SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I’ve been reading through your thread since the start. Something I’ve seen is an absolute commitment to shutting down anything outside of your own narrative. I don’t think it’s that special, really- it’s just the avenue that you chose to do it within is a bit bizarre. This is a site for surviving infidelity. If you’re a cheater, it’s a site to work through your issues and rehabilitate yourself. To stop being an abuser.

To me, your dedication to the control and abuse of your husband bleeds through these pages. I’m guessing you don’t see it that way and yet that’s what you’ve done. I do not see a person who knows how to love or be a safe spouse. I don’t see someone who loves herself at all or really knows how to be a full individual. I don’t see a person who currently wants to turn that around, either. I hope you want to soon, for your daughter, because she deserves the best possible mother. And also for you. Aren’t you tired of living a half life? Aren’t you tired of faking it and putting on your victim hat? Life is so short and so beautiful. There is pain, too. I believe that hurt people hurt people. If you don’t fix your pain, you will continue to live as a starving animal. You have zero value of yourself as a person to do this to the people in your life, to yourself. Letting that rule you as an individual, hurting others... yeah, it’s your pain to own. Just yours. No one else can save you from it. Not your STBXH, not your daughter. Not your broken AP. Not any future people you meet. Only you. I believe you will keep abusing people, including your daughter, if you keep lashing out. If it were me, I’d be reading up on drama triangles and codependency, stat. Fix yourself. I was you. I hurt a lot of people, and my husband and kids were at the top of the list.

I hope you don’t sit and argue with this post. I think you’re in a lot of pain. I wish you healing and strength.

I am not going to argue or defend my actions. I did them. I take responsibility for them. I'm denying lying over and over again.

I will argue against calling this an exit affair. I did NOT want to leave my husband. I also did NOT fantasize about what it would be like to leave him for the om. The om said "if we ever caught and they divorce us, we can't be together because we couldn't afford it." I replied with "I make enough to survive if it ended up in divorce." I never said "well let's just see what happens we can still be together." I never said "I will support us both." The "fantasy" I had was "I wonder if he and I would have dated if we met as teenagers before meeting our spouses." I put "fantasy" in quotations because it was a thought. I did not sit there all googly eyes daydreaming about a life with him. I never fantasized about what it would be like if I left my husband for the om. Was my thought ok, no I'm not saying it was.

People can call me out because I do deserve that. But I can't let people write that narrative for me that this was my exit affair or that I fantasized about leaving him, because neither are true.

To me, your dedication to the control and abuse of your husband bleeds through these pages. I’m guessing you don’t see it that way and yet that’s what you’ve done. I do not see a person who knows how to love or be a safe spouse. I don’t see someone who loves herself at all or really knows how to be a full individual. I don’t see a person who currently wants to turn that around, either. I hope you want to soon, for your daughter, because she deserves the best possible mother. And also for you. Aren’t you tired of living a half life? Aren’t you tired of faking it and putting on your victim hat?

Great 2x4 leavingorbit. your profile says you trickled truth too from Jan 2019 to March 2019. you were where LD was and please bear that in mind while giving her life lessons.

[This message edited by Lifeitself at 6:13 AM, December 29th (Sunday)]

At this point you are following the narrative you have decided to believe about your affair.

No one has an affair to that level and doesn't fantasize about the what if's.

Can you just stop lying to yourself at least? Accept who you are and what you did. Stop prentending you aren't that person. You are. We all were.

[This message edited by pinkpggy at 1:54 PM, October 14th (Monday)]

>People can call me out because I do deserve that. But I can't let people write that narrative for me that this was my exit affair or that I fantasized about leaving him, because neither are true.

>"if we ever caught and they divorce us, we can't be together because we couldn't afford it." I replied with "I make enough to survive if it ended up in divorce." I never said "well let's just see what happens we can still be together." I never said "I will support us both."

Did you have to say it out loud. I can understand not supporting him but if your affair didn't blow up the way it did, you wouldn't have continued dating him whether or not you were married?

You say you did not want to leave your husband but you very clearly understand that divorce is a possibility through your statements. With all the lies and how incongruent the messages are, I'm not sure too many people would believe you.

Also have you still been reading his thread? If you are, is he ok with it. I just ask because you're the first person to say fantasize/fantasy in this thread since the new TT, and he used the same phrasing in his.

I said fantasy because it was mentioned a lot in his thread before the test. Yes, he knew I read his thread before that. It was also part of the polygraph.

