Leilana....Poster girl for the recovery forum!!!! I am so sorry! I was shocked to find you posting here.

I havent been able to read all of your posts, but I gathere that your situation was the same as mine. Ex was playing the recovery game at same time as adultery game. I am so sorry, I know the feelings all too well.

But like you said...you are too cute to play this game anymore...LOL

I dont post too often here anymore. I just check in every once in a while. I have been very busy living my own life, which I hadnt done for 26 years.

My new theme song is Whitney Houstons "On My Own" I am back in college full time this semester (same college as my daugher) and still working full time.


Gotta go..college is waiting

Email me on how you are doing! dmarro1@msn.com I hope you are doing OK..if you need support, just drop a line!!!

Smiles,
Dawn

<small>[ August 30, 2004, 10:50 PM: Message edited by: sunrise1 ]</small>

bump

Leilana..Where are you???

Smiles,
Dawn

Hi Dawn and Leilana,
I thought I would post here. I just looked at Leilana's situation and it seems similar to mine. If I get it right, she tried the Plan A thing but H could not/would not end contact? That was my H....TWICE. The first time it took about a year. This time, even if I COULD forgive the affair, I could NOT handle ANY ambivalence on his part about contact. He waffled on and on. Just couldn't give her up. He had to "play it out" to understand it and understand himself.
I am right about the same place as Leilana. I am on my own and struggling with a lot of ambivalenca about that too...as if I really had a choice. I need to start letting go of this marriage. How did you do that Dawn? How long has it been?

Hi Susan,

It was a rough, long road to personal recovery.

I guess first it was God, then psychiatrist, and my family that helped me get through all I have been through. I also know it is far from over, my divorce is not final..on paper.

I stayed in my marriage because thats what I believed in. God would work wonders in my X's life and we would have the marriage he wanted us to have.

In reality..we never had a marriage. It took me so long to figure out that this was not part of God's plan. I did every earthly thing possible, but now it is up to God. I also realized that being a Christian I was harming myself staying in this marriage. My body is God's temple, and I was letting my X abuse it. Physically, mentally, and spiritually I was not the person God intended me to be.

I didnt leave my X..he left...and he didnt leave last Oct..he left mentally shortly after we said "I Do" 26 years ago.

My X went faithfulloy to marriage counseling with me...drunk...or on drugs. Like Leilana's H..he played the adultery game at the same time he was playing the recovery game.

As the textbook abused wife, I never reached out to anyone to help me with what I was going through. My family was shocked when all was exposed. Keeping the silence was the worst thing I could have ever done. I needed to reach out to God and my family for support. That was what I needed to help me keep control of my life. I beat myself up for months for letting it go on so long.

Now, I realize that "to everything there is a season"..without my horrible marriage, I wouldnt have my 4 wonderful childen..and they are wonderful in spite of what we have traveled through together.

I am back in college full time now and working full time. With his drug and alcohol problems, I cant depend on anything from X. Its time for me to do it on my own

Dawn...I am so sorry. Seems like my time is not my own which is funny, because it's ALL my own now!

Been so busy. Besides H trying very hard to Plan A me (in vain, I fear), I've been reorganizing my life. But I mean that in a good way.

Cleaning out extraneous life junk from drawers, closets, filing systems, trying to get all my ducks in a row, taking care of parents, friends with cancer or recently widowed friends needing support. The "I need to do this" or "I need to go there" just never seems to stop!

Want to get to the "I WANT to" stage, but haven't quite made it past an hour or two here or there during the past weeks.

To be perfectly honest though, I've also been very busy with very supportive girlfriends, stealing me away for lunches or dinners or weekends, too. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" /> I've been very blessed with caring people, just like yourself, sending their prayers and good wishes. I appreciate them all...I appreciate yours. You're one of those, "back in the day" MB girlfriends of mine. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

So glad to hear you have a healthy love in your life. Wow. Good for you, Girl!!

And I take it your family is otherwise intact. I am sorry, but I can't help but think how much healthier for them it is without the dysfunctional mayhem in the house. This could be wrong of me, but I imagine them flourishing now, and what a blessing it must be.

Susan, H and I were in a loving recovery from April 2000 till November 2002. Then he slid back into the affair. Two years after a terrific recovery! Go figure.

H likened it to being offered a 1-900 phone sex deal, where he never had to pay--it was just too easy, and he was spoiled--from both sides. Apparently he never learned any lessons. None that "stuck" anyway. A man with no integrity. Blech. Why would I want any part of that?

But I totally understand the ambivalence and difficulty letting go that you're feeling. I have to fight myself to stay resolved as well.

Read "Too good to leave, too bad to Stay" by Mira Kirchenbaum. Read "The Betrayal Bond" by Patrick Carnes. Twyla turned me on to these. I need (there's that word again!) to finish them up soon. Journal while you're reading them. Make it about your total self exploration and working-through period.

They will help you with your ambivalence. Heck, they may even make it apparent that staying might be an option...but you have to do the work to get out of that ambivalence mode. It's a yucky place to be, isn't it?! It's also not healthy for you.

Ladies, I'm sorry I took so long to come back, but I come here only on occasion..so much going on right now...but I regularly get called into the Ladies Chat Forum, if you've heard about it on "In Recovery". My email is set up to notify me if someone sends me a PM from there. Join!

Hi,
I'm glad Leilana checked back in!
Sunrise, you are in a MUCH better place being out of that marriage, and so are your children. We so often hear about kids who grow up and end up in abusive relationships themselves. Its best for them to see a strong woman leave one and make it on her own. I wish you happiness in your new relationship. It's nice to hear there are good men out there!
Leilana, I can't even IMAGINE being in recovery for that long and getting duped. But is that different from my situation? My husband had an affair three years ago. It just happens to be a different one now. And things were WONDERFUL in between. I just don't get it. Although he knows the problem is within him and he is in counseling, I just don't know if I can put myself in that place again. So I sit on the fence. I will get both of those books.
I want to hear what the I WANT stage is about! I've been so concerned about his needs I don't know what my own are. That is a big part of recovery here.
I hope you both had a nice weekend.