Finally getting it

[sea storm]

It has been awhile since i posted here. I have been going through the painful process of grieving for my ex N and the relationship that I invented in my head.
I found an email from his computer lover comparing their horoscopes and how lovely they are together. I did not find out about all this until October and the email was dated April 24. I cried and cried and then wrote him a raging email and told him to get a lawyer and i was going to get a forensic auditor and nail him to the wall. THEN........
all of a sudden I stopped crying and personalizing his weazel-like behaviour and I felt kind of relieved that now he is this other woman's problem. I think this is the beginning of getting strong. 
It is Christmas season and I have been crying buckets. It just sneaks up on me in the gym or in a restaurent and i am sobbing.
I hired a housekeeper today because i have not been able to clean my house. I lack all conviction and enthusiasm. I am feeling very down and realizing that I don't know who I am without powerful N coralling me and directing everything.
I would like to write a book, a detective novel. I really liked the plot outline of Sue Grafton's book.
I really love this computer site and feel that there ARE angels out there. Thank you for all the kindness and help.
Any comments on surviving the pangs of jealousy and the feelings of being rejected as a lover.  I know it has been said for a thousand years but I still need to know.
Sea Storm.

[Hopalong]

Hi Sea,
In the book Men Who Can't Love, men's double-dealing and dishonesty was often interpreted as a convuluted way to AVOID being close to a woman.

It's not that he wanted a new woman more, or that he "has more intimacy" with her (comparing horoscopes?? Fer godssake... That's lame...) -- it's that by deceiving you AND starting up with her he is able to avoid real intimacy with either of you.

Holidays make it harder in the short term, (((((Sea)))), but in the longterm, you have a much richer life and the chance of much more fulfilling relationships ahead.

If you were still with him, even if you DID have his "fidelity"...it'd be a very shallow pool to swim in.

You deserve the adventure of your own life. It really is one.

love,
Hops

[sea storm]

thanks Hops
You said just the right things and it really hit the target. I forget that he was running away from intimacy and commitment.
I am wanting to get commited to myself and this is not so easy.
I sure don't want to be with someone who lies to me.
When you talk of a big adventure with yourself, what DO you mean? I would really like to know more about that.
Sea Storm

[Hopalong]

Oh, Sea, I'm glad.
Thanks.

What I mean by the adventure of your own life is just two things that I think save me when I feel useless on my own.

wonder and curiosity

If I have those, toward the miracle of myself...my life will be or become an adventure.

Hops

[axa]

Seastorm,


I am sorry you are feeling such pain at the moment.  I can relate to your situation.  Hops is right it is about trying to avoid intimacy.  You recall at the beginning of a new relationship there is all that rush, all those highs but there is no depth to it.  He is seeking this level of supply.  Commitment, intimacy, these things are boring to the N.  He becomes an ordinary person then and couples seperate in a healthy way as time goes on thereby forming real intimacy.  This is complete BOREDOM to the N and they do not want it. 

When I threw XN out he went back to his X. He says he does not love her, which is true because he cannot love anyone.  I knew this stuff would drive me crazy so I very specifically told him I wanted him to be with her.  I wanted him to have sex with her.  To spend the rest of his days with her.  Somehow this helped me.  I am not waiting anymore.  I am not hoping anymore.  Each night when I go to bed I visualise him in bed with her and know that this is what he calls HIS LOVE FOR ME.  Well, seastorm, to me this is hatred.

I loved XN very very much and he TOLD me he felt the same.  Truth is he hated me.  He had choices.  He choose to behave in a way that he knew would be most hurtul to me.  It is hard to take on board that someone hates you.  Put yourself in his shoes.  Who would you treat the way your XN treated you?  My guess is nobody.  Why? Because it is cruel, vicious, objectifying another humam.  This is not love - this is rage and hatred.

axa

[Hopalong]

Axa...

Maybe it's not even rage or hatred after a while.
Maybe it's just his emptiness.

I know in physical "intimacy" (not!) with Ns I've felt the creepiest sense of absence in them. Or if there was passion, it seemed like a performance. I felt I should...clap. (Not exactly how one wants to feel in certain circumstances!)

Iggh.

Hops

[axa]

Hops,

Oh Hops I love you................... I had forgotten this.  I just remember when XN and I got together in the beginning there was lots of sex.  I remember thinking about him that it was as if there was no one there.  And of course that was true THERE WAS NO ONE THERE.  When we made love there was no connection.  It really was so strange.   When I ventured to make requests around our sex life it dwindled and eventually became an asexual relationship.  His "excuse" for this was that I had undermined him so much by MAKING DEMANDS that it just turned him off completely.  My "demands" were quite normal, trust me!!!!

Also the fact that I enjoy sex was another area of control for him.  He would flirt, tease and then withdraw leaving me feeling abandoned and rejected.  Oh what a s...

