I had to take a few hours to accept that your are right. You are right. He wasn't supportive in the past. I guess I'm seeing the past as being better than it was. I guess right now I'm really bottoming out. I know I am. I live for my work right now. It feels like the only thing I am competent at. My mother is dying, my son is ill, my husband was with another woman. I feel really, really alone. Empty, scared, and very, very alone.

Chryss,

We do get it. My son got really sick in his kindergarten year. I haven't had to deal with med refusal yet, but I am told it is almost impossible to avoid. Any parent who has been through this understands. It is monstrously difficult and discouraging and exhausting and you have every right to feel the way you do, even without your mother dying and your husband having an affair. (And my mother died while my H was still in an A, so I get that part, too.)

Does your son have an IEP? Is he getting home tutoring? At 17, you still have parental rights concerning his school program.

I have known families who were able to get residential treatment even at age 17 that made a big difference.

Are you in one of the bpkids support groups? Have you contacted the Family Response Team? Please reach out for whatever help you can get there.

What you must not do is surrender to defeat. You nailed it when you said that you are all your son has right now.

Thank you Chrysallis. It's funny - for years after the end of my first marriage, I used that name. When I came here, it was already in use - and here you are. We share a lot of things in common as well it seems. I don't know your story. I'm going to go back and read it.

You are right that I am all my son has. And my daughter as well. That is something that has always been. I suppose with everything that's happened, I really haven't developed a support system around me. I've always been the strong one. Raised my sister alone when I was 14 and she was 9. It has always been crisis mode. There were a few years when the kids were younger that I had some semblance of a "normal" family life. And it was wonderful. I've worked so hard to develop myself in my work. I work in education and hold a high profile position in a college. I am responsible for a lot of staff, and am well respected. I am actually being regarded as an innovator and change agent in a culture that has become stale and complacent. I am really good at work. I suck at life.

When my son became sick last year, and he was diagnosed with the same illness as his dad, I crashed. I did accept defeat. I took a leave for five months due to clinical depression. My husband was there beside me, but had no idea what to do. It is hard to deal with a loved one in clinical depression. We had no life at all. I suffered severe anxiety attacks that had me waking in the night every night unable to breathe. I could not function. With treatment, I picked myself up, went back to work, and dove into it with everything I had. It saved my life. I think the fear I have is that it could happen again.

Obviously, I'm here with more going on then just my marriage difficulties. I guess I feel that if he is really gone, I'm scared that I won't be able to keep it together. That's the truth of it. But investing myself in him is probably more dangerous when history has shown he is a risky proposition.

Thank you for being here right now. I need to slow down and make a plan right now, for me. To get the support I need, to reach out and get stronger in me. That's what I need. Thank you.

You really don't have to make any decisions right now, just get stronger, and make a plan.

I have had panic attacks for about 10 years, and now they are completely GONE. And I'm med free. Meds help, relaxation exercises, and working on what you can control. Often they are the result of being the person who takes care of everything.

I'm glad you found us.

Chryss, funny about the names and similarities. My story might be too depressing for you right now, because I haven't posted many details about recovery. We are recovering nicely, however...if you decide to read my story please remember that even really dark stories can turn around.

You are right that you need to make a recovery plan that is about YOU. Will you please keep posting to us here about your plans and let us know what you are doing to heal? We care.

Thanks Believer. So many people here bring so many of the same experiences that are similar. I'm glad to hear that you are healthy and strong now.

I've read a lot of old posts, talk of personal boundaries, etc. I've read all the books on this, but have realized just today that I never put any of it into practise. For some reason today, I feel strangely at peace. Not great, but a glimmer inside of me where the strong me is. I've prayed that I can not lose that feeling. I've been losing my mind since I found out he had moved on. Sheer panic. All rational thought was impossible to consider. Reasons for our problems, how much I had been hurt, disappeared under the fear of loss. I guess my abandonment issues surfacing their ugly, cliched heads.

I want to be stronger. I want to let what will be, be. You're right about not making any decisions right now. I know that. I just look around at the train wreck that is my life and think, "My God, I should do something, I should fix this, why aren't I finishing that long list of "to-do" things. I want someone to take care of me for once. To take the whole platter full of all of these things and treat me with love, and gentleness and be there to comfort me. That just isn't the reality right now. Can I do that for myself??? Is that what I have to do? That is very strange, and very hard.

