Who know's what her husband is?

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[quote] Who know's what her husband is?
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You need to get help. You need to heal and stop taking out your pains on others.

I know who my H is capable of being. I know his heart and it is amazing. We have issues. I do not justify my "affairage". I accept that we were incredibly wrong. That is between me and my God. I will never make peace with it. But I will not belittle what we had. And you do not have the right to do that either.

I can only imagine the state of your marriage or divorce. You are not God and do not have the right to pass judgement.

I am asking you to stay off my posts. I have reported you already and will do so again and again.

I gotta agree, karma is a beautiful thing.

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I've read that book, though it was a while ago, so perhaps I should re-read it. I've known for quite some time that he has abusive tendencies. His first wife left him after just 2 years and I think (though I don't know for sure) that she dealt with many of the same things I have: his depression, anger, neediness, emotional and verbal abuse, etc. She got smart. I didn't.

I've also read "Too good to leave, Too bad to stay" but that was also quite a while ago and my IC suggests I read it again.

We had (yet another) argument tonight. I won't go into it word for word but it was more of the same; when I voiced my opinion about something, his response was that whatever I think automatically becomes the truth to me (this makes no sense to me but he says it all the time). And so on. And then finally he says that he's just sick of "this" and I say "so am I" and then he says "well, where am I supposed to go, a homeless shelter?" (because he can't hold down a job and once again he's out of work for a lengthy time). And when I accused him of just waiting to get a job and then planning to drop me like a hot potato, he acted like it wasn't a split up or separation that he was talking about.

Did I mention he drinks way too much in my opinion? But you can't tell him that.

I completely understand what you are saying. The constant verbal attacks are the undoing of my marriage too. And I also believe I don't deserve someone who treats me that way. Yet, here I am. It's amazing to watch (horrifying actually) what's happened to my self-esteem since I've been with this guy. But I also am not ready to completely throw in the towel. I think I have major abandonment issues or something similar from my childhood because any sane person would have kicked him to the curb long ago.

I also get angry and resentful when I let my mind go back over all of this.

RMW

Just an FYI, I reported IAM on several of his posts and they have edit them and put the reason as personal attacks. I will continue to do this if the posts continue.

I don't understand why anyone on this board that is for helping those in similar situations feel the need or right to spew such hatred.
Have a great weekend.

You know, there is hope for your "abusive" spouses. The unfortunate thing is that the only person that can change your spouse, is your spouse. I know, because I am speaking from experience.

My wife and I separated in October because of 3+ years of my disrespectful behavior. Since our separation, I have gone to counselors, taken classes, read books on relationships, and done everything between here and the sun to make myself better. I don't know each and every situation that has occurred between you and your spouse, but I am sure he has some regrets for his actions. Of course, this is just an assumption. From my point of view, I didn't realize what I had lost until it was gone. Maybe it is time to move to separate locations and allow your spouse to find himself and correct his issues on his own. Sometimes tough love is the best love to give someone.

Now, I am not saying that this is going to resolve anything. If it does anything, it will give you a sense of security to where you don't have to listen to him disrespect you on a regular basis. It will also give you time to decide if being with this man is what you want for the rest of your life. It has taken me 2 months to figure out what I was doing wrong and why I did it, but it is going to take me a lifetime to attempt and build back trust with my wife. Maybe your spouses will come around too.

Amen.

Thank you, NCBubba. What you're saying is so very important to hear, especially coming from your side. Separating does two things, IMO. It gives the abuser consequences, and it lets the victim 'breathe', get out from under the constant barrage that inevitably weakens her/his self-esteem and will, so that she/he can make more logical decisions.

The only problem is that most true abusers would die before admitting they are wrong. I presume you aren't truly abusive, but learned poor coping skills to get what you want growing up; i.e., you are not truly a bad or mean person, just didn't know any better.

In any event, it's almost impossible for an abuser to just up and decide to become better without the victim standing up for herself and saying 'enough.'

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You're not in a similar situation to anyone on these boards. You are here whining about your failed relationship with your ADULTERY partner.

Cry me a river.


Iam, if that was aimed at me (RMW), first off you are wrong. Neither of us were married to another in our relationship with each other.

But, if you feel the need of a two year old to spit out ugly things, then by all means, throw them at me instead of h4c. Any childish behavioral attacks like yours needs serious counseling and I'm sure all the others reading your posts can come to the same conclusion.

Hopeful,

Sorry there are those who have so much bottled up anger inside that they have to take it out on those who see their mistakes and are trying to work through/past them. Maybe iam will turn all attacks to me. I know how to dismiss them because I know any attacks at me have no grounds.

Hopefully iam will get past the anger one day!

Best of luck with all your work here!!

RMW

What you are feeling is fear. You are afraid of what you don't know, which is the future. You hang onto the past because that is all you know and while it may not have made you happy, you were comfortable. You miss that level of comfort, and you miss all the patterns that you had in your marriage, because it made your life relatively simple.

