So last year in November while actively searching for what I believed was an affair at work I discovered a five year affair with an "ex" boyfriend. I left that day and had her served divorce papers three weeks later. I discovered it by snooping through her facebook account. And yes she was having an affair with her boss at work as well. I found that out about a month later. She has promised to tell me about many affairs after the divorce paperwork is completely final. I won't listen though.
The facebook messages, the first one I read, in real time while she was chatting with him that very second, was an extremely graphic description of the sex acts they were going to perform later that day while she went to work to "work overtime". I can remember that message word for word. It is burned into my brain. The rest is kind of a blur. My mind just kind of broke right then. It comes back in flashes and dreams and I have some kind of memory of it. There were pictures. An unbelievable amount of pictures. Hundreds of pictures. I scrolled back and back and back just to see how long this had been going on. He would send her pictures of him ****ing her in various degrading ways and chat with her about these things. The only thing they ever talked about was sex. The pictures are what I see in my head now, when I let my mental guard down. Even after 10 months. I scrolled back and back and back and back and they just never stopped.
I ended up just screaming at her for a few minutes. I called her a ***** and a ***** and c*nt. Then I saw my son grabbing her leg, scared, so I grabbed a pair of clothes and left. That was the last day I have ever been in my house. I didn't know that she had a secret bank account and a plan for this. One of her old friends contacted me to let me know that she had an entire plan and was bragging about it. Her old friend was so sickened by this that she found me and she is now one of my best friends.
The ex wife filed several false domestic violence claims against me. They were dismissed two months later but not before the police came and told me that I am not allowed to enter my home or see my child until I get to go before a judge. They did not care about what actually happened. This was an "emergency protective order." The judge for the DV case looked over the police reports and dismissed it without even talking to us. She was furious. But this took two months and established the precedent that she gets my house and our son.
She had changed the locks to the house. It was still my home and from what I could tell if I wanted to I could have the locks changed back but my lawyer told me that this would look bad when I went before a judge. Besides she already had her married boss living there part time. Later when I revealed this affair to his wife she told me that he told her he was taking trips for work. He was really living with my wife and my son that the state forbid me from seeing.
She withdrew all our money. It was all gone. She stole my identity fourteen times and destroyed my credit five days after I separated from her while we were still going to marriage counseling. I found this out about six weeks later.
I went full detective mode. I was also homeless. Sleeping on friends couches. No access to any of my property. I was so depressed that I lost my job. I got a new job doing manual labor. The pay was less but it was menial enough that it distracted me from the thoughts I couldn't block out. Work has become my favorite thing now just because my mind can relax just a little bit. Sometimes I wish I could just work all the time.
The divorce is final now. I will have access to my retirement funds again, well half of them. Well half of what is left after shelling out $45,000 or so for everything divorce related. My wealthy relatives paid for my divorce on loan with the belief that one day I would have access to my retirement funds again and would be able to pay them back. That day will be here in just a few weeks and I am eternally grateful to them.
The final decree gave me about $700 more a month. Which is good because it was impossible for me to live on the other $700 I had. I now have my son half the time and pay no child support for the next two years. She did not get alimony. Actually the divorce, now that it's final, was very good to me. I can finally start to rebuild my life in my thirties while living with my parents. I'm amazed at the new opportunities I have.
But back last year the nightmares started. I would sleep maybe an hour or two before I was awake, covered in sweat, screaming into my pillow. I stopped sleeping. A week went by and I started to hallucinate. It was terrifying but I was more scared to sleep. Eventually my body collapsed from exhaustion. The nightmares lessened.. changed. I don't even know if I am still having them.
But I still can't sleep. Last night was typical. Get home from work, exhausted, eat dinner, watch some Netflix. Take a few sleeping pills and a shot of vodka. Go lay down at 1:30am. I can do a pretty good job of keeping my thoughts in rigid order if I'm active, for the most part, but when I lay down in the dark I can't. I hear the things she told me, I see the pictures, I imagine what the reality of my life over the last ten years has actually been. Even if I block these thoughts out through deep breathing, relaxation techniques, and meditation there is still... like an alarm going off in my head. All the time.
It's like a low buzzing in the background. Pushing me to do something. Like my brain is screaming at me that something is not right and I need to do something. It makes it almost impossible for me to relax and enjoy anything. And it gets much louder if I lose frame and let the dark thoughts start up. I'll disassociate hard and literally will not be able to think or act at all. A few months ago was the last time I caused myself serious physical pain just to... like reset my brain. So it's not that bad anymore but it's still pretty bad.
So last night, a typical night, I take a few sleeping pills and lay down. Then the thoughts start creeping in and I can't distract them away so I get up. Take another sleeping pill. Go walk around in my backyard. Read for a bit. Then lay down again. Then I get back up. Take another sleeping pill and repeat. I fell asleep a bit after 4am.