I was in that invincibility bubble, the affair was never going to get out. It would end, no one would find out, I would keep that awfulness to myself. So no, I truly didn't believe it would end in divorce because u was so blind and thought it would stay quiet

Hi there LifeDestroyer,

At this point, stop. Just stop. Stop trying to control any shred of the narrative. Stop trying to make yourself look slightly less horrible. It doesn't matter what we think, at this point it doesn't even matter what your BS thinks. What matters at this point is what YOU think of YOU.

You have very broken thought processes that somehow make it okay to hurt and harm the people you are connected to for the sake of having (or avoiding) certain feelings, and to get your perceived needs met at many other people's expense. These thought processes have been your basis for decision making right up until you spilled everything to the polygraph tester (and maybe even now given how you answered another respondent's question about whether you are still reading your BS's thread.)

Only you know if you are curious enough, and courageous enough, and have the perseverance necessary to figure out what these thought processes are, but for sure until you stop trying to control any part of what people think of you and dig down on HOW and WHY you have been able to make these choices, where that destructive mindset came from, and what needs to happen to change it, you will continue to use them as a basis for decision making.

So this is the cross road. This is when you choose how you are going to model for your daughter how to respond to a complete face-plant in life. This is when you choose who you will be in ten years time. Will you become a healed, authentic and safe person upon whom others can rely or will you be someone who has continued to leave a trail of destruction behind her.

CHOOSE.

Proceed with conviction and valor.

Peace and healing to you from a fellow EvolvingSoul.

I haven’t followed your story super closely, but I will say that I strongly agree with Evolving Soul—it does not matter what ANY of us think about you, LD. You are not married to any of us—we are nothing more than anonymous strangers on an internet forum. What matters is what you do to repair the damage to your own integrity and to rebuild your marriage if you and your H so choose.

I was not using this forum to manipulate him. Everything I said on here, lies and not, I also said to him before posting here.

If you weren't using it to manipulate him, it's pretty hard to understand what you were doing here at all. Why else would you go on a self-help forum and try to deceive everyone? It's like using a calorie counting app and logging in a salad when you ate the fried shrimp platter. It accomplishes nothing. But if you also have a personal trainer you've promised to show the app to, it becomes a lot more obvious why you'd hide that side of fries.

You were reading his threads and assumed he was doing the same. You wrote here for an audience of one. Of course the two stories matched up! But what you never did, and still aren't doing, was to quietly turn and face yourself.

I do not think she came here for the express purpose of manipulating or being abusive. No it wasn’t right and she should have come clean. She was running scared and trying to figure out next steps, her husband asked her to come here I think, too. Was there manipulation, yes but she couldn’t face the truth fully herself either. It was a mixed bag.

I don’t read this thread seeing some sociopathic master plan. I don’t even so outright callousness. I see what got her here in the first place: avoidance, crappy coping skills, compulsive escapism etc etc. it was a wayward running around with all her baggage and she thought she’d lose everything - and was so strung out she couldn’t hear us deeply enough where it would impact her behavior to come clean sooner. She was scared of letting it all out there. Now, 2x4s are totally warranted at steps in the process but she’s had more than a few at this point.

She screwed up in a big way and is now in a world of pain. We can imagine how things are at home and how alone she must feel right now. Yes accountability is needed. I think she is starting to get there. I think now she needs some help with tools. If we could only set down our 2x4s long enough. She has finally taken that next right step by finally bringing her husband the truth.

She is flawed like all of us and is trying to figure her way out of a maze she created but is now feeling trapped by and hates what she created and how it’s led her to likely also losing her marriage. So, I think at the moment we would probably serve her better by helping her with tools on how to do the healing and digging she needs to do.

[This message edited by Justsomelady at 7:36 PM, October 14th (Monday)]

I think the frustration is for 40 pages we handed her the tools so what now?

No one judges her because we've all been there. But we cannot help someone that does not want to help themselves.

I hope she stays and gets help and pieces her life back together.

I have stayed pretty much out of your thread. It’s rare that I do that with newbies who had a limerant affair because I often can relate to them and I try and help because I have been there done that. I don’t know I probably commented somewhere in it but I could tell you were not really ready to be honest, and there isn’t a lot I can do with that. So I didn’t invest.

