# I feel so stupid



## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

for not having looked out for myself better. At any point along the way I could have put my foot down and ended it. In fact looking back there were a couple instances where I took my engagement ring off and put it down because he wouldn't take it back. 

I know I am looking out for myself now and taking measures so he cannot contact me. There is no doubt about that. I like my new apartment and even though I will now have to worry about bills and work and so forth, there is a LOT I don't have to worry about that seriously and negatively impacted my life.

I guess I worry that because I went 3+ years believing that my husband truly loved me and was honest and that my perception and concerns and questions were dismissed as 'insecurity' or 'needing to lighten up' or just flat out confronted with stupid showcase stuff like how far he commuted (nice for him because then I could not know what he was doing during the day and sometimes he would be delayed by 'traffic' on the way home) or that he had kept all the promises he'd made (very few, actually)...

was I delusional or was I stupidly optimistic? Everything that was abusive that I have talked to therapist/case manager about really was abusive but each time I questioned him I allowed myself to be railroaded. Maybe I was just prioritizing, some of the issues happened when I had to work hard on a project or attend to my children's needs (like spinal surgery, or a midnight dash to the hospital for the youngest with a call in to a pediatric urology surgeon - and then all the followup from that little crisis...) also had a teen at the time, plus stbxh would plan trips or just plain out badger me I could not even read in bed to relax without that insane nipple twisting maneuver of his or him farting and not telling me...then I was sick and he basically blew it off, even when it was clear I needed emergency care for breathing issues, one year when I had those allergies and they were really bad he insisted on taking me out for my birthday, after he left the next day I went right to the clinic, he had not wanted me to go saying I just needed to take Nyquil and shake it off, he never went to the doctor, so I was being a wussy? I could have died. He would ask me if I was going to do anythign during the day other than stay on the sofa in my parka. He complained about me turning the heat up when my body temperature was down to 96.7 and my weight even a bit lower than that. When I'd wake up with my intestines burning in the wee hours he would complain about being woken up and ask me how much longer I planned on being sick, did I think it would end soon? Creep, when I did go to the hospital then he went rock climbing for the w/e with his friends, did not stop at the hospital but kept driving by. I was there for 2 days for full medical testing. So I guess maybe I just made it a very low priority. After my kids got all situated and I got my allergies diagnosed so no more anaphylaxis or dizziness or brain fog, and the move was over (I forgot, we moved, so I had to pack while still not knowing what made me sick I was still weak, I was still trying to work, and he was away for almost 3 months too - feb - may, so I had to handle contractor calls, set up electricity and utilities at the house, manage kids schools, change address, etc.) 

I think once I was in a place where I could analyze the situation and see how well I managed stuff when he wasn't around, and then found out he was cheating and lying, I did something about it. Of course, I put all that energy into the reconciliation and then it turned out after all that he was still an abusive schmuck, only now he was deprived of other ladies to play off of, I got it all. And probably punishment for ruining his life as he knew it, too. No more outlet for his issues. Except control over me, the only thing he had left. Yikes, I kind of liked it better the other way, but of course no way with this guy is going to ever be good except highway.

But I just feel really sad. I know I take good care of myself now and am willing to go the distance for myself. But I just feel like nobody special knows that and now I am in a position where I'm not even divorced, like who in their right mind is going to want to be with me, except me. I know that I am vulnerable and I think part of the feeling sad is having to think about how unsuitable for marriage he really is, to keep going away from him and this horrible house we are still in for another week or so, also I feel sorry for the past me who had a husband and questioned what was going on and decided to not worry about it that I must be insecure, that it wasn't abuse or mistreatment or cheating going on at the time but just me. I bought into that, now I feel sorry for someone who doesn't even exist any more...but if only I could go back and whisper in her ear...you know, you should take the day off today and follow your husband and see what he does...go ahead and check that phone log on his cell more often, put a var in his car (didn't even know about them being sold commercially to consumers....) make a bigger stink about how he treats you and says things aobut your friends and your kids friends and the sitters, put a var in the house when you go on that climbing weekend he said you should go on just for women...then you'll know why he wanted to know exactly what time you would be back. Go to the family support group meetings and get dirt on him before you get married, call the wedding off because he came in your mouth in the living room when his parents were sleeping over the night before the wedding and your kids were there and anyone could have walked in and he laughed because you threw up after he surprised you that way on purpose knowing you wouldn't do anything because everyone was there for the wedding and the kids were all excited. HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO STUPID AS TO ALLOW MYSELF TO BE MANIPULATED THIS WAY?

