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Wiserallthetime posted 8/2/2014 16:36 PM

Does anyone else wonder if they are just doing "too good" emotionally? If maybe they are fooling themselves and everyone else into believing they are handling it all so well, but at some point the crash is going to come?

I was a mess back when I was in limbo, waiting for STBXWH to make a decision already and choose either MOW or me, but not both. I had to push him hard to choose. (He has always had a bad habit of making me be the "bad guy", so I was absolutely not going to accept him having a wife AND a girlfriend, but I was also not going to be the one to file.)
As soon as a decision was made, though, it was like I turned a corner or was able to step on the accelerator and not have the wheels just spin in place anymore. I am climbing out of depression, without meds, though I don't begrudge them for anyone - I just knew for me all I needed was the limbo to end, and I could pull out of it. I am smiling and laughing and joking again, being the old me a lot. My focus has now become getting to the other side of this process, what that will take, and how to help my children through it as well. Even my therapist comments that I am stronger at this point than he normally sees in his patients going through this process; my lawyer has commented on how much better I am now, too.
Still, I wonder at times: am I fooling myself? I at times feel like all this isn't truly real - I do the motions, gather or review the documents for my lawyer, address the issues that come up, but....Sometimes it seems like I am not "feeling" it.... I don't have general anger/rage for STBXWH or former MOWBFF anymore (though sometimes I get angry at a specific action taken until I get over it shortly after); I just wish I didn't have to deal with them any longer, but I know I will, at least with him, due to the children.
So, I fear a crash looms on the horizon, and I sometimes worry I have set myself up for a big fall emotionally....
Anyone else? Please tell me this is normal and I'm not alone with it..... (And, even as I ask this and worry over it at this moment, I still feel little about the divorce situation at all...except maybe "get it over with"....) Sigh.
Thanks!

deena posted 8/2/2014 17:11 PM

I read your profile first before answering.

You HAVE gone thru the grieving anger stage.

I too feel somewhat like you. I think it is because I have given up. I don't want to fight for the marriage anymore. I don't have the strength. Or desire
I just want out. I want to start concentrating on healing me.

I don't know if it is just tiredness or sign of depression, nut sometimes I just want alone time.....doing nothing.

(((((Wiser))))))

Wiserallthetime posted 8/2/2014 21:29 PM

Thanks deena. I gave up on the marriage back when he filed. I had decided before then that if he took that step, it was done, and there would be no going back. I have forgiven much, gave him chances aplenty, and was even willing to forgive this latest; but, with him filing, were there any hope for trust remaining, it disappeared then. Truth is, I was headed that direction before that, as some of the things he said to me and about me, much of it to or in front of the children, was so hurtful and wrong, even if we weren't married.... well, I was just too beat down emotionally by it all. I was slowly being emotionally beaten into accepting the marriage was dead. So, yeah...I get what you mean about not enough strength left.

I'm hoping what I have reached is indifference - that state of truly not really caring anymore. I am concerned, sometimes, not continually, though, that it is a front and I have fooled even myself, and there is a bubble building that is going to eventually burst, ya know? As if there weren't enough things for me to worry about.....

deena posted 8/2/2014 23:06 PM

I understand that feeling of waiting for the bubble to burst too I think.
I think some of my friends are wondering too.
I am a very private person with emotions.
But sometimes I think I am just holding it in in front of people. Holding it together until we are truly separated, not the in house crap, then maybe I can just let it all out and cry.
I get scared by it. Hut also I think that maybe it is good to do some grieving too.

Sometimes the grieving is necessary to move forward.
But maybe you have already done the grieving and now just need the path cleared to move forward.

idontknowwhy5 posted 8/3/2014 05:47 AM

My understanding is that the stages of grief/loss can come in any order and repeat, so in a sense we're probably not out of the woods for a while. I've read lots of people talking about triggers even long after divorce is finalized.

I was cleaning out a desk and found ultrasound photos, got something in my eye apparently.

Acer0112 posted 8/3/2014 07:32 AM

I was just thinking this, am I really feeling good about moving on, or convincing myself I'm feeling good.

My parents are helping me get into a new house by September since I can't qualify for loan until I get better employment. I think all the excitement of moving into a new place, a new beginning, has moved me along in my healing. But is it temporary? I don't know. Am I faking my new happiness, I don't think so. I feel hopeful. I see myself thriving as an individual. Scared, heck ya, but facing my challenges.

