Midlife Crisis: Support for Left Behind Spouses
Archives => Archived Topics => Topic started by: barbiedoll on October 31, 2014, 02:30:11 PM
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I have been 11 months trying to "re-build " our 35 year marriage. There is much I have learned and most of it I was a very unwilling student. My husband had an affair. I have to say that again... My husband had an affair. A little less pain to say the 2nd time. His affair started the last week of April 2013, and by May 4th , I had the bomb drop. All the typical things... I do not love you, you cannot make me happy and several months of living in his hell. I kicked him out in september... still unaware of the "women" he risked it all for. In November I discovered "her". I guessed . I was right. She is a family member. This was the moment my marriage finally drew its last breathe. He decided the fate of my future, my past, my dreams, my marriage.. never did he ask about I may have wanted with my 50 %. He took it all and left me in the deepests shock I have ever experienced. I know there are bazillions of women who would say NEVER would my husband do that . NEVER. I am the Queen of that club. Nothing in the universe would EVER make me belive he was capable of inflicting such an injury to me. I would belive he would rob a bank or steal from the elderly 1st. It makes one feel very very stupid.. right or wrong.. it is one of a million emotions and feelings that assault you day and night. I had 35 years of proof that he was a good and faithfull man . ( of course , now I am not so sure. Do not want to risk looking stupid again) I knew his integrity, I knew his values, I thought he loved me. He is a father of 5 daughters. Could he really have an affair and model this to his daughters? Could he truly inflict this permanent injury on me ? Everything I "knew" said NO... every cell in my body said NO. But my intuition knew. It is crazy making struggle to live with 24 hours a day. .. for months. He lied. He is now a liar. What do I do with the movies in my head?. I see her perfectly .. she is not a stranger. They come out of the blue, snapping into my mind like the flash of a camera. I feel the surge of anxiety, the horror, the unreality breaks into sweat, i have broken blood vessels clenthing fists to stop the pain, I turn into a corner of a room thinking it will block the view, I have begged god to make it stop... it is unspeakable cruelty to me. If hear myself whisperring no no no no .. I try to change the voices in my head.. I chant over and over " it will be okay, it will be ok, you will be okay." I try to change the channel, I weep until I think it is all gone and will not come back, I have broken elastics on my wrist until I see my mother cry from the marks I have inflicted . I hear him.. " yes, I am sleeping with her, I am having sex with her" in his arrogant monster voice. Finally the truth . How cruel of him. How endlessly cruel of any human being. It is a lasting sorrow to me. He says, he never thinks of it , unless I ask . He says he never thought about me, not once. He had no guilt climbing from her bed to mine. He is protected by his "fog". I have memories that I did not make .. in clear technicolour. He has his "compartments" to climb into. I have fear of my own thoughts. I pray for relief. He prays for forgiveness. My daughter will get married in 6 weeks. She wears her diamond turned around when she is with me as it has made me weep. Marriage .. is so sweet and exciting for her. Marriage is the source of my deepest dissappointment, the source of layers of complex emotions that I do not see coming, the pain I wear on my skin until I am flaming with effort to control myself .. and be happy or feel joy for her. She has a wonderfull poem about love and marriage. My grandaughter will read it . I will excuse myself . I thought.. " if he would just come back, I can forgive anything .. please God, do not take my husband ". I remember praying that outloud. I will never forgive this betrayal of every part of my exsistence as a women. Never. Can you rebuild a marriage and never truly forgive.? I do not know. Please, I have struggled so long with this. How are other women coping with the sexual betrayal. Did it really mean nothing? How can this be true? How do you ever overcome this pain?. My husband was her Knight In Shining Armour.. he fits all that I have read. He absolutely felt that way. He "rescued " her, in his mind. I never enterred his mind... at all.
He saved her... and destroyed me. Destroyed "us". How do you ever get past this ?
