SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Sorry, double post!

Why would I want to even consider R with a total, unfaithful, deceitful lying narcissistic shit of a human. I AM NO LONGER CRAZY!

[This message edited by LadyG at 9:33 PM, January 24th (Sunday)]

Last G, if you're separated, then BE separated. It does not one constructive thing for YOUR healing and trying to move on from your 'unfaithful, deceitful lying narcissistic shit of a human' wh by going on a beach vacation and listening to more of his ridiculously clueless bullshit As far as any of his health issues go, he's a big boy and he can just pull up his big boy pants and figure it the fuck out like every other grown up does. If you're separated, none of that is your problem anymore. He will never learn to manage his own shit cus he can just call his wife to do for him. You keep saying how separated you are, but tbh you still sound an awful lot like the wife.

I myself would rather poke my eye with a fork than have one more word of conversation with my exdouche, nevermind spending my vaca time with his dumb ass. And he had health issues too... Maybe one of his new sluts won't mind cleaning him up when he shits himself during a seizure that he refuses to take medication for. And maybe they can hound him about making his neuro appts and then hold his hand to make sure he goes. When he chose to cheat and we separated, alllllll of that went with him.

I just watch you stay stuck and stay sucked into your wh's poor me bullshit narrative and it's bad for you Lady G. Makes me sad for you. Don't you want freedom from it? Haven't you given enough at this point?

[This message edited by EllieKMAS at 4:34 PM, January 25th (Monday)]

LadyG

Keep up your strength woman!

[This message edited by 20yrsagoBS at 10:43 AM, January 25th (Monday)]

Why would I want to even consider R with a total, unfaithful, deceitful lying narcissistic shit of a human.

Gently, then why go to the beach with him either?

What difference does it make if he's paying?

I agree with Ellie. This doesn't sound healthy for YOU to spend one second more with him than necessary, and the ONLY things that are necessary are kids & finances....

Wishing you well LadyG.

LadyG, I agree with everything above, don’t give him any more opportunities to get in your head. Refuse gifts, they just give him hope. Take care of you, let him worry about himself.

LadyG

What do you want your life to be like in a years time?

If you want to be a happy single person, how do you get there. Going on vacation with your cheater is not finding a new life. Look forward. .

If you want R, what do you need for R and is it realistic. If you don’t feel there is a possibility then reimagine what you want and start moving there.

You really owe him nothing. Work to the future you want.

Damn, I’m gonna read this for myself.

Hugs.

What do you want your life to be like in a years time?

That’s a good question, I want to be a calm person again, one that sleeps at night.

Friday night I was triggered when I woke up and my husband wasn’t home yet. I knew where he was and who he was with and he was home soon after I texted him but, really the worst thing he did was to sleep peacefully while I was lying awake with my mind making things much worse than they really where. Looking forward to starting EMDR. I really need the rational part of my brain to stay in charge when triggered.

Giraffe - I did EMDR and it did help. However, it was not a "magic bullet" for the trauma or the triggers or even general happiness. In the meantime, have you tried any mindfulness exercises?

There's a book called Resilient by Rick Hansen, which has some great exercises to incorporate joy into our day-to-day lives, and to mentally "record" those moments. The concepts are about "firing" the parts of our brain to help "rewire" them. I recommend on audio so you don't have to refer to a book when doing the exercises (I got it on CD from my local library).

I also got a lot of relief from mindfulness/guided meditations. I use a free app called Insight Timer, but there are many others out there. I've listened to some of them so often that all I need to do is hear the music and I can FEEL my body begin to relax - and my mind follows in short order.

Finally, reading "The Body Keeps the Score" by Bassel Van der Kolk REALLY opened my eyes to trauma and how to work on finding self compassion. The last few chapters also discuss some modalities (including yoga for trauma, etc). Body Keeps the Score is LONG, but I enjoy research & background, so it was a good fit for me (as well as getting a different view of the politicization of emotional diagnoses, esp complex trauma). That book also speaks ALOT to the 'plasticity' of our neural wiring, which gave me hope at a time when I was in a VERY bad way.

I have listened to The Body Keeps the Score, I’ll look into the other. I have Audible credits piling up right now.

There are a few things I could have done that would have helped but I just read. I’d start to doze off and wake up. I should have listened to something I know helps me sleep or gotten up and played Animal Crossing for a while, the snoring wouldn’t have bothered me on a normal night but it was just adding fuel to the fire that night.

The real fire the next day did help, I miss burning shit. I have found that fire plus alcohol takes me to a dark place, fire plus audio book is calming. It’s also a good time to listen to books that are too dull to listen to while driving before the sun is up.

Edit: because sleep isn’t difficult enough already the night sweats are getting worse. I wake up soaking wet and shivering. Can I just have menopause now?

[This message edited by UnstuffedGiraffe at 1:57 PM, January 26th (Tuesday)]

Thank you for the ongoing support.

I honestly don’t know if there are others here who never divorce but never reconcile either.

We live apart and that’s how it will remain. We are not husband and wife. We are frenemies at best.

We all had a terrible 2020. Ours in particular very isolating as we had business lockdowns, curfews and even visiting family was restricted. We couldn’t leave our immediate neighbourhood for several months.

I didn’t know why I even care about WH or his health. Maybe it’s compassion, maybe it’s simply because he’s the father of my children. As flawed as he is, for some reason he’s trying. He’s no longer the arrogant piece of shit he once was. He’s definitely down and broken. Maybe I broke the narcissist? Cracked at least. He’s going all out to fix things.

