New here

[betr4]

I'm new to this board but feeling very accepted.
As I think about posting my story, I have the thought that for some reason it is for others but not quite me, yet.  Takes me a while to warm up and let myself feel a part of things.  And I can even cause myself stress by waiting and wanting but not acting on whatever I need to do.
I know this comes from such a harsh, critical set of parents who were in charge of everything and had such a tight control on our environment, throughts, actions, feelings, just everything.  To the point that I did not allow myself to think for myself.  I do now, but I sometimes have to get past a wall of some block or other, finally allowing myself to respond.
I want to tell my story because I tried for so long to the people who would not listen and still don't want any change to their miserable existence. 
I got to the point that I had to be myself, "To thine own self be true."  Thank God. 
I have been isolated in a marriage while at the same time trying to live a "normal" life on the outside.  Despair, lonliness, saddness, self-pity and sheer survival mode.  I did not know how to get my emotional needs met and the more I tried the worse I felt.  I was in so much guilt and shame that I could not let anyone into my world, except for minimal contact. 
I raised 2 daughters while struggling with a n husband, controlling parents in much fear, dread, shame and isolation. 
One daughter has really been torn apart from the anger and rage she witnessed in our home.  When she was 13 she went to live with my parents who had taken control of her for their own purposes anyway.  My n mother always wanted her from birth.
My nh was always abandoning my younger daughter and me.  He still runs the streets and is a workaholic among many other things I cannot even imagine.
I don't know where he goes or what he does.  I was tormented by trying to keep the home, family and marriage going.  Always hoping and denying what was really happening.  It was sad and horrible. 
I still don't know where he goes or what he does and don't know if I ever will.  When I think about it, it doesn't matter to me because gone is gone.  Whatever he does when he is gone is his business.  The pain of betrayal and abandonment was my deepest hurt.
Now my girls are grown.  My parents are in their 80's and have shut me out of their lives. 
I know the nh is in whatever disorder he has and I am past wanting him to change.
I am alone.  My world is about me now.  I am learning new ways to think and live.  I am lonely sometimes and know that I am responsible to find what works for me.
Being real and being myself are fulfilling and make me happy.  I don't need to be happy all the time, but I don't want to be in despair or isolation. 
Sharing here and expressing these thoughts and feelings is very healing and part of practicing letting go and being myself.
I love reading everyone's stories and shared experiences and am amazed at the loving interchange between people.
I am letting myself love and be loved.
Thanks, BR

[betr4]