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I thought this was posted under " discussion"... Sorry, did something incorrectly . I need to hear from other women about coping with sexual aspect etc..
Thanks
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Hi Barbiedoll
I have not even been brave enough to think about them together intimately. ,it is too painful but I am overweight and she is slim and that makes me feel so inadequate. I know she prances around in stockings and suspenders and behaves like a wh*re.
Try if you can and push it from your mind and tell yourself that what they have is grubby and seedy and what you had was righteous and pure and was true unsullied love.
They destroy our lives and anyone who does that will have to pay someday. If not in this World then in the next.
Take care
HMT
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I know how much this hurts - it hurts all of us :'(
My issue is with the emotional betrayal - the sex doesn't bother me as much. I know that my H is using the OW for sex, it is not special or meaningful. I think that as women we confuse sex and making love. Sex doesn't always have emotions tied to it and men are very good at having meaningless sex. The sex that my H and OW have is not something that I would want. She is not cherished or adored.
My suggestion is change the way that you view it. The OW and the sex really do not mean anything. Men use sex to escape, they use OW that will degrade themselves in order to build their self esteem. They are selfish lovers! The man you knew as your lover is not the man that the OW got as her lover - I promise you.
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I can so relate to you! My H was a kind, love tentive wonderful man. There wasn't a mean bone in his body. He loved me with a pure love. We had a great marriage. Crisis set in and at 52 he met a 32 year old and everything changed.
I now am in divorce as he quickly tries to get rid of me.
He's cashed in our retirement - Not sure how much yet
Thinks he owns me nothing
Thinks everything is his
Seems to hate everything about me
Looks for ways to cheat me
Looks for ways to steal from me
Looks for way to make me feel like dirt
Lies just to lie
Hurts just to hurt me
Found out just this week he has been recording me
He wants the divorce but wants everything and wants everything to go his way
I'm having surgery a big one and he wants nothing to do with being there for me.
I don't know this man and it's a nightmare. I wake up everyday to the same questions. How could a loving man do this to me? 54 years of and a 31 year marriage is gone because of MLC, fog and a tunnel? It's hard to believe and understand. It's so sad for me but it's more hurtful. I did my best and gave my all only to be here alone.
I think about them and it turns my stomach. Some days it's more than I can take. He's so angry, he's brain is telling him to be angry and all that anger is at me. It's just unbearable at times.
But, I do have moments that I pop back up and believe in myself and know I'm not a fault and that I will get through this somehow. I have hope for my future because I can't become what he thinks I am. I'm better than that.
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Barbie doll,
I have no clue who my husband is sleeping with. He keeps that part of his life hidden. He is not even aware that I know about her. I am not sure who she is or what she looks like so that helps keep my sanity. My husband has not thrown her in my face or admitted to much more than he had needs and maybe there might be someone he would like to get to know. Knowing that was a lie hurt me more than what he has been doing. Being ignored by him right now has hurt me more than knowing how he is living this secret life.
But I haven't had to face it yet so I don't know. I find the lies, the secrecy, the amount of effort and money he has spent on these other women that was our retirement savings, our general living for our children and us - right now that bothers me more that he has wined, dined them and probably spoiled them with gifts than him having sex with them.
I have seen some exchanges before he decided that I ruined his life between him and this woman and it is not a happy relationship. He wrote things to her that screamed he has very little respect for her. He used language that I can't imagine my husband ever using to anyone. He threatened her. She threatened him. It was not a relationship I would ever want to be involved in or want anyone to be involved in. It is so freaking bizarre and twisted.
It hurts I think anyway you look at it. How can it not haunt you. This is the one person you trusted with everything you had. You raised a family together, you have shared everything and in a blink of an eye, it was shoved aside for some times of whimsy. I am haunted by words he has said throughout this entire journey.
I think all I can hope for is strength and time to heal.
Hugs.
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I guess I wasn't one who coped with it very well either . I needed to know the truth. Which I don't think I got.
