. It has been on my mind a lot. Mostly in a very positive, grateful way; sometimes humorous. A lot of disbelief. I look back on "her" with compassion and empathy, and thank God!!! that I made it out. There wasn't much left of my life to salvage at that point.

So I remember...and it's both good and bad. Good in that I recognize how much I have survived and how difficult this journey has been. Bad in that remembering that place and what is was like and what that experience has done to me and who was involved in putting me there in the first place...all of that is like ice in my veins.

Anxiety.

I passed RT this morning on my way in to work. I was in the left turn lane and she went by in the opposite direction.

I was overwhelmed with a feeling of absolute HATE.

My IMMEDIATE thoughts: That B!TCH. I HATE her. I HATE her. She RUINED MY LIFE.

(This is strong, I know...I am just recounting the immediate thoughts that went through my mind.)

Even after a little conversation with myself in which I was able to discount the "she ruined my life" thing...I still realize that I HATE her. Deeply. Viscerally. Passionately.

Okay...like SD, I need to get this off my chest. Some of this is irrational and over the top, but I seriously need to vent it, and this is a safe place, so please indulge me while I rant:

She lied to me.
She pretended to be my friend.
She used me.
She used my children.
She stole my husband.
She turned my husband into someone I don't even recognize.
She took away my hopes and dreams.
She is a threat to my children's well-being.
She stole my children's father away from them.
She had me tossed in jail, and then whined two months later about how I traumatized her.
She made my marriage into a sham, a farce.
She stole my memories.
She betrayed my trust.
She defiled my home.
She destroyed my family.
She took away the one thing I am always wanted in my life: my own family.
She brought down a good man, an honorable man.
She is EVIL.

I have not ever expressed those feelings in this way. I tend not to think about her at all. I put her out of my thoughts. Maybe this is denial? Especially given how deep and how ugly these feelings are.

BUT:

Everything listed above gives HER power. (remember, how she wrote in an email to WH: I HAVE THE POWER).

I WILL not give her that power over me. I have choices.

Right now, though...it doesn't feel like HATE is a choice. It just IS.

HATE is ugly and unhealthy...emotionally and spiritually.

What do I do with it?
Where does it go?
How can I rid myself of it??

I am all over the place here....I just need to breathe and be in the MOMENT. Right now, I am okay. Right now, I am in my safe place. Right now, I have friends around who care for me.

Thanks...I needed to rant/vent. Seeing her this morning really threw me....but it was probably a good thing to draw my attention to this area that I need to work on.

Guidance welcome. Please?

Nice list, Sis. I'll be interested to see more experienced responses, but I think that's good work.

You own those feelings. You recognize that they are ugly. You recognize that some of them are over the top (while some of them are completely true). You recognized that you needed to get them out, and you did it in a safe place. I think that this is good work. If anyone makes you uncomfortable about posting a vent like that, you can always email it to me.

I think that this is another thing that we have to accept and work through. Feel the anger. Get it out. Then, maybe, if you choose, at some point you'll be able to take a closer look at her and what she did, and you might find that she is just a flawed person who made a terrible mistake and couldn't figure out how to stop making it (like your WH?).

For now, though, I agree that she is an evil ****** and desperately needs to be added to my list of people who need to be whacked in the crotch with a shovel. For starters.

LilSis,
Don't know if everyone is busy, or if you scared them with this post!

The anger and hatred toward the OW was the last and hardest part of recovery for me. It still lingers somewhat. The things she did are so foreign to me and so far out of the realm of my reality, that I still just cannot wrap my mind or heart around them. What kind of woman (and a married one at that) chases a man for a year and a half when he has repeatedly told her he is not interested, his marriage is important to him, he is not a person who will cheat, etc? Early on he had even reported things she was doing as sexual harrassment to a supervisor (that's a whole 'nuther story in itself!).

The title of your initial post, about a manipulative OW is what drew me to start reading in the first place. Our xOW is a real doozie - played all the games and played them well to try to hang on to my H. Thankfully, he was able to dig down deep, regain his integrity and finally free himself of her. It was h*!! for him because of the things she put him through as he disintangled himself from her.

So, yes, I deeply and profoundly hated the OW for a long time. I tried to tell myself that much of it was misplaced anger - anger that should have been directed toward FWH - anger that should have been directed toward me - even anger at God for "allowing" this to happen. But it wasn't really any of that. I was angry with FWH. Even to the point where I once threw a cup of water in his face because I was so frustrated and MAD. I was angry with myself for everything that I allowed to happen which led up to the A and I was able to channel that anger into making myself a better person. I was also angry at God, although that took me a little longer to deal with.

