[MomOfSteel]

Faith walker, the vacation was fantastic.  I think I really needed something to push myself forward in my own progress.  Having a break from the responsibilities that sometimes feel crushing felt like a relief.  It was also just nice to experience a completely different place that held no memories with a new group of people.  I got to see the northern light, dogsled (which was one of my favorite things), sight seeing, snowmobiling, reindeer sleigh rides, hunt for Santa and other cold things. 

On the MLC front, it just seems like an endless cycle of sorts.  He’s angry at, well seemingly everyone and thing and takes no accountability.  The oldest has been  using unhealthy coping mechanisms to cope with this whole nightmare.  ExH refuses to acknowledge it may have something to do with our family falling apart and not just my crappy parenting.  The oldest is angry and expresses frequently how his dad doesn’t love him, how he chose the OW over him.  He’s hurting.  I still have more of a view into ExH’s life than I should.  If someone wanted a textbook example of how childhood trauma makes you attach to an unhealthy person this would be it.  Both think the other is cheating or going to cheat on them and they don’t seem that happy most of the time.   

I try to limit my interactions but with almost nightly sports for the past 3 months, that has been hard.  Luckily we will have a break for a while with summer.  I suppose it’s good he tries to be there for the kids more than at first. 

As for myself, I’ve continued in therapy and feel like I probably will for the foreseeable future.  Where it’s not as necessary, I still feel like it just helps keep me from letting the trauma from getting me off course when something else pops up.  I’m considering returning to school and learning something new.  I get lonely sometimes but seeing how exH is, I don’t really miss him much.  While I still struggle with certain aspects of my self worth, I do now see that I don’t and never did deserve what he did to me. 

[UrsaMajor]

Both think the other is cheating or going to cheat on them and they don’t seem that happy most of the time.   

Hmmmmmmm ..... He cheated on you with OW.... Now that they are together, she thinks he'll cheat on her... Gee. I wonder why she would imagine that?  I mean, their entirerelationship is based on cheating so why woudl things change?

On the other side, he cheated on you with OW so he expects that he will get cheated on because he cheated... Projection, anyone?

Sounds like a match made in Hades....

[readytofixmyselffirst]

Hello,
It is so good to hear from you. Each time you post, you sound better and stronger. Your truly are MomofSteel.

While I still struggle with certain aspects of my self worth, I do now see that I don’t and never did deserve what he did to me.

Exactly. His actions and choices had nothing to do about you, it had everything to do about him. This is what your son needs to understand. His father's actions are not about his father not loving him, it's his father doesn't love himself. OW isn't the answer. She's a cough drop. She alleviates some symptoms, but she is not the cure for him.

I try to limit my interactions but with almost nightly sports for the past 3 months, that has been hard.  Luckily we will have a break for a while with summer.  I suppose it’s good he tries to be there for the kids more than at first.

That is the best for you. You don't want to get sucked into his nonsense because it won't help him and only drains you. That is because you care and he doesn't.  That is due to the fact that you are the adult and he is not.

Continue to stay on course and just know how proud we are of your progress and many accomplishments!

(((Ready)))

[MomOfSteel]

Well, thought I’d pop in with an update.  The ex and OW are still at their weird merry-go-round fighting, almost breaking up or declaring they are, and then making up again.  I think it’s super cute that they are now in couples therapy to try to make it work.  I mean, years of marriage and children aren’t enough to try to work through things but saving face for destroying your own life certainly is.    luckily I haven’t been drug into it the last couple months and the boundaries are starting to stick. 

I’m struggling a bit with our anniversary this year.  It would have been a big one.  I’m sure he doesn’t even remember it.  I recently went on a trip by myself since he had the kids in an effort to distract myself from him taking them to what I once thought was our family’s special place with my replacement.  I really struggled with feeling like once again what I thought was real and special just wasn’t to him.  It feels a bit like those once happy memories have been tarnished and just look different now that the lens I view them through has changed.  It’s mind boggling that not only do they steal the future we had planned, they somehow can also steal parts of the past. 

I’m also feeling increasingly lonely lately.  I think it’s compounding with these other feelings bubbling to the surface.  It’s irritating.  I’m sick of missing him.  I’m sick of being alone.  I’m sick of not having help and having to try and do all the things alone.  It also feels that while I have supportive people in my life, they don’t get it if they haven’t been through it.  They say inadvertently hurtful things and I sometimes just find myself feeling like I’m on the outside looking in. 

[Evermore]

Well, thought I’d pop in with an update.  The ex and OW are still at their weird merry-go-round fighting, almost breaking up or declaring they are, and then making up again.  I think it’s super cute that they are now in couples therapy to try to make it work.  I mean, years of marriage and children aren’t enough to try to work through things but saving face for destroying your own life certainly is.    luckily I haven’t been drug into it the last couple months and the boundaries are starting to stick. 

I’m struggling a bit with our anniversary this year.  It would have been a big one.  I’m sure he doesn’t even remember it.  I recently went on a trip by myself since he had the kids in an effort to distract myself from him taking them to what I once thought was our family’s special place with my replacement.  I really struggled with feeling like once again what I thought was real and special just wasn’t to him.  It feels a bit like those once happy memories have been tarnished and just look different now that the lens I view them through has changed.  It’s mind boggling that not only do they steal the future we had planned, they somehow can also steal parts of the past. 

