roller coaster
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| Thu, 08-17-2006 - 11:42am |
How are you guys getting through the emotional end of this divorce stuff? I am thinking one minute that things will be okay and the next I feel like all is lost for me. I have read and reread all the material I can find, I have been to counseling, I have talked with my friends and family until I think that that have heard all they want too hear and still I am up and down and all over the place with fear, lonliness, guilt. I have a good relationship with my ex-husband. He is the one that wanted the divorce. I didn't know it was coming and didn't want our marriage to end. I miss him incredibly and think about him pretty much every waking minute. I am so worn out with these emotions. I wake in the middle of the night with everything that's happened on my mind. I wish I could sleep through the days so I didn't have to be consumed by the thoughts. Not even work keeps me from thinking about him and the years and the hopes and the dreams. The future is so scary! I just want to run away. If it wasn't for my girls, I think I already would of.
Robin

First off, hello and just know that you are absolutely NOT ALONE. I too felt this way. My ex was cheating, I gave second and third chances and he threw them away. I ended things. When I did I missed him so much that I thought maybe I made the wrong decision (in my mind I knew I didnt, but my heart was killing me). I hurt over all the hopes & dreams, plans, expectations of him and I living happily ever after. The nights for me in the beginning took forever. It would seem as though I had been sleeping for hours and hours and I'd wake up and find I had only been sleep for an hour. I longed for him to come home, it hurt so bad. With time, lots of tears, anger, pain, and feeling downright like I was going to loose my mind I realized it wasnt HIM I missed it was what he represented - my family, my protector, my soul mate. All the wonderful things you think of in a real committed relationship. Needless to say he wasnt who I thought he was. So Im back to the drawing board. But I still get lonely and that's what drives me crazy.
I have also learned that this whole process leaves you very vunerable. With my lonliness I sought comfort in someone who is just like my ex and I've made some very big mistakes that Im still beating myself up about. I got pregnant by this guy and "funny enough" his true colors started to show. I should have known from day one he was no good but I ignored my mind and listened to my heart, the lonliness in my heart and got involved with him, he played the "unhappily married role" and he was "looking for his own apt". I hate myself for what I did but I have to learn from my mistakes and let it go.
So now here I am still working through the kinks of the end of the first relationship which to me was "the one" and having to see him being in a "happy relationship with this 20 yr old" (not the one he cheated on me with, thank god) made it harder since I was still alone and having to see him, her and my son together doing the things that we were supposed to be doing together as a family. It doesnt hurt AS bad as it did say 6 months ago but it still hurts a bit. I ran into the arms of this other guy and now I have to pick up the pieces of that fiasco. Having a miscarriage, realizing he's is just like ex and being alone again. This time Im gonna stay focused on me and building my self esteem totally before even thinking of getting involved with a man. Next time around he for sure as hell wont be "unhappily married". Stay strong, you'll make it through I just know you will.
sometimes i think that if i didn't have anything to do with xh that that would help the healing process. that thought only puts a new fear in my heart when i actually think about acting on it. the fear that that would put him out of my life for good. i would give anything to get him back and his wanting to be "friends" gives me comfort of some sort of a relationship with him which in my head and heart right now is better than none. but really, is this good? i think about having another man in my life and that's all the further it goes because to actually do it i don't know that i can. it breaks my heart to think about having someone else sitting beside me, but yet i would love to be appreciated and cared for again. i am sorry about the situation that you had to go through luvred2004. i can't imagine being hurt all over again when all is still so fresh from the first time. i get concerned with letting another man into my life for the fear of going through it all over again just like you did. but than i know that being alone the rest of my life isn't appealing either. what a mess!! it's unbelievable that one day you think you have the world by the tail and all is great and the next all you want to do is run as fast and as hard as you can to get away from all the crap. i know that it takes two to make and two to break, but i do hold resentment in the fact that my xh could of at least warned me to some degree about what was going on so i could be going down the healing path along with him instead of what seems like lite years behind him.
thanks for your support. you hang in there too.
robin
I know totally how you feel. I too wanted to be friends. Not even realizing that was the worst thing I could try to work for at that time. For me by being friends and still seeing each other there was still hope, hope that he'd realize what a fool he had been and want to come home. Everyone kept telling me to have NO CONTACT with him, I couldnt see it then but they were soooo right. I kept thinking how can I cut all contact when we have a baby together. So I did it my way and I tried to be "friends", well he took that and used it and me. He still had me doing important things for him b/c he knew he could trust me and I'd take care of it b/c I still loved him though I was the one who ended things. We had even started sleeping together again off and on and I was NO CLOSER to getting back the "family" I so desperately wanted. He was still out there with his other women and was having the best of both worlds. He kept telling me "now" isnt the right time for us, just "give it time who knows what will happen", he even told me that he felt he only had one last chance with me and the he believes the "third time is a charm" he didnt want to blow his last chance "right now". Everytime I heard him say that I wanted to scream. Every time he left after being together I'd be emotionally destroyed a little bit more every time. He had started seeing a 19yr old (the one he's with now) after he left the ow he cheated on me with (with twins by the way). Even still he slept with me when he was with this "new girl" and I started to finally realize that he was NEVER gonna change although he kept saying that he had changed. So I got sick and tired of being sick and tired and cut all contact.
