SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Abandoned Guy: I very seldom post but your post

yesterday rather alarmed me.

You seem to be in a yo-yo pattern where you are bouncing very quickly from extreme emotional states. That is pretty normal in these horrible circumstances, but, also normally, it emphasizes that you could really benefit from some counseling so that these emotional extremes do not prompt impulsive decisions you cannot undo. Are you seeing someone professional? I do hope so.

Please put a 48-hour “hold” on any important decisions in your life right now so that you can be sure you have cycled past any impulsivity and emotion. When you put your head down on the pillow at night you want to be proud of how your acted that day. Right now that is all that matters.

Odonna-

What makes you say that? I'm not saying there weren't a lot of weeks where I was indeed bouncing up and down like a pogo stick, whether it was from anger to sadness, or waffling between thinking my ex was a narc to thinking she was a pathetic person to be pitied--but I'm feeling pretty balanced right now. My last post covered a long period of time, maybe that's why it sounded up and down. I appreciate you looking out for me, though.

No, my baseline emotional state has been bifurcated into "Let's do this" at work and "Meh, let's do this I guess" at home. I'm fine. When I keep myself busy, I'm good. When someone visits, I'm great. I'm definitely lonely most of the time, but the negativity around that has been subsiding. The biggest emotional triggers I've encountered stem from talking to that woman I'm kind of interested in. That's why I have to keep my distance.

Nice to see an update from you AbandonedGuy.

If you are back on SI for a bit, I'm sure you can offer good advice to a few newbies. Your situation is similar to a poster named Falc...if you get a chance to check out his thread I think you could maybe provide words of wisdom. You are further along than he is. Pretty sure he is tired getting advice from people in R.

The whole "mixed signals" thing from your lady friend is tough. But in general, I would say it is not wise to be "just friends" with someone you are sexually attracted to. It works in romantic comedies but in real life it gets very messy, as most of us BS's know. I suppose while you are both single it is acceptable, but it still seems to be giving you grief. If you can't be direct with her about wanting to date, then maybe it would be best to downgrade her to "acquaintance".

"Just when I thought I was out...they pull me back in"

I wanted to come here and vent a little. Lately, I've been feeling some weirdness bubble up. I just spent the last two months feeling like I'm fully over that cheating, abandoning, ghosting vile woman, and here comes some weird, albeit tepid, emotions to the surface.

It's been 4 (FOUR!) months since I've had any contact with her whatsoever. I haven't really thought about her much in 2019. I've been busy with work, half the weekends I've actually been blessed with visitors or activities, and I've been undergoing a bit of "retail therapy" here and there to round out my new apartment and self. I got hit with some crippling loneliness around New Years which I carried around for a week or two, but the past month has been the most balanced emotional bliss I've experienced in a very long time.

And then weirdness started to reenter my brain. First, it was while watching The Matrix. Its boilerplate and barely fleshed out love story kind of touched me. Then it was The Sopranos, the show that my ex and I were in the middle of marathoning when I caught her affair. At first, that was tough to pick back up, because everyone on that show is a heartless cheater, but eventually I got over all that and once again it's one of my favorite shows of all time. Fittingly, Tony and Carmela separate at the end of the season my ex and I left off at--due to his flagrant cheating. It's like that plot point was a cosmic joke sitting out there waiting for me to inevitably find. "Ha, what would've happened if I caught the affair AFTER we watched that episode," I asked myself. I got a kick out of it. But then a season later, Tony and Carm are rekindling their love and for about 5 seconds, I felt something. Jealousy? Happiness for this sociopath and his enabler? Hope that people out there can still cut through the bullshit and work on their marriage despite the underlying reasons guiding their decisions? I don't know, but some weird feeling coursed through me momentarily and I wasn't used to it.

And now today, I'm on my dental insurer's website and I see that my old plan is listed, the one I had while under her insurance. I was curious, so I compared the two plans and hers is better. Sure, the likelihood is small that I'll ever need to use those other aspects of the plan which hers covers better, but it still bothered me for a few seconds. It was the first time I felt envy toward her since I ran away with my chunk of the assets.

I guess what I'm venting here is that I thought I was out of the weeds and what do you know, these little triggers keep popping up. And I understand that these aren't day-ruiners or anything. I haven't been ruminating on these moments very much outside of now, as I type this up. My day continues unabated, as does my better life without her.

But still, I worry. I worry that the love I had for her, those attachment feelings, still exist within me. And in all likelihood, they probably do. It's a weird thing when they pull the bandaid off. There's so much emotional turmoil in the beginning that the tranquility you eventually find, which exists in STARK contrast to it, fools you into thinking you're over everything. When I was uncorked, all of my emotions came spilling out, and when I was finally able to recork the bottle, it appeared empty. What could've been left in there, after all? But it wasn't empty. Now that the bitterness, anger, and sadness are all gone, I can clearly see the tiny love particles settling to the bottom of the bottle. This frightens me! This woman was vile, destructive, selfish, lying, cowardly, vindictive, petty, and disrespectful. I don't want to feel that way about her even for the 5 seconds I do when I'm triggered. I don't want to fondly remember her even that tiny bit. I want to forget her completely.

I've said it before, but I'm extremely lucky that she ghosted me like this, for whatever reason, and took away all hope of rekindling. I don't know how you guys do it who are in R or even in pre-R/D limbo. I hate feeling this shit for even a few seconds, how do you cope having to live with these emotions day in and day out for months at a time? You're stronger than I am.

It’s a roller coaster.

25 years here. 2 kids.

I also would have bet my life that he would never cheat.

People suck. I guess that we just have to believe they are a shallow, selfish and callous as they have acted.