I lived in shame and denial and never knew it.  I was told what to do, how to do it and what and what not to think.
I married an alcoholic right out of high school.  Married 4 years with one daughter.  I could not live with the overt insane drunkenness and horror of his nightly bar scenes and bloody fights.  His wild ways were enough to drive me away.
I got back on my own and bought a house, good job and started on a career.  I was involved with my parents and had what I thought was a good start on life.  Seemed to be going my way, and it was good, I thought.
One day at work I met a man working at the same place and he asked me out.  I had a boyfriend at the time and really had no thought of dating anyone else.  I was "waiting" for the "separated" boyfriend to get his divorce so we could get married and get our apartment.  This went on for 2 years.  Once I even found out about his cheating on me from the ow he was cheating with. Forgave him and went on believing his lies.
So when the man at work asked me out I just instinctively said okay.  And we went out. 
We had a nice time. No pressure.  He talked about himself the whole time.  Barely took a breath and I had to say very little.  It was okay and I didn't think one way or the other about him. Just okay.
After about 3 weeks I had not heard from him and he had left his jacket at my house.  I called his office to tell him I had it at my office, he could come pick it up.  No big deal.  He told his secretary to tell me to take it back to my house.  I just took it to his office myself to give it back.  Didn't want it at my house.
Somehow he asked me out again.  I went.  We went dancing with other friends and just having fun.  I went to the ladies room with my friend and we were talking to others along the way and when I got back to out table, this date I had was out on the dance floor having a ball with some other woman.  I walked up to him and said, I am ready to go home.  We left with not a word.  It was over for me.  When we got to my house, he said "Do you want to talk" about it?  I was angry.  The disrespect at him being with another woman was not something I would tolerate, especially with someone I had no interest in.
I did not want to talk, and looking back now I can see that is how he operates.  Still does.  Of course, his explanation was that I was gone too long and he was getting me back.
This has gone on for 33 years.
Everything is switched in his mind.  It is all my fault.  He does what he pleases.  I waited and wanted a family so I tolerated much betrayal, abuse, disrespect and all in his explanation that it is my fault for what I did to him.
He answers to no one or no thing.  Except when he is manipulating his way into someone's confidence.
I lived in such despair and I tried so had to explain and tell someone.
It was bigger than me or anyone who would listen.  Besides I know now that others have their own lives and problems and mine were mine.  I really needed protection from this person I married, but I kept going back to him over and over thinking each time would be different.  I needed his strength and support.
My boundaries just disappeared whenever he needed to use me for whatever.  I never knew what his use for me was.  I just know I was a front for his double life. 
I was so depressed for so long but ws so ashamed to let anyone know so I lived with it.
I covered up how we lived.  My 2 daughters were raised in the denial and the anger and insanity, betrayal, abandonment and shadow of his ego.  I was weak and scared adn depressed.
I did my best andd looking back I can see it is a miracle and only by the Grace of God Himself that I did not do anything drastic during all this time.  Good things always happened to me and in my life to rescue me from the horror.
The despair and saddness and isolation and shame has been the worst.
I never called it shame.  I know it now.
I am feeling some freedom and some awareness of inner child work to do again on another level.
I desparately needed to love and be loved.  I was starved for life and love and now I am finding it.  But it does take,for me, being away from the n who consumed me and almost my whole life.  There is HOPE.
Thanks, BR

[betr4]

The lesson with the jacket that the n left at my house is still some compulsion he has to this day.  He moves out and at some point shows up with shirts on a hanger and wants to bring them into the house.  I have a boundary(or something) that since he has moved out, don't bring your clothes to my house for me to keep for you.
It is ongoing and he leaves clothes in several places.  He roams the streets, has set up lots of places to survive.  My home was one of them for all these years with much protest from me.  It is one of the resentments he holds against me, that I won't let him leave clothes at my house. 
I say, "we are separated and you don't live here."  Whenever I do not live in his fantasy, he disappears again. 
Insane, I know.  Complicated sounding, I know.  But it is real simple as I look back now.  It is very obvious. 
I am living on my own now although we are still financially bound.  Our finances are very entailed and he is a workaholic but I have control of our business, except for one.  He lives and has settled into it. 
The more time I have away from the nh, the more I can see what happened and the better I can function and make decision.
Someone said on this board the marriage was like carrying around a dead carcus.  I did that.  I cared for it and carried it everywhere through my whole life.  I could not put it down.
I wanted to believe in my h and my marriage and my family.
I have grieved for so long.  I want to feel better and stop grieving.  I have to bury the dead carcus. 
Looking at myself is painful but having support gets me through.
Thanks, Betsy 

[betr4]

