[Treasur]

First of all, lots of folks here will know what the feeling felt like. I suspect, particularly when you have kids, it’s probably a mixture of feelings tbh…sadness, anger, frustration, maybe even a bit of isolation? Some of those feelings are probably about you, some about xh, some about your kids.

Do you know why steel is so strong? And why your MoS name is such a good one? Bc it’s an alloy, combined with other metals to make a kind of lattice structure if you looked at it under a microscope. These experiences are both awful AND part of the mix that forms our metal. Imho, rebuilding after big loss is a series of ‘second firsts’ (although it tends to last a bit longer than we might wish lol). Each one is a bridge crossed that ensures that the third or fourth of fifth ‘first’ does not feel quite the same. This time, it sounds as if there was the Presence of Absence….that big sense of what/who is not there. With time, it will become the Absence of Presence where you are more aware of what is there, even if it is different. I can’t tell you that those moments of remembered loss will never reappear….but I can promise you in future times you will feel much more pride and joy in how you and your kids survived to build something worth celebrating regardless of what your xh is or does. And you and your kids SHOULD feel proud….despite all that the universe has thrown at you, you were there, your kids were there….it was a real moment of triumph actually. And there will be others. The fact that xh is a chocolate teapot of a parent will become background noise more and more to those triumphs. For all of you, in different ways, he (and ow) will become bit players to the main show who occasionally pop up, wave a cheap prop around and leave while the rest of you get on with the main story.

You are forging your steel right now, MoS. And you are doing just fine x

[MomOfSteel]

FTT, xyz, ML, and Treasur, thank you for your responses.  I have tried to treat myself gently today.  I went to a last baseball game last night for one kid and got to sit there and watch OW and H all cuddled up.  I was sitting by myself and again felt alone.  They then took the kids for my Hs parenting time.  Really, it is visitation because he has made it so he can avoid any real responsibility in the parenting department.  He said that my daughter wanted to stay with them after they came home from summer vacation and wanted to know if we could work that out.  I asked about his need to work and his reply was that the OW had a few days off.    When I asked my daughter if that's what she wanted she said she just wanted to know if they were coming home or staying at her dad's house, not that she wanted additional time there.  I know she misses her dad, I am not sure if she's trying to save my feelings or she really wasn't asking to stay there.  I came home and sobbed for a while until it was worked out of my system, ordered some take out and watched a show then went to bed and slept in.  I've been trying to clean and purge as it feels therapeutic today.  I think Treasur nailed it that it was sadness, anger, frustration, and isolation.  I think there were probably a few other feelings stewing around too.  Emotionally I was overwhelmed. 

Treasur, thank you for your reminder about steel.  I've been thinking about it all day.  There is a video that I remember seeing in the last year sometime about a woman who basically lost her whole immediate family to rare forms of cancer.  Every single one of them.  It was interspersed with video and sounds of metal being worked on an anvil and heated in the refiners fire.  Each time that hammer hit the anvil and metal, it seemed personal.  I related to it as it felt like each of the hits I, and by extension everyone on this board, have endured.  Our impurities are burned away from the fire and it allows us to be shaped into something beautiful, something strong, something useful.  I try to remember this, but like most things, it seems it is easy to forget. 

The presence of absence did seem to hit me harder this time.  It's hit in smaller ways before, but it really did seem worse for whatever reason.  I have finally started EMDR which seems to be helping so far but leaves me incredibly drained afterwards.  Life is just exhausting and I want to feel true joy again. 

[Treasur]

EMDR was a game changer for me, MoS, and I hope it proves to be the same for you. Having said that, I remember that it left me exhausted afterwards for the first few sessions and was a pretty odd feeling all round. Like a washing machine going on independently at the back of my head…but I also remember the feeling when I noticed that something had shifted and that was such a relief. Keep going, dear girl - it will all get better, I promise.