Then 7am comes around and I'm awake. Alert. More than alert. I'm on guard. I feel like I have to do something so badly. Like my brain is sounding an alarm and forcing me to be alert. Now I just lay in bed. Rarely I will be able to fall asleep for another 30 minutes. Maybe an hour. Even if not just laying there can be relaxing. Then the dark thoughts start coming back so I get up. Three hours of sleep again and the sleeping pills leave my body wrecked. Get up and read for a bit. Take a walk with my dog. Cook breakfast. I'm so tired.
If I don't take the sleeping pills I simply will be unable to fall asleep. I will be awake for two or three days until I crash from exhaustion and drag myself out of bed so I'm not late for work, or worse, if I have my son that day I will sit in the same room with him, awake, but unable to properly function. I've found that the sleeping pills work better. They are over the counter ones from Wal-Mart.
I used to just drink myself unconscious but this was far more harmful then helpful so I managed to stop.
I've been dating someone new. Sometimes she spends the night. She wakes up when I wake up and I always wake up after a few hours. I don't remember any nightmares anymore but she says I jump awake. Violently enough to wake her up. It's nice when she's over because she will lay next to me and rub my back for fifteen minutes until she falls back asleep. I don't fall back asleep though. She has gotten used to me getting out of bed after a few hours and going outside.
This pattern continues for a week or ten days until I am barely conscious and my body shuts down giving me ten or twelve glorious hours of rest. But not being able to sleep, still, after almost a year, is killing me.
I haven't had insurance for about a year. I did briefly have Obamacare insurance but when the temporary orders judge ordered me to give almost all my money to her, to pay for half the house and half her utilities, and to pay for her car and insurance, to give her $100 for her retirement (!!!!) etc... I had to stop paying my insurance. I've learned to live very cheaply and these habits are now my new normal. But now that the divorce is final things have changed. I'm going to have enough money to buy food and get my oil changed... buy clothes and clothes for my son. Hell I'll have enough money to go see a doctor.
It was amazing, actually. After the last court appearances, having the police accuse me of being physically abusive, being homeless and penniless during the darkest time of my life... The judge from two days ago actually cared. He cared about her infidelity. He cared about what had happened to me. So soon, so soon, I will have enough money to do whatever I feel like for the next year. Maybe I'll go buy a new car? She got our nice car anyway... who knows. Just having opportunities, having some semblance of freedom again after being a slave to give her money for a year....
So what do you folks do so that you can sleep? I will be going to a doctor, I've decided, but that will be 4-6 weeks away. And if I could get some sleep before then that would be... really nice. Maybe help me plan out where I go from here.
The facebook messages, the first one I read, in real time while she was chatting with him that very second, was an extremely graphic description of the sex acts they were going to perform later that day while she went to work to "work overtime". I can remember that message word for word. It is burned into my brain. The rest is kind of a blur. My mind just kind of broke right then. It comes back in flashes and dreams and I have some kind of memory of it. There were pictures. An unbelievable amount of pictures. Hundreds of pictures. I scrolled back and back and back just to see how long this had been going on. He would send her pictures of him ****ing her in various degrading ways and chat with her about these things. The only thing they ever talked about was sex. The pictures are what I see in my head now, when I let my mental guard down. Even after 10 months. I scrolled back and back and back and back and they just never stopped.
I ended up just screaming at her for a few minutes. I called her a ***** and a ***** and c*nt. Then I saw my son grabbing her leg, scared, so I grabbed a pair of clothes and left. That was the last day I have ever been in my house. I didn't know that she had a secret bank account and a plan for this. One of her old friends contacted me to let me know that she had an entire plan and was bragging about it. Her old friend was so sickened by this that she found me and she is now one of my best friends.
The ex wife filed several false domestic violence claims against me. They were dismissed two months later but not before the police came and told me that I am not allowed to enter my home or see my child until I get to go before a judge. They did not care about what actually happened. This was an "emergency protective order." The judge for the DV case looked over the police reports and dismissed it without even talking to us. She was furious. But this took two months and established the precedent that she gets my house and our son.
She had changed the locks to the house. It was still my home and from what I could tell if I wanted to I could have the locks changed back but my lawyer told me that this would look bad when I went before a judge. Besides she already had her married boss living there part time. Later when I revealed this affair to his wife she told me that he told her he was taking trips for work. He was really living with my wife and my son that the state forbid me from seeing.
She withdrew all our money. It was all gone. She stole my identity fourteen times and destroyed my credit five days after I separated from her while we were still going to marriage counseling. I found this out about six weeks later.
I went full detective mode. I was also homeless. Sleeping on friends couches. No access to any of my property. I was so depressed that I lost my job. I got a new job doing manual labor. The pay was less but it was menial enough that it distracted me from the thoughts I couldn't block out. Work has become my favorite thing now just because my mind can relax just a little bit. Sometimes I wish I could just work all the time.