Now I feel like I will never have a normal relationship. I feel like I am used goods. and have a big 'relationship stupid' plastered on my forehead. plus I am getting older and while I can hold my own socially I am not overly interested in getting out there. I also like a guy I've known for a bit and I am afraid to let him know that I'd be interested in going out because I don't want to get rejected. Like I haven't had enough already. But I guess I'd rather get a straight up no than to have a repeat of what my stbxh did to me. 

I thought I was doing a good job of dusting myself off, but honestly, it must not be dirt, it's some kind of grime. I feel like I can never shower enough to be clean. I constantly have replays of my husband and his voice lying to me and manipulating me and making sexual jokes and comments and just verbal littering all over my life and this house that could have been beautiful but really it's like house of 1000 corpses to me because of what he did and said while it was being built, and afterwards. It's like I woke up and was suddenly in the middle of some horror zone. I am ready to leave. I went to the apartment today and even though it's grimy and needs to be cleaned, it FEELS clean, because it is free of my STBXH. 

Probably once I get a decent kiss from a decent guy I'll feel better. I thought I had intimacy all those years I was lying to myself, and it turns out I was just being played. I want the real thing, I put the effort into what I thought was the real thing, for some reason I thought it was supposed to be difficult and angsty and a 'growth experience' where I really knew it wasn't supposed to feel like 'that'. I am much much happier than before, but still it stinks to have put forth that much effort and end up getting burned to a crisp.


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## morituri (Apr 1, 2011)

Your human, aren't you?


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

Yes.
I suppose that explains the tears.
In my case, they seem to be from kindness after the fact from other people and not because of what happened. The kindness bit hurts even more, for some reason.


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

Don't feel like you are used goods or damaged. You are taking the first step, which is to end a toxic relationship.

It's hard getting out of one and he's become so familiar to you that you prob didn't even realize how bad it was.

Have either of you filed yet?


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

JellyB, I have not filed yet as he cannot be served as he is in probably en route from his deployed location to another location and then home. I have not yet officially taken up residence in my apartment though I have lease and key and have started moving stuff. Also, I am waiting to get feedback from the county prosecutor regarding the felony sexual assault charges. That could go or not go. But it would certainly make a difference when I file. I will file immediately when I find out, with or without cause. But I don't want to shoot myself in the foot saying irreconcilable differences when the fact of the matter is that I was subjected to unwanted nonconcensual sex act, twice while he was home on leave in April. 

I do feel like damaged goods as I am 47 years old, have 3 kids by two different men, few assets except education (and mostly math skills that were wiped out via hypoxia), and failed relationships. 

The rest of my life seems fine. But every once in a while the reality of the situation and what happened hits home. 

My problem is that I want to start dating and I am afraid if he finds out that I am interested in someone else it would push him over the edge. But I guess that is his problem. He accused me of having boyfriends and cheating on him the entire relationship, even cited it as a reason for doing what he did (I thought you were cheating on me, so I cheated on you...) I'm not sure what he expected after how he treated me, to my face and behind my back and then when we were supposedly reconciling. I'm almost thinking I was framed into leaving him and that he only married me for the tax-free housing allowance and his sexual perversions against women that he likes to practice to work out his anger against the OW who dumped him while he was deployed over 15 years ago. I think he is stuck in some kind of tormented Groundhog Day scenario. I had a dream about him last night, his face had black spots on his cheekbones where he had been out in the desert and got burned badly and his eyes were bloodshot and his face was all sunken in, he was writing love letters to someone - badly written in pink, and on a mirror but they ended up in email where I could read them, and then his face was in the mirror when I was reading them. It was a very creepy dream. I think though he will just figure out a way to get female attention from being dumped again, appealing to the sympathies of women who think he is a hero because he deployed (he had a desk job counting buildings and signage, basically, also driving people to meetings and sitting around waiting for the meetings to be over... and he is senior enlisted!) He has his pay and his job (maybe) and his house and he goes rock climbing so he considers those people his 'friends' but one of them who knew about what happened said that my stbxh never discusses any problems with him. I can only think that my husband is as I discovered him to be a big facade and that his real self is as I saw in the mirror. I probably can't see myself in the mirror because there is only room in there for himself. I am not real big into dream interpretation but my grandmother was, and she is gone so interested to know how other people would see that.

Things are better today. My daughter had her first riding lesson and it was good to be at the ranch/stables (4H), with the horses and hang out with my son and the resident cat and to see the woman who runs it and her brother who is an adult and has Down's Syndrome. He is a good hand-holder, and I have got used to holding hands in dance class and comfortable with it. Then the kids saw their new school and played on the playground, we got new library cards and also I prepaid my oil and propane for a year to lock in the price and relieve the stress of that, when I went to the apartment I ran into my landlord who was changing the locks for me.