In the meantime - bc imho healing is harder if we are still exposed to too many new knife cuts - and I’m presuming things like going to see your kids play sports is important to you - are there some small hacks you could try out? Ask a friend to go with you, sit somewhere else, offer to help in some way so your team ‘role’  than just sitting solo, introduce yourself to some other parents so you can make new friends, huge sunglasses….something small? Ditto with whatever kind of logistics comms you have with him….text over voice, for instance so you don’t hear his voice or get pulled into conversations, more formal communication about kid logistics or more fixed scheduling so you don’t have to interact so much, any way to do the drop offs differently? It’s ok to get a bit creative and to put your own needs higher up the scale.

I know it’s maybe a silly reminder, but perhaps all mums need it sometimes….just bc your xh wants something, even just bc your kids do, does not mean you have to say yes or do back flips to make it happen. You are allowed to say No, not then or not like this. And if your xh doesn’t like it? Pah, tough luck he’s having, what’s he going to do, leave you again lol? And imho it is healthy for kids to also learn that the world is not just about their wants, right? I encourage you to experiment with what works for you…but doing that means teaching yourself to put your own needs into the mix as well as others and sometimes Mum’s can get out of that habit, can’t they?

[MomOfSteel]

Treasur you alway have the perfect words somehow and really have a knack for seeing the meat of the problem.  It feels like it's been a long time since updating and part of me just feels exhausted by thinking about everything.  I survived the sports season and both a trip with my kids and them being on a trip with their dad and the ow as well as a trip during that time for myself.  For the first time in a long time I find myself waking up with the familiar dread of anxiety in my stomach and throat.  I had been doing pretty well for a while but it's back.  H got mad at me for my continued relationship with his family, but he wants to use the kids to force them to do what he wants.  I feel torn and like the codependence has surfaced making me feel like it is somehow my responsibility to smooth things over.  I understand his feelings and why he would feel the way he does but in reality he is not willing to have conversations with them and try to repair things, he simply wants to force them to behave how he wants.  There has been a heavy dose of telling my children I have stolen his family and guilting me about it.  These are people I love and were my family for two decades.  I don't really know how to walk this line or I just full on ignore his little tantrum.  The problem comes when he starts guilting my children and they in turn start questioning my relationship with their grandparents and aunts and uncles. 

My kids came home from this trip with varying levels of crap to deal with.  The oldest and youngest faired well while the middle two were really upset.  The older was told that sometimes he was really hard to love and that he would have been left home except I needed a break from him.  How someone can be so cruel to a child I don't understand.  This child will also just say what is on his mind which the MLCer really doesn't like because it disrupts the fantasy of him still being a good dad and checking off the dad box on his list.  The other was basically told that when they felt like their prayers were answered it was just coincidence when she tried to share how she felt to her dad trying to destroy her fledgling faith.  She came home crying.  He has turned his back on his faith tradition and community and now is actively trying to pull our children away from the religious traditions he was key in instilling into them.  It feels so unfair.  I'm trying to not put my kids in a position where they feel like they have to chose between us by reemphasizing my own views.  I simply asked my daughter how she felt deep down and told her we all have to follow our hearts and she needs to trust herself above all else to come to the right conclusion.  It is scary handing over the reigns to a child so young though knowing I need to try to keep things neutral and not really push or add to the sense they need to chose the way I do things or their dad does things. 

I had a conversation with someone from our community that my ex had helped in a pretty major way and it has been really sitting with me wrong.  I think I probably just need to get over my own ego about the whole thing but sometimes that is easier said than done.  This person approached the ex for help after knowing what he has done and to his credit, the ex helped and was gracious and took good care of this person in a professional capacity which he will be well paid for.  This person now thanks me all the time for ex's help and tells me how wonderful ex is.  He told me last night exH was a good person despite the choice he made to leave me.  It really does sting and I feel like it's a bit like being betrayed.  I think after all the things with the kids, him twisting things and everything else, it has felt like a series of continued mini betrayals.  Also apparently he is close to proposing to the OW which also just makes me sick.  So many of the things I practically begged for in our marriage no longer seem to be an issue for him to do for her but he would never make the effort for me and it hurts so bad.  It's been a couple of years since his relationship with this person started and I keep wondering when that limerence will wear off or maybe it has and he really is that much happier with this other person and our destroyed family. 