He moved the creature into the family home where I raised my daughters the one we had all lived in for 10 years after the divorce was final which took 4 months.
Two weeks later this creature (whom I also knew) was in my bed, using my kitchen, taking a shower in my bathroom, inserting herself directly into my life because he had to save her.
And as bad as all of that was what was worse was I went back and tried to deal with the loss and fix everything.
I slept in the very same bed he was in with her for 5 months never talking, never touching, him ignoring the facts of what happened. Her ghost in the room, in the bed.
After 5 months my very soul cried out and I expressed it to him. I woke up one morning weeping before I could even have a thought "I cannot do this anymore! The bed has to be sold!".
He was leaning one hand on the foot of the bed looked right at me and said " I'm not selling this bed"
With those words he was condemning me to spend whatever time in the very place he allowed her to sleep, participated in whatever they did, whatever intimacy that may have been shared.
Guess what happened? The bed went. >:(
I know he had ED issues but would not address them at all. He had them way before all of this happened. If his biggest complaint was he didn't get enough sex? He needed to fix what was wrong with him. It couldn't even be discussed.
I would have been just fine to omit that part of the relationship. He's a diabetic and I wasn't willing to put the pressure on him to do anything. I took care of him the best way I knew how.
I did put the pressure on him to tell me what they did but the story changed a few times so that indicates he was lying. First he said they did have sex then he told me they didn't. So who knows and frankly I don't care. After the mental angusih I went through for the year and eight months I was there it doesn't matter. I did that to myself.
It took a visit to the emergency room hospital for me to wake up and realize he couldn't have cared less about me to begin with...32 years for what? I have no clue.
Was she physically more attractive that me? Not as far as I was concerned.
She needed to be rescued she sold her house because he said he would marry her and he played the part and thought everyone else should just be ok with his decisions.
My compassion for him put me in that bed. Slighlty misguided.
I have daughters also and he's no example of what a father or a man is. What he's done concerns me for how they interprate their own relationships. He's shown no respect for anyone in the situation.
The only thing that's put my life and what I put myself through into perspective was meeting other people who's story was much more tragic IMHO than mine. And no contact for a year and a half.
On HS? Scooby comes to mind. That her H would bring the creature into the house while she and her children slept upstairs is beyond belief.
I also have made friends with a woman who lost her husband and twin toddlers in a car accident.
I thank God everyday I am no longer in the situation.
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Maybe I am in denial or something but the sex doesn't really bother me so much. What does get to me is the cruel, hurtful things he says. I do wonder if he is doing things for these women that he never bothered to do for me and that definitely causes some bitterness. Do they get taken out all the time, does he hold the door for them or get their coats, and does he do activities with them where he just wanted to sit around the house with us? His ignoring our children is also so disturbing to me; I have said many times that my personal distress has been displaced by how he kind of ignores them. But it is definitely his words that have wormed their way into my psyche and I don't know how I will get over it sometimes.
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barbiedoll,
There has never been a post written that has touched me more. To hear you explain your journey and how you felt was so raw and open. You could honestly be a writer.
I can't give much advice or insight into an ow but it has to be the most devastating and painful part of a marriage break up.
I truly hope and pray...for you...you can find it in your heart some day to forgive him. I don't know about forgetting, maybe that never happens. But the forgiveness is for you to heal, not for him. He has to forgive himself.
btw, glad the bed is gone. ;)
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Unconditional love,
Change the participants to 52yr old W and 37yr old lover?
You've just described my sitch.
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Unfortunately. The images in our heads will haunt us. We have to know ourselves well enough to decide if we can fight them down.
If we can't?
If we ever get the chance to reconnect? If we ever get the chance to rebuild?
This may be the biggest challenge.
I have thought about this often and I don't know if I am strong enough to put this out of my head. And? For me? It is the deal breaker to any kind of reconnection.
I don't have an answer to it. I don't have a skill that will manage it.