I’m also feeling increasingly lonely lately.  I think it’s compounding with these other feelings bubbling to the surface.  It’s irritating.  I’m sick of missing him.  I’m sick of being alone.  I’m sick of not having help and having to try and do all the things alone.  It also feels that while I have supportive people in my life, they don’t get it if they haven’t been through it.  They say inadvertently hurtful things and I sometimes just find myself feeling like I’m on the outside looking in.

Hey MOS.

I was nodding along as I read your post. I can completely empathise with struggling to understand how something we thought was so special for both of us was just so easily thrown away. It's one of the things I still just can't get to make sense. 

I also know what you mean about tarnished memories. I remember talking with my SIL a year or so ago, I was wondering when he had REALLY started up with the OW and if there had been previous OW I'd never even known about. She asked me if it really mattered; it was in the past now surely and I just needed to look forward. I said 'But what about my memories? What do I do with all of them now? How do I know what was real?'

So I get it. We all get it here. I'm sorry people say hurtful things because they don't (can't) understand. 

Glad to hear the boundaries are starting to stick. I hope you can find something nice to do for yourself to get through the anniversary. I've settled on celebrating these times that still mean something to me but not to anyone else anymore, quietly by myself. Maybe more of a gentle mourning than a celebration? I've decided that I don't have to let what he did completely ruin my past and all my memories. They were real to me. I loved my life. I'm allowed to miss that life and that love. So I allow myself to feel the sorrow, but also remember all the good things as well. Sending you hugs and understanding.

[Treasur]

Hugs and empathy from here too, MoS.

Hmmm, those feelings that bubble up sometimes. Yup, we get it, I hope you know we do. It’s pretty normal. Sucky but normal. Ditto that ‘I’m sick of feeling this way and sick of not being able to click my fingers and magically feel different’. I remember that stage in my own process - and how exhausting and disheartening it was - and I can only imagine that with kids, it’s a bigger and more complicated set of feelings.

I remember that I started to notice over time that these kind of ‘down blips’ were often less of a negative thing than I thought they were but more a kind of presaging of an internal shift in me. I also want to suggest that it is quite possible that in reality you have been on a metaphorical battlefield for the last couple of years, focused on survival. I honestly think that some bits of our healing don’t really start to happen until our system knows we are now a bit more distant from that, as if it knows we can now have space to process stuff we just couldn’t before. It’s not a very nice feeling though, is it? I recall it feeling like a failure, as if I had gone back not forwards….but I suspect now with the gift of hindsight that it was more like picking up some things I’d had to throw off to the side of the survival path.

The other thing I’d like to throw in for your consideration is that it may also be a rather normal part of the grieving process. I read a great book called ‘Second Firsts’ at a similar stage which put words to a lot of things I couldn’t at the time. (And isn’t it exhausting having big feelings that you’re not even sure you can describe to yourself lol?) This stage - or so I found - was like a sort of internal subterranean stirring and clanking. I really felt it was a bad thing, certainly I didn’t like it, but actually it was more of a readying for what next.

Anniversaries - along with a whole bunch of other often small things - can be pretty unsettling and leave us not quite knowing how to feel about them, I think.

So, if it’s any comfort at all, what you describe sounds very normal to me and perhaps a more constructive thing than it feels. And perhaps one of the advantages of some of those boundaries starting to stick is that it gives you more space and energy to focus on your own recovery rather than everyone else’s or indeed their messes xxx

[KayDee]

Seconding those hugs - I nodded along too,

I remember that I started to notice over time that these kind of ‘down blips’ were often less of a negative thing than I thought they were but more a kind of presaging of an internal shift in me. I also want to suggest that it is quite possible that in reality you have been on a metaphorical battlefield for the last couple of years, focused on survival. I honestly think that some bits of our healing don’t really start to happen until our system knows we are now a bit more distant from that, as if it knows we can now have space to process stuff we just couldn’t before. It’s not a very nice feeling though, is it? I recall it feeling like a failure, as if I had gone back not forwards….but I suspect now with the gift of hindsight that it was more like picking up some things I’d had to throw off to the side of the survival path.

Love this description T. I have come to this conclusion too. These dull thuds - another painful thing landing. The longer dips - a shift, even a small one, into a new phase. This is what I observe for myself. It still hurts like hell, but I know I am moving forward. I wonder if 'sick and tired' is also a catalyser to make some changes. Or a herald for the next phase.

The whole going to the special place thing with the OW. Yup, I've had that. Seems common. And it really does hurt. I for one took it really personally. Then I realised that I was still seeing him as he once was, and thinking like a 'normal' person does, when grieving the end of a long marriage. That's the lens I see things through - a deeply reflective grieving mindset. All of us here on the forum, I imagine it's the same. The crisis person is in a running away, full of shame, block it all out mindset. I cannot truly know, but I suspect that my H went to that place because it was familiar. Because he is a tad lazy and lacks any imagination ATM. Because he just went along with OW's thinly veiled desire to mark her territory and piss on our past. One or all of those. Probably the same with your xH. He cannot connect to the deep, meaningful memories of you and your family there because he is operating on surface level. I doubt he could bear it, honestly. Hard to fathom, but if he was a healthy guy with some va va voom he'd have more imagination to do something special and tailored for the OW. You've got to pity her really. She gets the secondhand experience.