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## setadrift (Jul 27, 2011)

Homemaker, my heart breaks for you, but you seem to be on the right track. How courageous of you to look into yourself this way! But please know that you deserve so much more, and when you are really ready, I DO believe that it will appear to you. It's difficult and scary beyond words to start over again as an adult, but I think you've learned alot about yourself and about abusers, and maybe know will know what to look for and look OUT for!


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

Thanks setadrift.
That is funny you should mention 'ready' as someone did ask me if I was 'ready'. It was in a different context but I felt it was meant as you put it. I have been giving it some thought and decided to be brave about it and to accept my mixed feelings about everything. I think my worry is that as easily as I could have been wrong about my stbxh I could be just as wrong about anything and so have no cofidence but whatever being turned down won't kill me any more than anything else has. If I make a simple invitation for a guy to come swimming with me and he says no, I'll honestly be able to say I'm sorry to hear that because I will be and then let it go. He asked me to go to an event where he will be working and I don't want to go specifically because he'll be working, he wheedled a bit but I said I didn't want to deal with it (in general, dealing with going without a date, since he can't ask me because it's job-related)...I asked if he would miss me and he said, not just a yah but a 'Yes, I will.' We have been circling around each other for a while now but I think he is pushing the limits of his job situation and it's nice to know he follows the rules. His penalty for asking me out, if he guesses wrong that I want to be asked out, would be if I complained, he would be fired. I have a lot less to lose, only a bit of pride. I suppose the flip side is that I can see I can take a big hit to that and still be good natured about it. I think I really am ready. To jump in the lake. I don't know what's wrong with me...since I started working on my own life, even when I was during the reconciliation period with my stbx between November and May, I had a lot of men show interest in me and I pretty much stated my situation clearly, that my husband was deployed and that pretty much explained why I was out on my own but not available but friendly enough. I saw a lot of disappointed faces including this guy's face when I told him my H (at the time) was also Army as this guy used to be. That was a month after we had met, and I felt like he was showing an interest and I wanted to stop it because it's not my intention to encourage someone in thinking I was single when I was not really. I felt very bad doing it. But I was at the time committed to my marriage, then somewhere along the line I did realize about the abuse, I can't say what snapped in my head whether it was the way everyone in my life treated me except my husband or what. But when asked what I did over the July 4th weekend at first I said nothing but town parade and watched a movie but then I remembered I got an apartment so I told him that, I found an apartment for myself. I suppose it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if a woman tells you that then it's likely she is not planning to stay married, I have never worn my rings since November when I smashed them beyond the point where they could be worn...I haven't mentioned my husband since May and I mortified myself by asking him if he'd miss me at the event/s he was wheedling me to go to. If he doesn't want to go swimming, well, he doesn't want to go swimming. It's a long wait to ask if he wants to go sledding  Can't run from love, even if it's scary at some point I just have to learn to deal. Trust me, I've tried various tactics at trying to dissuade myself that there is anything to it...I will get to the point of thinking it was all in my head...next time I see him, it happens all over again. Only worse. I swear it's not me, but am feeling stupid so there is that doubt that I am getting myself all worked up over something that doesn't even exist. I'm so neurotic I could be a New Yorker. It probably is nothing and after I ask and get turned down I will be back here with another post saying how stupid I am, and need training on how to tell what is flirting and what is real interest. I FEEL real interest, but I also feel that I could just be vulnerable but come on I am 47 years old and it's rare I feel anything for a guy, my stbxh pursued me doggedly and I didn't marry him 14 years ago and waited and then dated him again and decided he really did love me and something was wrong with me and I went to great lengths to get therapy to have a real relationship and I adored him and then poof, the last I heard of him was an email I didn't want saying how he had hurt me beyond repair and realized that he had blew it and wanted me to be happy. Part of me read that as an attempt to get me to change my mind but when I re-read it today while the kids were swimming (and wanting to know why I wore my suit but didn't go in, waiting to feel the true urge I said, to jump in LOL) it seemed like it is the one thing he has said to me that is actually true. I am just the last of a long string of women he still has feelings for but has left him, so maybe it wasn't me after all. I think I did not last as long as the others or waffle back and forth like the others or even cheat like the others. Even wehn abused and cheated on, I still have class?


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## that_girl (Jul 6, 2011)

Why do you feel stupid? You have come to this conclusion now, no? That doesn't make you stupid at all.