If anybody does? I'm open to suggestions.
If any of you are like me? The images are graphic and disgusting. Powerful enough to make me puke.
I can still imagine many things that I like and love about her. The images are enough to treat her like toxic waste.
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these things strike us to the very core..our self worth,our identity our sexuality.our view of the world, our ability to believe and trust,even our sense of reality ..it's an exquisitely painful experience...
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Barbies post is eloquently written my heart aches for the pain she's in and UC's list greatly disturbed me.
I was provoked and unknowingly recorded - that violation for me runs deeper than almost anything else. He danced around like an idiot after he got it.
If you cannot have a conversation, disagreement, or live with someone without this kind of thing happening? Time to get away from them ASAP.
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Yeah I'm out! I can't live or be around someone who is just causing drama for drama sake. There is no reason to record me. I'm not fighting back or fighting him for anything other than I did run off with his phone when I found that out. Then I came back to my senses and thought...this is crazy, and I'm done with crazy. Our life wasn't like this so why should it be now. You are off the chart manic and deep into MLC and I'm off this train. This is stuff you see on Movies, not in my life. It's like the quiet storm. It took 52 years to show up and it blew the town away.
I mean, how do you have a conversation with someone who's looking for you to say the wrong thing when they are in the crazy zone in the first place. I have to figure out our communication for work.
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Barbiedoll,
Your post resonates with me. They have contaminated our lives and minds with their vile betrayal.
I was coping fairly well until I had naked photos of the ow appear on my iPad. The alien had his phone connected to my icloud. The images of the grubby looking creature haunted me for months and it made the whole thing so horribly real and graphic. I have managed to erase them from my memory but the thought of him taking such sleazy photos makes me feel physically sick. That thing is not my husband. He would have been disgusted. It is pornography. These MLC creatures are obsessed by sex. They are repulsive.
I felt dirty by association. Everything that he had touched was contaminated. I gave all of the bed linen to charity and bought more. If he had been in the house I wiped everything he may have touched with disinfectant. I despoused the house and then sold it. I refused to see him after final BD and never want anything to do with him ever again. He can drop dead for all I care.
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Oh Barbiedoll, my heart breaks for you and all of us. Your post touched me deeply. My H has been living with OW for 3 months and I have visions of them being intimate. Rugged is right, the images in my head are enough to make me feel sick. I don't even know if my H will ever come back and if he did I don't know how to cope with the thought of them together. I truly don't. :-[
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I kind of feel the same way. H 52 years old with a 32 year old student. I find repulsive. Every now and then I think of it and it makes me sick.
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I was told twice by him that nothing happened with them.,but surely don't know. I recently saw an old text between the two of them and all the old feelings came flooding back. I don't know how this will ever go away.
My husband isn't willing to do everything like yours is. I wish he was. In that aspect Barbie you are very lucky.
We aren't intimate. We sleep together but he says he's broken. Guess he doesn't think he can even do it any more but I don't know if that's just an excuse to not have sex together. I sometimes get visions of them together and try to think of other things,but wonder sometimes how can I compare to her. She must have been something for him to bring her back from the dead past.
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Sometimes I get those haunting mental images too. I think what helps me to squish them down is the fact that my first ex-husband was an alcoholic and I know his parts didn't work the more he drank...so...since my guy has been drinking a lot lately, I can only assume that his parts don't work as well either. They worked awesome for me...but I know the COW can't possibly be getting the same effect. ;) ;D
It also helps if you have a "special" name for her. I call the OW COW...Cavernous Other Woman. When he was having cake once in a while, he would always comment how tight I was and he never mentioned it when we were together...so...I could only assume that she was NOT...and so she became COW. ;D it may not seem like the nicest way to be, but we're not talking nice here...it's just a way to help me cope.
