Crashed

[seastorm]

I woke up and felt worse than I had in quite a whiile. I missed N and wished for the stability of my old life with him. It is hard to live on the promise of future happiness when today I feel like life is eating rust.
I phoned him but missed him and I could hear him saying I will go downstairs and check the email. That means he is in Calgary with his new sweetie and it seems he lives there now. This is so incomprehensibly horrible to me and would have been a laughable horror movie a year ago. He actually shuns me now.
I even called my first husband to see if I stalked him. I was crying and said "Did I stalk you? " and he said "No". I havent talked to him in years.
I was hysterical and crying and sobbing and scared. I wrote an email begging for mercy from N because I can't stand the pain. I told him I would always love him and to be kind to me. I didn't hear from him and he turned his phone off.
Yesterday i went to the psychiatrist and he thinks I am doing well. I do everything one is supposed to. I try even though I don't feel like trying. He recommended that I go back to work in March part time.
This is really scarey to me. I work in the school system and they have overworked me the point of insanity. I dont work in a classroom but I might have to do that. I could be part of my anxiety reaction.
I am in a shame spiral from contacting N.
I phoned my daughter and she said that she thought I was doing great and she was proud of the way i am handling the breakup. She thought I was lost to her and that I am becoming her old mom again. She knew many things about my relationship with N that really floored me. She knew he swindled me out of thousands of dollars and took unfair advantage in many ways, including not working for years. Pretty shocking to me that I was  not hiding a thing. I did not want to bother her and be enmeshed and inappropriate etc. but she was so helpful and loving.
I have kind of settled down. I look at everyone trying so hard to have dignity and move forward on this site. I feel like a miserable insect who scurries under a rock. This is so PAINFUL.

Please reply. Say anything. Quantity counts. Beloved friends.

Freaking out


Sea Storm

[isittoolate]

Awwwwwwwwwwwww seastorm,

My heart goes out to you in such pain!

I truly belive that contacting him is worse for you than NOT contacting him.

Were you married to him? I am so sorry he swindled you.....then I have to ask, "Does that not lessen this love you still have, or is this an obsession?"

Begging for mercy from an N is a waste of your precious time! All it does is feed his need for attention. Even if you wrote hate mail, it still is atention to him.

Best to have No Contact.

I am so happy that your daughter sees the problem, understands and is supporting you through this time to heal!

Yes! We feel shame for the contact. (Another kind of contact, remote, is what I did at first and it kept the hate alive in me. I knew his email password and configured my computer to his email and downloaded and dumped his mail. It became an obsession with me,....trying to ruin his business....then I realized I was ashamed.... and he would ruin himself all by himself...so I stopped)

You are not an insect. You are a beautiful person in pain! Only time can heal that!

I'm glad you let us know, as we are all here for you.  
God Bless
Izzy

[Dazed1]

Oh Seastorm,

I know you're hurting, so here's some hugs (((((((((((((Seastorm))))))))))))).

Here's some random thoughts:

Do whatever you can to get your mind off of N.

Can you get away for a couple of days?  Take a small vacation?

Enjoy a delicious dinner tonight, take a hot bath, wash your hair, watch a really good movie.

Do some of your favorite activities and make yourself feel good.

Go to the bookstore and get some self help books that can give you some tools for distancing your self from the N.

Make a pact with yourself that for the next 30 minutes, the next hour, the next week, you will not think of the N.

Please try not to contact the N because this will make you feel yuchy.

Please be nice to and gentle with yourself,  You are not an insect.  You are in pain.  Acknowledge your pain and know that within X amount of time, you will not feel the pain as intensely as you do now.

Please treat yourself with love.

Hoping you feel better,
love,
dazed

[seastorm]

Dear Dazed and Izzy:

I will go out and go to my sisters who lives one and a half hours away. i will read my books. It does not lessen how I feel about him ie. the fact that he cheated me of money. For some reason I know it is calculating and miserly of him but I can't hate him for it. Nothing seems to make me hate him.
I took some medication and tried to figure out why I got so triggered.
Dealing with the lawyer, finalizing the separation agreement, his friends coming to take a lot of his stuff from the yard, talking to him about this. Stirs it all up again. It is too dangerous for me to get involved again at any level.

thankyou for caring about me even when I am acting like a three year old. i know I have to get a grip but I need encouragement.