You say you'll be better if you get a kiss from a decent guy....i say, try to work on yourself and your esteem issues. No one is responsible for your happiness but yourself.


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

that_girl said:


> Why do you feel stupid? You have come to this conclusion now, no? That doesn't make you stupid at all.
> 
> You say you'll be better if you get a kiss from a decent guy....i say, try to work on yourself and your esteem issues. No one is responsible for your happiness but yourself.


I am okay so far as esteem goes. It seems like you are implying that I don't feel okay without a guy and that is not true. Before my husband I went for several years living on my own and my life was great. It started getting not great after I made many concessions to his demands and needs...suddenly my life was not like it used to be, which is pretty much how it is now, which is how I like it, only I LIKE to be with someone else and enjoy it, not because I need it. From 1991 through 1997 I lived on my own raised a child got a graduate degree worked as a professional and volunteered at a ski area, etc. I was happy then I got involved and it was the same thing, all about the guy's needs and not about mine. What I need is to be better about choosing and better about being assertive about my needs. 

In the relationships I actually was very assertive of my needs, come to think about it, is it just that these guys did not care. Strill, I went the route of individual and MC with them, and got the same response from the counselors after about a year of effort, that the relationship with this particular person was not ever going to be fulfilling because of the other person's issues. 

Wow, a kiss, I didn't realize it was that bad of a thing to want.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to assert what I want, it is exactly what I needed, maybe not what you intended but it was perfect.

The other thing is, maybe you are unfamiliar with my story but my H has been deployed for an entire year so I have already been on my own with my two kids rebuilding my life and apart from the relationship issue and where I live, it is pretty much the same as it would be with or without him, regarding my children, my job, my education, my hobbies. When I was committed to the marriage I cut back on almost all of those categories to meet his needs, meanwhile he was using his free time for himself and to pursue other women. So, if you want to count those years too because I don't think that being emotionally abandoned and STILL FUNCTIONING and being able to hold up my end of the relationship under those conditions, shows any inclination that I have self-esteem issues. One thing I said is that I feel stupid for not having seen it sooner. In between writing this update I talked to someone who said her best friend was married for 20 years before finding out he'd been cheating on her from the get-go, similar situation, with a married 'ex' girlfriend. I found out in less than a year after marriage. And I had questioned him all along about it. So I guess I am not stupid in that respect. Just stupid in giving him the benefit of the doubt the second time around, I was smarter at age 30 when I didn't even let the relationship go more physical than kissing him before I ended it at the 4 month point. Yep that's right, a kiss. I believe that by the time you get to a kiss with someone you should have a good feel for them. My mistake of being stupid was that I didn't re-date my husband after all those years but assumed maybe he had a good character which I must have mis-read, and then I picked up from that kiss and slept with him within a couple months of dating, and that was where I made the mistake, because I like sex a lot but should have started all over, and probably would have ended up with the same result as the first time. So when I say a kiss from a decent guy, I guess that is what I mean. A kiss from (o0r should I say with) a decent guy, no more no less and not just any decent guy but one I am genuinely attracted to and have known for several months. I didn't say anything more and on top of that I have an apartment that is barely big enough for me and two school-age kids, a dog and a cat, and a 3 year commitment to a change of career degree that's fully funded because I cared enough about myself to apply for a scholarship and entrance to the competitive program and got both, also I have a job at a place that a lot of people would give their left arm to work at, and telecommute work I got back just for asking after a year of break, no bridges burned when I left. A guy friend/interest is a choice, actually it is a gift I choose to give myself, not some necessity of life but something I decided I will make the time for because that is what I want and enjoy it. I made the mistake of letting a guy make decisions for me by bullying me this way and that with his so-called 'love'. That is not what I want at all. I have brothers and they are idiots. I don't have a problem being as competent at life skills and management as a man, in fact I can do it with kids along and have a fully functional adult child to show for that who will vouch for me. I think it is my stbxh who needs to be on his own. I don't think he has ever not had a relationship, up to the week before he dated me (I found out later) he was sleeping naked with his former love interest who he was off an on with for the 14 years I wasn't dating or married to him (different from his ow girlfriend), as well as a couple others off and on and other women he kept in touch with. Whereas, for him, I even cut ties with my platonic men friends, and because they were my friends and got it, how it was for a guy, my H, they did not give me a hassle about it. Be on my own. I was on my own in the marriage, LOL. Had enough of that. Going to go for love, there is nothing wrong with me doing that, although I have to say I was kind of shocked when my case manager and therapist both separately suggested it. But I guess I get it now.


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