It also helps me to really think through how he was after we had been together a while. He's more likely to just be falling asleep on the couch & if she wakes him to go to bed, he could very well be pissed off that she woke him up. He's more depressed now than he was when he was here...she can't possibly be having that much fun with him. So I say she's welcome to this version of him. I don't have to deal with him at his worst like she does on a daily basis. She does not have the man that I knew.
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The sexual betrayal,
For me it was just images in my head, until I found xW sex tape with OM#3. There it was for all to see, that pretty much killed it for me. Before that I had thought we had a chance, if I hadn’t seen it I would have still been pining for her, pursuing her, but after that there was no going back for me. Also for xW if she ever came out of her fog, I think the shame of her knowing what she had done and what I had seen would kill her, there’s nothing there that could be explained away.
Ironically it was not the sex acts that cut me to the core it was some of the still images with the pair of them in an intimate embrace, the guy was a real affair down but there they were together all loved up. She’s since moved on to OM#4, who she is in love with, but she’s still in contact with OM#3 who sends her dirty text messages.
So all in all it was pretty disgusting, I cant type anymore as it brings up vivid images in my head, I’ve put a lot of distance between xW and I since the divorce, so the triggers are less and less, I guess time and living a good life will help me heal.
Lanzo
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That's really horrible lanzo. :-[
I too have a spouse that drinks a lot,is now 50 and we are not intimate because he says it's broken. Alcohol definitely kills the ability to get to it. So knowing that has helped but then there was the diagram prescription he started taking. I know he tried some things before he left but seeing that after he left,made me sick. I asked him why the diagram once and he told me it was so he could take care of business on his own. Yeah right.
He may have tried but I don't think he had much luck even with viagra. Thank god for that. I would rather go without now than have him take that stuff again or even see it in the house.
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after nearly a year , i still think i am in the shock stage. That cannot be right. I only have to think about the unreality that this could happen and I have every phyiscal , emotional reaction that I sufferred with since the beginning of this hell. I need to find away to get my own life back, my own intrests, my joy, myself. I have lost myself in the fallout of his crisis . If I see thm together in my brain.. I want to run away and just vanish off the planet. It is my deepest struggle.. I see it as he has a secret sexual relationship for over 7 months with "her". He must have memories in his brain, thinks of things they did , things they shared etc . How do we ever get past this pain? How would I ever know if he thinks of her, misses her or fantasizes about the "best sex ever" ? I will never know his thoughts and it is anguish . To feel compared .. brutally jeoporadizes forgiveness. I love my old husband.. I have stayed because I hoped as time went by , my feelings would change, the pictures would dull and i could forgive. It has not happened yet. I still ask myself daily " how could he ? How could he ?'. there is no answer
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An year is not that long and certainly not long enough to erase these type of images, barbiedoll.
You need to be kind with yourself. And, of course, try not to let it consume you.
For me the OWs and sex are the easy part of this because my mind does not go there. I have even (years after Mr J left, when keeping documents, found some of his letters to them, but it did not registered).
What was really difficult for me was the lying. I knew there was someone else, I told Mr J that there was someone else. He spend months denying. The disloyalty and the break of trust were the bigger blows.
No, I was not all nice, calm and fine with the existence of OW1 (OW2 I just ignore) but the sex never entered my mind. Maybe because Mr J has always be so busy he does not have time for his OWs. And he also drink a lot, sometimes to point of remembering nothing of what he did during a day.
Can't see any carnal romance of the century there at all.
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Barbie you may still be in shock..there wasn't enough time that had passed for you to get your balance. This is HIS crisis We choose not to make it ours.
I do belive it's all about how these other people make them feel about themselves not so much the sex.
I can understand how you feel about the possible comparison. The ex prostitute the ex got involved with kind of blew my mind. I said to him once "You set the bar pretty high"..he replied " Not really" whatever that means.
He said he couldn't do anything with her..she knew that's about the ultimate connection you can make. Who knows? He's such a liar.
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Barbie,
I'm two years into this and most times now............. I don't think about it.
