So at long last, today I am officially (not legally since there is no legal separation in my state) separated from my H. We still live in the same house but we have agreed in writing that we are separating with the intent to divorce.

I do have moments of anger that my H wouldn’t step up to the plate and work on our reconciliation. Sometimes I still feel sorry for myself that I don’t have the happy marriage and lifelong partnership I hoped for. I still wish I hadn’t had to make this decision. I don’t like it that I am alone without a partner at this stage of my life.

But I feel myself getting stronger and more confident every day. I am living a life that is genuine. The times when I feel sadness or anger or despair are fewer and fewer. I have received comments from friends that I seem like my old self again. At work I am getting compliments from higher ups about my contributions. I am feeling hope that even though right now I am not in a place I want to be, I can still make my life a satisfying one.

Oddly enough, my H despite his initial resistance also seems like a load has been lifted from him. I was afraid the verbal abuse would escalate but he really doesn’t seem angry at me. We have actually had some good conversations about the kids and whatnot. If he can accept that this is going to happen I hope we can remain amicable at least in regards to the kids.

I was on the BAN board, Arrow, Healing Heart and this board. Sometimes I thought I would be in limbo forever. I felt like something was terribly wrong with me that I couldn’t move forward. Maybe I needed the time to come to terms with the end of my marriage. I am leaving it for the most part feeling whole and without bitterness. I am looking forward to my life.

Love, Rosie

T

James you say "I hate this but was given no chance to fix things or reconcil."


You have had just as much of a chance to fix things as Donna has. Donna made some great strides in counselling. What have you done in the past few years while she has been growing? Did you work on the porn addiction during that time? Were you open to listening to her and what her needs were?

You have a chance now to do those things for you and to get yourself off the drugs. It is up to YOU how you use it. You can wallow in self pity or you can get yourself up off the bed/couch and start working on you. If you don't do it for you, do it for your kids! They need you.

Kid


p.s. I hope things are okay with your house today in light of the severe weather Vancouver has been having........

Rosie,

<I am leaving it for the most part feeling whole and without bitterness. I am looking forward to my life.>


YAY! Good for you!! There is a feeling of relief, isn't there? It's never easy, but just making some decisions and then moving forward seems to relieve a lot of stress.

Your post is SO positive. I'm happy for you!

Monica

My yesterdays are all boxed up - and neatly put away.

I do feel positive for the most part. Life just doesn't always work out the way you want or expect it to but I'll be damned if I am going to give up.

I saw some posts have been deleted and I'm sorry if my post triggered anyone.

Love, --Rosie

Hello Rosie,

Since my last d-day I have not looked at the Divorce board. I just wanted to say that I am glad that you are doing well with the separation and I wish you all the best in getting through this.  You have had a long road in all of this...coming closer to the end of that road I assume.  I hope you finally find peace and happiness.

Take Care...Carol~

Rosie,

I understand. At least for me that initial relief led to some peace and some resolve.

I understand this too: it feels "selfish" at first to focus on yourself and getting what you want. After so many years of thinking of a partner, it is different to be the final word on everything in your life.

And this: people will notice. People will notice your confidence, your attitude, your determination. And you will feel good, not with mixed feelings, but GOOD. The "bad relationship" part of your life is ending and you won't have the idea in your head that "things are good except for...".

You will soon enough understand why some of your already-divorced friends have said to you that it was the best decision they ever made. That you took a lot of time to make the right decision for you will reinforce what they say.

Finding your own way can be a scary prospect in midlife. Or it can be invigorating. You choose.

Chris.

Many people have tried to help and support you, but you seem to fall further into despair. You are the only one that knows the real truth James (well you and Donna) and you are the only one that can do the work to fix you and the addictions you have.

Yes, I will leave your posts alone. I truly hope that you start to work on you and get out of this hole you have put yourself in.

Find out what makes James happy, find out what you enjoy doing...don't rely on anybody else to make you happy James or you will always be sadly disappointed.

Your posts now remind me alot of your old posts when Donna left the first time......attending counselling sessions doesn't mean progress. I hope you find your way out of the depression you are in and to a place of peace. To stay there is only to hurt yourself more.

James,

When you post on these boards it's out there, and anyone else can put something out there too. Why should you have the right to say whatever you think while you try to tell someone else not to?

The simple answer is, you don't have that right. Your choice is to post or not post, and what you say in your posts, and how you respond to others. And that's where it ends.

