Hello to All
Have been going through separation and now divorce since Jan. 2001. Wow...cant believe after all this time, I am still struggling with it all. I am learning that I am struggling because I am allowing it to happen. You know we all give our WS's and the other people they involve themselves with to much power over us, allowing them to impact just about every aspect of our lives. We have to realize that until we spot allowing this to happen to let them influence, still our happiness at this point, who can we blame? We are where we are not by our choosing but we were thrown into this hell by the choices our spouses made not by anything we did. I guess what I am trying to say here is that it's up to us...for the ones that know divorce is inevitable that it is going to happen to let the relationships go.....grieve them (that's where I'm at right now) really grieve them and try so verry hard to work through the pain and let it go....this has been so hard for me. I wish I didnt have to do it but I know I cant skip this step....I need to experience it so that I can move forward and heal. Until I am healed, I cant even think about a relationship with someone else. I would be cheating not only myself but the other person as well. I have to work through the pain of healing, realizing my mistakes, my shortcomings and knowing that I am not responsible for the choices my husband made. Take the power back...not let him and what he is doing influence me any longer. This has to be one of the most painful experiences to go through in life....when you believe in marriage and the responsibilities and commitment that come with it. It's sad so many of us choose someone to share our lives with that dont really have the same commitments that we do. One life lesson I have learned for sure from this experience is that I will not allow myself to be involved in the least with someone who doesnt share the same moral, religious beliefs that I do. When we allow ourselves to do this, we are settling for something less than what we know will work for us. We have to learn and not repeat the same mistakes in future relationships that we had in our past ones. We also have to find the true source of our strength...know that we have to trust God....accept his peace and more importantly his will for us....I find myself wanting to fast forward through this pain, the agonizing, the pain I feel deep in my soul, I want it to stop, to be over with. I think if I could only go to sleep and wake up the next morning and it all be over...no more worrying about having to sell the house, downsize because I cant afford a quarter million dollar house by myself, displace my children, go through all the stuff we accumulated over the last now 17 years....all the old photographs, cards, letters, children’s papers, the history of our family...by myself, decide what to keep, what to get rid of....it's like its a dream. When H left, he walked out and left everything behind...didnt take any of our personal stuff, just his stuff.....lots of that though....not one set of golf clubs but 4 or 5, not a couple pairs of shoes but so many I couldnt count them and electronics, all kinds of gadgets....now I see where all our money went....he is very materialistic....and has spent a fortune on junk for the children...yes, I let it happen too....such a waste....I dont mind moving....its just getting to the point where I can. Going through all the stuff, deciding what to keep and what to sale/throw away. In my next relationship, I hope I can be allot less materialistic....I really dont care about having allot of stuff, just what we need. What's the point? It really doesnt mean anything. We dont have to have everything that comes down the pike....Our children are spoiled rotten....it's not healthy for them. Now that I am alone, I have learned to say no....and they have had a hard time understanding that they cant have everything....my H has always given in to them....wasted so much money on junk....they play with it for a week or two and then it gets tossed aside for something else and no more.....I am not doing that......Every weekend H has the two younger ones....they come home with more junk....its like he's buying their love or something...but than again, that's the way he has always been with them....I dont know how or why he does it.....I just want to find the life lesions in this experience I am going through, grow as a person, take a long hard look at myself and find what really matters in life.....learn to love myself...respect myself, regain my self confidence and feeling of self worth. Stop blaming myself for H's choices....I had nothing to do with it. and as I stated at the beginning of the long rattling on post......take back the power....No more will I allow H and OW to have power over me......I will not let their actions still me of my peace.....learn in my heart to forgive and let go. I really didnt know what to call this post....what subject to list so maybe I will go back up top now and call it "life lessons"

It wasn't a long, rattling post like you feared. It was a great post and I saw much of myself in it. One minute, I'm saying to myself, if you really love him you have to let him go, let everything go. He'll either fall flat on his face, realize his insanity, or go on without you.
Next minute, I'm trying to figure out ways to change his mind. I too have way to much stuff accumulated to even imagine going through, not to mention the pain of going through it. I think I'll probably end up just walking away from it all. I too am trying my best not to let "them" have the power over my life, but that I stay in control...it's a true roller coaster, and I hate roller coasters!!