If I try to bring it up in my mind? It is as disgusting and nauseating as every other time I dwell on it.
But. That is the point I was trying to make. As time goes on. I spend more time thinking about her mental state and how confused and maniacal she has been. Throw depression and paranoia in there and you have the brain of my XW.
When I focus on her mental state? I can make allowances for just about anything.
It isn't hard at all to convince myself that she is out of her mind right now.
Now I spend most of my time wondering what it will take to break the mental mania that she is suffering.
When I look at her in this light? I can't imagine that sex with a mentally disturbed person could be all that great.
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Agree with In It that you may still be in shock. A year is nothing in our healing, and sometimes people get stuck. It took me 8 months, two extended trips out of state, a lot of drinking, the death of my mother and 70 hours as an "inmate" in a psyc ward to move past shock.
The images are hard to deal with although, like Anjae, is was more the lies and deceit that messed me up. Once I finally accepted that he isn't worth what I was doing to myself, I was able to start letting go of everything. I had a lot of strategies including taking those images and morphing them into something I found funny--my favorite being thinking about them having sex him farting on her face. Gross, I know, but for whatever reason it made me laugh. I also imagined her growing copious amounts of hair from her nose.
Also, many of them use sex as a bandaid to forget whatever is actually bothering them. I told mine exactly that at BD and he got mad at me (surprise!). As In It said, it's about how they feel. Everything is about them. Everything.
You asked, Barbie, how we get rid of the pain. We don't. It tempers with time, but what they've done to us will always be there. Forgiveness is a conscious decision, but that does not mean we forget. I know I cannot forget the truly reprehensible things that were done to me, but because I understand the man is in MLC, I have a decent understanding of why he has done what he's done, and that helped me with forgiveness. More important, though, is that I needed to forgive him for myself. I learned to ask myself one important question: how is hauling around all this garbage serving me? When I found my answer, I let whatever it was go. The truth is, I initially didn't know how to let go. We hear that we've got to do it, but there is no instruction manual as to the process. For me it was asking him to leave and realizing that I am married to a stranger whom I do not like most of the time.
There was one other thing that I learned: turning my thinking. I am not very adept at looking at various experiences from a variety of perspectives. I have my initial gut reaction but just think about what else might be going on. Learning that skill helped me to realize two things: I don't have a clue what's happening in his head and it doesn't matter. What matters is how I choose to live my life now. I choose not to fixate on what he did. Again, all of these things happened and are facts of my life. I cannot change them, but I can accept them for what they are...part of the tragedy of MLC that became my crisis until I chose not to make it so.
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Exactly Medusa-
Barbie when you take time for you it will give you perspective..at the time I thought I needed all the gory details it ends up - who cares?
I've kept my integrity and understand I want nothing further to do with him.
What we do to ourselves is much worse than whatever anyone else could do.
It's hard to belivie they would sacrifice a marriage and family for their selfish pursuits- these other people - they don't call them affair downs for nothing.
It's the MLcer magical thinking that keeps them from reality.
For us letting go is a process you may have to do it all day some days. It's not something you say you are going to do..do it... then it's taken care of.
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As much as all of the disgusting things I’ve seen and some of the hurtful things xW has said, I did take them to heart, and I did take them personally but I cope now by distancing myself from her, and having no contact whatsoever. I can do this as I harbour no hopes of reconciliation
I don’t want to see her, I don’t want to hear her voice. The less I see and hear of her, the less real it seems , like it never happened, hopefully soon It will all be forgotten and my head will be in a better place.
If she wants to do those things to make herself feel better then she has no place in my life. With me gone lets see if she keeps doing those things and stills feels good about herself.
Lanzo
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Hi barbiedoll,
In my experience with two men in MLC the sex is different than you are assuming. I wanted to know so I could move on. J explained it to me like this:
Sex with the OW is nasty dirty sex. It is in his words just "f*cking" nothing more. Once he made her get on her knees behind the bar and perform oral sex in front of the patrons. Another time he had her meet him at the local park. He told her to drop her pants, bend over, and grab a tree. Afterwards he left her in the park standing there without her pants. I could give you hundreds more examples.