James, I'll be blunt. No one forced the oxycodone pills (or any other pills or drinks) down your throat. And it doesn't really matter if it was a legitimate prescription or bought on the black market...you're still addicted, and now you have to deal with that fact and the fallout from it.

Someone who lives with an addict has the right to set a limit on it and to get away from it if s/he wishes. And no one has the right to impose an addiction on his/her children.

This isn't in any way about Donna. It's all about you.

Chris.

James--I have been taking oxycodone for several months. It is combined with acetominaphin (Tylenol). The brand name is Percocet, which is taken by many people. After taking it for several weeks, I stopped "cold turkey" because of a side effect (itching) that was driving me crazy. I went back on the drug and the itching has gone away. I can't imagine it giving the problems that you cite. Unless you are taking more than the prescribed amount or your doctor is giving you an extremely high dose, your symptoms don't sound like something caused by this drug.

I have numerous back problems--arthritis, osteoporosis, herniated discs, pressure on a nerve, spodolothesis, sciatica a fracture in my spine and more. The drug has not helped me so far and I will need pain management for the rest of my life. I remember you saying that you started taking the drug after an accident. So your case was temporary.

It seems from your posts that you would benefit more from an anti-depressant drug. Sometimes these help some people a great deal.

Lili

wow!!!

I can't believe what kind of support a fellow member is getting here.....James is hurting and comes here for support, he is addicted to a drug that his doctor has prescribed to him and it seems that he is suffering depression from the loss of his marriage, his health and all you can do is get him more upset then he is by insulting him, instead of giving him any comfort....he has told you he has an addiction and you are telling him that he did this to himself and that he shouldn't be near his family due to this.....how shameful that someone could be treated this way....it seems to me that you are implying that James the BETRAYED SPOUSE deserves/deserved to be cheated on once again......so sad!!!!


maybe you need to read more before you insult someone



http://www.oxyconned.com/stories/

......

.

James,

My heart goes out to you. Someitmes I think we can point fingers and act a litte self-righteous here. Myself included.

Alot of people shout, "free will", but I don't believe that we ALWAYS have a choice. Some people don't realize that they have a choice. Until they become aware of that and beleive it, do they REALLY have a choice?


There have been a multitude of experiments with animals to show how punishment of the animal can blind them to a more positve choice.

Sometimes we are just blind to a more positve course, and sometimes we trust others to lead us on a path that will help us, only to find they are blind too.


Anyway, enough of my babble. I wish you well James along with all the other travelers here who are fighting battles.


Peace and love,

TLMM

James, am I understanding you correctly that Donna left this time because of another affair? I thought she just left because of just not being able to get along with you. If so, is this affair like the first one? Who is the affair partner? Do you know? I guess I'm asking for details so I can understand how all this came about.

Donna told me out of the blue on Sept 30 that she was no longer in love with me and was moving out.
I had noticed she was acting differently for a number of weeks prior to her telling me that, she said everything was fine or she just was dealing with old issues etc....I kept pushing as my gut instinct was telling me something was wrong, then she finally told me.
I asked her if there was somebody else and asked her for a chance to work things out with MC or anything.
She replied it was too late and there is no op.
I found a love letter she had written to op on the 16th of Oct which was dated the 13th of Oct....I asked her a about it and she said yes she was in love with this guy who was an ex boyfriend from 20 yrs ago.
I don't know when she connected with him but the letter was clearly a love letter.
Since then she has told me that they split up.
Thats all the facts I know.
I had to go to get tested for STD's and everything was fine thank goodness.

James

James--I am not addicted to Percocet. I only went back on the drug because I was told to by the specialists that I see. I have a hard time taking any drugs as I usually suffer many of the side effects. I talked to my therapist today about this drug and he feels that I am one of those people who don't respond to opiates.

I woke up during surgery twice because the opiates did not keep my under. It is not a pleasant thing to wake up when your stomach is wide open. I wish there was a better way to deal with my pain and am trying a muscle relaxing technique. The pain clinic would like me to have an epidural, but I am trying to put that off if possible. It is a painful procedure and can cause paralysis.

I know all about these drugs as I research everything I am prescribed. I was one of the unlucky people to take a couple of the drugs that can cause heart trouble, so I am very careful. I don't find any problem if I forget to take a pill. My daughter is a mental health professional and we have long discussions about all of these things.

I noticed on HH that you said people are talking about you behind your back on this site and lying about you. I would like to know how that is possible, since the posts are public. I meant nothing bad in my other post. From what you say, you are taking a rather large dose of oxycodone. I still think that trying an anti-depressant could help you. You are going through a difficult time and as a BS I know how that feels. I have been there twice and my husband is still here--at least in body, but not in heart.

