Discouraged and Depressed
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| Sun, 08-13-2006 - 12:42pm |
So it is finally moving forward. After him being gone for seven months, we were civil and he was even considering seeing if we could work things out. But his friends and family hate me and they began to tell him things like I have a boyfriend and other ugly rumors...he never asked me just believed them. His retaliation was to get a 24 yr old friend, they have been seen kissing in public. He then filed for divorce.
Now I was not ready to take him back but I was not ready to let go yet. He was terrible to me very abusive but I always knew he had the possiblity to be a good person, he had done so a few times. He has served me papers now and we went from friends to enemies, he won't listen to anything I say, he thinks I'm lying.
I am devestated, I'm still here in the house in our same bed and I find myself crying most every day. I can't seem to remember all of the bad things from the marriage, how he was awful with money, how he never spent time with us, how he always made me feel bad about me and how he always yelled. Even when I remember all of those things I still find myself missing him and wishing he had not done this.
We live in such a small town that it's easy to run into him and he lives less than a mile from us. I can't get the image of him and his new girlfriend out of my mind. The worst part is I know her better than he does, I bowled with her for two years, I know of all of her escapades with married men and one night stands. I work with her step mother.
I'm seeing a councilor and it helps but I can't seem to get this pain to stop. If he had asked to come home I'd have said no, I know he needed more help. My girls told me months ago that they were glad that this had happened and they wanted me to move on. I know not being with him is the right thing I know it's better for me and my girls. But dear god it hurts so much and suddenly I want all the dreams we had and I want him to call and say he was wrong and that life will be better.
I just don't know how to stop feeling this way and how to get over him being with someone else. I want to stop I want to remember how bad it was, I want to know that he is not what I wanted. It was almost 19 years that we were together and most of them were awful so why do I feel this way.

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I am sorry you're in so much pain, but it is good to see you again.
The initial stages of divorce can
I woke up this morning and decided that I would go buy a book and begin to write down all the reasons I wanted to leave in the past. I just have to keep remembering that there are reasons we are not together.
You are right, it's the dream. I had all these plans in my head of our life, we had all these plans. Even two weeks before he left we were still planning. And even though we did not know what we were going to do, there was still the hope that we could fix things.
The other dream that died is the fact that in 19 years my husband never cheated on me or me on him. It absolutly kills me that he had to end things this way. It was one of the few things I had left to be proud of in my marriage and about my husband. Now he just thinks that what he is doing is ok and there is nothing wrong with it. I think some day he will realize and will begin to see what he has done not only to me but to his family. He is not the man I was once married to, I'm not really sure who he has become. But I also believe I was in love with who he could be not who he was. You would have thought in 19 years I would have seen differently, but apparently not.
I know I'll move forward but for now I'm so stuck in the sadness that I hate this!
I know just how you feel. I am so stuck in the pit of sadness. Today I have needed to cry all day. My not soon enough ex got a lawyer and decided to quit paying for anything but about 100.00 a month for child support today. His lawyer told him to stop. I have no recourse except to keep allowing him to see our son. My lawyer said it would look bad for me if I did. She said child support and visitation are two different things to judges.
Most of the time I wallow in my sadness and hurt. Even today, my IC said I needed to own and think about what I did with the marriage. I have sobbed all day about that. It really hit me today. How do I go about forgiving myself? She also said forgiveness is not just a one time thing. You have to forgive and forgive over and over again. It may be the same thing each time but the one person it benefits the most is you. I have been struggling with God. Some days I can feel him carrying me, others like today I have been struggling with Him. I have to find the strength in me to let God take this for me. My prayer for you is that we can find that extra bit of strength each day, hour, minute to keep going. I know this message is rambling. Kind of like random thoughts.
Wow, I can certainly relate to you. I was married 16 years and in June my STBX told me he was unhappy (for the second time) but a few days later I found out he had a girlfriend (for the second time). I was devastated because we were on our way to a wonderful dreamlike life--selling our home, buying another one, son starting Kindergarten in a school we liked, being close to his family, me staying home with our son when he is home from school, it was a dream come true.
Apparently it wasn't too dreamy for STBX because he was "soulmates" with his girlfriend in 10 days only two weeks before he dropped the bomb on me. He moved out faster than lightning and I have recently learned that in October he is going to propose to his GF (who lives in another country by the way) and we haven't even filed for divorce yet officially. I cry occasionally about this but get over it quick when I realize they will be married long enough for her to get her green card because by then she will see what a loser he is and be outta there in a heartbeat.
I came to terms with yes, we really did have a difficult and unhappy marriage at times. I was overtolerant of things that I should not have been and that became normal to me. After counseling I know it wasn't normal and feel much better about myself. Problem was that STBX didn't have (and refuses to go to) counseling and I am confident of my belief that he is a narcissistic wack job (fortunately I am not the only one who see him this way). I am glad to be rid of him now. The only parts that make me sad is how his choices are going to affect our 5-year-old son and how my choice to have a child with such a loser (that I just knew I could fix) is going to affect him. That is what makes me cry every day.