[KayDee]

A friend on mine, his father was a real tyrant and bully to his kids. He died suddenly at 60. At his funeral, my friend and his brother were continually approached by this man's colleagues and students (he was a teacher) who said how wonderful their father was. This really shocked and rankled them. So nice in public, with his audience, such a nasty person in his private sphere.

It seems like you exH is washing up on your safe shores again. No wonder you feel anxious and upended. Not to mention exhausted, as you try to be the grown up and do what is best for your kids. Is there a way, even small moves you can make, to cut off some of this flow of information? I did wonder how you know that he is ready to propose? Is it better - do you feel better - when you don't know any of this? It's too tempting to imagine his life with OW as more rosy and romantic than it probably is. It is more likely insecure Grand Gesturing. Either way, do you really need to be party to it? Can you, instead, think of all the kind and lovely things other people do for you - your friends, your kids, your family? All those acts of love, which I imagine have been deeper during your current distress. There's more than one way to be loved and give it, of course. This much I have learned.

[Treasur]

I hear that Putin likes puppies……

I’m going to take a slightly different angle on the ‘thankful friend’.
Which is that you are entitled to feel how you feel….it’s a bit like being told by someone that your rapist is a great scout leader and helped someone jump start their car    I don’t want to hear that; it doesn’t help me and it makes me feel invalidated as if what happened to me somehow really doesn’t matter.

The sub text is a kind of gaslighting…..essentially saying that you should base your pov on his opinion not your own experience. Either bc you are too stupid to form your own opinion or bc he thinks he’s entitled to tell you what to think regardless of your own experience. (A lot of short rude words are jumping up and down in my mind about this ‘friend’ right now  )

It actually means that - and this is not unusual sadly with some people - that in your ‘friend’s’ mind the help he got is more important than anything you and your kids have suffered.  (A help that he got oaid for, right? I’m presuming he didn’t give the guy a kidney or save his children from a burning house risking his own life? )

So, he has the right to his opinion, but in my book, that’s not a friend. Tbh not even a pleasant acquaintance. He’s essentially saying my opinion is more important and you and your kids are not entitled to think or feel as you do. It’s like a weird kind of mansplaining on speed.  I’d encourage you to demote him to irritating tactless a$$hole to be avoided immediately  (and silently use much ruder words in your head than that!)

Plus it’s irrelevant to you - why is he thanking YOU for something your xh did? What’s it got to do with you?  I would humbly suggest that, if he does it again, you hold your hand up in a big stop sign and say something like ‘I’m glad you are happy with the help you got from him, but it really is nothing to do with me. And tbh, given some of the distress he has caused for me and my children, we’re not going to see him in the same way as you do, so probably best to not talk about him at all.’ Then walk away.

That’s how a Mom of Steel does a boundary right there 
If you think this behaviour is ok, you are not on the MoS and MoS kid’s team….and if you’re not on our team, we’ll walk past you and play with other folks who are.

[readytofixmyselffirst]

Hello,

A lot to dissect here,

Let's start with family,

H got mad at me for my continued relationship with his family, but he wants to use the kids to force them to do what he wants.  I feel torn and like the codependence has surfaced making me feel like it is somehow my responsibility to smooth things over.  I understand his feelings and why he would feel the way he does but in reality he is not willing to have conversations with them and try to repair things, he simply wants to force them to behave how he wants.  There has been a heavy dose of telling my children I have stolen his family and guilting me about it.  These are people I love and were my family for two decades.  I don't really know how to walk this line or I just full on ignore his little tantrum.  The problem comes when he starts guilting my children and they in turn start questioning my relationship with their grandparents and aunts and uncles.