One thing that fast forwarded me to my decision to cut it totally except only pertaining to our son was one saturday I was upset b/c he was supposed to come visit the baby and me and he cancelled and I was crying asking why, what happened and he was going to see the new gf and he told me " I dont have time for you today, she makes plans for us on saturday's" My god I wanted to die. My son was in his crib sleeping and I fell to my knees and asked God to just let me die right there, the pain was so great, my heart felt like it was just breaking. There I was still being his safety net, making sure all his stuff was in order, helping him out with work stuff and he just "dismissed me" just like that without even a second thought. Something made me get up and I went to look at my son sleeping, he was so peaceful and sweet and had it now been for me looking at him and knowing my baby needed me and loved me who knows what would have happened. That day I got the strength to begin no contact.
It saved my life. I learned the word NO. In the beginning it was scary, the thought of "losing him totally" but you know what, I had already lost him. Then I realized I hadnt lost I had gained something great, my life back. He was and still is no good. He's the one who lost. The more I said no, the stronger I got and the better it felt. Now geez, it's like nothing to say NO to him. Guess who's still bitter, angry and nasty. He is. He always talked about how happy he is with this girl, then why is he so miserable and bitter and nasty. Now I laugh about it. Ive made my peace with him and what happened for the most part. Ive come a Looong way, still have a little ways to go but in a so much better place then when I first started. Im not as strong as I thought I was needless to say in light of the recent mistake Ive made however, one thing I can guarantee is that I wont make the mistakes with this one I made with him. I had mixed emotions about this new baby only because of the situation with this guy and was not happy of the thought of having another baby and an absent father. But I was going to have him/her b/c it didnt ask to be born and is innocent. Then came the miscarriage. I hurt for the baby but Im glad I free of this loser totally. So just know that you are not alone. You have to feel what you feel and dont beat yourself up over it at all. It's all normal. I cant tell you what to do but as hard as it is try to think with your head not your heart. Allow yourself to grieve. You need to be strong for you and your girls. If we allow them they will use us for their own benefit. There is light at the end of the tunnel. I can start to see it.
Londi
OH MY GOSH!!! Luvred are we sister spirits????? I posted once to the Families Damaged by Pornography board, and I know all the emotional roller coasters you described perfectly for me! I left him because I knew I HAD TO! I almost felt God had given me a gift in that my husband had chosen to do something I could NOT forgive (child porn!!! OH MY!!)
Now almost a year later but a couple more months til the divorce is final, I have never been so whole in all my life! I broke the pattern, I started reformed my enabling ways.
Thank you for putting my feelings in writing!
Shell
Robin,
I'm a guy in the same shoes as you. I'm in total shock, fear, hurt, and sadness.
I have considered a wide range of choices to get her back or punish her: (it varies with the kind of hurt I'm feeling at the time)
-Leaving the kids with her 24/7 so she won't enjoy her "freedom"
-Getting full custody of kids and just leave her to her own choices.
-Quitting my job so she doesn't get child support.
-Canceling our life insurance policy so she doesn't benefit from my death.
-Pretend to be a friend so that she will eventually come back.
-Never talk to her again so that she may move on and stop hating me for trying to get back together with her and maybe she will want me back again.
-Start dating again to make me feel good temporily and make her jealous.
-Prescription drugs to numb the pain and artifically make me happy.
-Leaving it up to God and his plan...(hard to do because she was the spiritual one b4 all of this)
.......Just to name a few....
I want to stay and fight, I want to escape and forget, and I can't see which one is right.
If you find something that works PLEASE LET ME KNOW!
Hey Shell,
Anytime. One thing Ive learned about these boards but this one is particular is we are not alone. When we are facing the darkest days of our lives and it seems as though NO ONE understands our pain some wonderful person from this board shows us we're not crazy for feeling what we feel and the most uplifting of all is they give us hope that we can and will make through this pain. Girl Im here anytime you need to talk.
i wish i could tell what works. but than if i knew i wouldn't be posting here, right? i don't have it in me to get even with my ex, but i would give anything to either have him back or just to be able to let go completely. i am still wondering how i got here. there are days that i can't make it through without crying or thinking things that i shouldn't be thinking. i have considered finding a support group. are you in one? i think i quit my counseling too soon too. i gotta tell ya, if it's been there to read i have done that too. it's just sucks!!!!!!!! time isn't helping either. is it you? my ex and i get along pretty well. that makes it hard too. but than i think about the divorced people who don't get along and how awful that must be and i can be thankful for our working parenting relationship. i have heard that the best revenge is to live life to it's fullest. i know we need to get the urge to do that first but i can see where that would have our exs wondering if maybe they didn't screw up. did you ever think this is where you would be when you stood on the alter and said till death do you part? it bugs me that one person in a marriage can make the other person's life so miserable. now we have to figure out how to get happy again, how to trust again, how to live our lives starting over again, how to parent singlely, how to start new relationships, how to let someone new into our lives with our kids......endless list. i am sorry that i don't have an answer for you yet, brianhed. but maybe soon.... just gotta get through one second, one minute, one day at a time. hit me back, if you want.
robin