I want to hurt him! I dont mean physically. I wish he felt just one ounce of my pain! That he hurt as bad as I do for just one second. That's all!
I want to go in the business and tell all the employees exactly who they work for...a lying cheater! A drug addict who only cares about himself and who screws the customers, literally!!! I want to go in there and spray paint over the murals I painted...he doesnt deserve to have them grace the walls of "his" business! I painted those after d-day 1 when we came back from Jamaica. I painted those still thinking we were working there together for our family! What an idiot I was.
I want to rip the pictures of Italy right off the walls and throw them in the dumpster because that's what he has done to his family. He threw us away! And for what? Pussy and pot! He stands there with pride talking to the customers like he had this wonderful time in Italy...that he cares about where he came from....that HIS family matters. The truth is Italy sucked! HE treated everyone terribly...he was in withdrawl from not being able to have his pot and screw OW. He was still cheating...he's still cheating...nothing, and I mean nothing has changed except ME! I will not tolerate this abuse.
I have never felt this infuriated...this angry!!! Maybe because this time I know it's over. No more doubts....There are no more chances. Not that he wants one anyway....I just cant do this anymore.
~ CAL
"You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection" ~ Buddha
I can feel how angry you are...just relax for one minute....I'm sure your heart is racing and the pain is unbearable right now. I know there is nothing that anyone can say that will help it go away. BUT, think of how your life is going to be now....no more worrying, no more having to deal with all his crap. You have been doing this by yourself for awhile now. Take all that anger and put it into a positive energy. Don't let him see you this way...show him you are above it all-even though it is hurting-Show him you don't need him, that your life and your kids life is better without him and really it is. You are a very talented painter, I have seen your work when you posted a while back. You are a strong woman who can do this.....life can be good again for you.
You will be in my thoughts and prayers.
My first thought about you being angry, I mean really angry, with the rage that a BS feels, is, “It is about time.” For so long you have held the rage at bay for fear you would scare your H away, and now you have no reason to hold back anymore, so it has come into its own, as it should. I strongly feel that the rage is a crucial part of the phases we go through, it needs to felt, it needs to be expressed, and it needs to be worked through to find every one of its origins from past to present. It is also teaching you something I think you knew but did not fully embrace, it doesn’t matter what you do, the change has to come from the WS because they want to, not because of something we did to encourage it. It is such an infuriating fact, but a fact none the less.
Something jumped out at me about your post, you said, “he doesn’t deserve to have them grace the walls of "his" business!” Cal, it is your business too! Please remember that. I am not so sure removing your Artwork is the right thing, but if it is what you want to still do, after giving it a lot of thought and looking at it from every which way, then do. You have the right. Make it about you, and empower you, not about taking something away from him.
Remember Cal, we are all here right beside you as you go down this difficult path. I know it hurts, and I know it is going to hurt bad for sometime to come, but at the end the pain will stop. I have confidence in your ability to heal and find yourself and happiness again.
I understand totally how you are feeling. I felt that way for so long, months, years! Oddly enough I don't feel that this time around. I wished for him and OW to know a tenth of the pain that I had suffered. But the truth is, they will never know how much infidelity hurts. Even if he was to become a remorseful FWS, he could never understand fully.
You know he is a complete selfish ass. And so do the people who matter, you, your children and even soem of your in-laws. Some of the customers probably see through his bullsh*t. If he's stoned at work I am sure there are several customers that know it and I'm sure others have noticed your absence.
I hope your having a better day today, than yesterday. Try to let that anger subside (easier said than done). Do something nice for you today.
Hope you're having a better day today, my heart reaches out to you.
It seems so sad that they go on with their lives so indifferent and in my case, feeling no remorse. I guess they continually walk in the fog...
Hang in there, I hope that you can find a little joy for yourself today!!! You are a strong woman and you have a strength within. May you find peace and calmness ((((hugs)))))
My IC also said that the anger I feel is healthy anger. You should be angry when someone has wronged you and hurt you. It is the catalyst to taking care of yourself. I told him that I go between being angry and really sad and hurting. All normal I know. But he said when I am hurting I am not taking care of me. He asked me what I am thinking when I am hurting. I told him that I dont understand how someone can not want their family...and that what is wrong with me that he doesnt want me or us? IC said, it's not about you...it's about him. He said I am trying to make sense out of something that makes no sense. He also said to stop questioning whether I have done enough or not to try and save the marriage. There is nothing more I can do.
~ CAL
"You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection" ~ Buddha
I know you struggle so much with this everyday, this is such a difficult thing. I admire your strength and your commitment to your family and marriage. This is a horrible roller coaster ride, but you're without a doubt carry yourself with such fortitude and dignity.
Your IC has given you some very good advice, I'm glad that you continue to take care of your self.
Today WH called to talk to me about his mom (she had minor surgery...she is fine) and the kids and to let me know that he will "show up" for Easter dinner, but will not stay, so that I will be more comfortable. He also said that he is opening the business Easter Sunday. We have never been open on Easter Sunday and I asked him why? He said he had nothing else to do. I said, why not spend time with your kids then? He said cause he will spend time with them on Monday, cause they are still off from school. I am a bit angry about this for several reasons. 1) We are awlays cloed on Easter, so how is that fair to the employees who were expecting to be off? 2) Why not take the opportunity to do something with the kids...maybe even keep them over night at his mom's...just to spend more time with them? And 3) Is he doing this (opening on Easter) to try to make me feel sorry for him, or guilty or something? It all just makes me wonder...what is he up to now? Part of me just doesnt care anymore though. I waste way too much time trying to figure him out. I need to focus on ME...me and the kids.