This is none of his business. You get to keep and choose your friends and relationships. In your settlement, it will state that neither parent is to try to communicate through the kids or putdown the other parent in front of them. You can refer him to the settlement and also remind him that he is free to text you. There are apps for co-parenting and they save the text messages for the court in case anyone gets ugly. You don't need to worry about his happiness anymore. He fired you. I believe that a large part of your exhaustion is his comments to you and how he manipulates you to be responsible for the children even when he has them. He is using you,

When he has them, he is responsible for them. He has problems and abuses them, you let him know through the parent app. If it becomes too bad, take him to court and ask for full custody of one, two, or all the kids. Now for your part, don't let your kids bring you into the drama over his statements. "If they say, dad says you stole his family." you can respond, "I'm sorry he feels that way and unless your dad is here, let's not discuss what he says." You don't need to get involved with the kids and their drama with him unless it rises to the level of abuse.

This will limit your contact with him to only issues involving the children and use a parent app for that for all messages. That is the limit to your communication with him. It will relieve a lot of your stress and exhaustion.

As to the friend,

Plus it’s irrelevant to you - why is he thanking YOU for something your xh did? What’s it got to do with you?  I would humbly suggest that, if he does it again, you hold your hand up in a big stop sign and say something like ‘I’m glad you are happy with the help you got from him, but it really is nothing to do with me. And tbh, given some of the distress he has caused for me and my children, we’re not going to see him in the same way as you do, so probably best to not talk about him at all.’ Then walk away.

Perfect response. Your h can be the greatest person in town, but he also cheated on his wife and deserted his family. Can't change that action either. I do agree that no one needs to talk to you about your ex, good or bad. It just sucks you back into the vortex you need to avoid. This isn't to punish anyone, but to allow you to heal.

Keep taking care of your children and yourself. Work on your problems and your life issues- not his. That's ow's job now.

Have a great evening,

(((Ready)))

[MomOfSteel]

Wow, I guess it's time for an update.  I have been MIA the past few months and really focusing on my kids and healing.  First off, thank you Ready, Treasur, and KayDee, I did read your responses at the time and it gave me a lot to mull over.  It has remained hard to limit contact with the ex, but I find myself more and more okay with it these days.  As far as the inlaw situation, it's still weird.  They came to visit again in September but he was unaware.  You are absolutely right that it's really none of his business who I have relationships with at this point.  His mom is considering writing him out of her will and me in.  I told her that if she wants to do that, it is her choice, but any money that would have gone to him should be given to the kids.  I don't need more drama from it being given to me.  I don't want to touch that mess with a ten-foot pole. 

As far as the well meaning friend, they luckily have stopped thanking me every week for the ex saving them.  I had to snort at the comment that Putin likes puppies.  I think my own thinking in the past few months has changed as well with time and being able to process and more fully choose my own response.  It's funny reading back on something that was hard for me at the time and realizing I've worked through whatever distress was caused and it doesn't bother me and I look at it slightly differently now. 

Things have been calming the last few months.  I still have my moments of resentment and bursts of sadness that I am alone and feel abandoned but it is no longer constant and most days I am pretty happy.  I had a moment a couple months ago that I was celebrating a friend's birthday with a group of women.  I looked around at all of them and realize how fortunate I am and that I was able to create this lovely support system of women.  They have become some dear friends, they are real and vulnerable and not afraid to call things like it is and I love them for it.  I realized that in my grief I ended up building a community around myself. 

The kids continue to struggle on and off but are doing okay overall and know that they are deeply loved by me.  While it's not perfect, I feel like I am doing my best and loving my kids and increasingly realizing that I don't have to be perfect to be a good mom. 