Love,
Seastorm

[pennyplant]

(((((((((seastorm)))))))))))

I understand, I really do.  It is so hard to let them go.  They get inside of you.  Even with all the terrible things they do and all the wrongness of it, still they get inside you.  It feels like a real injury when they leave and push you away.  Listen to those who see improvement in you, who see the real you slowly coming back.  Those are the people who matter and they are seeing real things.  Your pain is real too but it isn't all of you.  It will grow smaller.  Actually, I think that the calling him and crying and feeling so terrible is part of the healing.  Part of the pain making itself a smaller part of you.  I think this is true because I have felt it happening with me and my situation.  It took time for me to let go of my Ns and they weren't spouses.  They were important people in my life but not spouses who I would have expected even more of.  Yet, they took quite a toll on me and it took a long time and I still back slide on occasion.  But it has gotten noticeably better and easier.  The same is happening for you too.  You are answering your own questions in your own way and in your own time.  None of what you have said is surprising to anyone who has loved someone with all their heart and been so hurt and betrayed by those people they loved.  It is not surprising to me at all.  This is how it feels to be betrayed and left.  This is how it feels to begin healing.  It does get better.  Many here have gotten better.  You will too.

Pennyplant

[Hopalong]

Dear Sea,
I have done it. Countless times. I obsessed and could not let go of Ns and could not love myself enough to cut off contact for a long time. I had no way of seeing that it could change, the craving was so overpowering. I understand completely what the urge feels like, what it feels like to give in to it, and how the shame sickens. I so understand.

I know absolutely that you will come clear of this. I know you can.

Not just because I did but because this is who YOU are becoming. A step backward often can be a shock that reminds us how much we want to be healthy. Almost like an alcoholic who has been through a recovery program, then gets out and relapses, then goes back in and holds on until detox is complete.

Hold on. You won't drown and nothing you have done is not forgiveable.
His respect is not worth worrying about, and you are going to acquire your own.

You deserve it. You deserve it before during and after a mistake.

You made a mistake, you are not a mistake. It's a Saturday night. Very hard time to be alone, and you're human.

You're a good being who has the courage and awareness to own it and to fight and to read and to go out of town and you ARE GOING TO MAKE IT.

Don't let a "sinking Saturday" discourage you. You may have to bail a while longer but your boat is floating and you're going to weather this storm.

hugs,
Hops

[mountainspring]

Hi Seastorm,

I’m so sorry you’re having such a rough time right now.  I know how it feels to be in intense emotional pain.  I know how overwhelming the feeling is.  Sometimes when I am feeling emotional pain it helps me to know these things.  I hope some of them will help you.

The pain comes in waves, if you will sit with it and feel it, it will pass for a little while
No contact helps the pain subside.  The longer you go without contact you will feel.
When you feel an intense need to contact, tell yourself to wait an hour, then when that hour passes, tell yourself to wait a day.  Make it a goal.  First just an hour, then a day, then 2 days etc.
Go anywhere.  Get in the car and take a drive to the country.  Really look at the landscape. Listen to soothing music.
Breathe deeply.
Picture yourself living happily without him.
Take a hot bubble bath, then lay down with the softest blanket you have and a good book.
Do you have a favorite movie?  Buy the DVD and some popcorn, and turn out all the lights in house, watch your movie and eat some popcorn.
Make a list of things that comfort you and think about them.
Know that you will not feel the pain forever, even though it seems like you will.  The pain will pass.
Remember that there will be a day when this will all be in the past.
Journal about the way he is over and over to remind yourself of the type of person he is, then journal about the type of person you would like to be with, someone caring and loving who wouldn’t dream of hurting you.
Remember that the way he has treated you is about him, it has nothing to do with you.
Make a list of things you love, and do them.
Join the YMCA, and when you feel the pain, go there, and swim laps.  This really helps me when I am feeling emotional pain. Swim the laps until you can’t swim them anymore, then come home and eat (swimming will make you hungry and tired) and lay down in bed with a good book.  Another good exercise is roller skating.  Skating around the rink will release a lot of pent up energy.
Know that you are not alone.  Others have walked the same path, and with time and work you will heal
Believe that you will heal, and when you do you will be stronger, happier, and healthier and will have no desire to talk with or see the jerk that has treated you so badly.
Be good to yourself, always be good to yourself.  Talk soothingly and kindly to yourself.  Tell yourself that you will make it even when it feels like you won’t. 

You will be okay, even though your feeling such terrible pain right now, you will make it seastorm.   You said you were in a shame spiral from contacting N.  No Shame seastorm.  There is no shame in working toward recovery.  There's no shame in contacting, it's part of the recovery process.  Tomorrow's a new day.... a new beginning. 

[sea storm]

Pennyplant, Hops and Mountainspr.