Lili

James, you've been around long enough to know how I respond to people and what I think about things. I'm not going to change my opinions because you don't like them, and I'm always going to hold feet to the fire when I see someone who doesn't get it.

There are enough other people who are willing to say "poor James" and let you off the hook for your "stuff".

That's not my personality, and that's not my self-defined role here.

I try to help people move forward when they're stuck in their own stuff. Period. And you're the one here posting, and running away when someone asks too stiff a question, so I respond to what you say and do what I see in it.

Pretty consistently people come back to me months or years later and say (at minimum) that they understand what I meant "back then" even when it pissed them off at the time, and sometimes even when they disagree still. I count several of those people as good friends now, people I've met and broken bread with in real life.

Part of this whole exercise is being open and understanding about ourselves, and only then can we be open and understanding of others. We fight hardest when we are hiding from, or ashamed of, the truth of who we are and what we've become.

I've been there. I wanted to blame everything bad in my life on my ex-wife and my bad relationship with her. But you know what? She didn't "owe" me anything that I thought she owed me. And she always had the right to do as she wished. My choice was to accept her choices at face value, and then decide if I could live with them. And I got to decide how I'd respond...crying in pain and suffering and anger and issuing demands, or letting go and freeing myself to live my own life. My suffering was indeed of my own making, and the further I get away from it, the better I see that.

Frankly, I am "lucky" to be afraid of drugs and alcohol. I have blood relatives who are alcoholics/addicts, some of whom used those drugs and alcohol to self-medicate anxiety and depression. I got to a point in my 20's where I called in sick to work on a Wednesday because I was too hung over to get up after a night of drinking alone. I decided that day I could either take control of my alcohol use or it would take control of me. Now, I drink fairly sparingly and the only drugs I take are over-the-counter cold and allergy medicine, aspirin, and a powerful migraine drug when the headache approaches 9 on the Richter scale. (But my migraines are far fewer now that I have let go of my marriage and my anger with my ex-wife, and I haven't had to take the medicine in a couple of years. Another benefit of letting go.)

Some folks seem to want to run down MY experience by suggesting that I somehow lack the capacity to understand or empathize. I understand perfectly well the desire to drown my sorrows, and to live in them. I've been there. I've been depressed. I've lived in a pity party. I've suffered through incredible pain and nausea, the kind that a gunshot to the temple seemed a good solution to. I went through a really bad five years and wondered "why bother?" on a weekly basis. So please let's stay away from lectures about compassion. I believe that the most compassionate thing I can do is to help save James from himself, the way some other people helped save me.

I choose to get up every day and focus on what is good and right in my life, and I've been doing that for some time now. Maybe because of that, in the past year, a wonderful woman and a wonderful new job have both found me. No, things aren't perfect or even good every day. But I am truly thankful for what is new and good in my life, and for the people (they know who they are) who listened to me...and then whacked me upside the head until I got it. And I intend to keep paying that forward.

If you don't like it, ignore my posts. But don't lecture me about compassion and understanding and experience. I learned from people who didn't accept my whining and blaming others, and what I learned was that I ALWAYS have a choice. I can face the life of my own making, choose to be content with it (or change it until I am), or I can bitch about it and blame others and do nothing because it's not my fault and expect them to change to suit me. The only honest, "real" choice is the former. It took me half a lifetime to fully understand that.

In the words of the Eagles:

"So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains
And we never even know we have the key"

James, you have the key. Use it. It works.

Chris.

Sorry I have taken what you say wrong Chris. Knowing why you say the things you say and what you went through gives me a better perspective. I will try to be less argumentative with what you have to say.

I have been stuck in a rut and sitting on my pity pot. My wife always hated when I read your posts, because I'd always get pissed. I'll be looking from a different view from now on.

BS

James

I have been a Paramedic for almost 20 years (refraining from another sarcastic remark) and The Oxycodone problem in the midwest is almost as bad as the Meth problem. Unfortuantly most of the Oxy addictions occured due to misrepresentation by the drug company about their product. It was misprescribed and many people are addicted to it not by fault of their own. Meth users made a choice, most Oxy users had it made for them.

But regardless of the fact you are hooked to this POWERFUL narcotic, it is YOUR willpower that will be the only thing to get you off. I am too weak to even quit cigarettes. I can only imagine what it is like to get off something that makes you delusional, sick, and gives you any number of other withdrawl symptoms. You have a long tough road James, compounded with the seperation, I am just happy you are still around. I am sure your kids are too.

