"It is difficult for a healthy person to get over a relationship with an emotionally abusive person. It is because you have the capacity to self reflect. You wonder if you did something to cause the pathology and if not how you can help.
You emotional health works against you. " ~ Catherine
Catch myself all the time doing this. Uggghhhh....
Shoo, that is so true. I won't say my stbxh is emotionally abusive, but so much of our relationship was about what made him happy and not me. And I thought I was happy making him happy, too busy to notice what I wasn't getting. And to tell you the truth, I probably would have lived out my life like that. This is in many ways the best thing that ever happened to me. I am making better relationship choices with my friends, my family, my kids and colleagues. I had to spend time with H last night for my son's birthday and a friend said just sit and watch him. How often does he do something for someone else? DOes he ask people questions about themselves or just talk about himself? IF you were together, what would you have to be doing right now to make him happy and check to see if you are happier not doing that. And you know what, the dinner was fine and I checked all that out and so much of it was true. I went early and had a drink with my son's girlfriend, they asked me about work and I asked them about their plans for a trip. We told some stories about my son when he was small and laughed about that. It was all good. True, I am still sad we are not all together all the time as a family, but I guess we can still be a family and be apart. And you know what, when it was time to go home, I was glad to be going alone, go home, slip into pj's, watch what I wanted to do, do some work, not have to try to make him happy with my choices. Life is pretty good right now. And, there might even be a man who wants to spend some time with me who makes me smile and remember I am a woman! (with needs!)
Hi Jelly....
Still creeping your blogs....ha ha .....
Like you my divorce is now just over 1 year old....27 years married....30 in total together...
I still have days similar to total shell shock syndrome and like SHOO...(who I read vividly) still cannot believe how our supposed 'friends' who knew what she was up to betrayed me so easily...As for her family...its as if I never existed...
I truly wish you happiness....somewhere out there..he's waiting...for your smile...your touch ....and your kiss..
Take care ... xx
G
Hi everyone. Hey WAR... Pinch, Poke, You owe me a Coke...you're telling my story!
I am only three months out from my D after 30 years; FB affair, moved in with him and married him last week. But to all of you, I do think when we least expect it, we will meet someone that we know could be a Winner. And hopefully have their own sh--, and can go back to their own home if it doesn't work out. It's just gonna take time for us to heal.
Everybody...Chin up!
Yep, an abusive relationship has a life of its own even after the physical act of divorce and living a separate physical life. Until you actively choose a different life for yourself and think of yourself as having left the relationship and made it a real, honest non-choice, you are going to remain attached to it. It's because enwrapped in the relationship were your dreams, in order to access your dreams you have to face the toxic relationship. Pack your dreams up and take them with you. You know as well as anyone else that going through the rest of your life never being emotionally attached to anyone or anything is not possible, it is not the way a healthy normal spiritual being is wired. Once you have truly left the toxic relationship, not just distanced yourself from the relationship partner, you will be able to resume your walk on the honest path that you chose in the first place. Your ex shanghai'd your dreams. Reclaim them, clean them up, repair them, breath new life into them and move on. If a physically intimate relationship is beyond your grasp, you can get your feet wet by paying more attention to your relationship with yourself and also with friends and activities/organization/s that you enjoy in which you can safely express your love just for life in general. If you didn't have this love, you wouldn't be able to hurt so badly and sorry, you can't just turn your back on something that's inside of you...you will feel worse. It's hard to acknowledge spending so much time in something that didn't work out but time has its own nature, where you are is the present and you can start by reclaiming that. If your ex thinks about you that is his issue, he is stuck in the past and if he's like my ex he is just trying to creep you out by insinuating that he might have photos or certain thoughts and is getting off with them. That's way different than thinking about you in a spiritually supportive manner, and that's the point he is trying to make. Continued control, even when you have physically left. Don't give him that.
Homemaker, you are so wise! I love reading your posts. I feel like I want to print that one and put it someplace where I'll read it every day!
