Afraid to stay too long!

Paulette,
I wish I had something to offer you…I am 48. I left last year. My first D-Day was more than a decade before. I am happy and free of all of the mess, not even grieving, as I did that DURING my marriage. I have moved on. But had I moved on ten years ago, I would have been spared a tremendous amount of pain, mindgames and mental abuse.
I wasnt ready, until I was ready. I think that many of us have a real sense of committment, and need to feel that we have done our best and left no stone unturned. I wish someone could have convinced me otherwise, but that doesnt happen. I do however, think it is great that you are asking the question.
I wish you love and happiness. Sadly, I also cant imagine you having either with your SA…
Actually I lied when I said Im not even grieving. I do grieve, but not for my marriage. I grieve still for all those years of my precious life.

If the letter I wrote my H wasn’t 10 pages of single typed reality and sadness i would share it here – you will know when you are ready to leave – and if you go back once you have left it will be because you know even more, but it will be about you not him – you must trust yourself to live in your own skin – they destroy that and to recover it requires your own personal gift of self recovery NOT RECOVERY from his compulsions, but recovery of your own humanity which is slowly but surely destroyed as though a tumor in the brain – love you not him or the marriage – it wasn’t a marriage so you don’t need marriage counseling – Minwalla will be the first one to tell you that – love Meg

After dday and my SAH going to a 6 week inpatient intensive, I had hope that we could work it out since at least now I knew what had been going on. Wrong. It’s over 2 years later and he’s back to treating me like he did before dday except worse because of all the psycho babble he throws at me. I am so sad for losing everything that I thought I had.

amen meg! FN, me too. i let him share that with his ‘buddies’ and there is no fucking way i’m making a fucking cake for him!!

He’s IN 12 step and he wants to put it ON you – you must be first, first, first, first, you will grieve, cry, rage, despair, regroup, reclaim, rejoice, and resume life with yourself as a woman who has desires and rights that have nothing to do with him – he has taken enough – say that to yourself until you believe it and can live it – it will come when it is right for you – the steadiness takes much love and compassion from within and from those who care about you most before it becomes re-rooted in your DNA where it has always belonged – make the next phase of your life about you and he will fade away – and if he has anything in him that you want it will be because he is a changed human being – that is up to him not you – much love Meg x

I think once you hit Discovery Day, it’s already too long.

Your letter brought tears as I, and everyone else here, can really relate to what you are saying and feeling.
I’m not sure that you will KNOW when it’s time to leave. It’s never a good time to leave, just as it is never a good time to stay. There are no good options left. You are going to suffer and your children are going to suffer either way. So make your choice.
I’ve made the decision to separate about 1.5 yr after D-Day. I wasn’t ready to leave earlier, but I don’t know now any more than I knew then. I’m realizing that more time will not give me any extra information, I will not gain any more knowledge, will not be able to figure out how to make a better choice. I think you know all there is to know. Make your choice. Choose for you and for your children and hope for a better future. And the longer than future is the better.

My SA’s family was very strange… very little communication, everyone was high and mighty and proper and looked down their nose at everyone else, including me. I thought it was a culture thing 🙁 I thought it didn’t matter. When I saw his parent’s home received porn magazines in the mail on a regular basis and the mother didn’t seem to mind – I thought it was a matter of culture.
When I noticed again and again that my husband disliked the law and the rules, I just let it go, thinking he just had an issue with police officers. But every traffic light he crossed, every stop sign he missed, every time he refused to pay his traffic tickets and tried to contest because he was right and the rules were wrong…. every tax dollar he tried not to pay, every business he tried to cheat (in small ways)…. should have been a warning sign to me and somehow they weren’t.
I tolerated as we all did or do.
Then his father molested my daughter. My life turned upside down. My SA was incredibly unsupportive, and angry at me!
I stayed because I thought I was protecting my daughter from the grandfather, thinking that if I left she would have no protection. But I was not protecting her! I was letting her grow up in an addict home, in an unhealthy environment. Her early formative years were all about lack of communication between her parents, lack of intimacy… and now it is the norm.
He did porn and promised to stop and didn’t and I tolerated…
Today I see my daughter tolerate far more than she should – from her friends, from her teachers, she even tolerates physical pain!! and it shatters my heart to see.
And now I know how far it all went with the SA.
How much more do we take and tolerate?
What else has to happen for me, for you, for other sisters here, before we can make that heart wrenching decision?

I don’t know what will happen tomorrow when I finally tell my daughter about the upcoming separation. I don’t know what will happen on May 1st when he is finally moved out. I’m scared, anxious, sick with worry….
But there are no good options left anywhere.

Hugs to you.

Yep – helluva a post helluva a life….