I do know I'm still a long way from not caring. I still am curious what WH does, especially when he's with the kids. I miss the adventures as a family, and only hear what they do in pieces and that hurts still. I have built up my friendships again, have the most amazing parents, but it's that companionship I still miss. So I know I'm still healing.

No, I don't think it's faking, it's how we are coping and healing. And just know, there will be triggers, but you are moving forward and becoming an amazing person out of this devastating experience.

Wiserallthetime posted 8/3/2014 14:42 PM

Thanks to all who responded! It is a comfort to know I'm not the only one who has felt this way....

Deena - I read your other new thread post and your last one to this thread. I haven't read your profile, but if you can get the in house to end and get that physical separation, it helps - much more than I thought it would. I mean, there were issues with STBXWH not respecting the new boundaries of in house, but that was not the only thing solved with his moving out. My children all felt better, and able to open up to me about their feelings when they didn't feel they had the ability to before; the atmosphere was calmer, and there were no more eggshells keeping us on edge all the time. I think when you stay on edge like that, you can't even begin to think about healing....or fully detaching either. You can't - because you have to focus on the other person still in order to avoid cracking their eggshells.
And, by the way, I'm a very private person, too. This whole process has put me way outside my element and comfort zone as I have had to share my private, personal information and thoughts with perfect strangers (IC, MC, lawyer, custody evaluator, even police and others); I completely HATE that!! I'd much rather just put the covers over my head and hide in bed from everyone and everything.... (My IC would scold me for that.....) But, it has helped me in a way I never expected. I used to keep STBXWH's little secrets, as the good little wife I was - not anymore!! (And HE HATES that!! )
I wonder if I have grieved it already, but it seems too quick. I'm not yet a year out from the filing, and only about as long from there actually being admission there is something between them (which is still implied to have only started much more recently and not the several years I now believe it to have been happening). Still, by the filing, I had already gone through over a year of limbo, waiting for him to first understand I was not willing for him to have us both, then for him to make the choice. (No 2X4s, please, I have my very-important-reasons-to-me why I made him do the choosing, and I WAS doing my own version of the 180 in the meantime.) Maybe that was enough time in which to grieve?? I don't know....

idontknow and Acer - I have heard, and discussed in IC about the two steps forward, three or four back that is common in the process, which includes grieving. This is exactly why I wonder if I have finally "arrived", or if there is much more to come. I can handle it if it is a simple set back, but I fear something much larger, something that will take a great deal more to overcome. I've been in that depressed state where you just wish to die, and I don't EVER want to go back there again!!
And, just for clarity, I do care what he does still, but it is limited. I don't care what he does with MOW, except that he still is using marital funds and spending them - a great amount of them - on her AND giving her access to them; I object to that - for very good reason. He has the ability to earn a LOT of money and be well off way into the future; I am accepting of the fact that I am unemployable for more than a minimum wage job without going back to school for several years, and even then I will never earn as much as he has the potential to earn without missing a beat - no back to school for him.... I need every penny of those marital funds available for splitting in the final, not gone because he spent them, ummmmm, paying for her companionship (nicest way I can put it) , or because he wasted them; he does act like money grows on trees, the way he spends it.
I also still care about what he does with the children. This part I will probably always care about, and it will probably always hurt me, especially if he and MOW do end up together, doing things with MY children! ( ) I held the dream of growing old together, of always doing the "family" thing, including with grandchildren, and it was not in my wildest imagination I would ever not have that come true. Family is HUGE with me. He smashed that to bits, and the evidence will forever be in front of me....
So, my concern isn't because I completely don't feel anything anymore, but because I don't feel anything about the divorce process itself, well, except impatience and aggravation from having to deal with it more. I used to fall apart with parts of it. I remember breaking down into tears when my lawyer told me STBXWH had already taken a certain major step in the process I wasn't expecting to have been done yet. (He hadn't even officially filed yet and wouldn't for months still at that point.) Now, when I hear of something being done, my attitude seems to be more of "oh, ok....it's another step." And, that's it. No real feeling to it. It's like I pretty much no longer associate it with the idea of him now so cruelly rejecting or discarding me and our family unit. Is it resignation? Acceptance? Indifference? (It's definitely not "want", because I will NEVER feel I "want" it....) Or am I stifling it all and it will all fall in on me down the line when I'm not "too busy to fall apart"...?? THAT's the million dollar question....and probably one I won't know the answer to until I get there, right?....

deena posted 8/4/2014 03:41 AM

Thanks wiser!!