No, the anger at the OW was deserved and it took a long time to run its course. It might have been easier if I could have screamed and yelled at her and told her exactly what I thought of her. But I'm sure that would have fallen on deaf ears, just as your face slap ended up making RT justifying her role as victim.

One thing I did that helped was to write a letter to the OW (never to be mailed). It started out as 3 pages typed and single spaced, with small margins. I had it folded up and carried it with me just in case I ever ran into her and she started something. About once a month I would revise the letter. Eventually it got down to 2 or 3 paragraphs which took up about half a page. Then one day I just threw it away. It had served its purpose for me.

I still think the OW is a horrible excuse for a person. She is the epitome of selfishness. It would have helped me (and maybe it still would) if she had one ounce of remorse. I don't think she has it in her.

I know your circumstance is very different, because you will most likely have RT involved in your life because of the boys. I hope someone else who has had the same experiece can offer more help in dealing with your struggle.

Anger is not always bad (my counselor told me so!). It serves its purpose just as other emotions do.

SHOL

She IS evil....no doubt about it.
She did lie to you and use your children.
But...
Your husband destroyed your family.
Your H was not the man you thought he was...he wasn't stolen..he went willingly.
Your H is the one that made your marriage into a "sham and a farce."
She didn't bring down a good and honorable man...a good and honorable man would not have allowed that. She brought down a man with serious character flaws.
She IS evil...but your H is the one that vowed to love, honor and protect you....and that protection includes assaults of the type that HE invited into your and your children's lives.
He is the biggest scoundrel here.

shol: I think I did scare everyone off, which concerns me a bit. I have been ready my handy dandy book, and it talks about acknowledging out dark side, and being honest with ourselves, and just feeling the feelings in order to let them go. It may freak people out, though, to read my darkest, scariest feelings.

However, it is very reassuring to know that you experienced some very real hatred, too. I've been thinking maybe I was alone on this one...that others didn't have that real anger.

medc: I'm not letting WH off the hook. My "list" was just a pure vent regarding RT specifically...irrational, emotional...not a factual accounting...just a dumping of all the icky words I could come up with or thoughts that have ever entered my mind. All wrapped up in a stinky, skanky package.

Maybe I shouldn't have shared. ???

(PS: shol I am exactly half each: 2 and 6)

Nope, not scared off...actually I admire you for putting it out there. There's no point in keeping it in just so you don't scare people off. We all have a dark side, you are just willing to bring it out in the light of day.

I've had moments of hatred for Bab's (OW) but they have been fairly few and far between. I lay this squarely in my WH's lap. He was a willing accomplice and should have known what he was doing....I was nothing to her.

During those moments where I'm focusing too much on HER, I remind myself that she is dog poo. And any time I've had contact with her, it's like stepping in dog poo. I scrape it off my shoe and go on about life. Dog poo isn't worth spending energy on. Usually, there's some "smell" left but not the all consuming, skip on one foot to avoid squishing it in, sap off energy.

I think anger can be healthy. Get it out and don't suppress it so much that you lose control some day. Deal with it as you come to it and then move past it.

Fox

I don't think you scared anyone off Sis <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
I read your post as a "vent", maybe others did too.
I think most of us here have gone through similar stages.

There comes a point when you realize that the OW isn't even worth it. Your feelings are what they are now and you can't deny that...you are extremely angry because of what has happened in your life, and that really is understandable. The key is to not get STUCK there. As your life continues to go on, improve, and you find that your focus is on you, RT will eventually fade into the background...and you will probably end up pittying her just as you pity WH.. for being such a lost person...

Initially, I felt anger and rage toward my ex-WH, all of the things you "vented" about on your list, were things I said about my ex-WH...The OW in my case was a sick and twisted person, and I hated her too, but most of my anger was directed at ex-WH because I held him responsible...I didn't expect the OW to give a hoot about me, but I did expect ex-WH to...eventually I made a choice not to give Ow anymore power in my life..hating her gave her power to control my emotions, just as hating ex-WH gave him power over me as well. I took back that power and channeled it into making a great life for me. I had to get to the root of the anger, and that was realizing that I had a lot of rage over the fact that my life had not turned out the way I wanted it to..I was so angry because I could do nothing to make things go back to the way they were before the A. I had no control and that is where my rage stemmed from. After making the choice to let the hate go, I knew I needed help in keeping those feelings away, I did not want those feelings to ever return, I didn't like the way it made me feel so I prayed and prayed for God to take the hate away for good..and one day I realized I did not have any of those feelings in my heart anymore for either of them...it was just gone. Once I accepted that my life would never be the same, and let God handle it, all of the hateful feelings seemed to subside..I truly let go...it was a long process, but it did happen.