I think it would be a crime to keep any wisdom I've gained from suffering all to myself. That is not the way of the universe. It's my path to be a writer who spiritually inspires. It's not that I'm exceptionally strong, far from it. But I do have a certain faith in the universe that it will take care of me. Basically my life as I explained it to a couple I sat next to at a dance/theater show this evening is one of going from one set of supportive hands and heart to the next. I move to the next place in my life with a certain trust. It falters, but I always take the next step to keep pace with staying present in my life, I take action by intuition, not by pursuit of something that might or might not bring me happiness. By chance (or not!!!!!!) the couple I sat next to are patrons of the theater where I volunteer and also went to my dance studio and know my guy, they also practice spiritual meditation and didn't look at me cross-eyed when I said I was going to cope with my situation partly by upping my spiritual practive to the next level - because suffering in this life is inevitable, you have to learn to deal with it as there is no avoidance...they just said that they practice a deep meditation themselves and even go to India. They didn't marry til later in life, about the same age as me and my guy. I don't usually just sit in the next seat to someone, if there is room to leave a space I usually do but tonight I didn't, I sat close...and we chatted a bit before the show and I realized that they were really close, caring for each other genuinely...it was after the show we learned how much we had in common. I do think that if you are open and present and stay on your path and don't act out of fear (this doesn't mean you can't admit you're scared sh*tless at times!) you will get what you need if you are on a true path. I actually also helped someone this morning, her ex had been deployed and also cheated on her with a former girlfriend. She was inspired by how I was taking care of myself, I was at the gym, she was cleaning there and we kept crossing paths. I forget how we started talking but she definitely needed to hear about moving on, and seemed really happy to have connected. As for me, coming home alone and dealing with hurt (someone made my guy a photo album of his year at the dance studio and edited me out even though there were a couple nice photos of us togehter - I told him I didn't like being edited out and clipped a photo of us I had in my purse from the dance studio in the back of the album. That's just cruel, editing someone's girlfriend out of their album taking advantage of the fact that someone has a brain injury to try to mess with their memory, fact is we were at the dance studio at a ball together, we came together and we left together, it was the night he came home with me and we began our committed relationship...something that he remembers.) Normally I would let something like that go and just be hurt but honestly, I don't get why someone would deliberately do something that cruel. It was intentional that I was left out. The fact is, this person is investing a lot of her time into my guy since he has been down and out, before she (a lesbian, actually) only knew him from the studio...well when he recovers it's not like he is going to go running to her...his plan (and who knows if he will be able to actuate it) is to live with me. I visited with our kayking friend I got to know better since his hospitalization and when we left he shook hands and said thanks for looking out for my marital partner. So it's not like I can be edited out of my life. It just surprises me that someone would be so controlling and strange - just strange - to try to convince someone who is brain injured that he did not have a committed relationship to someone...sad I guess that they think it was just the one time she saw us together. Other people do not seem to have an issue with recognizing the relationship. Even some people that saw us once together and could tell just by looking what was what. Anyway, hurt is always there, suffering is always there. Happiness is fragile, it can't be pursued directly. Because if you catch it, you will be afraid, always, of losing it. Nobody gets through life unscathed. But there are always helpers along a true path, and you absolutely have to believe that and stick to the true path. My guy said the most attractive thing about me (probably even better than how i look and move in a dress) is that I am a true believer. Guys who proposition me or have a thing for me respect that. Even though they wish it were them and not my guy, they know it isn't possible. Being a true believer buys you a lot of protection in this world. I have even been protected by a gang in a bus station in Florida, and walked across a park in Boston also by gang members who were concerned for my safety, when I was overseas and in an abusive relationship, it was the so-called enemy that cared for me and helped me leave. They knew things about my husband that even I didn't know, and they told me how it was with him. I have no choice but to believe that the truthful path has helpers along it. Please don't ever lose faith. Somebody told me the other day, keep the faith. I forget who. But that's what my friend - Gordon - told me the last time I saw him. That was probably 28 years ago. Some things you don't forget, because they are important. I also turn to my grandmother for support sometimes, she is deceased since I was 18, however she was a very strong spiritual person, and she is readily accessible to me when I need her. I have a friend who reminds me of her, and it's really nice that I have this person in my life. She doens't have a lot of time, she is a dance instructor for my children, but just knowing there are people like that in the world is a powerful thing. The more you stay on your path the more people you will meet like that. But you have to make a choice and it feels like a risk at first, to give up what you know (the way you are made to feel) for the way you are meant to feel. The universe doesn't make mistakes. I really think there is some sort of mass movement going on where people are turning from logic to intuition and all the evil people in the world are being marked, visible. It's hard to explain. But definitely something is happening, like a spiritual awakening. It is very special, and yet also very ordinary and accessible. Suffering is definitely something that occurs to us, but we shouldn't take it personally. There is much suffering in the world. Only our egos take offense as they like to believe that we should be excepted from it. Control over the fact of suffering is an illusion, spiritual action and belief in the face of suffering is a certain power. If you have suffering, and you accept it into your life as a spiritual challenge, you will almost be thankful for the doors and windows that it opens up in your life.