The forgiveness and acceptance you have shown me really helps. As does knowing that you have done the same. I was kidding myself that I could just shut off my feelings like a faucet. It is more like a strong river that I am attempting to divert. Going back and telling him how I feel and experiencing zero empathy help me forge the channel for the river.

Next time the mania, grief, obsession hits I will try to do something else. The settlement stirred things up and it has to happen to finish off the relationship.  I cant afford to support him anymore, I can't afford to be the identified patient,,i Cant afford to be unemployable and mentally disabled because of the torturous relationship with N. There is no going back.

Thanks for your encouragement and wisdom.

Sea storm

[gratitude28]

((((((((((((sea))))))))))

It takes a while to get going... You'll be fine...  hang in there.
Please keep posting. And post rather than giving in to the desire to talk to him... Why hurt yourself??? You are picking over a healing wound and making it bleed again. You wouldn't do that literally, would you???????

Love you and thinking of you,
Beth

[axa]

Seastorm


I am soooooooooooooooo sorry.  I could really feel your pain and frustration.  You have suffered enough please do not beat yourself up.  So you made contact, in the past I have done that, its ok but it does not help.  If anything it makes it worse.  There is life after Ns.  I think people made some very good suggestions here.  Doing something physical really does help, it changes your energy.  He sounds so horrible.  I would not want you with him.  I would hate to think that somehow he would invade your life again.  It is so difficult to know that you were nothing other than a source of supply/money to someone.

The pain does ease.  You will look back in years to come and think why did I waste my life on that .......  Keep coming on the board, post, post, post.  SAy the same things over and over again here if you need to.  Use this space to vent.

Anytime I get the slightest urge to contact XN I say to myself "I am punishing me" and somehow it erases the desire to contact because I do not want to punish me anymore.  I have been punished enough.

When you feel the pain can you sit and act as an observer.  Where is the pain in your body, look at it, feel it, know you are IN pain but you are not the pain.  There is a part of you which can detach.

Sending you love hugs

axa

[spyralle]

((((((((((((((((((Seastorm)))))))))))))))))))  I just know where you are and my heart goes out to you...  it was that longing for familiarity no matter what ex N had done that did it to me...  I just couldn't quite believe who he actually was even though the reality of it all was smacking me in the face...  I will be left paying off his debts for the next 15 years.  I was just clinging on to what I believed where the good times.  The times when he lied to me I guess..  The times when I took crumbs from his table and cherished them like they were gold..

I felt massive shame everytime I collapsed like that.  I would writ long rambling emails to hime putting myself at his mercy really.  Telling him that I would always love him with all my heart and soul.... trying to get him to understand what he had lost..  Of course he didn't.. You see I was hoping that he would read an email like that the way I would have...  I didn't know enough about N's then.  When he had told me he loved me I had actually believed that he meant the same thing as I did!!!!!!!!!

It's now a year and a half later and I don't do that any more..  These are some of the things that helped me..

I used to post lists on here of all the bad stuff he did...  The people here made me realise the extent of his abuse

I used to post lists of all the stuff I loved about him..  The guys here made me see it with a more balanced perspective..

I posted letters on here he had written...  when I got the comments back I was able to see him without my rose tinted lens

I went round to my best friends house once a week in the evening.  For three or four hours her and her husband let me talk...  Then they would tell me what they saw.  Their side of the story... we would compare tales of how fabulous he thought he was and eventually the pain subsided and the laughter set in at how ridiculous he actually was..

I stopped having contact with anyone he worked with, which was quite hard as a lot of my friends then worked in the same place..  But I just didn't want to keep hearing about him..  It used to set me back massively

I wiped numbers emails anyway I could write or ring...

And I gritted my teeth and hung on....

Don't ever beat yourself up for this Seastorm...  You were trusting and lovely.  How could you not feel pain and want to put it right... 

We have to feel the most horrendous pain to come out of the other side xxxx but we are all here watching your back..

Lots and lots of love

Spyralle xx

[mudpuppy]

Yesterday i went to the psychiatrist and he thinks I am doing well. I do everything one is supposed to. I try even though I don't feel like trying.

I phoned my daughter and she said that she thought I was doing great and she was proud of the way i am handling the breakup. She thought I was lost to her and that I am becoming her old mom again.

I look at everyone trying so hard to have dignity and move forward on this site. I feel like a miserable insect who scurries under a rock.