I don't know how long RT will be in the picture, and if you have to interact with her because of the boys, your sitch could be more complicated. I know it's hard to even "go there" right now, but I find that forgivenss, or "letting go of the grudge", even when it comes to RT will be more beneficial to you. Doesn't mean you have to be buddies with her or even like her as a person, you can just give yourself the gift of letting go of the anger..and you will feel free..it doesn't happen over night and it does take a lot of work, but look how far you have come..you will get there when you do. You are moving along in the process of grief and letting go.

(((Sis)))

LilSis:

Scared off?

No.

Great vent.

I was impressed by your ability to stop at 18 items.

Your H has fault, and you have addressed that in the past.

But I really believe that this was your first real vent about RT.

Say, if you did it five more times, then the sixth time may never come, because you have moved past it.

And that is what the growth is all about.

(((LS)))

LG

Sis, sorry I'm late to the game here, but me no scared neither. It's real, raw emotion. I recognize your list is solely regarding your gut reaction to seeing RT, and is only directed at RT. I'm sure you have made myriads of lists regarding your WH's actions, and that is not what we are talking about anyway.

You know, for me, I did not know Aimless (OW#2). I don't even know what she looks like. I do know how STOOPID she is, how thoughtless, how little, how irresponsible, and careless she was. AS for OW#1 (*cun*), I knew her well enough. LIke I've said before, the first cut (or A) was the deepest, stripped everything down until it was raw. I will always feel that she is a vile human being, a homewrecking SOW!

I have a lot of anger to work through myself, as I'm sure most here do, so I get it.

Didn’t scare me off Sis. Remember the original woodchipper thread that got locked on a Sunday after only 24 hours? I know just what you are thinking.

I am just over 4-months down the D-line now and it really does get better, but it does take time. It just can’t be what you build your life around. Stop. Safely vent. Breathe. And move on. Repeat as required.

(semi-relevant threadjack)

However, I too got to revisit my old feelings about Gollum again this weekend. Friday night Wayzilla called DD19 to have dinner. She agreed to go but when I got home she just stood on the porch saying, “I don’t want to go.”

Finally she did go and later met up with me at a bar where I was watching the Rockies game (I am still too cheap for cable). It seems Wayzilla has decided that it is time for DD19 to meet Gollum as she told DD, “It is starting to become serious between us.”

Here all along I thought destroying two marriages and committing Gollum’s S2 to a broken family was pretty damn serious but I guess I was wrong.

DD19 is just sick. And I got to revisit some of the anger I have felt about them both. For my part, the only meeting he needs to have with my daughter is to crawl kneeling before her for 15 seconds, offer a profound and sincere apology for what he did to her and her family and then go throw himself into the woodchipper.

I think the relationship between DD and her mother are at are very real crossroads. DD is now saying she will have nothing to do with her mother as long as she is in that relationship. I guess we will see.

Argggg….It almost makes me want to emerge from the dark side of Pluto with nuclear weapons for another Plan FU. But……what’s the point?

(end of semi-relevant threadjack)

You are, have been, and will always be the superior woman Sis. Don’t lose any of your life contemplating her sickness and deviancy. Life is too short and you have many new chapters yet to star in.

Chrisner, grrrrr, I can't find the words right now to express how I would love to have at WZ with Guy Smiley's shovel, and how much I dry heave when I hear about HOW she talks to her daughter. BLECH!

Didn't scare me off either Sis. In fact, I had very similar feelings at one time. Still do occasionally if I let myself dwell on either one of the two OW, but they're pretty dim now (the thoughts AND the OW) and far and few between. It will get dim for you too.

Sis,

I'm still here too! After everything we've all been through, not a lot would scare most of us off! LOL!


I want to Ditto/Double all of the posts above. It's hard for me to say who is FIRST on my list of WSs to get the shovel, or the woodchipper,,,,OR I can add that I have contacts in the 'disposal' industry!!

We ALL have our moments - - the good news is that dealing with them is more of an active rather than passive situation for you now. Good job!

Have shovel will travel.

Sis, I think it was just a slow day on the boards yesterday. Clearly you didn't scare anyone.