It took me over a year to get through the majority of the emotional baggage. My ex was in and out of my life so that made it worse to some extent. In hindsight I'd have opted for total no-contact. Then later the OM dumped her and she came begging back. Thankfully the divorce was final and I was mostly out of the emotional woods by then so I was able to tell her to get lost. Now I'm confident that she did me a huge favor by getting out of my life. You'll get there eventually. Hopefully your path to final happiness is shorter than mine was. Continue to take care of yourself.

Thats the rub with these triggers--Ive been very happy without her, thriving even. I recognize that she was quite the albatross. I guess I was just hoping that I finally made it past triggerdom, as tepid as theyve been.

duplicate post

[This message edited by AbandonedGuy at 3:04 PM, February 12th (Tuesday)]

There may always be triggers. But you will see over time they affect you less and less.

Except for jazz music. My H knows not to play that crap in our house for obvious reasons 😆 lol.

Everything else is just a “trigger” and it quickly passes.

You are "pain shopping" - stop it. All the "what ifs" do not help you.

She cheated. She betrayed you. She lied. You found out. You are divorced. Don't look back. Burn the damn letters.

Unfortunately these triggers will haunt you for a few years at least. You just have to take them as they come and see them for what they are.

Today is a day that will live in infamy. I received a letter from the prothonotary indicating that my divorce...is final. It has been final since the 20th, apparently. I'm free. I mean, I've *been free* for a while, as much as I will for the time being, but legally I'm free. The phrase "There are no claims pending between the parties" was music to my ears when I read it. She gets her maiden name back and some short term fix for her deep-seated emotional problems and I got a new life. I thought I'd be at least a little bit sad reading that letter, I was geared up for it, but I didn't feel a goddamn thing. That water's been under the bridge for so long that this is nothing but music to my ears.

She took our 12 years and pissed it all away for a fling with some older Grizzly Adams looking fella who sits beside her in the office. She saw me as a loser who "provides her with nothing" and saw past everything I did bring to the table, all the ways that I benefited our life together and her specifically. She didn't even have the common decency to take pity on me while I was an emotionall mess, the most non-anger statement I got out of her coldly and flatly stating "Don't cry, I don't think I can take that" when I was baring my soul to her 3 days after DDay trying to get her back into our home to work on our marriage, about an hour after she told me "Well, I'm gonna want to go out on the weekends without you and I don't want you getting mad about it". She ghosted my ass like I'm some kind of cancerous asshole and not the sole source of her entire social circle for the last decade, not a perfect husband but apologetic when I know I fucked up, open-minded, emotionally supportive when she needed me, at minimum an interesting person, and certainly someone who can belt out a great career if it weren't for being stuck in a shitty depressive state which she ignored.

I digress, I'm a wine bottle in as I celebrate, that's all behind me, legally at least. I turned my life around 180 degrees. She had no faith in me, but I now have faith in myself and I know what I'm capable of and I'm doing it. She left all this behind for a quick and easy fix with some lonely old dude who didn't call her out on her bullshit. I hope she lives a long life and one day I'll even hope that that long life has some happy moments in it.

We're all put through the fucking meat grinder when our spouses do us dirty like this, and it hurts. It hurts so goddamn much. There's just no describing the pain they put us through, and worst of all, they can't even realize how much pain that is unless they literally fell into a meat grinder. The struggle is ours to shoulder, but our loved ones and all these cherished souls in support groups such as SI.com are here to help us through the muck and mire. We know that pain and we know how lonely it is to bear the brunt with no one holding our hand as we wade through the shit. You're all such beautiful people and I wouldn't have made nearly as much progress if I wasn't able to vent my frustrations and my nonsense here to you all.

Thank you so, so, so much for being there. I'm not leaving or anything, oh no I'm not going anywhere, but I am having an emotional moment about you guys, and I want you to know.

Wishing you peace...

Just so you know, AG... I'm tossing back a shot for you tonight.

You are in a far better place now than you were. Believe that.

Your XW is desperate for kids. Absolutely desperate. She has the baby rabies big time. Expect to find out she is pregnant sooner rather than later. Its been on her mind for quite while now. Who The baby daddy happens to be, is probably a secondary matter to her. Biology rules everything.

Good for you! Now let her watch you living a great life.

One question, did you ever inform OBS?

I don't think the OM was married. I know he had been divorced from wife 1 for a while, and I never heard her mention him having a gf.

I agree that she probably just wants a baby. When I told her during the bargaining phase that I want kids now and have since mid 2018, she said she didn't know whether or not she could believe me (sussing out if I'm a good enough plan B) and then when I pointed out how she wants to rush into some new marriage and start a family with this guy, she said "That's not what this is" but in a tone that, IMO, betrayed her motivations. I'm not sure if this guy has kids of his own. This could very well be two people making a desperate last ditch effort. Regardless, I pity that child.

Hi AbandonedGuy,

"It hurts so goddamn much".

I am now almost 4 months past D-Day. There isn't a pain meter with sufficient enough scale that can be applied to infidelity. I went through the same roller coaster of emotions.

One of the recent emotions that surprised me was a desire to take an inventory of all the good things that I am inside and an even greater desire to protect the good in me, most likely as a way to prepare for a new relationship - whatever that may be. When you experience residual feelings towards your ex, I sense it's your mind reminding you that are capable of equal or even greater love in the future. Just have faith and move forward.

Best wishes to you.

May the rest of you life be the best of your life.

Thanks for the update, AbandonedGuy. You're right. The pain was more than could ever be imagined. I thought the pain was so bad it would surely kill me and hoped it would.

Best wishes for you. Onward and upward from here. May the best be yet to come.