I didn’t read it enough to realize your husband was here too. I am just catching up with everything. But it should have dawned on me because the only threads that go this long on the wayward forum is if the spouse is here. I am stating that for two reasons- one, of you decide to stay you need to be here under different rules for yourself, which is going to take some discipline. The main one is you have to be ready to face your demons and not be writing with your husband in mind. I would also post behind a stop sign for the foreseeable future until you get a little stronger in your integrity and resolve. Two, know that it’s almost always volatile when both people are here this early in the situation. A lot gets carried back and forth to each other’s threads and I have really never seen it work well at all. I would consider maybe leaving him to the forum for support for some time. Getting support from some wws here through pm. Or if you stay you both need to agree to some guidelines.

Never have I ever seen any situation where the couple didn’t end up reading each other’s posts. I don’t think that is abnormal at all. I would consider that in the guidelines you guys agree upon because the temptation is too strong. I couldn’t ever agree to that and really I couldn’t ask my husband not to either.

So now you have finally ripped the band aid off. You were forced to do so, which is going to be hard to come back from. What are you going to do moving forward that will help your husband believe you?

I stayed away mostly but I am now inclined to believe you might be ready to listen, to dig in. Regardless of what happens next you need to be ready to get real for you. What you have been avoiding is what it’s going to take for you to be someone you are proud of. Someone your kids can look up to. Someone you respect. You can’t control the outcome with your husband but you can become a better you. If you are staying, start another thread, the one where we can talk to the real you...flaws and all. We have all done a lot in he wayward side we are not proud of. The true admissions are things we can work with. And honestly I am sorry you are struggling. I don’t think anyone wants to really be this person. Be the other one now...from here on out. Okay?

Great 2x4 leavingorbit. your profile says you trickled truth too from Jan 2019 to March 2019. you were where LD was and please think that while giving her life lessons.

Hi Lifeitself, thank you for your comment. Although I was 100% speaking from my own experience (no high horse here), I definitely could have connected the dots of that better in my post and conveyed it with more compassion. That it was my viewpoint from my own trickle disclosure sounded like a lame addendum at the end, so thank you again for your insight.

LD, I’ll reiterate more specifically what I referenced in my post. Everything I said about lying, manipulating, abuse - those things were all me, and what I chose to do. I was that person. I’m trying to learn to stop being that person now, but it doesn’t mean I’m not any of those awful things. I’ll always be a cheater. I’ll always be a “whatever you’ve got around, I’ll do it to avoid my feelings” addict. I controlled the narrative for a very long time in my relationship and eventual marriage with my husband. And not just him, but with everyone. I TTed my husband specifically though and outright lied for years. It was catastrophic to his self esteem and hurt him greatly, more than any of my addictive actions themselves. I see a lot of myself in your story. My husband felt guilt over his own actions and he wasn’t a very emotive guy, particularly with the person (me) who had the capability to rip his heart in half. So basically he kept everything inside and didn’t say shit. Why would he?? I can say from where I’m at now that I would have loved to hear a call out back then like I gave you, but you know, I probably would have scuttled under my rock. My husband didn’t externalize. He stuffed everything in and coped in crappy ways. In my situation, after D-Day and finally coming 100% clean I figured out what to do on my own and made a ton of bad decisions. I’m still learning. My husband has given me the incredible opportunity to continue to do that as we build a new marriage. I had to start taking off my armor, though, and to learn how to put it down for good. And you know what? The compassion and gentleness that he and I are developing towards one another is what has started us in a better direction. I projected quite a bit in my post to you instead of taking ownership and I’m sorry. Compassion is key.

What has helped me is reading about drama triangles, identifying my FOO/CSA/abuse history, working on untangling resentments, working on nonviolent communication, meditation, following a 12-step model, and finding a good IC. Reading on here helps immensely, too.

Best wishes for your next steps forward and I’m sorry for the prior 2x4!

At this point you are following the narrative you have decided to believe about your affair.

No one has an affair to that level and doesn't fantasize about the what if's.

I 100 percent agree with Pink.

Look, it took me over a year to admit that what I was having was an exit affair. I believed I was cake-eating. It was super confusing to me that I wanted to save a marriage so badly that I was ready to ditch.

Coming to terms with that was hard. But, once I could see it, I couldn't unsee it. I believe myself to be a monogamist by nature. I had to come to terms with the fact I am simply not interested in having a "side piece" or supplemental sex. Or someone to be around to boost me up when H is not available. (I have learned that someone who needs to boost me at all times no matter who is available is me)

So, the reality of it was, I re-wrote my marital history and rapidly. I made the problems H and I had all his fault (only to find out after the A and becoming more self aware they were mostly MY fault). I was clinging to someone else because I was too damned weak to leave my husband without having the next thing to jump to.