[sea storm]

Funny how our minds keep slipping into beautiful reveries of what wasn't really there. For instance, I think of my exN with his girlfriend and I imagine a great passion happening there. They each left their partners of many years within a week of each other. If history repeats itself, and it does, then he will be passionate just long enough to hook her and then he will slowly become completely asexual.
This was no small potatoes. The withdrawl of physical closeness and affection was so painful for me. It happened insidiously. At first, he said he couldn't sleep with me because I wiggle too much and so he would leave and go sleep in another room. Within a month this was the way it would stay.
I woke up this morning imagining them having a wonderful time together. He was so quick to say "I love you" and " I want to marry you" after he broke up with his second wife. There were warning signals though. A friend told me that he came on to her and she thought that he would go with her if she let him. I was shocked and distanced myself from my friend rather than facing that exN was a shameless flirt. There was a BIG truth right there in front of me but I chose to keep developing a fantasy of what my relationship was.
History is going to repeat itself. I am glad I am not the one who is going to get hurt. I just wish I could eject those memories of complete bliss that I had with him at times.
Its like being haunted by an entity.

Sea Storm

[axa]

Seastorm,

It is like being haunted by an entity.  As the Nfree days pass I get a shiver when I think of him and his crazy ways.  I am so glad that he is not here contaminating my home any longer.  Today I was driving and some of the things he said came back to me.  I think what planet was I on to swallow such rubbish!

XN knows there is something terribly wrong with him and this IS troubling him but at the moment he is getting a good rush of supply from xwife so that should keep him going for some time.  I know he is saying the same bull.... to her as he said to me.  She has been through the mill with him before and is back for more so I do not feel too much pity for her, just a lot of gratitude.  The one thing I do know is that he is an extremely loney unhappy man and that is not going to change.  On leaving me he told me how much he loved me, not her, missed me so much and with little encouragement went back to her.  God love her.  She is just another object, not sure how much supply she will be able to give him,.  The supply must be good at the moment as he is staying away from me.

So grateful for the peace in my life right now. 

axa

[sea storm]

It is like being haunted by an entity.  As the Nfree days pass I get a shiver when I think of him and his crazy ways.  I am so glad that he is not here contaminating my home any longer.  Today I was driving and some of the things he said came back to me.  I think what planet was I on to swallow such rubbish!

What sort of crazy things did he say?? Mine said that he didn't want to help with housework because I was too disorganized and the house had too much stuff in it. We moved in this house together and there was a lot of stuff for sure but i needed help with it not this bafflegab. Also, when it was his turn to cook dinner he usually had an excuse like "i wanted to make dinner but couldn't think of what to make"  or I wanted to make dinner but we didn't have the ingredients.  When confronted on his lack of participation he would get really angry and insulted rather than say that he had opted out of our plan for helping each other mutually.

God love her.  She is just another object, not sure how much supply she will be able to give him,.  The supply must be good at the moment as he is staying away from me.

Boy!! Think of how aweful it must have been with him for you to be able to say that. I think the same thing now. Poor next victim. She is a powerful businesswoman, very sucessful, rich etc. I think, "oh how could she fall for this guy?" but then i was doing really well until he came along too. I was vulnerable because my daughter went away to London England for university and I moved to a new place where I didn't know anyone.  I am grateful that he is not stalking me. It is just the opposite. There is no contact and he does not want any.
He is the most lonely sweet pathetic misunderstood puppy you ever heard and none of what the mean ladies have done to him is ever his fault. THAT is what he tells the next victim and THAT is what he told me. He can be very human and tragic and sad about himself. Not about others. So that really sucks me in.

Getting distance seems to be working for me as well. I have learned to stay away from contacting him when I get scared and lonely. There is a mechanism I have in my brain that insists on remembering good things about him. This must be a very ancient form of brain washing or infantile survival strategy. Yes Hitler could be nice too. So could Ted Bundy. But that does not excuse his incredible cruelty and lack of empathy for my feelings.  I MUST remember that. I must remember that he might show up and beg forgiveness. I would be hard pressed to stand up to such an onslaught. It is  a scarey thought. So I am relieved he is with someone else. Or he is stringing her along saying he can't fully commit because of bla bla bla.

I can really understand your possesion by an entity. It is good to externalize the problem this way. I say to myself... "Oh this is what addiction feels like" when I get a wave of longing for him.

Thanks sharing your story with me. I can certainly understand where you are coming from. Hang on to yourself and don't give in to him. You are getting stronger and stronger.

Sea storm

[reallyME]

axa :

He becomes an ordinary person then and couples seperate in a healthy way as time goes on thereby forming real intimacy.  This is complete BOREDOM to the N and they do not want it. 

Your statement here brought back to me the fact that X in my life always wanted to experience NEW NEW NEW.  X told me "I get bored very easily and never finish things I start...your job is to always find new things for me to do, to see, to experience."  Well, I did the best I could but X never stayed thrilled with the NEW things very long...including any NEW experiences in our relationship...there always had to be the next NEW thing for X and the next NEW was never good enough.

Honestly, I think it has more to do with ENTITLEMENT than boredom.  The X in my situation was a minister, so was raised to portray the image of her parents, especially her mother, since her father was the one in the family who wasn't well-liked.  Even to this day X is way too attached to her mother and can't seem to distinguish were she begins and X ends...there is always this desire to be "as good as or better than" her mother...she would even ask "do you think I'm as wise, knowledgeable, etc" as my mom?"  In fact, X always sought my opinion about how she acted, thought, etc...it was as though MY behavior determined her next "act" and "reaction"...like I pulled invisible strings without even trying nor wanting to.

Sorry to ramble off on this...your post just got me thinkin again.