One of my children had a medical emergency requiring hospitalization for a short time.  It required dropping what I was doing and rushing this child to the hospital.  I had to call the ex, tell him and ask for help with the other kids which he gave.  He and OW came and picked up the others and took them to their house, got them to school (he's NEVER done this EVER in his years of being a dad).  He joined me at the hospital and then OW made sure they were picked up and fed and homework was done and they were taken care of.  It was a weird experience for me.  We sat all day in the hospital talking and catching up about various people we both knew and talking about what was going on in the kids lives.  He shared details of his life now and things that were frustrating him.   I felt for the first time in a long time that I missed my husband.  Sitting in the hospital felt familiar, it felt so normal to be with each other taking care of our child.  When all was said and done, and I had returned home, I felt really strongly like I should tell the OW thank you.  I had never talked to her, introduced myself, anything.  I felt so strongly like I should and have learned that when I get personal promptings to do something that is kind I should do it.  Now, this is that last thing I wanted to do at the time.  I had a strange outfit on that I had thrown on in haste to get to the hospital, I had vomit on me and hadn't showered for 40 hours and looked and smelled like it.  Let's just say it wasn't the way I would ever choose to actually meet someone.  Well, I went around to her side of the car, knocked on the window (and slightly enjoyed the look of horror on my ex's face because he had no idea what I was doing hahaha) and just told her I wanted to know how grateful I was that she took care of the kids and was kind to them.  She started getting teary.  I'm not sure what all was going on in her head and truthfully it doesn't matter.  I went inside, had a talk with my kids about doing what we feel like we should even if the other person doesn't deserve it (they were all flabbergasted at what I had done too, I think my teen still is).  After eating and getting people to bed, I had a good long ugly cry in the shower.  At first I felt so confused at why I would feel like I should thank her.  I felt it was unfair that I should have to thank someone that helped destroy my family.  I also felt a sense of relief.  So much of the anger and resentment that I had been holding onto seemed to evaporate in that moment that I expressed my gratitude.  I still don't understand why this was my path to a very powerful bit of healing in my life, but it was.  It also was scary and still is to some extent realizing that I have let that wall of anger down and now I am left somewhat unprotected.  In the end, I did what I needed to do for my own sake and peace.  I knew for me I needed to express gratitude.  It wasn't for her benefit or the ex's, it was for my own.  It was about being the person I wanted to be and showing my kids the type of person I hope they will be.  While I wouldn't want to hold that anger the rest of my life, it does leave a new sense of vulnerability.  It leaves me wondering about the nature of forgiveness and how something I was working towards with only minimal success could just happen in an instant through doing something I didn't want to do.  Also, if any newbies decide to read my monologue, realize, I don't suggest even for a second that I think that this is a solution for everyone.  It was simply what I needed to do for me. 

In the last couple of months, I have realized (or was told by my therapist and realized she was right) that I feel sorry for OW.  I know what she got and she didn't.  They now sit by me at sports games, she has even come without the ex to support the kids and sits by me.  Sometimes I don't know how my life got so weird and my friends and I laugh about it a little.  If you would have told me two years ago when the bomb went off in my life that I would be able to sit there and chit chat like that with them I would have thought you were insane.  The thing is, I don't really mind it so maybe I am the crazy one.  I guess it maybe comes with the acceptance that it is what it is and detaching.  I did talk this through with my therapist because the first time it happened I was worried.  Was I self abandoning?  Was I doing something that wasn't in my own best interest to do?  I realize though that even though it feels odd, I was being true to myself and the person I want to be.  The person I lost when for years I was stuck in a codependent trap pushing down my own instincts wants and needs.  I've realized there is power in this as well.  I took my own power back by accepting what reality is and choosing how to respond, not just reacting.  I don't have to treat their relationship as some big thing that makes me change my patterns and behaviors and ability to do and go where I please in my own community.  Last spring, they had the power, I allowed their presence to change me, to bug me to cause me to avoid them and interacting with people around them and they no longer hold that power over me. 

