Midlife Crisis: Support for Left Behind Spouses
Archives => Archived Topics => Topic started by: superdog on November 05, 2012, 11:19:32 AM
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Hi,
I am struggling with a forgiveness issue and looking for ways to help me get past this.
Right now my h is trying to minimise everything that has been said and done and behaves round me like the past 3.5 years never happened. He saw me in the street today and told me that it was a pleasure and that was his wife right there and how happy it made him. The thing is this.............
In April 2012 my h publicly humiliated me with OW at a wedding in front of his colleagues and people who knew me. It was the most blantant disrespeect of me and his family there was hroughout this whole thing. The next day he berated me so badly with his guilt that i cowered in the corner of my bedroom in fear.
I have almost reached forgiveness on a number of issues, but this one i can't let go of. I have tried and i just cant. When i feel myself even remotely drawn to him i think about this and just want him away from me. Whener i think about it i have tears and feelings of deep resentment.
I have spoken about this issue in counselling and it has not helped me move past it.
I wonder if i will only be able to do that when i get to speak to h about it and he acknowledges the harm it actually did to me as a person. Perhaps even an apology might work.
Has anyone found themselves in the same position and if so how did you move on when these types of horrific scenarios are etched in our brains and ultimately counter any positive thoughts.
sd
x
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I have just started reading a book called 'Forgiveness is a choice.' I have only just started to read it but I am hoping it may help me resolve things that I am finding it hard to move on from in respect to my partner. Not the affair or the leaving, these I can forgive but his behaviour towards me and some of the things he has said and in particular a gesture he made as if to shoo me away when I encountered him in the street!
I like you would like an apology for the hurt he has caused and some acknowledgment. I fear it may never come and hope this book may help. Maybe worth a read but only just started it so cant say yet but hers hoping :)
Take care
STGxx
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Forgiveness is, indeed, a choice. And it is for us, not for them. However forgiving does not equal being able to live/be around the person we have forgive. Also, Superdog, April 2012 is very recent, you may be trying to force yourself into forgive something that requires time. It may be too soon for you to be able to overcome that April 2012 situation. Everything in MLC, including the time a LBS need to forgive some things (or everything) take time. A lot of time.
MLCers, when they start getting close to us tend to want to pretend nothing happened. Part is because of their guilt, part because they no longer remember many of the things they have done.
I see no problem in you being straightforward and tell your husband you will need a heartfelt apology from him and telling him exactly what is bugging you. We can walk on eggshells forever and, a time comes when they need to see how much they have hurt us.
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I think until he is at a point of true remorse, any apology you receive from him will be empty words that will do nothing but reiterate the pain for you. I think Anne is right - this is a time thing, where you may be able to forgive and move past it with more distance and healing. The negative has to be replaced by more positive for it to leave your consciousness. Right now, that may not be a possibility, as you are still too close time-wise and in your day to day life. Believe me, I understand it all. I wish there was a fast forward button.
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Hi Superdog.
Yes, I have the same feelings. So hard when he states he will never say he's sorry and justifies everything and paints the picture that he 'HAD' to leave me beciase I was such a terrible wife and it was bad for the kids to see that. Nothing about him starting fights or not trying.......
Whilst I have not physically been confronted with him and his OW's I have been emotionally. He does like to find opportunites to gloat about it. He sees it as me being pathetic because I haven't moved on with some one new.
I too struggle with anger toward him for not TRYING to do anything. Mainly becuase it is the children who now have to bear that for the rest of their lives.
I'll watch this thread for answers.
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I think maybe it is a time thing. I have thought some more and realise that I am not minded to forgive this one at all right now, I can't. Maybe i never will but that's going to be my problem forever if i don't. He stole a piece of me that day and it's gone forever. I will never look at him the same way ever again and he'll know why.
SD
x
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Hey SuperD,
Interesting reading your post. Took me back to this time last year when I asked, no begged, my H to not bring OW1 into my home.
Fast forward a couple of months. He not only brought her into my home, he screwed her, (sorry to be coarse but I don't think there was actual love involved) all on the night I travelled to comfort a friend who'd been diagnosed with cancer.
When I found this out I felt utterly eviscerated. He only admitted the sex bit recently since BD2, like I thought he was showing her our artwork! By then we'd slept together as we had reconciled, or so I thought. I felt repulsed by what he'd done.
Yet now, it really doesn't bother me that much. I am still here living in the same house whilst he has moved in with OW2. Yet i didn't get here overnight, it took TIME. I worked hard, really hard to detach from it. I thought about it and what it meant to him and to me. I came to understand that for the most part my pride was hurting. He was behaving badly but it wasn't about me. Sure it's disrespectful, heinously so, but I actually felt he was disrespecting himself more than me. Who in their right mind thinks that is ok behaviour? Bottom line, he has to live with that.
I feel the same this time round now he's moved in with degenerate OW2 who makes OW1 look like Kate Middleton. I don't volunteer information about who he's with or what he's doing, but I won't lie about his affair. Let people judge, me or him, I don't mind. So many people think you must be a harridan if your H has an affair or leaves. I truly can say I don't care. It wasn't always like that for me though.
Let me tell you, since I decided to treat him with kindness and compassion, and forgive him for, what I believe ultimately to be, a folly, I have slept better, ate better, laughed harder, and been more at peace. I thought the Divorce Busting MWD was unhinged when I read the DB book. "forgiveness is a gift we give to ourselves, what a load of new age hokum" is pretty much what I thought initially. Yet in my opinion she is right.
BUT, it's not easy, it takes determination, time, courage, more time, a conscious decision to do it, a bit more time, fearlessness, and the ability to look into our hearts and recognise the truth as we see it.
Maybe now isn't the right I've, but I am sure you will get there. Good luck.
B x
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Hi Superdog,
I found these 3 helpful posts on a previously posted link posted to this site
http://affairrecovery.com/category/blog/dana