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He doesn’t love me. That is what he revealed to me on the phone the other night. “I am so detached from you”…”My feelings for you aren’t there anymore.”
He explained on the phone that ever since D-Day in Jan 2011 he hasn’t felt love or care for me. That throughout his “recovery” attempts, he has lost his connection to me and the love he once felt. It’s just non-existent now. He cried that he’s so ashamed, it’s been on his mind for so long, and hasn’t told anyone (well he fucking should be ashamed) The motherfucker lied to me for the past 2 years that we’ve been “trying to work” on our relationship, going to therapy, telling me he still loved me and cared about me, that he wanted a future with me.
ALL this time I honestly actually thought he did love me “to best of his ability” and cared about me. I believed the recovery books. I believed our former therapist who insisted he loved me. Even through all the chaos, fake recovery, his suicide attempts, and then the emotional abuse… I trusted that deep down he obviously still felt something real for me. I mean, how could he not? We were best friends for 9 years, we spent nearly every day together (except for when he was away cheating). I had devoted my life to him, loved him so much, cared about him, prayed for him…he has always been “my family”. Even after D-day, it’s been so hard to not love him, worry about him, or for me to fully cut the emotional cords. I can’t help it, I am human.
He tried to explain that before I found out about his addiction, he lived in two worlds, compartmentalized, and that’s why he could love me and do his addiction at the same time. Now he is only in one world… For the 3 months right after D-Day day, he HATED me, didn’t want to know me, thought I was crazy because “he didn’t have a problem”…etc. That’s denial, and you know, I can actually understand that. I can understand he would feel that way about me while in very thick deep denial. Then in May 2011, the month he admitted he had a problem and first tried to get really sober (I believe this was his only real true recovery period), he’s saying now that is when he started feeling love back again for me. It only lasted for about a month, because he went into a long relapse.
I said to him on the phone, so what the hell was your “grand plan” then? Why tell me you want a future with me, when you don’t even have feelings for me? He said, his plan was all banking on hope… hope that with sobriety he’d one day start loving me again… that those feelings would eventually come back. I said WTF, so you string me along for 2 years all on the basis that maybe, just MAYBE, one day you might feel something for me years down the track, and that might take 10 years… I said, are you crazy??? Would you do be in a relationship like that when the person doesn’t even love you? How dare he fuck with my heart and control my life like that.
How many times can my heart be broken? It feels like break after break, after break. Each break only gets bigger and more out there. I mean honestly, wtf. After everything he has done to me, all the betrayal and pain, at the end of the day I am the one who is “unlovable”? As if I’m the cheater, I’m the big monster. I never did anything wrong! It’s not like I’ve been a mega psycho homicidal bitch. I have supported him through his “recovery”, been his support when he’s been suicidal, and even when I left him after D-day and moved out of our home at the very first sign of physical infidelity, I still treated him with dignity through that. I’m the only women in his life who has ever really actually cared about him.
It’s another example of how entirely BACKWARDS and UNFAIR this experience is for me as a partner. Can you believe it? He is the one detached FROM ME. And I sit here with my shattered heart still locked to his ghost unable to detach. Yet, he can do it easily in an instance. Then I’m the one who becomes less loved.
I saw my trauma therapist and she thinks because he clearly hasn’t consciously made the decision to quit holding onto his addiction, his mind HAS TO stop feeling love for me in order to keep doing what he’s doing. His brain can no longer function doing both. It isn’t all neatly separate for him like it used to be. He can’t do two at once. It’s only one or the other. Addiction or me. She said that his feelings for me from before are probably inside there, but it’s all blocked/pushed down, like a defence mechanism for him for him to continue his addiction. She also said that I represent a mirror to him, through me he see’s everything bad and wrong that’s he doing, and he doesn’t like looking in the mirror.
I’m in shock and so sad. When he told me I just couldn’t stop crying. I was flooded with so many memories of us living together, of us growing up together, being happy together…. We met when were both 17 and I was his first real girlfriend. He is the only man I have ever really loved.
