after ending the marriage? I've looked around online, but it seems like everything that comes up for "recovering from infidelity" or "surviving infidelity" or the like is for people who have stayed in the marriage, as if that's the only way to recover or survive. Or maybe the ones who leave are supposed to just feel fine and not need any help with it. Not me! :( I'm especially frustrated because I can be having such a nice time with my friends and my kids and totally enjoying being single and the new life I'm building and then ex will do something that makes me so, so angry, like I just can't even get a handle on it. I fly off, I think partly because I feel like he didn't treat me with any respect and I don't feel like I should have to kill myself to treat him decently. That would be all well and good, except that we have kids...
Anyhow... it is the infidelity part that makes me crazy, not so much the not being with him part. Like, it just makes me feel crazy to think that he CHOSE her over me. And that there was a time in our marriage, 3 freaking years, during which he was seeing her behind my back and also, stupidly, in front of my face. (It was an emotional affair, in fact, we've been split for five months and the two of them spend a couple of nights a week together and they have never even kissed :scratchhead: , but he tells me that he's in love with her and has been since before the split.)
So, now it is very hard for me to not feel like she's more desirable, lovable, better, whatever. He was the person who knew me best in the world and he has pronounced me not good enough and this crazy woman (omg, just think of the kind of woman who'd stay out all night with someone's husband on a regular basis and then string him along this way -- if I didn't want to scratch her eyes out, I'd think it was really kind of impressive how he's wrapped around her finger) is somehow better and more satisfying to him. I know that he's an ass, but I can't help but also feel like he's some kind of expert on whether or not I'm good enough. I don't respect his opinion on almost anything anymore, except for my worth. I know that's backwards.
I feel in a lot of ways that I am better off without him and, actually, pretty lucky to have escaped from a pretty f'd up marriage that I was super committed to. And in some ways I really truly have been happier since he broke my heart than I was for many years before. And then I see him and he does something really f'ing unconscionable (told me recently that she touched his arm -- the most intimate physical contact they've had so far and he hasn't been this happy in 25 years! WTF??? Also, recently said that he wanted me to trade kid nights with him so that she could take him out for his b'day on a night that he knows is a really important sustaining thing for me, am I really supposed to go out of my way to facilitate their relationship??? I never get in the way of their special nights together that are his nights, but I'm not giving up my nights for it! Christ, I've given up an awful lot for their relationship already!!!)
So.... anyhow, how is it that I can be relatively happy and looking forward to a better future and all that and at the same time feel so insanely angry and hurt? I am just full of rage!
And if anyone knows of something I can read or do -- a blog to follow or a book or a 12 step group. I really need to move on from this. :(
ETA: I am in individual counseling and have been doing EMDR, too. I need to do some more EMDR. It worked amazingly well for handling him spending nights with her. I did one EMDR session on it, before which I had just felt kicked in the stomach the whole night, unable to sleep, weepy, a mess, and after I actually felt pretty happy to just have the house to myself. (Yes, we are living in the same house. We don't have any money, like at all. He makes a good living but insists that it all go into the kids' school, which is actually pretty darned awesome, but it means that we have shared a car for years and live in a tiny house with furniture from the salvation army, etc. I am working on getting a job but it's tough going since I've been home with the kids for 12 years. :( Plus, he seems to think I should be able to get everything done that I always have during the time they're in school and still do the job hunt. Sigh... but hopefully I will get a job and things will feel less messy.)
Anyhow... it is the infidelity part that makes me crazy, not so much the not being with him part. Like, it just makes me feel crazy to think that he CHOSE her over me. And that there was a time in our marriage, 3 freaking years, during which he was seeing her behind my back and also, stupidly, in front of my face. (It was an emotional affair, in fact, we've been split for five months and the two of them spend a couple of nights a week together and they have never even kissed :scratchhead: , but he tells me that he's in love with her and has been since before the split.)
So, now it is very hard for me to not feel like she's more desirable, lovable, better, whatever. He was the person who knew me best in the world and he has pronounced me not good enough and this crazy woman (omg, just think of the kind of woman who'd stay out all night with someone's husband on a regular basis and then string him along this way -- if I didn't want to scratch her eyes out, I'd think it was really kind of impressive how he's wrapped around her finger) is somehow better and more satisfying to him. I know that he's an ass, but I can't help but also feel like he's some kind of expert on whether or not I'm good enough. I don't respect his opinion on almost anything anymore, except for my worth. I know that's backwards.
I feel in a lot of ways that I am better off without him and, actually, pretty lucky to have escaped from a pretty f'd up marriage that I was super committed to. And in some ways I really truly have been happier since he broke my heart than I was for many years before. And then I see him and he does something really f'ing unconscionable (told me recently that she touched his arm -- the most intimate physical contact they've had so far and he hasn't been this happy in 25 years! WTF??? Also, recently said that he wanted me to trade kid nights with him so that she could take him out for his b'day on a night that he knows is a really important sustaining thing for me, am I really supposed to go out of my way to facilitate their relationship??? I never get in the way of their special nights together that are his nights, but I'm not giving up my nights for it! Christ, I've given up an awful lot for their relationship already!!!)
So.... anyhow, how is it that I can be relatively happy and looking forward to a better future and all that and at the same time feel so insanely angry and hurt? I am just full of rage!
And if anyone knows of something I can read or do -- a blog to follow or a book or a 12 step group. I really need to move on from this. :(
ETA: I am in individual counseling and have been doing EMDR, too. I need to do some more EMDR. It worked amazingly well for handling him spending nights with her. I did one EMDR session on it, before which I had just felt kicked in the stomach the whole night, unable to sleep, weepy, a mess, and after I actually felt pretty happy to just have the house to myself. (Yes, we are living in the same house. We don't have any money, like at all. He makes a good living but insists that it all go into the kids' school, which is actually pretty darned awesome, but it means that we have shared a car for years and live in a tiny house with furniture from the salvation army, etc. I am working on getting a job but it's tough going since I've been home with the kids for 12 years. :( Plus, he seems to think I should be able to get everything done that I always have during the time they're in school and still do the job hunt. Sigh... but hopefully I will get a job and things will feel less messy.)
Put the internet to work for you.
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