Call a friend
Call your sons

Go take a goat walk -
Go to church -

Go take a kickboxing class -

Go have a mani/pedi -

Do something wonderful for yourself, please.

Thank you Mike, I will read your thread later.

I understand what you are saying but GM knows and has heard everything I say here. He knows I have little outside support here at home and knows I need to be able to vent and get advice and feel part of something healing. He understands it. I appreciate what you are saying though, I really do. My main concern is that he would use it to further manipulate but since he already knows it I don't see the need to worry about that.

Yes, pretty sad isn't it? He did not want to have sex with me because he was afraid he would give me something again. He said he had to do this because he was not getting sex at home. Now where on earth did I fit into that? He created his own mess. I was one lonely woman and I have to say his SN's were filled very quickly after he stopped with OW. Oddly I learned how to compartmentalize my emotions from my SN's, kinda like many men say it is for them.

I am here to build, the more I learn though the harder and less likely I am to succeed. With every blow I have to honestly think and question and think some more about everything we are together just like everyone else here. When I get like this it really means little in the long run but just that I am upset, sad, angry, wanting to jump off that cliff or wanting to throw him off that cliff. Just for now while I digest the new stuff. Why do they drag this stuff out? Do you keep hearing that that is all there is and she is ready for a poly then find out more and more as you go along? I think you have been hearing that so you know exactly what I mean.

I am trying to recover and once it is finally all really and truly on the table I can make a decision but that is going to be a while I think. Besides the poly there is the psych evaluation.

It's called trickle truth, and is what most WS's do..........

((((Pepperband))))

Shinning on! EDIT: Now that is a funny mistake! Shining is what I meant of course!

I need this place right now. Thanks.

This was you, easing into the "mommie" role ... while OW/ho was taking over the "wifey" role.

You are not sick - but you have been very close up to a relationship dynamic that you need some distance in order to see the situation more clearly.

Thanks. Sucks doesn't it? Rip that darned bandaid off all at once. Jeeze.

I don't really know what to say to this. You are not the first to tell me this.

I am aware, I am being very careful with my feelings and making myself look very hard at each motivation.

I have a very big fear of being stupid and being made a fool of. Well he has made me feel both and that also keeps me aware of all the dynamics here.

I appreciate what you say and your concern. I am trying to stay very safe and yet still work with what Dr. Harley is giving us.

The psych eval did not show a personality disorder. There are other problems, they can be dealt with but it is going to take a while.

Thank you. Even though I hated reading what you wrote I see the value and care in it.

I think a goat walk sounds like just the trick. One of my poor babies is losing his hair and the vet does not know why. Now he is wearing a leopard print dog coat, and very proudly wearing it I might add. It is pretty funny.

He does not like it when I call her his wife. She really was in most ways and he loved it. He was more husband to her than he ever was to me. Hard to live with but the truth. Of course it was play life but still......

Hope you didn't miss the slipping into mommy role comment. That is similar to what happened to me. I was busy with work, the home, all the kids, when my ex rode off into the sunset with his OW who was 20 years younger.

Nah, I didn't miss it. I was just sitting here fuming that I did just that. I was the mommy, she was his wife.

Pepperband must be a psych nurse, she has me pegged.

I wonder if this is something many of us women do?

I guess I should not have been so angry about doing all the work while he sat and watched football, at least it was not what he ended up doing.

Maybe watching football is the link. Seriously, I did EVERYTHING - with his kids, my kids, his step kids, worked, did everything in the house, cooking, cleaning, shopping, yard, even with the cars.

I used to call my ex the peacock, and I was like his mommy. So he found a much younger wifey and went on a 3 and a half year long honeymoon. When he ran out of money and she dumped him, he wanted his mommy back.

But I'm to blame, because I never made my needs known, we never argued or had conflict. But I thought that was what wives were supposed to do.

Well....since I am sort of in a defending the WS mode right now, I will say that looking back, it is as much that I didn't ASK everything as it was her hiding things. I mean, you can't expect her to say "Oh, and I just remembered, on date 4 I wore red shoes." Now that is one level of granualarity, and of course there is a lot of blue sky from there to the major revelations, like "I gave a mangy social disease to our goat." Or whatever.

I got the who/what/where/why/when in the first week. Frankly, I think I was reeling digesting that. Then other Qs kept popping up in my mind. WW was still honest, but in retrospect, I couldn't expect her to read my mind on some of the fairly obscure Qs....like, I don't know, "Did you take our dog on walks with him"....weird stuff like that.

Even last week I thought to ask her if he had given her an Xmas present in '07. Now, I can't have expected her to offer that up in a D-day confession filled with considerably higher drama stuff.

And, frankly, all this stuff gets old after 4-5 months. Last week, WW said, tearfully, "Can we just put this stuff behind us? You set us back everytime I have to go back and remember stuff."

So, my advice is, don't expect him to proactively remember and offer unbidden every detail, it isn't a reasonable expectation. But work hard on your end to think of every possible piece of information you want now, so you aren't thinking of new Qs 5 months from now. (you will be anyway, btw :-) )

I was much like you except I did make my needs known and he blew it off like I was simply an annoying gnat. I was always so hurt and wondered how he could be so callous towards me. Well, now I know. He did not have to care about me, he was getting what he wanted when he wanted it, how he wanted it and I was but a tiny complication.

Mine was Big Shot, yours was Peacock. Wow.

Did you take him back?

Nah .... Just experienced.

Our MC suggested that I'd been in the "mommie role" which left the "wife" role vacant .... I proceeded to tell MC that he was "Full of it" (but I did not use the word it)

Of course, MC was right

No, didn't want him back. But we were divorced when the affair ended anyway.

Funny thing is, he always complained that I never initiated anything. But then I realized that when I did, he brushed me off - LIKE A GNAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I learned to be happy with what I did have. And actually, I was very satisfied with that.

LOL, just read Mike's post - he cracks me up.

Answer me this...

My WH always acted like that is what he wanted, a mommy. I always told him I was not his mommy but always found myself being forced to take that roll so that life could move on.

Is it just something in us that makes us just take that on? Is there something wrong with their brain that makes them not understand that if we are their mommies we are then too tired and kinda creeped out about being their wives? Well not really creeped out but from this perspective it is pretty creepy.

It is actually very sad that we can be so happy with what we had. I was too. I wanted a real husband but realized early on I was not going to have that so I worked like a dog, fell asleep and then got up to repeat the entire sequence again and again, just like you did and I assume many others.

Mike IS a hoot! He is also very compassionate and smart.

Thanks again Mike.

I am getting ready, in the absence of any new revelations, to start compiling my questions for the poly next week. It is very hard at this point to actually begin to think about it. I will and I will post so I can gather pointers from everyone.

Don't get too impressed. I am making a girl suit from the teen trapped in the well in my cellar.