I talked to my guy, and it is the same for him. This is something that he is going through too. Life in a rehab hospital with a brain injury is not an easy path. It is a waiting game, certainly it is scary at time, boring at times, frustrating at times. Having to press a button so you can go pee, being told you cannot get up off the bed until a nurse or aid comes, not being able to get into bed with your girlfriend, having your girlfriend come in with a guy who is taking her out and making sure she doesn't get lonely and discouraged or way too thin...and knowing what that guy thinks about her...but trusting because you can believe them about the nature of their friendship. Being thankful you have these kind of friends in the first place. My guy had his own challenges, he went through two divorces and lost stepchildren (I kept my kids), he lost a home he built/rebuilt with his own two hands, he struggled with loneliness and cynicism, he stood by when my husband came back from deployment and wanted another chance telling his friend it was just a 'setback' that he was going to wait it out (and he did), admitting to drunken nights at home making a bulliten board of his past to try to cheer himself up, going out on social dates to ward off loneliness and be with people...while I was trapped giving time to someone who didn't deserve it. Now the tables are turned, he is trapped in a place and I am waiting. Who knows how it will end, nobody can predict the future.
If you catch yourself wondering about the future, instead do something positive, even a small thing, in the present. That is the best investment in the future that you can make. Not big things, but little things. Follow your intuition in what these things are.
Seriously, it was hard for me to leave the rehab facility this evening. I thought it would be better to skip the show and stay with my guy. But I went because I felt that going to the show was the right thing to do. Then I met those people, and the show was wonderful. But those people had something between them that my guy and I have. They were not incredibly healthy people. But they had love and caring, and to find out they had a shared spiritual practice and understood why I was going to invest more in my own...if I hadn't followed my intuition I might be coming home depressed instead of in awe.
I had a similar discussion last evening.
The supermoon kind of adds to the spiritual atmosphere. It's nice when the physical environment is in touch with the spiritual one.
Just stay on your path. Have confidence in the moment, and believe in what you want, that it is possible no matter how logic makes it look. That improves the outcome, faith.
A year divorced and still not over it. I wouldn't worry. It takes time to heal.
I'm not divorced. I'm not ready to make that final break for a number of reasons but I see the time coming and am making plans in my head for it.
However, the emotional break is almost done on my end. I've accepted that my marriage is over in the traditional sense. My husband and I will never live together again. He'd have to make a complete and utter 180 degree turn and become an entirely different person for me to even consider putting myself in the vulnerable position of committing myself emotionally to him and then living with him. I like where I am now and I'm not planning on going backwards.
My husband has never been the person I really wanted him to be in the 30 years we've known each other and he won't become that person. We tried it once and it failed miserably. I could never trust him even if he did change.
My husband sold the house he inherited and brought up the idea of us living together again. He has indeed started working again. He told me that if I lived with him we should split the bills and he would ensure that we'd have a savings account for the future. That was his one and only promise.