I think your self perception is pretty screwy at the moment. When we first realize the level of betrayal and dishonesty and how frigid their soul is we don't see things too clearly, especially ourselves. Your psychiatrist and daughter see what is really going on with you and how you are already healing; and in the case of your daughter she sees that what was lost is now found. Trust their voice not your's, because a lot of the voice you're hearing is still the remains of him in your head.

mud

[Overcomer]

Sea!!  At the risk of hijacking a thread.......................this is so much like what happened to me.  And I know, the whole cliche "time heals all wounds" sounds trite right now.  But take it from someone who is 10 years the other side of being married to an N who didn't work, had numerous affiars, told me he wasn't attracted to me AT ALL, etc...........it will be soooo ok!!  No one likes to hear negative things about themselves......................and especially if you were raised by an N to boot.  It is hard not to internalize the betrayal, the insults, and still miss him?  I can't understand that now, but I remember losing weight, changing my looks and trying to whooo the jerk away from the other woman.  But I was the wife.  The mother.  I did not represent the covert operation that he was playing out, like a scene from a thriller.  That was part of his MO.  The shady, undercover man circa James Bondish chameleon whose whole life was a fascade.  No substance to it at all.  Be happy you are being set free from the crap!!  And that is all it is - CRAP.  I still get collection letters sent to my ex at my address.  The stupid man uses my address....................doesn't that seem odd that he would hand me information about his irresponsibility???  They don't think straight.  They are self-absorbed people who are living in la la land.

[sea storm]

 As always I take great comfort from your replies. They go right in my heart. The exact words and flourishes don't matter. I can feel the intent and the caring.
How kind and lovely you are.

I have been really sunk in despair since getting the separation going again and talking to him. Feeling hopeless, rejected, imaginining them happy together. She is a rich businesswoman with lots more money than me. She has had a crush on him for years. When they started emailing in February, she said. Oh N I have been looking for you for fifteen years.  I saw that in her email. After two weeks he was signing his emails to her xoxoxox goodnight and I will talk to you in the morning."
This really pushes the destruct button in me. I had no idea this was going on.
That is his girlfriend. His second wife wrote : Oh N I am soooo llooking forward to having fun with you this winter. I don't think I will go to Mexico. Kisses and hugs
PS  Are you with your sweetie in .......?  That is how I found out . He wasnt going moose hunting. He was going to ...... to be with .......
I thought I would drop dead or have a brain aneurism or something.
I was freaked out about how to pay the mortgaqe because he took the money he earned over the summer and used it for his getaway money. When I slapped him he called the police calmly and had me arrested for assault. I will never forget him laughing while he told the policeman that I was psychotic and violent. So malevolent and sadistically having fun.   The other policeman saw what was happening and had a woman from victim services talk to me. I am so confused. It asll fell apart so fast. At least I found out and he was gone and I was in terrible financial straits.  It seems like I havent stopped reeling since that day in October 14.
This demon and liar and theif is the person who emerged. He kept up a pretty nice facade.
There are many things that bothered me:
He thought that just his being there was enough. He did not have to try.
He was a miser
When he wanted to have a vacation he went off with his daughter.
He romanticized his relationship with his daughter and I didn't like it.
He was away a lot
He had an airplane, a sailboat, a fishboat and a truck that I paid upkeep on
He did not put any money or time into the fixer upper we bought together.
Over time he expected me to pay for EVERYTHING
He did not sleep in the same room with me
He would flirt with me but then not want sex
He insisted on having flirtatious friendships with other women
He had very grandiose ideas about employment (management)
He was rarely employed in five years.
He told his friends I was crazy and he was an abused man.

That is the truth. I probably don't know the half of what he was up to.
Someday I will come out of this. Right now I am pretty demolished.
Today was a good day. I went to a great movie "Driving Lessons" with friends and sat around talkiing about it and having tea. Then my friend burned some recent Joni Mitchell  songs for me. Then I felt scared and extremely deperate and heartbroken. My sister held me and let me cry and I felt better. This is how I cope hour by hour. I sincerely hope I have not gone insane for the rest of my life. My nervous system and chakras and whatever seem to be continually out of order.

Thank you for listening. God bless you.

Sea Storm

[pennyplant]

Hi Sea,

I don't think you have lost your mind or anything like that.  Any one of the things he did to you would be cause for the feelings you are having.  Yet, he did dozens of terrible things to you.  It is going to take time to digest these things and recover from them.  You need time to recover.  Each thing he did is like an assault against you.  I am so glad you have good people in your life to help you heal.  And you have this place too.  This is a good place for healing.  Remember, it has only been a very few months since you found out about all of it.  It takes longer than that to heal from so much.  It is good to tell us and to lean on your friends when you need to.  It's the right medicine.

Just keep going, Sea.  You're doing a good job with this.

Pennyplant