will i ever stop loving him

[sandra]

 

July 5th 2206 has to be the worst time of my life....I found text messages on my husbands phone from another woman..i had my suspicions for some time as he was coming home late...working late with this woman and taking her out for ride on his motor bike...But i was supposed to except this and not say a word, her husband was OK about it all, so why should i dare to complain.

The text messages were along the lines of love you so much, i miss you, thank you for the other night...when i completely lost it my husband laughed in my face and told me that i was a joke that got out of hand and after all it was only words to each other!!!
words that my husband has never said to me.

We have been together for 21 years and i found it very hard to take when he told me that he loved this woman.
on July 7th he moved out leaving me and the children, a son of 15years and a daughter of 12years. My son has taken it badly and this is an important year for him taking his GCSE's, i feel as though i have let him down as he told his teacher that his life was shit.

My daughter is loving the attention that she is getting from her dad, for the first time in her life he told her that he loved her and now gives her a cuddle when he picks her up and brings her home.

He has told me that he wont come home because he will not give up seeing this woman and that he has never loved me in the way that he should have.

My trouble is that i can't turn my feelings off, why do i still love a man that has treated me so badly and who has said that he has no feelings for me, my friends and mother just can't see why i can't just stop the feelings.

Will i just wake up one morning and the feelings be gone or will part of me always love him?

I want to stop loving him and move on but i don't know how.

please help!!

Sandra x

[Brigid]

Welcome Sandra,
I'm very sorry for what your husband did to you.  I can totally relate and went through a very similar experience 3 1/2 years ago with my exh after 22 years of marriage and 2 children, who were 18 and 15 at the time.  Not only did I find out about the OW, but I also learned that he had been addicted to pornography and masturbation for most of our marriage--which finally explained his lack of interest in intimacy for all those years.

Will i just wake up one morning and the feelings be gone or will part of me always love him?

I suppose everyone is different, but I stopped loving my ex about 2 1/2 years ago.  It took many hours of therapy and facing the reality of my marriage.  I went from loving him to hating him for a couple of years and now I just feel nothing at all.  It is a grieving process, similar to a death, but worse, IMO.

I want to stop loving him and move on but i don't know how.

Are you in therapy?  If not, I really recommend it.  Also finding a divorce support group can be helpful and give you others in a similar situation to talk to.  I found some new hobbies and activities to keep me busy, but really concentrated on keeping life as normal as possible for my children.  After he left abruptly, I contacted all my daughter's teachers, coaches, guidance counselors, parents of friends or anyone else who would come in contact with her on a regular basis (my son was already in college) to make them aware of the situation and keep me posted of any changes in behavior, grades, etc.  It also saved her from having to explain what had happened, which I knew would be very difficult for her.

Have faith and keep moving forward.  I promise that it does get better if you really want it to.  I have been in a new relationship for about 16 months and am so much happier than I was in my marriage.  My children are doing great and have figured out their own relationship with their father who has continued in the relationship with the OW (who just filed for divorce a few weeks ago--he and I have been divorced for nearly 2 years).  They are happy for me, proud that I was able to move on with my life, and really like my b/f.

I hope that helps a little.

Hugs,

Brigid

[Sea storm]

Dear Sandra,

I am so sorry that you had to experience such shock and pain. Most people will tell you to just pick yourself up and get on with it. They have not been though it so they haven't a clue. These kinds of statements just make you feel more inadequate if that is possible.

Use these months well. Often husbands who ditch their wives and children in this sudden way show up for breakfast a year later and wish to god they could just pick up where they left off. This inspite of treating their wife like she is the dog's dish and saying that he never cared for her.  As well, this guy sounds unbelievably callous and selfish.

You deserve to be treated in a kind and loving way. Things have gotten so far from that and probably have been for years. Although this is nothing short of llving hell it is also the beginning of a relationship of healing that you can begin with YOURSELF. There is a self there and you are worth knowing, worth listening to and worth loving. Sounds like your ex hasn't been doing that for quite some time.

You are so welcome here. Welcome with whatever feelings and thoughts you want to share. You won't be judged and you will get the support you need for your broken heart. My partner left me for another woman Oct 14. This place has been a life saver.
Wishing you peace and healing
Sea Storm

[Hopalong]

Hi Sandra,
I'm so very sorry.

It may be his deep familiarity (apart from his secrets, that is) that you miss.

You will move through this one day at a time, as have so many thousands of women in the same situation. I agree with Brigid that a group could be terribly helpful to you right now. It is such a comfort to give and get support, and be out of your isolation.

When you meet survivors it does help plant the seed of hope in a better future.
And you are due one. It may not have the shape you thought it would, but it will have shape, and interest, and meaning and exploration and moments of joy.

Your marriage may be over, but YOU are not.

Hold tight, reach out, don't be a hero, and trust time.
I'm so sorry for the pain you're in.