Other than that he hasn't changed at all. He's still cold, controlling, dictatorial and now he's a boring, passionless miser.
So I turned him down and said I have no desire to move in with him. I think it really shook him. He's brought up the fact that "I don't want to even live with him again" several times since. I have told him that he doesn't act like he wants to live with me. In fact, I'm convinced that the main reason he wants to live with me is because he wants a roommate to share expenses with him.
Fact is, I don't miss living with him. Almost from the day he left I haven't missed that aspect of our relationship. I LIKE being on my own. But I have wanted to be in a relationship but bit by bit that has changed as well.
Since he isn't interested in having a loving and passionate sex/love life I asked him not to sleep here anymore. So he took to hanging out at my apartment on a daily basis. Now that he has a new apartment I'm asking him not to hang out here anymore. If wants to see our son he can pick him up and take him back to his place. If he wants to do stuff with me then we can make plans to go out. I actually don't mind his company on a limited basis. Maybe someday we can be the friends we once were but right now we don't have much in common anymore except our kids. For our kids, we remain friendly and support each other, which I want very much. But I don't need him to support me emotionally anymore.
The point is, I WANT to make the emotional break and like this situation very much. Finally, I feel free! Finally I no longer care! It's the BEST feeling in the world!
Last year when my husband went out and did his "own thing" it ate me alive. I was obsessed with planning to be with him and spending time with him. I begged him to have sex with me. Changed my schedule to be him. Neglected my friends, family and hobbies to be with him. For what? To get abused and kicked around emotionally all over again.
By the end of last year I felt battered and bruised emotionally. Then it started..the breaking away...Slowly but surely it's been happening over the past 9 months.
This year I've done a lot of cool stuff on my own and more importantly, I've liked and PREFERRED it that way. I don't want to or plan to spend time with my husband. When he "informs" me of his plans I just say "Ok. sounds good". I don't think he knows what to make of it. I just know that it's something I prayed and hoped would happen and it finally has.
A year makes a HUGE difference. In another year you will look back and feel like a different person. You'll see.
When you can spend time on your own and be happy by yourself, in your own skin, doing your own thing...Then you are ready to share yourself with someone else. Or maybe you will like being by yourself. But at least it's a choice you feel you can freely make.
To divorce someone physically and legally is easy. It's the emotional divorce that is hard. Most people don't realize that. They think that once the papers are signed it's a done deal but it's not the end..it's just the beginning of a long and arduous personal and emotional journey.
The first step is the hardest in any journey but at least you are moving forward.
__________________ D DAY: Monday, April 1, 2013 And now it's your chance to move on
Change the way you've lived for so long
And find the strength you've had inside all along
'Cause life starts now
Last edited by Freak On a Leash; 05-10-2012 at 01:16 AM.
__________________ D DAY: Monday, April 1, 2013 And now it's your chance to move on
Change the way you've lived for so long
And find the strength you've had inside all along
'Cause life starts now
I learned how to do "visualizations" and sometimes that helps me feel better about where I"m at, emotionally.
It's like being a dark hole, with your memories of how you were treated, and it's sucking you down with the ship.
So I visualize climbing OUT of the hole, and up on top... the sun is shining, and I'm smilling and I feel FREE from the garbage. It's only then that I can remember that not all people (men) are damaged.
But I certainly know better now how to pick and choose who I want in my life. And I do have the right to pick and choose ")
I learned how to do "visualizations" and sometimes that helps me feel better about where I"m at, emotionally.
It's like being a dark hole, with your memories of how you were treated, and it's sucking you down with the ship.
So I visualize climbing OUT of the hole, and up on top... the sun is shining, and I'm smilling and I feel FREE from the garbage. It's only then that I can remember that not all people (men) are damaged.
But I certainly know better now how to pick and choose who I want in my life. And I do have the right to pick and choose ")
Sometimes I visualize hitting my Ex with a shovel - but I guess that's not what you're talking about.
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Re: Dealing with the aftermath & future 