Good luck on this James.

BS

Jordan, that post was not to or about you.

Chris.

I have known for quite some time "you had grown into your skin"........this post of yours took my breath away ... congratulations my friend ! and welcome to the other side.

And as you walk you make your path Kat

EXCELLENT POST CHRIS!!!

I fully agree "So please let's stay away from lectures about compassion. I believe that the most compassionate thing I can do is to help save James from himself, the way some other people helped save me."

Coddling people and holding their hand does nothing for them. Sure you offer support and that is all well and great, but for how long does that go on. When it becomes a negative repeat pattern and you see that somebody is stuck in that same old rut over and over......do you push them out of the rut of leave them stuck there? For me that is a pretty easy answer. My posts may be blunt and frankly they may upset some, but I don't want to see the same person still here 2 or 3 years later talking about how unhappy they are. To me that is just a waste of the life you were given. Haven't we wasted enough time already?

Yes we all hurt. Yes we all need time to grieve and we all need support. But eventually we reach a point where we just have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and do a whole hell of alot of work if we truly want to find peace, happiness and a life again. I think that applies whether you stay together or seperate...nobody is perfect and we ALL have things to work on (a work in progress shall we say)

Chris will agree with me I think that making yourself whole again is ALOT of work. But when your spouse decides it is time and they don't want to be a part of your life or they don't want to be remorseful what choice do you really have? You can be better or you can be bitter....

P.S. Chris was the first person to greet me on HH when I arrived and the first one to offer support. He was also the first (well Kat may disagree) to give me a boot in the butt and make me realize that I could find a life and happiness after an affair, after a divorce. I will be eternally grateful for those boots in the butt (2x4 treatment) because they got me where I am today!!

I haven't said this in awhile.....but THANK YOU.....you know who you are

Chris, I know it wasn't to me. It just gave me the "why" in what you have to say. And I that I am now going to look at what you say with a more open mind. That's all.

BS

I apologize for the lengthy threadjack. More musings on separation:

My ex-wife and I separated just after the holidays, so I had a whole year to "get ready". But our divorce mediation was just before Thanksgiving (almost a year later) and so I was just in no mood to celebrate anything that first year. Last year was much better, but my older son's out of the house and my younger one is almost there so we don't have the wide-eyed wonder of Christmas anymore.

Each year is a little different. My tradition before getting married (in my early 20's) was to go home and be with my parents and sisters. We did that twice in 20+ years of marriage, and it was like pulling teeth both times, and so I got in the habit of reconnecting with my family at other times of year.
We have a "family of choice" situation now, with friends. They now host our joint family gathering (we used to alternate but my ex and I have both downsized our homes), so if I want to have Christmas dinner with my boys, it necessarily includes my ex-wife and her father and our friends' family. They (wisely) told us both that they would not take sides since they'd been friends with us for more than 20 years. So I can't snub my friends and leave town.

Yes, emotional separation makes for change at the holidays if you still live in the same city (or even the same house).

Chris.

I keep hoping my STBXH will go visit one of his siblings for the holidays but so far it doesn't look that way. I guess I have to accept that the next year or two are going to be stressful going as we separate our lives.

Thanks for the insight.

Love, --Rosie

How's it going? Haven't seen you post in a while.

Chris.

Hi Chris, what a surprise to see my old post at the top.

Well, things are not going too well right now. We have been "separated" for eight long months in the same house, and it is very stressful. I seem to be pretty much stuck here until we agree on a settlement, and H is dragging his feet every step of the way.

On top of everything else, I got laid off from my job, which I loved, and now have to get a new job and prove myself all over again. It wasn't personal, our whole department was eliminated, but still it has been quite a blow to my confidence and a major setback to my plans.

So I've been feeling pretty discouraged. There are moments when it just seems too hard, but the alternative is pretty bleak too. I'm trying to believe that something good will come from all of this. It's just hard to see it right now when things are so uncertain.

Thanks for asking, I need all the kindness and caring I can get right now.

Rosie

Ouch. Job loss in mid-life is no small thing. I hope you are able to find another job you can love.

I remember "foot dragging". For me it was the worst part of things. Once I knew I just wanted to move on, there was still "all that" to deal with.

Sorry things have turned negative for you.

Chris.

Me too Rosie. I also know there is some added stress when you have a special needs child and are thinking about all the time involved in caring for him and how later work hours would hurt him. I hope you find something compatible with your schedule soon.

Charlie