Thanks to @infidelityscars for posting this yesterday. It was exactly what I needed to hear. Maybe it's what you need to hear right now too. And FYI, the mountain isn't necessarily the betrayal, or your idiot husband, or the horrible other woman. Maybe it's your fear. Maybe it's your grief. Whatever it is, it will recede but you will be stronger for having climbed it.
Thanks for these words to help me re-center on my healing and strengthening. And for acknowledging that the OW can be the mountain. Now 5 months post D-Day and the past few weeks the OW has been consuming too much of my mental energy. It didn't help that she contacted me TWICE by email after being asked each time NOT to make further contact (yes we blocked her now)...and of course to defend/rationalize and redefine the narrative to meet her needs/comfort level with her actions. I don't want to reply and risk re-engaging and re-opening trauma for me and have to let go of my STRONG desire to reply and ask her to think about her actions and the deep hurt she contributed to for my H, for me, for our marriage and for our family, and to rethink should the opportunity arise for her to form a questionable friendship and try sex with another married man - another woman's husband - in her future. I am trying to accept that I probably wouldn't be successful in getting her to understand the consequences of her actions and change her future behavior. But still kills me that she thinks she has no culpability or thinks she could "reassure me" that there was no affair (because it only happened once? And it ended early because he lost his erection? Puh-leez, spare me). Purging her from my thoughts is my main mountain these days. I keep working on this in my IC. My husband has totally dismissed her from his life and thoughts. So thanks for acknowledging the many mountains to this healing and recovery process.
ReplyDeleteEnough,
DeleteYou will never convince someone when their entire sense of self relies on them not believing your version of events. The more you give her something to push again, that harder she will push. Attention, for so many of these people, is their oxygen. Your husband has the right idea -- simply cut off any oxygen you're supplying her and she will wither. She might find another supply elsewhere but that's not your problem.
Focus on you and what you want. Focus on the relationship you're rebuilding with your husband. Watch the mountain recede into the distance because you've scaled it and walked down the other side. You are enough, Enough. You always were.
Hi Elle,
ReplyDeleteI have read and followed your blogs for almost 3 years now. During the first initial few months I was on here religiously.
My Dday was October 2018 and I have been a mess ever since. I was 6 months pregnant at the time when I received a message on social media from a woman I didn’t recognise when I opened the message I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. She addressed her self as my partners girlfriend and basically my life has been turnt upside down ever since!
My partners first response wasn’t great he was very defensive, passed the blame etc. We started couples therapy and I did IC straight away. Looking back now my ptsd was so bad that it probably was not the right time to start. I couldn’t really absorb anything that was being said in the couples therapy and it was more about how we both contributed to the state of the relationship. However, since then he has made positive changes and put this relationship as his number one priority. During that time I was living at my mums because I literally fled from my home and could never go back. After months of living with my mum things began to get toxic. My mum is also a addict (alcohol) who suffers with mental health, as do I So, the combination wasn’t healthy at all. I managed to find a new place to live. Apart from living with my mum I never kicked him out due to the fact that I was such in a bad way I genuinely wasn’t able to manage looking after the kids and everything else by myself, so he came with us to this new house. We have been living under the illusion that we are working on the relationship but the truth is I have never known what I have wanted from the beginning and the main reason was because of the children and me needing support. I have told him that numerous amounts of times. As my trauma has worn off slightly and I have come out of survival mode, life’s pressures have started to show up again. Financial issues, issues with my housing and landlord wanting to increase rent. My partner lost his job meaning Ive had to go back to work I also started a college course to enable me to create financial stability and relieve stress so maybe I can really decide what I want and to know that me and my children will be ok regardless. I am completely spread thin and now almost 3 years down the line my partner is running out of patience. He wants intimacy and closeness and I am just not there. I am so weighed down my life’s pressures that I literally don’t have anything else to give. I still don’t know what I want but being in limbo is starting to make me feel like I’m loosing my mind. I’m still not over what has happened. I’m still suffering every day. I’m angry and frustrated at my self that I can’t make a decision either way. When I try to confide in people they just tell me to make a decision and now I’m feeling pressure from him to be this normal perfect girlfriend and I just can’t be. Most of the time I’m so drained I just want to be by myself and be quiet. How can I try and work on this relationship when I, myself feels broken, I don’t know who I am. I have tried to explain this to him but he just gets defensive and says he has needs and I know this. So why can’t I just let him go and be at peace? Im terrified. I feel depressed and despair but I can’t move in one direction or the other. Even though now we have basically broken up but I still feel like I don’t know what I want and life is moving so fast. Im just so tired, I’m burnt out. I fought so much over the years for the relationship even when I wasn’t fought for. I’m told that almost 3 years later I should know what I want and I don’t and it’s driving me crazy. Is this normal? The thought of being a single mum terrifies me. I just need someone to listen and understand what I’m saying :(
Oh sweetheart. I wish I could reach through the internet and fold you into a hug. Of course, you are exhausted. Of course, you are burned out. How could you possibly be any different? You have experienced trauma. And you fled from that into a home with another addict (my mother, too, was an alcoholic and -- oh boy! -- that doesn't exactly give you the space to heal and nurture yourself). And now you are being asked to give more! Intimacy!! Closeness!! When you have absolutely zero left to give. Less than zero. You had a baby in the midst of all this, for heaven's sake. My god, you're a queen for being upright at all. I think a whole lot of us would be curled beneath the blankets trying not to be discovered.
DeleteSo please, give yourself HUGE props for everything you're doing. Mom-ing! Work! School! All while trying to heal from the most excruciating pain.
Are you still seeing your therapist? If not, I would encourage you to start again, even though it might feel like one more thing on your to-do list and one more thing to pay for. Because I think you need someone to help you map a way out of the overwhelm. Because you've got a lot of good in your life -- but it's still tough. Like...school. That's awesome but, at this point, it's not yet taking you where you want to be. And being a mom, which, yep can be great but can also be utterly exhausting and demoralizing and hard.
And yeah, your partner worked on himself -- that's great. But...he's still prioritizing his needs/wants over yours. You've got nothing to give right now. And if he's helping with the kids and all that. Fine but...isn't that as much his job as yours?
Maybe game out what life would look like as a single mom. Maybe it feels terrifying because you're the child of an addict who's, maybe, been coping with feelings of abandonment since you were a kid so the IDEA of it feels terrifying. Maybe the reality of it isn't so bad. Maybe you've kinda already been doing it but without the benefit of every second weekend to just have that blissful quiet.
I think you don't know what you want because you haven't had two goddamned minutes to yourself to hear yourself think. Because you've been reacting to pain and grief and loss and A NEW BABY and post-baby hormones and an addict mom and financial woes and on and on. Maybe, just maybe, everything you're feeling is a perfectly normal response to a totally fucked up situation in which you and you alone have been the responsible adult while everyone else lets you down.
You are not broken. You are so strong. You are tired. You are worn out. You are overwhelmed. And you need help to carry this load and to figure out the day to day stuff that threatens to swallow you whole.
And please, don't hesitate to keep posting. The women here are awesome and it can help a whole lot just to have somewhere to put it all down -- somewhere you can begin to hear yourself. Because everything you're saying makes total sense.
HM. I understand what you're saying. I understand it all too well. Like Elle said, everything you're saying makes total sense. I wish I could bring you lunch.
Delete.
ReplyDeleteAny advice for the confrontation which will take place this evening.
ReplyDelete