There have been other things along the way but nothing as major.  A few observations about the MLCer.  He seems to be slowly progressing.  Who knows where he is in the stages of things, but he is gradually becoming more helpful and thoughtful.  He seems to be missing the kids more and more and tries harder to be there for them.  He seems to feel guilty when he can't make it to something.  I've noticed he seems very forgetful about things.  I think that the limerence might finally be starting to taper off.  He has started therapy again, after quitting in a huff the last time (probably because the therapist questioned him about something and he didn't like it).  It also seems that they are also going to couples therapy.     I am a little annoyed that he would never do it for me, but really, it probably wouldn't have mattered at the time of BD anyway.  I look at it as he can't let this relationship fail because of all he gave up for it.  Who knows if that's the truth, but all is certainly not roses even though they still seem relatively happy together.  There are other signs that things aren't quite the fantasy they were at first, comments OW makes to me about how particular ex is about certain things and how she never feels like she gets it right or how she enjoys random days off in the week so she can actually have a little space and time to herself.  I guess working together and living together is maybe a bit too much together.  I'm a little unsure why she confides these small things, but it does give a window into this MLC and how things are progressing.  He has finally started to reconnect in at least a superficial way with his childhood best friend.  The friend said it's all surface level but ex has started trying to reach out again.  His siblings report the same thing, that he gradually is making contact again. 

I don't really hope that he will come back at this point, but I'm hoping if he can continue to progress he will be a better person and father by the end of this journey he is on. 

For myself, I am now feeling open to new relationships (not that I really have any clue where to find one of those as I don't really want to venture into the world of online dating).  I scheduled an international trip by myself with a singles vacation tour in a few months.  I'm equally excited and terrified to step out of my comfort zone but realize I need to do that and I am unwilling to let my own discomfort keep me from seeing the things I have always wanted to see and realize that I shouldn't wait for a husband to do those things with. 

[KayDee]

Couples therapy after 2 or so years. Um? Isn't that supposed to be the honeymoon period?

Anyway, enough of that - you sounds great MoS. It's inspiring to read, you had one helluva journey.

[Evermore]

There are so so many lines I can pull out of your post MOS where I was nodding and just saying 'yes, yes!' in my head. I'm in a very similar place to you I think (it's nice to finally be here).

I especially agree with what you say about continuing to be you, for you. Continuing to be the person you want to be, regardless of what has happened or how people have treated you. Brava. I love this update.

I think my own thinking in the past few months has changed as well with time and being able to process and more fully choose my own response.  It's funny reading back on something that was hard for me at the time and realizing I've worked through whatever distress was caused and it doesn't bother me and I look at it slightly differently now... 

...Things have been calming the last few months.  I still have my moments of resentment and bursts of sadness that I am alone and feel abandoned but it is no longer constant and most days I am pretty happy.  I had a moment a couple months ago that I was celebrating a friend's birthday with a group of women.  I looked around at all of them and realize how fortunate I am and that I was able to create this lovely support system of women.  They have become some dear friends, they are real and vulnerable and not afraid to call things like it is and I love them for it.  I realized that in my grief I ended up building a community around myself... 

... I went inside, had a talk with my kids about doing what we feel like we should even if the other person doesn't deserve it... In the end, I did what I needed to do for my own sake and peace.  I knew for me I needed to express gratitude.  It wasn't for her benefit or the ex's, it was for my own.  It was about being the person I wanted to be and showing my kids the type of person I hope they will be... 

In the last couple of months, I have realized (or was told by my therapist and realized she was right) that I feel sorry for OW.  I know what she got and she didn't.

 ... I was being true to myself and the person I want to be.  ... I took my own power back by accepting what reality is and choosing how to respond, not just reacting... 

Re online dating, I had a huge aversion to even trying and it still squicks me out a bit to think about. I tried it (kinda accidentally... funny story for another day) for a bit and was just about to abandon the idea... but at the 11th hour met a lovely lovely person a few months ago and things are progressing very well. It was totally unexpected that I would meet someone so compatible that way (or at all really). I didn't see it coming. Unlike the 'didn't see it coming' of BD this was a very nice surprise. What's an even bigger surprise to me is how I can now catch glimpses of a bright new future with someone that isn't my MLCer. Definitely didn't see that coming! It's an odd feeling, but I am using my head and steering my course in this new direction.

I wish you also surprise glimpses of a bright new future, wherever that is (and it sounds like you are having those glimpses occasionally too, so I am very happy for you!).