I never thought I would have to make myself deal with that stuff but I am having to force myself to do it. It is actually holding up the process of putting my house on the market to sale. My Mom was diagnosed in September with Lung cancer and I have been staying at my parent’s home since then taking care of her. She had her surgery in October and currently undergoing a series of radiation treatments. She has to have 33 to start with and then we will see from there. Because of my involvement in her care, I haven’t spent any time at my house since September. By the time I work all day, take care of Mother, the children, I am so drained, I don’t have the energy to go over there and do what I have to do. I work full time at home...have a wonderful arrangement with my employer....very blessed in that respect and sell real estate for additional income so I am very busy, not to mention I am the Republican Party commissioner for the county I live in and am active on some other boards....so I haven’t done the necessary uncluttering of my home to get it ready to go on the market....but there is hope.....my friends have agreed to help me starting this weekend to get the job done so that I can list the house January 1st....with their encouragement, I think I can do it....I didn’t even put up a tree or anything at home this year.....we have one up at my Mom's of course and the boys are enjoying it. I just couldnt go over there and do anything for the holidays...it looks so odd....you drive down our street and all the houses accept ours is decorated all up nice on the outside...looks nice and then their is ours...plain...but we are not staying there and I just couldnt see the point. If we were there, it would be entirely different...I love to decorate for the holidays....thank you for responding and I pray your journey through this is beneficial to you in your self growth....be true to yourself, respect yourself, love yourself....that's what I am trying to do......

WOW!! I think you wrote that post from my point of view on things....sounds like we are very alike

((((Take the power back...not let him and what he is doing influence me any longer in many ways)))

I am struggling with this too..I have too long let him make decisions and control me. My emotions and such...I was advise by a close friend of ours who is a counselor that told me that I am letting him have all the power and he likes it. I was so emotionally distraught about everything I was going crazy, trying to talk to him crying, getting physically sick when I was around him it was really bad, I was on my knees begging crying and vomiting and still he did nothing to see if I was ok. It just seemed to push him further away. I called him every day, or more, still he didn't want to talk. As soon as I stopped contacting him he started to call me. He still has not discussed with me why he left...I have since served him D papers and he was shocked, and said only after 30 days?? Eventhough he told me he wanted a D and told the kids as well. I just found out from some friends of ours that he asked how I was doing and they told him I was doing much better, getting out and doing things w/friends and the kids and keeping myself busy, my friend said you should have seen the look on his face....you see I took the power back and as hard as it is for me I am doing it one day at a time. I try not to think about him and I am putting all my energy on my kids and myself. I feel like I am a much better parent to my children right now, I don't have to worry about my H, sneaking around or if he will come home, I don't take my anger out on the kids because of my H anymore.

My H also is very spoiled and we have made great financial leaps in the 10 years we have been together. 10 years ago we lived in a single wide trailer at 19 had our first child on DSHS because we had no money. Now my H owns a business and we have more than we could ever imagine, but for me money does not buy love, it has totally destoyed us, for Christmas my H purchased a new snowmobile for our 4 year old and ski-pass and lessons for our daughter, he also just bought a full size air hockey table and foosball table for the kids at our second home where h is living now....It is hard...

I wish you luck... and I am right here with you feeling the same way.....

Christine

Yes, I think we live our lives in such a pace anymore that we kind of just exist....day to day...to me it seems like in allot of our suituations, we all we striving to make a better life for ourselves, our spouses, our children and some how in the scheme of things....right when it was in our grasp....you loose it all....Like me, my dream was to be a working stay at home Mom....be able to be successful but have the freedom to work from my home and have the flexiability to set my hours, change them if necessary to be available for my children. I always hated having to be in an office for a set number of hours....so I had an opportunity to be involved with special projects for the company I work for...a great team of professionals working together to get a project completed...there was a 2 year period...1996-97 that was extremely demanding...lots of travel, time away from home a tremendous scacrafice for me personally but something I did with what I thought was the FULL support of my husband....I would fly to Boston on Mondays, not back until Thursday or Friday of each week for almost a solid year and then to another destination in the Eastern US for another six months to complete the project we were working on. This was almost unbearable for me but what it did was lay the ground work for my current job....and what I thought my H wanted....during that time I had a great support system assisting me with my then two sons....their teachers were great in letting me know the week before what they needed at school, special projects, homework assignments, etc...that helped allot because we were able to do those things when I was home and I helped them with all of them...H kept saying he supported me....but guess what the first thing was he threw up to me.....that project and the fact I was away so much....He really resented it COMPLETELY....that was the biggest mistake I think I made in our marriage...at least one of the biggest......when I think back....at the end of that project....I discovered his involvement with woman on the internet......chatting and picture exchanging....I immediatley cut my traveling WAY back ...if I had to go....no longer than 2 maybe 3 days at a time and certainly not every week.....but you know what...I think he had already started detaching, distancing himself, disconnecting from me emotionally at that time....the beginning of the end......when I found out the first time....he swore never would he do it again...but then I found out that he simply was renaming files on the computer and trying his best to hide his secret..he never really quit....and I think because the wheels were already in motion so to speak that when the opportunity came to have a real life affair, he was an easy target....Yes he obvisously was weak...and the one thing that keeps haunting me is when I ask him why he didnt tell me that our marriage was in a verry critical state...he keeps saying ...I should have know....that it was not up to him to tell me......did all of you know that your relationships were getting ready to crumble? did you really know it before you found out about other people your spouses were involved with? No our marriage wasnt perfect but believe me if I had known I would have stopped/changed even quit my job completely to save my marriage.....just wondering about you guys....