But, getting to where I could see that? And stop lying to myself? Oh, that was a journey in itself. It takes an accountability you haven't reached yet. So, what I would suggest is instead of insisting "that's not me, no that's not me", think about the idea that you do not have a clear picture of yourself. Try to be open to all thoughts, even if you don't believe they are your story.

One thing that I have learned by being on this site for the last 2.5 years, I have far more in common with other waywards than I don't. The patterns that they learned about themselves illuminated things I didn't realize about myself. That's the power of this site. If you don't want to use it as a mirror to reflect, this site can not help you.

When other WS are pushing on you, it's not because we are judging you...it's more the philosophy of you can't bullshit a bullshitter. We have been in the denial you are in. The WS who have stayed on this site, at some point said to themselves - I have done some super fucked up things. I don't know why I did them. But, I have been steering this ship on my own distorted thoughts, I am going to try to take in what others have learned and see what applies to me that doesn't.

I know you are afraid of what that means for your marriage and you are probably afraid of what that means for your husband and hurting him again. I do think even when I was at my most callous, I did think those things sincerely. I just couldn't connect with it all fully. But, what you need to see is by realizing you don't really have this under control, and admitting you have a lot of work to do, and really seeing that you are now having a lot of long standing WS who have been successful rebuilders all circling their wagons around you ----not to hang you ---- to help you stop hanging yourself.

I hadn't read through all the thread by the time I responded last night. I just figured you had hit rock bottom, and that's when things start to get better. Now reading it, I don't think that's hit for you yet. But, man, it's so close. Close enough that I am going to join Evolving Soul in saying "just stop". What you have been doing isn't working. What many of us are doing or have done is working, we can help you but you have to help yourself too.

I don’t see someone who loves herself at all or really knows how to be a full individual. I don’t see a person who currently wants to turn that around, either. I hope you want to soon, for your daughter, because she deserves the best possible mother. And also for you. Aren’t you tired of living a half life? Aren’t you tired of faking it and putting on your victim hat?

I completely don't love myself. I'm pretty sure I never have. I have always been my own worst critic. I don't want to stay like this. I told my BH tonight that I know everyone has lost faith in me including him, but I can't lose faith in myself that I can change. If I lose faith in myself, then I've got nothing. I've been tired of faking it since I was a kid. I just got used to it.

it's pretty hard to understand what you were doing here at all. Why else would you go on a self-help forum and try to deceive everyone?

I didn't come here to deceive everyone. I wasn't going to confess to lies that I hadn't confessed to my husband yet. Everything I said here, I said to him first. I wasn't going to say something here that he hadn't heard yet. I did that with those who messaged me too and my therapist. I couldn't tell them the truth before I told him.

Was it wrong? Fuck yea it was. Everything I have done has been wrong. It didn't seem like it always in my mind. In my mind, I was keeping those extra lies because I thought he had enough information. The amount I gave him was severe enough that any extra would just be wrong. In my mind any extra would be the final push off the cliff for us. In my mind I was trying to control the outcome and save my own ass.

He made me see tonight that I haven't taken responsibility for my affair which shocked the hell out of me because I could have sworn I did. He clearly pointed out that taking responsibility would have been me divulging all of my lies in the beginning. I'm pretty sure he saw the color drain from my face when I finally realized that I hadn't taken shit. I had been swearing up and down that I took responsibility because I never blamed him and said this was all my fault. I guess that was only a tiny part of it. Again, I am my own worst critic/enemy. So to realize that I have been wrong about that this whole time, I don't really know how to describe it.

I am a person who needs external validation, that's something I am trying to fix. I am also someone who internalizes when others are angry/disappointed in me. I then add their feelings to my own feelings about myself. For someone with little self-esteem/confidence/worth not doing too well inside. I have my well worn mask and defensive armor on, all to hide my true feelings. 26 years of doing that. That's a long time to have to train myself to stop doing, but I need to.

I am a person who needs external validation, that's something I am trying to fix. I am also someone who internalizes when others are angry/disappointed in me. I then add their feelings to my own feelings about myself. For someone with little self-esteem/confidence/worth not doing too well inside. I have my well worn mask and defensive armor on, all to hide my true feelings. 26 years of doing that. That's a long time to have to train myself to stop doing, but I need to.

Hi LD

I'm fairly new here, but I've been keeping up with your thread since I joined. While my story and yours are different, this comment here really struck home. I'm glad you are starting to figure out the broken parts of you. Once you do, you can start to do the work to make things right for yourself. It may be too late for your M, but healing these internal issues will help you move forward in life.