I am not even considering marriage reconciliation. It’s more working out a way to work together and get life moving forward without the constant fighting. We are both sick and exhausted.

Can we be friends? Only time will tell.

Look compassion isn't a bad thing. Until you're having compassion for everyone but yourself and damaging your own self in so doing.

Why on earth would you WANT to be friends with someone who uses you and plays on your compassion when it suits him to do so? Sorry honey, but that's not a friend. That's a manipulative narc dickhole. I was married to one and had one as a father and cut both of them 100% from my life. I've not regretted that decision yet.

You deserve way better than the little he adds to your life LadyG. All I'm saying.

Hey all...completely off topic and I m not even sure I am allowed to post this, but I just read a post in wayward that completely triggers me into anger. I cannot believe the entitled blameshifting that some WS believe and spew out. If you marriage was that bad...leave. Don’t cheat it’s never a problem solver. Ugggg!

The wayward's posts trigger the hell out of me too - their thinking is so screwed.

I have a really hard time with the cheaters. And I know exactly what post you're talking about. It made me shaking mad.

There are also the posts by the BS that have "my favorite wayward" that make my blood boil. I just want to scream, are you kidding me????

I'm pretty vocal about having absolutely no use for the cheaters. It takes all my mental energy to deal with mine. I also remember so many early posts by the same "favorite waywards".

I honestly believe good people do good things, bad people do bad things. Good people make mistakes, bad people make decisions that they KNOW will hurt people.

[This message edited by sickofsurviving at 10:09 AM, January 28th (Thursday)]

To be fair, there ARE some waywards that I think 'get it' and are doing everything in their power to fix things. Those ones I do value their insight and posting.

THAT one that you guys are talking about. YEAHNO. Glad there's stop signs or I'd get myself in trouble

Hello Goddesses!

How are your Thursdays going?

Ellie, this is going to sound bitchy no matter how I word it. Especially thru text...

What value do you get from those people? It's this that I don't get at all. I feel even more defective after coming here some days.

To me, I view cheaters the same as pedophiles. They are both people that chose sex to destroy lives. No one says "my favorite pedophile". No one wants insight on why they did what they did.

So, honest question. Even if it sounds bitchy.

I guess I'm tired of feeling defective.

SoS - I can and do appreciate that people are flawed - ALL people are. Some people are very broken and do horrible awful things because of that.

I also love a good comeback story. For a person that has cheated to admit to their faults and lay it out and start doing the work they need to do to heal their BS and themselves? That's brave in my book. I appreciate reading those kinds of posts because A. sometimes it helps ME put my situation into a different perspective, B. I genuinely admire the bravery and humility that kind of honesty takes, and C. it helps me to know that there are some waywards who will actually DO the work - gives me a small amount of faith that all people aren't shit.

Mind you, it is my belief that there are a lot more waywards that are just talkin the talk without walkin the walk, and those ones I have little patience or empathy for. But the few that are on here actually making an earnest attempt to unfuck themselves? THOSE I value.

I suppose I might have a different take on it being an adult child of an alcoholic. My mom was a horrid alcoholic for years - she hurt my soul many times. But she got sober 8 years ago and has worked tirelessly on herself, her sobriety, and repairing her relationships. Sure, I could be a hardass and say that she hurt me therefore she's unforgivable, that all alcoholics are shitheads that don't deserve forgiveness, but I'm just not wired that way. It took courage and conviction for her to come this far. It took a LOT of soul searching and a LOT of humbling herself to come this far. That shit is not for the faint of heart, and I admire her tremendously for it.

TBH, I feel the same about the BS side. We all of us BS's got dealt a shitty shitty hand. We have all felt the same pain and anguish. But some BS's spin their wheels, for years in some cases. While I have a natural and genuine empathy for ALL BS's, there are a few on here that I have little patience for because they are not on here trying to unfuck their situations. I know that sounds kinda bitchy perhaps, but lord knows I needed a few 2x4's in my early days on SI too. Cus I was spinnin my wheels and digging in to living a life that would have been utterly miserable. Thank you SIers and my own feisty constitution that I said 'fuck that shit' and got myself OUT.

ETA: Sos - I see on your taglines that you are still married. Could your perspective on that be because you are still stuck with a cheater who hasn't done the work and at least tried to fix things? Not pickin on you or anything, but I do think that my perspective on waywards shifted fundamentally after my xwh and I split. Not being slapped in the face with wayward shit every day allowed me more room to look waywards objectively.

[This message edited by EllieKMAS at 11:30 AM, January 28th (Thursday)]

I think the Questions for WS thread is a valuable resource. It gives an idea of the thought process is being a cheater. It helps me make some (not much) sense of some of the decisions my husband made. It also helps me see things I need to watch for in the future.

The WS who’ve worked hard on themselves also call bullshit when the new WS show up whining about how hard it is.

You can learn a lot from listening to people you disagree with. Sometimes what you learn is that they are batshit crazy but, you have to be paying attention to notice.

I am an adult child of alcoholics too. They threw me out when I was 14. My siblings are both alcoholics. I have no relationship with any of them.

Yes, I am still married to my cheater. Maybe it has something to do with it, but not all. As I have significantly more tolerance for them now. I just believe there are basic lines of right and wrong. There is no gray in this.

I'm all for a good redemption story. But is it really a redemption story if the person or people still suffer because of their actions? This is the part I struggle with.