Friends and family tell me it is only temporary, that out there somewhere there is someone who can treat me the proper way I deserve to be treated and who can be a good male influence to my son. I am sad that I am alone and my STBX is floating on cloud 9 at the moment, but just have to keep telling myself, it is only temporary.
Stay with your counselor and if things don't perk up for you in a few months, consider getting a different counselor. Things will change for you, it just takes time.
Robin
Kelly
Hugs, Brenda
Hugs, Brenda
I'm sorry that is happening to you. My STBX also does not do much to help with the girls, he would give us money if he knew that we were going to go do something but not anymore.
I don't want to forgive him. I don't feel that what he has done is forgivable, and forgiving him makes it ok, and well...it's not. I want to not be sad but I don't think I can ever forgive.
Your situation sounds like mine. I try not to hear what is happening with him and the new girl. I just can't right now. As I said in a previous post, I don't want to forgive him, that means I think it's ok. I want to deal with it and the hurt but not the forgiveness.
The lost of the dream is the worst. Our oldest graduates this year and we were talking about what life would be life without kids. We only had a year without any kids. He works two jobs and was planning on quitting the second one in March and we were so excited about how our life would change. We were talking about this as he was looking for apartments.
I am so sick of people telling me there is someone better and that he was not the right one. I was with him for 19 years!!! What do you mean not the right one. So am I going to waste another 1/2 of my life again not being with the right one? We have to learn how to stop loving them. My daughter did not understand this, she says I don't have to but the fact is I can't go on still loving him and survive. I also don't believe you stop loving someone you just learn how to adjust. How can you tell me that after 19 years that one day I'm just suppose to say that's it I have no more feelings and I never will.
We had a very difficult marriage and I tried to leave so many times but he was so controlling that I believed him when he said no one would want me. I think I still believe it. We went to counseling numerous times and in the beginning the councilors would not allow us in the same room because he was so cruel to me, he was even sent to an anger group for men twice. As we became older we could do counciling together but he would never work on things outside of counciling. The last time we seperated and got back together when the councilor, myself or the girls would ask him what is going to happen the next time he gets angry or we got into an argument he would just say it's not going to happen again. I wish I could stop having feelings for him, but I saw the man that he was capable of being, I would catch glimpses of him and it's what kept me going for years. What I hate it that now someone else gets to have "that" person and I never could.
I have decided that I have to create a book where I keep reminding myself of all of the things he did over the years. It seems to be the only way that I will remember how horrible it was and that I will forget the person that I knew he could be and remember the person that he was.
The interesting thing that has changed is over the years I never told people what my marriage was like, but some people could see, in my home life I was quiet and tried not to say anything to make him mad. In my job and away from him I'm a very strong person that has to make very black and white decisions with no opportunity of waivering. People see me as this strong, mean person, frequently called a bitch. When we first split up people used to tell me he's so nice what is wrong with you. Now it's different, I still don't tell people about the abuse but they keep telling me about how they see him so differently now and how they feel for me. It's a strange change of events.
I have a wonderful concilor, we were meeting every two weeks because I was doing so well, now I moved up to once a week...now that does not seem like enough. I just want to get out of the cesspool of sadness and regret!!
It has to get easier, everyone says it does and I don't believe you stay in the same place forever. We have to find a way. You can see by my last long winded post my marriage was pretty bad, my husband was very abusive. I certainly never wanted to let him go and I always wanted my marriage to work, I guess I thought if I believed enough, loved enough, tried enough, maybe just maybe he might too. That will never happen. I think with my husband, kind of like with a new born baby, he never really loved me or became attached to me. We never had that whole being in love can't live without you. I got pregnant three months into our relationship and everyone around us kept creating problems. Back then it was not as socially acceptable to be single and pregnant...and this was the 80's!!!
We have to keep going one day at a time, and learn to adjust one day at a time. I don't know if it gets better but I think we learn to adjust and adapt.
Keep you head up, we have to be stronger that what we have allowed ourselves to be. I really belive that!
Again, wow, we are similar. I was with my husband for a total of 23 years (we were teenagers when we started dating and married young) and he cheated on me on and off the whole time. When we split up two years ago, that was when all my friends and family finally told me what a jerk he was to me and how he made passes at them and was completely unappropriate all the time and that I was a saint for putting up with it. Honestly, I was just hoping beyond hope that one day he would just stop cheating and love me. When I took him back two years ago, I was skeptical but knew I had to try for my son...just to see if he had changed. He didn't, and continued on in his same manner. It wasn't until this dreamlife started that I really thought he was becoming a real man. Now he is all in love with another woman who reminds me of how I used to be--she has low self esteem and is very nieve and immmature. Now that I know how my husband really is and what he really wants, I can see that she is perfect for him. I grew up and gained confidence and became a strong (yes, some call us bitchy!) woman with the capability to think independently and he lost interest in me completely. It is interesting to me now to look at how we changed or didn't change in 23 years and to see where we are now. Just fascinating.
I am still trying to figure the person I am as an individual (versus a wife/lover), since I know that while I was with my husband for so many years, he influenced my life in so many ways. I look at it like separating yourself from the shadow the two of you cast together and getting your own shadow.
I wish you the best in discovering your single self and moving past the sadness and depression we all are going through.
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