I dealt with the pain with anger. 
Without the anger I was helpless and invisible.
"They" never cared or noticed me for my own sake.
"They", the parents, cared about themselves and they did what they did because it was expected.  Never about love or caring.
Duty, repsonsibility, agency.
That's what it was like.
I was stuffed down inside and I learned to do what they taught me to do.
But there was anther part of me that wanted and needed the love and affection instinctively.  I shut that part down and functioned.
Then I married and was very functional.
When I started needing love and caring from the h, it was not there.  It was not part of the deal that he had bought into.  And I was changing.
I am moving forward, don't know where exactly, but moving anyway. 
To show affection, caring or kindness was seen as weakness.  Still is in the family I come from.  But there is sure a show of all that by the "people of the lie" to pure strangers in order to look good.  Just don't be a part of the "family".  It is all reserved for outsiders.
I couldn't do it any longer. In 1989 I began recovery after looking for help for a long time. 
Others sharing about their lives and telling the secrets and the truth. 
I tried living in booth worlds for a while.  It did not work.
The world I choose now does not include the family of origin or right now the man I married 33 years ago.  I only have limited contact with the one daughter that I raised with the "family's" interferrence.  The other daughter is bi-polar and has mental and emotional disorders and is the "love of my parents life".  The disease of ism's is rampant.
I wish them well, but I am keeping my boundaries and I am also letting them shut me out.  I don't try anymore to get in to their system.  And at the same time I enforce my boundaries. 
The old relationships are ending.  I am open to healing and restoring but only when there is some evidence of no more abuse.  Any abuse and I cannot be involved.
I haven't lived with the man I married for 33 years.  He refuses to admit the truth and his head tells him things I can't even imagine.
I am accepting reality  and the fear is gone.
I am still working through saddness and lonliness.  I am learning to have fun and enjoy my own life.  I am finding freedom and want to learn all I can about this life.  I know my perception has been very distorted by all the pain and rejection.  I am learning to love and be loved.
Thanks BR

[betr4]

I just don't want to be sad anymore.
It is amazing to me that I could still be sad at this stage of life.  Like maturing would somehow make things automatically fixed or okay.  I guess age really doesn't matter.
My children are grown.
The h has left.  I always left him back into my life.  Yes let. Years ago I said let him to my mother-in law and she went into a rage that I would say that about her boy-god.
I did let him back at his will.  I did not have boundaries.  I would make a plan and start on it and he would come back.
I would abandon my plans and friends and self.  He would stay until he wanted to leave again.
No warning.
No explanation.
No remorse.
I learned to think and feel and live around his behaviors.  I learned to take his inventory.  I learned to study his life.
I lost me.
I lived drama.
I hated what I was doing.
One day I prayed for help and started out for help.  I wanted someone to know what "he" was doing.  I wanted it to stop.
Because I have changed myself I am not his victim any longer.
I am not a victim for anyone any longer and it does create problems in the sick relationships.  In other words, it messes up the mess.  Things get right with me and wrong with the way it was.
I still have to remember that being blamed for getting better is a good thing.  That changing myself is a good thing for me.
I don't want it put back together so the sick n will tolerate and use me.
Causing a problem in this perspective is what I was trying to explain for a long time.  I am a problem to the n.  I just won't cooperate with his n behaviors any more.  SOOOOO he has decided to leave me.
Well, he left anyway, for 33 years when I did what he wanted.  That didn't work either.
Best I can figure my life needs to be about me and not the n.
I am working on investing in my own life.  Who I am, what I do and being the best person I can.
I want to live and love and enjoy life and others and all the blessings I have been given.  Today is a better day for me knowing that the n is gone because he is a n.  I pray for him, but he is sick and I am not able to overcome such behaviors.  God has a way of making all things good and useful.  I am a witness to that.
Thanks BR

[betr4]

Seeing positive instead of negative.
Putting myself first instead of letting others put me last or left out.
I was so lost.
I lost myself when they left.  like I was doing to me what they were doing to me.
I can see that my own thinking is what works best for me.

I let others think for me.  I could not keep boundaries or make them stop.  The only thing I can do now is think for me and let them go (away) and they do.

When I can't or don't want to be used, my family goes away and I felt lost.
Today I know I am responsible for my own happiness or saddness. 
I can and will choose my own actions and responses today.

I am stronger with no contact with any family at this time.  I have support friends and I have this board.  I can feel the peace and the joy.
Thank you all for being yourselves. 
I look forward to being myself and the freedom.
BR

[betr4]

I am speaking up for myself today.

Expressing myself replacing defending myself.

I make my choices.

Others make theirs.

They don't make mine.

I don't make theirs.

I can feel what I feel today.

It is okay to be okay.