Thanks Chrysallis. I will keep posting. Felt silly at first, reaching out in the great big abyss that is the internet for solace. Made me feel like some lonely desperate person. Maybe it is really just an incredible medium for people who are suffering from similar issues to connect where they would never be able to any other way. I'm off to my mother's today. She is really not well, pancreatic cancer, but in denial and will not go to the doctor for care anymore. She is an alcoholic. I was the first born, the one who parented my family. Now, everyone comes to me when there is trouble. I have felt pulled to pieces by everyone's needs for so many years. It's resulted in my keeping many people at a distance. I think I see today in some strange fleeting way some kind of epiphany that I place myself there, willing to take it all on, I do this to myself. No personal boundaries, and never ask for help. I really have never known how, always been disappointed. I'm going to really try to keep this tiny gold thread of sanity that I feel today. It's because of all of you here, I do believe that. Thank you!

I can't offer any sage advice to match these from the doyens above.

Instead I offer a hug. (((HUG)))!

This also comes with the complimentary footnote by Yeats which we both appreciate. Thanks for the comment on the other thread.

The internet is great for these things, because you can find people who have the very same problems, or close.

So sorry to hear about your mother. My dad died during my ex's affair, and it was awful for me, and then my mom got very ill. She has an agressive lymphoma and will not live much longer. But I am much older than you.

You CAN learn to take care of yourself first. Sounds somehat selfish, but who else is going to take care of that little girl inside?

Try reading through the goddess thread here - it is like a women's support group, where we toss all of our sweatshirts and ratty sleepwear, and get fixed up.

Chryss,

How are you doing today?


--the other Chrys

Hi there
Thanks for asking - I'm at work today, and meeting my husband after work to see where his head is at. I'm actually feeling strong today. I had been feeling like I was "auditioning" for a part he was filling. Now I realize that I have to consider whether he was there for me during all of this, and if I really will get what I need out of this relationship. Should be an interesting evening. I'll post later

Stay calm. Don't LB. Be happy and self confident. Then you can report back to us.

Well, it was an interesting evening. He has been evasive as far as not wanting me to come to his new house, but that is where we went. He had prepared dinner when I got there, but I was very aware that the only reason we were there was because I had questioned why he didn't want me there (her???) Coincidentally, a woman I work with confided in me about her marriage - her husband is on a contract 2000 km away for six months, coming home once a month. On her birthday, she got his cell phone bill and noticed that, while he had said he didn't have time to talk to her for more than a couple of minutes now and then, there were long calls every evening to a particular number. In checking it out, he has been calling another woman that he has worked with for several years. In trying to get information from him without his knowing she knew, he denied everything. When confronted with the phone bill, he expressed more anger at her for looking at his bill. It's been a downward spiral from there. We've been a great support for eachother the last couple days, although she is much stronger than I am in that she refuses to crumble under him - in fact, when talking to him on the phone and starting to cry, she told he "he doesn't even have the right to hear her cry". I, on the other hand, have been like a fish thrown up on shore flopping all over the place in it's death throes.

Our dinner at his place was one long emotional event. I struggle with his inability to fully comprehend the depth of the hurt I feel by his lies. The violation of knowing that he let someone else into our intimate world, and shared his intimate self with her keeps hitting me like a brick. Even in an embrace, I feel like she's there - he held her with these arms, he kissed her with these lips, she curled up against him on this couch. he looked at her this way with that look in his eyes that was MINE! Between us, part of our love for ten years.
How do I go past that ever????????

He says he wants to work it out, to move past this. He says he knows this issue will be the hardest to work out. He says he knows he treated me poorly, that he has realized the capacity he has for treating me poorly. At the same time, he holds me at a distance. I feel uncertain of myself with him, self conscious, and he looks at me differently. In my mind, it feels like he now has her as a comparison all the time. It is horrible, horrible, horrible.

I've gone from feeling shocked and desperately trying to convince him of what we have, to angry and demanding of all the details. I NEED him to convince me that he wants to fight for us, not just sit back and say "it will work out the way it's meant to work out". How unbelievably pathetic I feel being here in this place.

I cried a lot, which always sets him off, as there are many times that he avoids emotional displays. He embraced me, seemed to listen, but was somehow unaffected.