Hops

[sandra]

thank you to everyone, your thoughts and kindness are appreciated.
I have been walking round the house today picking up all the little things that he has left behind, e.g gloves, hats, books etc and have put them all in a bag not sure whether to dump them or just give them to him??

Its true if i really stop to think about things.....it was always me that did everything around the house and ran around after the children while he sat on the sofa and went to sleep!!!

I will look into the support groups in my area and no i am not in therapy although i do see my doctor once a month who just sits and listens for longer than she should and then hands out the antidepressants!!!

I have a wonderful friend who has helped through the most difficult times.......Spyralle i just want you to know that i would never be where i am today if it wasn't for your help ....THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart 

Thanks for all your kind words and support

Sandra x

[axa]

Brigid,

It was only recently I found out about XNs addiction to porn and mastrubation.  He insisted it had nothing to do with me!!!! just something he felt compelled to do.  All those nights working late on the computer now make sense.  He stopped having sex with me because he had an aversion to it......... boy did that make me feel good.  I believe he also used the withholding of sex as a punishment.  It was linked with his terror of intimacy.

Its only been weeks for me but my sense of loving him seems to have gone.  The more I see the reality I become aware that there was noone there to love.  I had created an illusion and hung onto it.  When I met him first two of his college friends told me to be very very careful of him.  I had no idea what they were talking about.  I do now. 

It is worse than death because with the death of a loved you there is no rejection, no abuse and that is the difference.

Sandra,

I think the shock of everything is so overwhelming.  It is hard to take on board all that has happened.  It is like being hit by a truck.  Thankfully I gathered everything belonging to XN before he left and gave it to him so there is nothing here belonging to him and no excuse for him ever to come back.  I have had no contact wtih him and because I do not have children have no need to have contact with him which helps.  The fact that he has plenty of supply also means that he has no need for me THANK GOD.  As for his things I personally would dump them but that is your choice.  He has dumped his family........

axa

Well done for finding a safe relationship, cannot even imagine that.

[Hopalong]

Sandra,

OOOOOO I can help with this one! You could take his things and:

Place them carefully in a pretty pattern in the driveway and drive over them, back and forth, crunchcrunchcrunch

Lay them out in a pattern from his front door to his car, then squirt SuperGlue on each thing so when he picks them up they stick to his lyin' fingers

Donate them all to the Salvation Army and send him the receipt

Donate them all to the Salvation Army and keep the receipt for a tax deduction

Spread them out in his front lawn to spell "DICK"

Wait for a rainy day and arrange them on the roof and hood of his car

Send them COD in a very large heavy box to which you've added a few bricks


(Whatever you do, get rid of them, every trace of him, PRONTO. They're toxic. Radioactive. They probably glow in the dark and your space will smell much, much better when they're gone.)

Seriously, it really helped me a lot at the end of my last Nentanglement when I ditched every single physical and written reminder.

Consider it a purge, kind of like a refreshing enema.

Hops

[Hopalong]

Axa,
I went through something similar with my exNH².
We were married for 7 years, and he would not touch me for the last 5 of them.

More fool me for weeping myself to sleep, believing I was unattractive. I ain't!
(After 2 years of this, me thinking it was all my fault for wanting affection, he offhandedly remarked that he did the same thing with a fiancee and with his first wife...he "just didn't ever want it after being with a woman for a year.")

NOW he told me! It really was appallingly cruel and I wouldn't put up with it again. What a weapon. Turning your good heart against yourself.

Iggggh.

Hops

[CB123]

Hee hee

Hopalong, you have a DARK side!   

CB

[Hopalong]

Moi?

 

 

Hops

[axa]

He Hops,


Sometimes it is so goooooood to let that anger out.  I have thought about doing nasty things to XN but you know could not be bothered wasting my energy.  Great post about what to do with his things...... really got me going!!!! Oh what a naughty girl you are!

Oh they just make me sick, with their games and evil doing.  I really believe they are evil. 

Its funny but I am so surprised how little I miss him.  Well the atmosphere in the house is so much better.  There is no more pretending we are "partners"  Every day I see more and more clearly how crazy he was.  Up to a few days before he left he was talking to me about taking on a project with him.  Nothing was based on reality, just crazy ideas he would pluck out of nowhere. 

Well, today I feel 50 and FaB


xxx axa

[sandra]

Having a really low today and cant stop crying ....... thank you Hops for your suggestions on what to do with his things you really put a smile on my face.

Its his evening for seeing the children, this always seems to be a very hard time just when i seem to get things straight in my head he comes round. I have asked him not to come here but to take the children out or for them to go to his place......but his responce is this is still half MY house and if i want to see them there then i will.....I know I could go out but i don't always have the money to go off and why should my friends have to put up with every Wednesday.
The trouble is that when he is here he treats the house as though he still lives here and i get the same responce if i dare say anything....This is still half Blah blah...
He also tells me that i have completely lost it and he was going to have me sectioned on Boxing day as i had dared asked him for some money.

it like a living hell when he is here if have had to have half a bottle of wine just for some courage!!

when he is here and then leaves again after a couple of hours its like the first day he walked out and i never seem to get past that stage....its just twisting the knife in a little more each time.