I was talking about this kind of thing with my IC last night (and the eviscerating letter to the SCQ I've been meaning to write), and she commented that there are two camps on this sort of thing. One is that it's good to get this kind of thing out of your system so that you don't ruminate over it. The other camp has it that this kind of venting is not particularly healthy because it reinforces this way of thinking. And both camps are convinced that the other one is wrong.

Like I said, I'm of the opinion that it's good to get the stuff out. I know that it will just bounce around inside my head if I don't.

And both camps are convinced that the other one is wrong.

And to think I used to like to camp. Nut jobs! Both are right, IMO.

Sometimes, I need to vent, get the nastiness out, give it specificity, directed only toward the offending matter, so that I can let the tension go. The anger may remain, but the force behind it is released. THEN i can work on dealing with the anger and let it go.

Anyway, that's me, and you are you, and that's that.

Hey, thanks everyone. I'm glad I'm not a pariah. Truly, it is a relief to know that I'm not nuts. Sometimes the crickets are alarmingly loud.

My stomach twisted up just reading your sitch, chris. Said it before and I'll say it again: DD is so very, very lucky to have you. It is heartbreaking and unimaginable what her mother is putting her through.

(BTW...I got the $99/mo deal from comcast for internet, phone and digital cable. Never had digital cable. How cool! Free movies with this on-demand thingie! Who knew?)

Part of what I am dealing with, I realized, is timing. Everything related to the D is coming to a head, like a freight train coming down the D-line. We've got a trial date set for Monday, and the hope of both attorneys is that we have a settlement generally agreed to at that point....so I'm on the phone with or at my attorney's office or at court every few days.

Back and forth. Back and forth.

It's really incredibly draining. Today (after 90 minutes at my attorney's office) I went back to the office, absolutely could not concentrate, and went into a friend's office, shut the door and plunked down and just started to cry. She's a BW, now D'd, so she gets it.

I even cried today at the attorney's office. He's a really fatherly type, always talking about his "grandbabies." At one point we were speculating about the overnights issue and he said, "Well, you know him (WH) better than I do."

I said no, I don't know him at all...then began crying, and told him that it was important to ME for him (the attorney) to know that WH wasn't always this way. That when my dad died, he asked WH to look out for my mom. That's what kind of man WH USED to be.

Then my attorney put his dad hat on, and told me that he is a pretty good judge of character after doing Ds for 34 years, and he can size people up pretty quick. He thinks I'm still beating myself up unfairly for what happened, and that people see me differently than I see myself.

I told him that's probably all true, but I'm really, really working on it. It takes a long time to un-do almost 40 years of self-doubt, particularly when the formula has been catalyzed by an A.

Anyway...all of that to say that the RT vent is probably just part and parcel of all the emotion that's so near the surface these days. It's difficult to focus on my life and what I'm doing and how I'm growing when I keep getting dragged back to the ugliness of D-land, where the residents of Turdville reside.

SOOOO, when that freight train pulls into the station, and I use my last ounce of courage to turn over my ticket and get on board, I'll be looking for Bugs and chris and hoping you guys have got a stool saved for me at the bar with a big margarita on the rocks with lots of salt, just waiting for me, and we can all drink a toast to survival. At the very least.

I'll bring the chips and salsa.

LS,

You will be ok, and I know you know that. I felt for you when you wrote about seeing RT...knowing that you were remembering last year and knowing what you have ahead with the D. It IS a highly emotional time and you really seem to have a handle on it. You should be PROUD of yourself for how far you've come and the GRACE with which you are handling it all. Really.

I was divorced some 15 years ago, child support was always a struggle to collect so there were many financial struggles back then. I thought I would never be happy again but we made it. The boys are men now. I look back at that dark time with fondness now. I loved raising them, I love and cherish the memories and I am proud of myself for overcoming a really crummy situation. Not always with grace but overall I handled myself very well. The end result....They love their dad but see his weakness. His life has not been very fulfilling personally or professionally. They see now that while they were little and showed them a great time every other weekend, mom was the one who pushed school work, scouts church etc. I never had to say it, they just see it now.

Your boys will see it too someday themselves. Keep showing them what a class act their mom is...it will pay huge dividends.

Hang in there. The D train will be painful but you will make it through. promise.

Sis,


I like this guy a lot! He is EXACTLY on target! Glad you have him on your side!



If and when you arrive, we'll be here! Glass will be salted and a PITCHER or 2 of margartia's iced up and ready to go! I'll bring my carne dip, too!

Just remember, despite thinking you will have used you 'last bit of courage', you have more reserves than you think!!

{{{SIS}}}