[KayDee]

Please tell me you understand why that enraged me? I AM TRYING TO BE STRONG TOO?? are you for real? you took off and are traveling around in the lap of luxury with an old, rich granny who pays all the bills, and left me here with 2 kids to take care of on my own and a full time job, along with the betrayal and hurt I have (and my kids have) to shoulder, and you are trying to be strong too?

You are enraged because it is enraging. Welcome to the (nearly )normal club. I have had those comments. My very, most favourite, was in the Honorable Email, when he stated that he wanted to be 'fair' - I mean, snort your morning coffee out of your nose -  Fair....? after all the (insert all the $h!tety MLC behaviours we have all endured). Well, I can tell you, I spent a whole therapy session ranting about that. I know now, that this is how my stbxH presents himself via email or text. In person he is an emotional wreck. In the olden days, I nicknamed this text-based version of him Mr Kit (his publicly Keeping It Together persona). I have read about shame-based behaviours, and, in my stbxH case, this is part of it. He is ashamed of that emotional wreck that he has shown me, but more significantly, he is ashamed of his behaviour. He cannot bear any of it, so he cements over it with the help of Mr Kit, oh, and the OW. This is her allure, she rolls out the 'you are a good person' skit, to dampen the flames of shame. Because when shame becomes unleashed, as it does in this kind of crisis, it is unbearable, and it needs to be re-contained.

Well, I am pretty much saying the same things as the others. And yes, it is effing enraging.

Glad your D is doing fine and that, unsurprisingly, you are an amazing at your job, despite IT ALL 

[amazinglove]

thank you for those wise and wonderful replies. I read them several, even many times.

I am marching along. The home is on the market here in SoCal and we are moving to a Nashville suburb when the school year starts in August. I have found a spot and we are building a house to be completed in November - and a nearby townhouse to live in until that time. It's so much to handle, mortgage documents, loan details, keeping this home perfect for viewings and entertaining kids outside on the weekends for open houses. I am overwhelmed, as work has picked up a bit too. But each day, I manage to complete most if not all of my tasks for the day and still be present and loving and there for my beautiful kids.

My STBX is right now living with his sister in his home country and working in her warehouse. It's back breaking work (I know this bc I have seen it) and altho I believe him to be pretty selfish/lazy at the moment, I am glad he's in there and working.  She is smart to put him to work like that and I think it's the best place for him to be. Physically exhausted at the end of the day, living with her and her husband and my nephew, never alone, in his home country and with a feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day. It probably helps him sleep at night. Meanwhile of course, I handle all his grown up responsibilities, and raise his children, while he lives as a teenager in her home. But, from what I have seen and understood in the past 18 months or so, I am glad he's there because it is making him a different version (I hope) or at the very least a stronger version of the selfish/depressed shell of a man he currently is. I want him healthier and less crazy for the kids.

What I am learning to get my head around tho is that I will always end up being the bad guy in his mind. No matter how nice or accommodating I am to him as a co-parent/ex. As his relationship with the kids naturally deteriorates, and when he finally notices that he has no real savings or money, it will all become my fault. Already he has made pointed comments about how i am poisoning my daughter against him in ways, or coaching her on what she says to him when she goes after him. Her anger is that he left, cheated on her mom, 'gave up on' our family and walked away from her and her brother. His response? Then you should all have just 'moved to here" - meaning his home country. We were not enough to keep him here, and we should have all followed him there I guess. Even tho he has no real salary, my son doesn't speak the language and no one, including him, wants them educated there.

So little is rational in their brains and you have to just kind of learn to take nothing seriously. You just listen and respond to words or just ignore words but you don't let anything color any of your own beliefs or perceptions because it's so dangerous to let them into your brain. You will go insane if you do! Nothing they say is based in truth and I think I have allowed myself to be gaslit in so many ways. I am now trying to unpick some of that and land in a place I feel is rooted in something I can really build on.

[forthetrees]

You are a force of nature with all those logistical skills! Wow- house sale, house build and a cross-country move in one calendar year- I am impressed. I suppose that is where one can channel anger energy in a productive outlet:) Once you move you may no longer feel like he gets to stay in the TN house bc it will no longer be the house he used to share. I imagine there will be a measure of relief in that as you will have your very own oasis. So, here´s to maintaining the umph to get you from CA to TN.

[beyondblessed]

AL, even if time seems to be moving at a snail's pace for your stbxh, you are growing by leaps and bounds.  That's a very good place to be, difficult though it may be at times.  Nashville isn't just too very far from me and has some really beautiful suburbs and tons of entertainment and activity, but will be a radically different environment I would imagine, than what you're accustomed to with your current geography.  I agree with what FTT said in making this place, that will have no attachments to your stbxh, your very own oasis.  Speaking from my own personal experience, that is also a great space to to be in, both mentally and physically.