I asked j if he wanted to do those things why didn't he do them with his wife. He was shocked. He said his wife was the mother of his kids not some ow on the streets.
You see it is the dark side taking over, not the real person you were with. You separate the two things in your mind, that's what I did. J was addicted to the drama, the nastiness, without risking real feelings since he had none then. In his own words he was frozen inside, just spinning in circles in his head. He didn't respect or admire OW. She was just a play toy that let him act out his dark side. As with all toys, eventually it was no longer fun so he moved on. J told me he never thought about her feelings needs or wants anymore than you think of the feelings of your car when you drive it or your closet when you get out your clothes.
I hope you stop torturing yourself with thoughts this is some great love affair or even good sex. As j said, why would any of you be jealous of OW? Would you want to be the ow rather than the woman? The more the things are disgusting is a measure of how badly these guys feel about themselves I think. Please don't reflect their feelings back onto yourself. It is their monkey and their circus to own.
Lp
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I completely agree with lawprofessor!
My H has referred to the OW as a 'toy' too. I know that he is using her and that she will do all of those things for him to keep him he around. How else is she going to keep him arond :o
She was just a play toy that let him act out his dark side. As with all toys, eventually it was no longer fun so he moved on. J told me he never thought about her feelings needs or wants anymore than you think of the feelings of your car when you drive it or your closet when you get out your clothes.
This is so very true.
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MLCer involved in nasty sex with an emotionally disturbed partner. MLCer is obviously out of their own minds. Recklessly chasing anything in hopes that they will find some distraction from the madness. Dragging themselves further and further into a bottomless pit. Tirelessly destroying themselves and anything that was good in their lives. Burdened with guilt and self loathing they lash out against the one person in the world that loves them and has had their back for the majority of their adult life................
Why is it so hard to detach?
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Hi LP ,
Thanks for putting a bit of context to this as it kind of helps me in a way to process things as xW certainly did move to the Dark side.
I did see a text exchange from xW and her OM where they described their activities in the elevator and in the studio at his place of work when she was just meant to be passing by. It read a little bit like the bar and the park incidents you just described. I would never had thought that of xW
I also saw the plastic toy that xW had. When we were together and I mentioned such things, she had a look horror on her face an exclaimed that there was no way she was inserting anything artificial into herself. Apparently now, that thing is her tool of choice.
Her OM’s are people, who sleep with people, that sleep with people, that’s were she is, I did show concern after the D and told her to have respect for herself, or at least get herself checked for STD, she told me to mind my own business because she could F who she wanted to.
Barbidoll, time and distance is helping me to get through it all, also this thread is helping me, as it is letting me get something’s out into the open that would otherwise be stored away in my head and stay there like a ticking time bomb waiting to explode in the future. I’m clearing the decks and my brain and moving on.
Lanzo
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It is probably more the betrayal, the lies, the abandonment and the nastiness of some of it that is really the problem. I don't think I ever gave a thought to not being able to be with mine because he had a wife 10 years before or had been with other girlfriends before he met me. It is not that they have been with someone else but the betrayal that burns all of those images into our minds.
I think that with some it is "w****" sex" but with others there was an emotional affair before the PA and the MLCers felt very connected. In papers that mine threw out when he moved he had written her name down as all of his passwords. I don't think he ever used mine as a password the entire time we were together. And come to think of it I never used his as mine. Some of them idealize the woman and don't think of her as just sex. Mine was very defensive of her and would say she was his FRIEND.
It is odd but with her I could have gotten past the sex as in the beginning he was so obviously out of his mind and I didn't really have a visual of her. I could put it off to temporar insanity. But I am having trouble with potential OW3 as I have actually seen her in action around town and she is pretty disgusting. The thought of him with her has made me lose respect for him and think he is just plain stupid. At this point there isn't enough bleach in the world for me to want to have anything to do with him.