When you marry, you plan out your whole life with this person and you start living it. Now that you are going through divorce, all the plans you made for your future have changed, and it feels like the life you have planned has been torn apart, and it has. That is the pain you feel. And, just like when you were a kid and the dog ate your homework and you had to redo it...you have to rewrite your life plan. While this seems like a lot of work to have to do over, it doesn't have to be. You don't have to write out your whole life plan today. You can take smaller steps that you can manage, like today for example...what do you have to do today? Make sure that whatever it is that you have to do today gets done, and make sure you reward yourself for accomplishing that. Then plan your day for tomorrow, and repeat the process. That is all you have to do. When you get stronger, you can start to plan out your week, and then a month, and before you know it, the pain will start to ease because you are starting on a new plan. What you really want is a life without walking on eggshells, and a life that is without mental anguish. You want to get yourself to a point where you are not just feeling like you are soul mates with a person, you want to know that you are. Living in the past leaves you feeling pain, it is the future that gives you a shot at true happiness and it starts with you.

Take charge of your life. You have choices to make. You can choose to live in the past where it is painful, or you can choose to starting working towards the future where you can find happiness. Set times in the day where you may take some time to reflect on the past (because you need that time to heal), but when that time is up, then you must redirect your mind to start thinking about the present, and investing in the future life you want. When you invest in the future you have a better chance at happiness, because you are moving forward. When you invest in the past, you stay stuck in a negative place. Which place do you really want to be? You might want to give yourself three or four times in the day where you think about him and your marriage, and set time limits, like 15 to 20 minutes each time. (Whatever works for you.) When you catch yourself thinking about the past at a time when you shouldn't be, change it. You can say to yourself that you have 20 minutes to think about him at _____ time, so I need to refocus and invest in the future until that scheduled time comes up. You know it will be coming up eventually so you are likely to get back to work on making yourself happy until that time. Eventually, you will become stronger and not want to use that time to think about the past, and that is good because it shows you are moving forward in life. This really isn't about him feeling pain, it is about you not feeling worthy of love. You are worthy...you just have to show people how it is done by loving yourself.

Excellent post Enlighten_Me!! And it fits to a "perfect" T. I've never heard it put any better!!

It isn't really which came first, the chicken or the egg... It is that you both learned a particular way to communicate, through previous relationships or your childhood, and they may not have been the healthiest forms of expression. All of these learned behaviors are things that you and your husband brought into your marriage, so it isn't which came first, it is that they likely existed before you even met.

Well, things have taken a major turn. After our bitter conversation the other night I think we both took some time to reflect. He started texting me at 1:30am and it continued until 4am. (It's a little easier for us sometimes then talking directly) We talked about what went wrong and how we both failed our marriage. It was a very open honest conversation. I finally found out that he was hurting as much as I was. I seriously thought that he walked out with a smile on his face and an extra pep in his step. Although we both felt a weight off our shouldars we also felt the reality of what we had lost years ago. The intense love and friendship.

He admitted to being verbally abusive and unsupportive of me. That was a major step. As I said, the conversation went on for hours and we discussed a lot. By the end of the conversation we opened the door to trying to heal our wounded love. We have talked many times daily since and not only about the good stuff but the bad stuff too. It's not always easy. We had a conversation and I became defensive. He was ready to walk out. As I watched how he was handling it I realized how defensive and distructive I was being. I stopped and reflected on the conversation and said I was sorry. He still was ready to walk. I was able to talk him down and tell him that I made a mistake and apologized. We are both going to slip back into our habits as we heal but I cannot go through this everytime it happens. I felt like I made a major step in realizing how I was being and speaking my mind and not letting it build up resentment. I made him see that he was trying to take the easy way out again. We worked through it and the next day he thanked me for being strong and pulling him through. I hope he can do the same if/when the shoe is on the other foot.

I do not have any unrealistic outlook on this process. I am healing me and he is healing himself. This will be a very long process. He signed a 1 year lease and it will probably take that long to show each other we can make and keep the changes. Our kids do not know and we haven't discussed how long before we will even try to give them hope. We refuse to give them hope when right now, although we want a reconciliation badly, we don't know if we can both make the changes needed to stop being toxic to each other. I am not afraid to be alone. I feel I am doing this for all the right reasons. I am taking care of me like I need to, with or without him.

Falling in love again with my best friend feels so right. I hope we can both be strong enough to keep it going forever.

Any suggestions from those that have been through this particular scenerio?? The good. The bad. The ugly.

By the way, thank you enlighten_me. Your post is incredible. You are the type of people that should be on this board. Someone who helps others heal unlike those who sit in judgement.

Congratulations!!

I wish my ex would have been willing to do the same thing. I know it's not been quite a month so the pain is still very hard to deal with, but it would be so nice if he would go get the help he needs so we could work together as a team. Even the counselor told me that the love and patience I had shown him were amazing to her (in spite of the anger that came out towards the end) - yet all he could see was I wasn't "putting out" every day. He wasn't supposed to make any adjustments to his behavior, I was just supposed to do what he wanted, when he wanted it regardless of how he treated me. Every day would have been wonderful to me if he had been willing to treat me the same way with my needs!! (he doesn't show that he sees any sign of anything he's done wrong. he shows no boundaries where his FOO or others he decides to "help" with things is concerned and never put me first - even though he had been hurt that way in his last relationship)

I hope things continue on the same path and the two of you continue to grow togehter!!

RMW