The divorce is final now. I will have access to my retirement funds again, well half of them. Well half of what is left after shelling out $45,000 or so for everything divorce related. My wealthy relatives paid for my divorce on loan with the belief that one day I would have access to my retirement funds again and would be able to pay them back. That day will be here in just a few weeks and I am eternally grateful to them.
The final decree gave me about $700 more a month. Which is good because it was impossible for me to live on the other $700 I had. I now have my son half the time and pay no child support for the next two years. She did not get alimony. Actually the divorce, now that it's final, was very good to me. I can finally start to rebuild my life in my thirties while living with my parents. I'm amazed at the new opportunities I have.
But back last year the nightmares started. I would sleep maybe an hour or two before I was awake, covered in sweat, screaming into my pillow. I stopped sleeping. A week went by and I started to hallucinate. It was terrifying but I was more scared to sleep. Eventually my body collapsed from exhaustion. The nightmares lessened.. changed. I don't even know if I am still having them.
But I still can't sleep. Last night was typical. Get home from work, exhausted, eat dinner, watch some Netflix. Take a few sleeping pills and a shot of vodka. Go lay down at 1:30am. I can do a pretty good job of keeping my thoughts in rigid order if I'm active, for the most part, but when I lay down in the dark I can't. I hear the things she told me, I see the pictures, I imagine what the reality of my life over the last ten years has actually been. Even if I block these thoughts out through deep breathing, relaxation techniques, and meditation there is still... like an alarm going off in my head. All the time.
It's like a low buzzing in the background. Pushing me to do something. Like my brain is screaming at me that something is not right and I need to do something. It makes it almost impossible for me to relax and enjoy anything. And it gets much louder if I lose frame and let the dark thoughts start up. I'll disassociate hard and literally will not be able to think or act at all. A few months ago was the last time I caused myself serious physical pain just to... like reset my brain. So it's not that bad anymore but it's still pretty bad.
So last night, a typical night, I take a few sleeping pills and lay down. Then the thoughts start creeping in and I can't distract them away so I get up. Take another sleeping pill. Go walk around in my backyard. Read for a bit. Then lay down again. Then I get back up. Take another sleeping pill and repeat. I fell asleep a bit after 4am.
Then 7am comes around and I'm awake. Alert. More than alert. I'm on guard. I feel like I have to do something so badly. Like my brain is sounding an alarm and forcing me to be alert. Now I just lay in bed. Rarely I will be able to fall asleep for another 30 minutes. Maybe an hour. Even if not just laying there can be relaxing. Then the dark thoughts start coming back so I get up. Three hours of sleep again and the sleeping pills leave my body wrecked. Get up and read for a bit. Take a walk with my dog. Cook breakfast. I'm so tired.
If I don't take the sleeping pills I simply will be unable to fall asleep. I will be awake for two or three days until I crash from exhaustion and drag myself out of bed so I'm not late for work, or worse, if I have my son that day I will sit in the same room with him, awake, but unable to properly function. I've found that the sleeping pills work better. They are over the counter ones from Wal-Mart.
I used to just drink myself unconscious but this was far more harmful then helpful so I managed to stop.
I've been dating someone new. Sometimes she spends the night. She wakes up when I wake up and I always wake up after a few hours. I don't remember any nightmares anymore but she says I jump awake. Violently enough to wake her up. It's nice when she's over because she will lay next to me and rub my back for fifteen minutes until she falls back asleep. I don't fall back asleep though. She has gotten used to me getting out of bed after a few hours and going outside.
This pattern continues for a week or ten days until I am barely conscious and my body shuts down giving me ten or twelve glorious hours of rest. But not being able to sleep, still, after almost a year, is killing me.
I haven't had insurance for about a year. I did briefly have Obamacare insurance but when the temporary orders judge ordered me to give almost all my money to her, to pay for half the house and half her utilities, and to pay for her car and insurance, to give her $100 for her retirement (!!!!) etc... I had to stop paying my insurance. I've learned to live very cheaply and these habits are now my new normal. But now that the divorce is final things have changed. I'm going to have enough money to buy food and get my oil changed... buy clothes and clothes for my son. Hell I'll have enough money to go see a doctor.
It was amazing, actually. After the last court appearances, having the police accuse me of being physically abusive, being homeless and penniless during the darkest time of my life... The judge from two days ago actually cared. He cared about her infidelity. He cared about what had happened to me. So soon, so soon, I will have enough money to do whatever I feel like for the next year. Maybe I'll go buy a new car? She got our nice car anyway... who knows. Just having opportunities, having some semblance of freedom again after being a slave to give her money for a year....
So what do you folks do so that you can sleep? I will be going to a doctor, I've decided, but that will be 4-6 weeks away. And if I could get some sleep before then that would be... really nice. Maybe help me plan out where I go from here.
Put the internet to work for you.
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