I know all the direction on LB's and Plan A, but the pain of it makes it very hard to be loving and caring and considerate when I just want honesty, details, openness, and some big gesture that he gets it.

As I get angry, I find myself feeling like I've lost all pride. Awful feeling. And can I forgive him, and regain my sense of dignity in this relationship after this???? Will I always be sensitive to other women, to his nonchalance? I picture myself two years from now at a party, watching him to see how he is with other women, feeling like I'm hovering over him, suspecting his motives all the time. I want our naive trust back again, and I feel like I'm mourning the loss of that forever.

I keep flip flopping between saying "I'm sorry that we got to the place where you turned to her", to, "How could you be with her and lie to me????" "Who the hell are you?" How does anyone ever get over this and trust again?

All normal. You are doing fine. Maybe you will decide that you DON'T want him. But we always suggest on MB that you at least give it a try.

Your writing is great. You really put into words what many of us feel.

Thanks. I love to write, and it helps. I haven't been here most of this week, work has been crazy. Things with my husband were pretty good. Went out for dinner together Monday night, but then he headed home pretty early. He called me late Tuesday night, don't know where he had been, but seemed to be well "lubricated", and talked about all the shortcomings of our relationship - the things he wanted that I couldn't give him, the things I didn't do for him that he wanted from me. Said that he loved me and wanted to spend his life with me and that's what made it difficult. He said he thinks he has figured out why we have difficulties - that I am the "adult" in the relationship, and he is the "kid". I am the one who has been responsible since I was 14, and he came from a very stable family and got to be a kid for half his life (he's 47). Said he wants that highschool "crush" kind of love again. He wants it with me. He wants to be stupid, and have fun. He wants me to leave him little notes, and be spontaneous. He said that I can't travel with him, and he wants to travel. (I have my children full time and there are issues with my son). He said that for the first time in his life he feels he can do whatever he wants and there is no one to have to ask. He said he can be himself. He said he loves me. I asked if he wanted me to walk away, and he got upset and said "that's not what I'm saying, you never listen to me. I'm trying to tell you my feelings and you automatically say I want to end it".

All in all, confusing, confusing, confusing.

It's funny, because if I'm the "adult", why was he always on me about not being structured enough, not having clear rules, not being organized in taking care of household responsibilities. It was always said in an easy going way, but I always felt that I was as "with it" as he was. Now he says I'm too much of an adult. What the heck is that?

We met last night at another new house he bought. He showed me the renos he wants to do before he flips it, and we had a very intimate time together (I thought). Talked of forgiving eachother, of not losing eachother, etc.
Then we talked later on the phone, and he told me how busy he is and that's what he meant by not having time for anybody right now. When I point out the inconsistencies, he tells me that he's a gemini - of two minds.

It really seems to me that he doesn't know what the hell he is doing. Not at all. I flip around trying to reach the core of what is happening here, and he is just playing at being a kid. Mid-life crisis maybe?

He says he isn't with "her" anymore, but I have no idea if it's true. He has been calling regularly, and sharing information about what he is doing with his time more. But, is still funny about me coming to the house where he lives in the city an hour away. Gets really defensive, and tells me that he has bad feelings about that city now, as it's where I lived when we began, and he moved there hoping I would follow. Makes no sense to me - that city is special to me, and we have a lot of memories there. She also lives there. He is adamant that we spend the time we share together away from there. When I ask if it's because she may call or come over, he says no, but he can't control who comes knocking on his door.

Am I an idiot????? He's still seeing her isn't he???????

Okay, another conversation with him. He called from his brother's house, 10:30 Friday night. Was very loving in front of his brother. Then he misunderstood me and thought I said I was going out with a friend tonight. When I said, no, that wasn't what I said, he said "oh, you should". I mentioned that a single friend from work did ask me to go out tonight, but she was trying to find men, he laughed and said, "oh, where's the latest pick up joint?" When I told him, he said, "oh, you should go, I probably know half the patrons there".

What an idiot...

Is this seriously someone that I consider sharing my life with? A bloody teenage boy?

It sounds to me like he is still in contact with the OW. But I think you know that.

Yeah, I think you're right - or he's just playing around period. Seems to me he's just screwing around with whoever. Unbelievable.

I forget, how many kids do you still have at home? Is it just your son?

I have two kids still at home - son 17, daughter 15. They are a handful.