~ CAL
"You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection" ~ Buddha
I have found my entanglement with my wife in our relationship so deep that I have not even been sure sometimes whether what I was feeling was my feeling or something that came from her. Your ability to guess at your H's motivations is a sign of your ability to almost know what he is thinking - and a sign of your deep involvement and giving to him in your relationship - At least that is how I look at it.
On the other hand, the ability you now have to see things independently is, in some ways, much more healthy - Again, that is how I look at my own situation. I feel it is much better not to be lost in the entanglement - More healthy is how I look at it.
The only problem of being able to look at things with some kind of perspective - AsI have found I can do - Is that I see the reality of how our relationship works or has worked.. and this sheds some uncomfortable light on things like how I enable her dependency etc.. You may find the same discomfort.
But, as ever, I would rather be looking at something closer to reality than not. This is the road to happiness I believe.
may you be safe and well, contented and happy .. before too long
You are right to keep going forward..STBXH is doing his own thing..playing on your emotions ..making you feel guilty..because he decides to open the shop..He is in control of his own life...guessing what his intentions are is fruitless because he is living in a fog.
((((hugs))))
Pat
"Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time."
Don't waste one more second trying to "figure him out." (Or anyone else for that matter! LOL) Anything YOU figure probably won't match up to what he's thinking anyway!
Feel the breeze! Feel the warmth! Feel the freedom! Don't get bogged down in his mire. Keep yourself light and airy! Smile! Things are going to go GREAT for you, Cal! With or without your H, because YOU are always FREE to do what YOU want to do and what YOU want to think!
Big breath now! Feel it? It's a stressfree peaceful moment! Enjoy it right now...and then an hour...and then for a day until that great strong feeling carries you throughout your life.
Every day is a treasure...just like you, Cal!
Peace is not just the absence of war; it's an exercise in compassion. -Dalai Lama
Coming to you from JJ
Your H sounds emotionally abusive - he taunts you in various ways to get at your emotional heart strings. It likely keeps him feeling in control over the boundaries you set - as if he is charge of things - everything he says/does seems to come back to that, not wanting to acknowledge that you are standing up for you family even though it's hurting immeasureably. He is still trying to break you by acting in these confusing, manipulative ways.
Don't let his manipulation break you Cal - it's a power game - the content doesn't matter to him - he's saying and doing whatever he thinks might push buttons and put the 'game' in his court.
Get angry, it's the energy that will keep you together, but not in front of him - it's your strength and indifference to his games that he can't face and about which he is very afraid.
Cal - you are a really, terrific woman. You have an inner strength that will be there for you through this really awful time and you will get to a much better place. MM
I have never been able to figure out my sister who is a drug user. She is manipulative, selfish, and a complete and utter victim to everything around her. Everything is always someone else's fault. She loves no one, especially not her self. The drugs drive her to insanity. She isn't rational, she doesn't operate on the same rules, values, and systems as the rest of the world.
I have a great deal of hope and love for her that she will find her way. It took a long time but I finally realized that it was her battle to fight. She has to figure it out. And despite all of her yelling and screaming that there is some better way for her family to support her, some mysterious things that we could do to "make her better", in the end it has nothing to do with us. All we have to do is give up our values, read her mind, and tell her a bunch of crap about how we admire how she is destroying her life and hurting all the people around her for really no other reason than to prove herself right to herself about how no one loves her.
While I have thought that I'd always be here for her if she needed a ride to court or a place to stay, she put my mother's life in danger when she freaked out on my Mom who was kindly driving her to court after making arrangement to stay at a friend's house closer to the town my sister is in, wake up at 5 in the morning, and drive through the city which she hates doing - much less doing it with a raving lunatic, who has no self control, screaming and yelling at her about what a shixxy mother she is while doing it.
Now my mother can not even support her in that small way. It is so sad.
I found that I am best able to deal with the situation by removing myself from it and simply being an impartial observer of her struggle. Maybe something like watching the show "Intervention". Where I have empathy, admiration, and compassion for the very human struggle that she is dealing with. But, I don't take it personally. Nor do I accept responsibility to help her through the struggle. Easier said than done. But, practice makes perfect. It's easier to do when I live far away from her. I don't know how my mother handles it, my mom needs lots of support after interacting with my sister.
It may feel impossible to do, but if you are going to continue to be exposed to your H, I hope that you can find a way to become an impartial observer of his struggle. You deserve some peace in your life and a place where you can nourish your inner light. I hope that you choose that for yourself, you seem to already have done it in many ways because you are so strong already, shining brighter than before. Yet his behavior continues to batter against your light always fighting to dim it. I could hope and pray for you that one day you enjoy being surrounded by people who add to your light instead of dedicating their lives to dimming it and controlling it.
Thank you everyone. You have all offered me some insight. What I feel is happening right now is his assention to the bottom. He is losing control on his way down. The manipulations are his desperate attempts to remain in control...if not of himself, then of me in some small way. Our children (except for the littlest one) do not want much to do with him. Our oldest works with him...and now he has suddenly started to praise our son, whereas before he did nothing right. He is finally paying attention to the little one, and the little guy is eating it up. He acts concerned about what our daughter is going through (she is cutting herself) yet he could not keep his word to her. I think he is only interested in the children and clinging to them because he has nothing else to cling to. I do believe he is finally starting to suffer the consequences of his actions and he is fighting it every step of the way. If and when he does hit rock bottom, he will be in for a rude awakening. While I do have compassion for him, I also understand that hitting rock bottom is absolutely necessary if he is ever to pull himself up out of the hole he has dug for himself. I realise he must do this alone and for himself. And I will not allow him to drag me and the kids down with him, that's for sure. Even as much as I am in pain, I am a fighter. I may be down at times but I am not out as they say.
~ CAL
"You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection" ~ Buddha