My Mum says that i need to get over it and forget about him but thats easier said than done he is the only man i have ever slept with and the only man i have ever loved....who else is going to want me? I just feel so lonely.

There is only one friend that knows what i am going through and i don't like to keep troubling her as she has enough worries of her own so thank you to you all for your support.

Sandra x

[Gaining Strength]

the only man i have ever loved....who else is going to want me?

You deserve better and when you finally realize that you will find someone who will treat you as well as you believe you deserve.  Right now you don't believe you desrve better even though deep inside you really do KNOW it.  As you begin to find yourself you will begin to pity him - you will see, it will come.  So for tonight when you see him imagine a giant cockroach has invaded your home and you are in the back working up a great insecticide - meanwhile placating the beast until you can dispose of him.

Well maybe that's too drastic - but you get the idea - imagine something useful that makes you feel better.  If nothing else - go out driving around and listening to music, but definitely get away. - GS

[Brigid]

Hi Sandra,
Have you hired an attorney yet?  If not, I strongly recommend you do so and get some advice on your rights as to his presence in the house, etc.  I assume you are in Great Britain based on "Boxing Day" so I don't know your laws, but here in the States, if he was the one to leave the home, he is not entitled to just come and go as he pleases.  Once my ex left, my attorney advised me to change the locks so he could not come in during my absence.  All I had to do was advise him that I had done so.  When he spent time with our daughter, he had to either pick her up at the house or at school and take her to his home or out to dinner.  If he came to our house, I did not allow him past the front entry area unless he was invited or granted permission.

I gave him one day to come and move his stuff out and informed him that anything that was left was mine to do with as I pleased.  I left for the entire day and let him take whatever he wanted.  He neglected to take his vast record collection, so I took the whole bunch out to the garage (it was January and very cold) and let them get very cold and hard.  Every time I would get angry about what he had done, I would go to the garage and smash about a dozen of them--always choosing his favorites--then neatly return them to the jackets for him to pick up later.  Everyone told me I should sell them on E-Bay, but I had much more fun smashing them.

I would say that your h is taking great advantage of you and the power he still has over you.  Please get some legal advice and start taking some control of the situation.  You will feel so much better when you feel you have some of your control back and can make some of your own decisions. 

You deserve to be treated so much better than you are and believe me when I say there are much better men out there than who you have been married to.  I have come to realize how much I have missed out on in a relationship since I have been with my b/f.  It is wonderful to be able to have fun, to be loved and have many moments of intimacy.  I now know what my marriage should have been like, but never could or would have been.

Brigid

[mum]

Hey, Sandra. I am so sorry that you are going through this. But you will get through. You have just become a member of a very big, wonderful club. So much of what you said hit me and others right where old scars are.

When I read your comment about him coming to your place to visit the kids, well it got my Irish up.
You do know he is treating you badly when he demands access to the house, right?

I, too went through similar stuff. I agree with Brigid, that I think you have some legal backing to get him away from your physical space. He sounds like a really nasty man to me and this is truly emotionally abusive.

Some time soon, when you are healing inside, and you start to feel whole again, you will see that what he does is strategically planned to keep you in a subservient and fearful place. And maybe that's when you will start to feel better (after feeling even worse of course).
You deserve love, real love. Not the sham this guy has twisted your kind heart into accepting as love.
Give it to yourself first. You will get there, you really will. It will all be okay.

 I was so distraught when the kids were with my ex (although not in my house!) that I was more than happy to date and subsequently marry someone for whom "no kids" was a great thing! Made the nights without the kids (with whom my ex had little to with previously!!) much easier.....temporarily. Then I really woke up. Needless to say I had attracted N number 2. Why? Well, I hadn't done any work to figure out why N number one was someone I married in the first place. His acting badly was not news....it had just hit the unbearable level with the cheating!!  I suspect yours did not suddenly turn into Atilla the Hun...that perhaps he was not so great to you besides the cheating? (like that's not enough, huh?)

So work on loving yourself, healing yourself, getting okay with being alone. I wish I could save you some heartache.....but face it now or face it later...you'll have some rough patches to get through. I highly recommend you get through it without another man. (unless he is your awesome therapist).

Your kids will be fine....they only need one great parent, really. And you know that's you. So do they.
Bite your toungue  off if you have to, but let them come to terms with "suddenly awesome" dad, if that's the case. Support thier love for him as much as he doesn't deserve it! I have been divorced for 10 years and much nastiness has ensued. I can tell you, though, that one piece of advice (which I did slip up on occassionally) has so much to do with the respect my children now have for me (and unfortunately the disrespect they have for dad and his wife). It was hard won.

You are the example they need of what love is. So love yourself first of all.

Sending love and light to you.
Mum