[MadLuv]

Amazing that you are doing so Amazing!!!! It can’t be emphasized enough that these are large and wins you are accomplishing and you should be so very proud

[amazinglove]

thank you all for the cheering section! Honestly it means a lot. I don't see my progress as much as I see all that's left to get done possibly.

I am just back from a NYC work thing where I absolutely nailed it and was really complimented by both client and account lead - it made me feel like I am getting my groove back in a way. I have to fly back next week but that's more as an observer to a filming and the pressure is not on my shoulders to deliver the way it was this week. I'm so glad it's done.

I can feel how tired i am though. Trying to find time to take a break where I can.

Thanks again for the encouragement!

[amazinglove]

You know, you can be doing so well and then all of a sudden one day out of no where the betrayal hits you again and takes your breath away and you're like....how did this happen? how did I get here? It's really horrendous.

My son cried for him last night and was so anxious ab him. It is really hard to move on and detach when you see your child aching to have them back. Then, he called this am for the kids before school and I could tell he had left his parents/sister's home and was in our home over there and I realized he had company. This afternoon kids were home early and i spoke to him (bc it's my phone they are too little) and I literally heard her whispering LOUDLY in the background. He looked panicked and looked up at someone and I just hung up. He wrote me (but didnt' call back) 'what happened? did your phone die?" and i just wrote back, "Yep. Dead." and then I blocked him. I do not want to see his name or texts for a bit for my mental health. I am trying to put better boundaries into place that protect me. I can't live like this.

My heart is racing. It's so stupid. i KNOW he has a gf. I know they are still together. But them being together and in our home and knowing it's kids' spring break next week and there was no attempt for him to see them, and he's still happy with this old rich granny etc etc - it hurts. It still feels like my husband is cheating on me. And that's not crazy bc he IS. We are STILL MARRIED until May 14th. He has been extra nice to me lately and I wish this did not shake me so much. When you have little kids it's impossible to never see them and cut them off entirely. You just can't - but man, this is awful. And yes, I know I do not want him as he is, but he is walking around in the body of the man I married.

For those of you having someone at home with an AP I cannot even imagine how you cope. I was doing so well! Why do these knockbacks always come after you make progress?

[forthetrees]

Could have been a gut punch bc he initiated the call knowing she was there and did it anyway AND she took the opportunity to do a stage whisper to make sure her presence was known. It´s like a cat pissing to claim its turf on her part and your h rubbing salt in a wound on his part. You are the one who sees the sorrow in your son´s eyes so of course it´s gonna hurt like hell. You will bounce back and find your steady center again. Think of this as exposure therapy so that one day it won´t rock you.

[amazinglove]

I called HIM this afternoon bc the kids were in the pool and wanted to show him - but he answered right next to her! He didn’t have to answer or he could have moved rooms!
Power move on his part - look how my wife still adores me! She wants me back! And power move on her part - he’s with me!

[Treasur]

I imagine - other LBS here with kids will know better - that there’s a transition time when you are no longer trying to hang on to your spouse as a spouse but you are perhaps still trying to hold on to them as a parent? Hence the impulse to show and tell through contact.

My memory of why these bolts of reality still act like a gut punch and take one’s breath away is that it’s an in your face reminder of how really real your new still not so normal is. The good thing is that all of these moments, big and small, chip away at our sticky often subconscious denial; the bad news is much the same. Plus tbh, remember that you are tired and most of us are more emotionally vulnerable when we are tired.

 I agree with others about ow tendency to urinate on your territory, metaphorically speaking - it’s just their nature. If it weren’t, they would never take up with a married man with kids, would they? Still, for all that, the main agent here is your stbxh - he is the one choosing to live in another country far away from his kids, he is the one who is not there, he is the one inviting her into what was a family home there.

What have you learned from this experience, Amazing? (And you ARE amazing with everything you have on your plate currently) What do you think you will do differently in future as an xw and mother of kids whose father chose to leave and live a different life elsewhere? Bc that is the useful gift of these kinds of moments imho, how it pushes us to adapt to a new ‘normal’ in a way that evolves to fit what really works well for us.

PS again jmo, but something big and awful never entirely stops carrying a little aftershock, sometimes in ways that can catch our breath. Bc what has happened to you and your kids IS big and awful and not at all how you thought life would be. We KNOW it’s real, and I think in times of less contact it’s easier to focus on the new shape of our lives, but some tiny bit of our brain still gets poked by the shock when it’s in our face. I get exactly the same feeling even now sometimes when I see my mum - I KNOW she has dementia, I know she no longer really knows who I am, but still sometimes there’s a moment of shock and distress when I first walk in to her room. I make peace with that by telling myself that the shock is bc of how much I treasured what I had and what has been lost….and that leaves a sliver of attachment to what was which makes it hard to look at what is with an unvarnished eye. It’s normal bc it mattered so much. Whereas imho people who seemingly slough off long attachments without those moments of shock are not so normal. Jmo.