These are the same struggles I have. I never realised how much I relied on validation for my own self worth. When I got my first job, which I was doing amazing with, my Mother told me, for the first time in my life, that she was proud of me. My XBS told me for the first time in our relationship, that he was proud of me indirectly, (he at least told me that he had told his friends at work he was proud of me). Never before had I heard those words in my entire life. Not when I gave my XBS our 2 beautiful children. Not when I achieved anything in school. Nothing. So then that job, became my value, who I was as a person. What gave me value. I fucked my rapist AP boss several times, in fear of losing that job, in fear of losing my control, in fear of losing my worth. My addiction to controlling the situation, and people around me is now apparent since I am out of the fog.

I also wore a mask for a long time. Defensive armour against all the people who had ever hurt me or done me wrong. But in doing this, you lose your empathy. Your emotions. Your vulnerability. You become a robot and stop caring about other peoples feelings. Until it's all too late and you've done so damage it's impossible to come back. This is where I woke up from it all. Realised who I had become. I think maybe you are at this point too. So here are some things that helped me and continue to help me.

Journal. Every single day. Don't lie, or write what you want your Husband to read if he finds it. You need to let every ugly thought out, and I found writing helps. Write about how much you hate what you did, but also why you thought you could do it. It's like poison that needs to get sucked out. Ask yourself did you feel more valued, more worthy during A? If answer is yes - write it. This was you can look back at your progress over time.

Exercise. Powerful and easy way to release stress and emotion you are probably locking away while you're in self hate and self destruction mode.

Self reflection - I do this most days. Sit with my journal or notebook and dig deep. What makes me happy. What things in my life make me feel valued. How can I achieve this without external sources. What makes me feel proud. Read the list of things you find pride in and do them. Is it crafting? Drawing something beautiful. Writing a poem. Having a clean home at the end of the day? Cooking an amazing meal? Find something that you can draw your own pride from, so you stop being dependant on people to fill that void. You have to do that yourself.

Hugs.

I googled “how to tell if you’re codependent” since I keep seeing that word all over this site. Sure enough, I am guilty of every single one of these symptoms.

“Low self-esteem.Feeling that you’re not good enough or comparing yourself to others are signs of low self-esteem.” That’s an obvious one.

“People-pleasing.It’s fine to want to please someone you care about, but codependents usually don’t think they have a choice. Saying “No” causes them anxiety. Some codependents have a hard time saying “No” to anyone. They go out of their way and sacrifice their own needs to accommodate other people.” I have always had a hard time saying no to people, family, friends, even strangers. I feel bad. I don’t want them to be upset with me.

“Poor boundaries.Boundaries are sort of an imaginary line between you and others. It divides up what’s yours and somebody else’s, and that applies not only to your body, money, and belongings, but also to your feelings, thoughts and needs. That’s especially where codependents get into trouble. They have blurry or weak boundaries. They feel responsible for other people’s feelings and problems or blame their own on someone else.Some codependents have rigid boundaries. They are closed off and withdrawn, making it hard for other people to get close to them. Sometimes, people flip back and forth between having weak boundaries and having rigid ones.” Well that’s obvious one too unfortunately. I have poor and rigid boundaries. Coworkers have always told me that they were intimidated by me at first. They thought I was a mean cold bitch who didn’t want to join in on things. Then once they actually got to know me, they realized they were wrong. A big part of that is because of where we live. Everyone is very religious here, and we most certainly are not. I do not agree with bringing religion into work, so when they start talking about it, I bow out or keep my mouth shut. I never joined in on their prayer circles or bible studies. I also don’t have a filter on my mouth and say things how they really are. Put that all together and I am an intimidating bitch I guess. After being called that several times, I have eased up on my usual ways. I got really tired of people thinking that about me. I still don’t partake in religious things, but I have watched my filter around my new coworkers. Maybe I’ll find out one day that they had the same thoughts, but for now I have noticed a difference.

“Reactivity.A consequence of poor boundaries is that you react to everyone’s thoughts and feelings. If someone says something you disagree with, you either believe it or become defensive.” I take everything anyone says to me to heart. You can ask my BH. He will make a comment about an actress he thinks is perfect, and I will immediately start thinking “well shit, I look nothing like her so he must not think I’m attractive so what the hell is he doing with me?” Every single thing all of you and those on his thread have said about me has made me feel like absolute shit about myself. Granted I deserved it all, but we all know how I reacted. Hello defensive LD it’s nice to meet you. Now can you please go take a seat and shut the hell up?