I don't foresee us getting back together but if we did he would have to have evolved into a different person and there would have to be a courtship and gradual winning back of trust. I have often wondered how RCR could stand to put that year of living apart in place when she got back with her husband but I'm starting to see the wisdom of it. Not only was it a cooling off period and time for her husband to prove it was for real this time, it allowed for her to accept him back at her own speed.
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I suspect that for most of them sex with OW is very selfish even if they do idealize women. Idealization is a problem, though, because they want us to be on a pedestal and be something we are not. I can see in mine a certain hatred of women. He dislikes me and has called the last two female bosses he had "crazy".
What he seems to want from a woman is someone who will be his caretaker like his mother was and someone who will reward him with sex when he does something nice. Can't tell you how much that little tidbit blew me away...I never knew I was supposed to drop to my knees just because he mowed the lawn or built us a piece of furniture, but apparently that's what he was thinking.
Some of them seem to have no concept of boundaries. Mine thought it was perfectly find to grab me whenever he wanted and (again) I was supposed to act like a woman in an adult film on the spot. Know what? If that's how it is with them, fine. I have way too much self-respect than to be treated like that.
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Dear Barbie,
yes, you are still in the state of shock, really not so much time has passed. You were lucky your H came back 'early', but on the down side you were not healed yet. It really takes time. Continue all the things to do to get the pictures out of your mind as you said...again and again, it takes time. But the images will fade.
Here is an article that helped me:
http://www.marriagesherpa.com/blog/marriage/affair_images_escape_pain/
And for forgiveness, I really find it is like an onion (not sure who wrote that here), there are layers and layers of it, again it takes time to peel one after the other off.
I did the forgiveness challange of Desmond Tutu and found that really great. Main thing is that forgiveness is not even for him, it is necessary mostly for YOU to find peace. You also don't need to start this challange with your H first, you can first work on trying to forgive somebody else for something smaller (or longer ago and not so hurtful), then work on the most painful thing, i.e. your husband's affair. This really helped me.
http://forgivenesschallenge.com/
Big hugs Barbie, you can do this! Don't blame yourself now for not being able to 'forgive and forget' quick enough.
It does take time and you will get there.
I don't know exactly your story, but in case your H really is out of MLC, he could really help you. There are different programms on that, some with workbooks, some are weekend retreats.
If your H is still at the end of his fog and not completely stable yet, or if he is just not the type for that, he unfortunately won't be able to do that, to help you.
Your H did not really seem to have bonded so much with OW...you know especially with men there is so much due to just hormones too. Still hurts, but try to see it also as that. Ever seen a bull mount a cow? Or better yet, semen taken from a bull or a stallion. Ow? She's no more than that hideous plastic frame ;D ;D ;D Well, I try to see it like that on my good days...
Hope these two videos make you laugh and you won't find them offensive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7OSm6U0Jbg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J538n44UPmA
Big hugs,
Lost
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What he seems to want from a woman is someone who will be his caretaker like his mother was and someone who will reward him with sex when he does something nice. Can't tell you how much that little tidbit blew me away...I never knew I was supposed to drop to my knees just because he mowed the lawn or built us a piece of furniture, but apparently that's what he was thinking.
Exactly..there was nothing done in the house in regards to improvements( which he can do as a profession) Why?
Didn't get enough sex.He told me that!
And you know what? If he had gotten more it would have been something else he wasn't getting.
Improving the families quality of life didn't even enter the picture for him. In the winter the curtains actually moved when the wind blew... ::) :o
All he wanted to know was " What do I get out of it?"
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Hi LP, don;t know how I lost you for so long. I kept thinking about you, but had lost your thread.
How is J & your H going?
Will have to go back and read. Sounds like things have been interesting on your thread. Great stuff.