“Caretaking. Another effect of poor boundaries is that if someone else has a problem, you want to help them to the point that you give up yourself. It’s natural to feel empathy and sympathy for someone, but codependents start putting other people ahead of themselves.” I wouldn’t really say that I give up myself, but I definitely do want to help someone when they have a problem.

“Control.Control helps codependents feel safe and secure. Everyone needs some control over events in their life. You wouldn’t want to live in constant uncertainty and chaos, but for codependents, control limits their ability to take risks and share their feelings. Codependents also need to control those close to them, because they need other people to behave in a certain way to feel okay. In fact, people-pleasing and care-taking can be used to control and manipulate people. Alternatively, codependents are bossy and tell you what you should or shouldn’t do. This is a violation of someone else’s boundary.” I am bossy, and I do not like to share my feelings because then people may think poorly of me.

“Dysfunctional communication.Codependents have trouble when it comes to communicating their thoughts, feelings and needs. Of course, if you don’t know what you think, feel or need, this becomes a problem. Other times, you know, but you won’t own up to your truth. You’re afraid to be truthful, because you don’t want to upset someone else. Instead of saying, “I don’t like that,” you might pretend that it’s okay or tell someone what to do. Communication becomes dishonest and confusing when you try to manipulate the other person out of fear.” Again, extremely obvious for me! I am a conflict avoider to the max.

“Obsessions.Codependents have a tendency to spend their time thinking about other people or relationships. This is caused by their dependency and anxieties and fears. They can also become obsessed when they think they’ve made or might make a “mistake.” Sometimes you can lapse into fantasy about how you’d like things to be or about someone you love as a way to avoid the pain of the present. This is one way to stay in denial, discussed below, but it keeps you from living your life.” This was definitely me anytime we had a rough patch in our marriage. When he told me he was no longer in love with me and said those hurtful things to me, I went into a fantasy world where we were all good. I didn’t want to acknowledge what was going on. I also didn’t want to upset him anymore than he already was with me.

“Dependency.Codependents need other people to like them to feel okay about themselves. They’re afraid of being rejected or abandoned, even if they can function on their own.” I do not like rejection from anyone.

“Denial. One of the problems people face in getting help for codependency is that they’re in denial about it, meaning that they don’t face their problem. Usually they think the problem is someone else or the situation. They either keep complaining or trying to fix the other person, or go from one relationship or job to another and never own up the fact that they have a problem.Codependents also deny their feelings and needs. Often, they don’t know what they’re feeling and are instead focused on what others are feeling. The same thing goes for their needs. They pay attention to other people’s needs and not their own. They might be in denial of their need for space and autonomy. Although some codependents seem needy, others act like they’re self-sufficient when it comes to needing help. They won’t reach out and have trouble receiving. They are in denial of their vulnerability and need for love and intimacy.” I don’t think I really need to say anymore on this one. I don’t like to depend on others because then I feel like they may think that I can’t do it. I have been guilty of that with my BH.

“Problems with intimacy.By this I’m not referring to sex, although sexual dysfunction often is a reflection of an intimacy problem. I’m talking about being open and close with someone in an intimate relationship. Because of the shame and weak boundaries, you might fear that you’ll be judged, rejected, or left.” I felt like I couldn’t go to him with my problems that I was feeling/having with our daughter. I didn’t want him to think that I was a shitty mother, because I already thought that about myself.

“Painful emotions.Codependency creates stress and leads to painful emotions. Shame and low self-esteem create anxiety and fear about being judged, rejected or abandoned; making mistakes; being a failure; feeling trapped by being close or being alone. The other symptoms lead to feelings of anger and resentment, depression, hopelessness, and despair. When the feelings are too much, you can feel numb.”

I can check off all of those emotions.

I guess I have some new reading to do now to figure out how I change this and this may have played a part in me letting myself do all of this.

[This message edited by LifeDestroyer at 8:03 PM, October 16th (Wednesday)]

I asked you what you were going to do now that you had no power left. This is an excellent place to start, LD. Keep it up, even if you hear some skepticism (or worse) in people's responses. That skepticism is warranted, given your posting history, and it will take some time for your new insights to seem credible. That's ok. You have plenty of work to keep you busy while others wait and watch.

For those, with kids, who had to move out for a trial separation or for good, how did you do it? How did you find the strength to do it? Was there something you told yourself each day to get through it? How did you both explain it to your kid(s)? Did you see any changes in them? Did you and your BS still do things together with your child(ren)?