This makes me cry so much. How he can love me for 9 years and then stop loving me overnight. Simply because I found his porn. Then because I tried to help him see he had a problem and wanted him to get better so he could live a healthy life. It’s not like I betrayed him or wished him death. It’s not like I was a sudden stranger to him like he was to me, he had the gift of really KNOWING ME, everything about me. It’s him that did all of that horrible stuff. Not me. But I’m the one who’s “punished”, I’m the one who is loved less now.
It’s so difficult, because at the same time lately always in my mind I had concluded that for him to keep hurting me, mistreating me, violating my boundaries, never fighting for me, “disposing” of me whenever I found more proof/evidence, never asking me if there’s anything I need or anything he can do to help me, always making everything so stressful and impossible when it doesn’t need to be – it must be because he doesn’t love me – it’s the only thing that made possible sense to me. If you love someone you don’t treat them that way – the inner conflict would be too much, it would be too hard. You don’t even treat a mere friend this way. He kept telling me I was incorrect, that he still definitely loved me… All along I was right, but because he was messing with my heart/mind, I felt instead like I was going crazy — my mind constantly running through how can someone who loves me treat me like this? What’s going on? How can he do this? Now that I know I am right, while I feel a little closure now having the answer, it is like a whole new level of pain that it’s actually real… that he doesn’t love me.
I might not be making much sense. I just can’t believe this has happened to me. That this is my life. That someone can switch their love off for me in an instant. I feel like my heart is dust. I don’t know what to think or feel anymore. I feel lost and in a lot of pain.
Oh Victoria, I am so, so sorry. Is there no end to the ‘surprises’? I understand your confusion, hurt and deep, deep pain. There is just no way that we can understand how they think and it makes us crazy to even try.
Based on how my relationship with Larry has panned out, and from the literally thousands of stories, posts and comments on both sites, I can only come to the conclusion that these guys never really did love us. They truly are not capable of it.
I am not saying that lightly or cynically. As Larry’s Personality Disorders have come to light and he is faced with the harsh reality that he is what he is, he is slowly reaching a point of acceptance–but along with that acceptance is also the loss of hope for any change (in his mind) so he has just given up trying.
I think the same thing might be happening with your husband. He has been forced to face what and who he is, he does not want to give it up and he cannot or does not want to play the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde game any more. It’s not any fun once it’s exposed. He cannot get anything from it any more because the jig is up.
I know how badly it all hurts, but I truly believe that most SA’s are not capable of love. They will fool us and fool themselves but once their double life is exposed and you are no longer their loving little woman they move on.
I am particularly enraged at your therapist telling you that his feelings are still there, just blocked. I think that is a total crock of shit. Another carrot dangled in front of you to keep you hanging on. This is professional abuse. Her assumption has absolutely no basis. As a professional she should realize that people who are able to ‘split’ and compartmentalize are disordered individuals who do not think and feel normally.
I wish I were there to hug you sweetie. Please feel my energy across the many miles. Share with us your pain, we will help you carry that burden and get you through this.
You are right that you can feel some closure now. I think it’s a bit of a misnomer for him to say he doesn’t love you any more. The harsh reality is that he never did. If you can wrap your head around that it will be much easier to put all the scattered puzzle pieces of your past together into a realistic picture and regain your center.
We are here for you Victoria. It will get better.
Love and light ~ JoAnn
{{{{Hugs}}}}
How awful! Is there a horrible emotion spared in this? I doubt it. Betrayal, rejection, fear, doubt, anger, hate, jealousy, revenge… it brings thoughts and emotions to center stage without our permission that are completely justified. But they wreak havoc. And there is overall the death (feels like a massacre to me) of hope. Victoria, you did not do anything to deserve this treatment.
This is going to sound heartless, but let the hope go now. It is so against what we think is right, but hoping to reach and revive that connection to him could take the rest of your life. That is not a sacrifice I agree with. I think, based on my reading, experience, things I have heard here, and the intuitions I get from your posts that JoAnn is right. In Bev’s words, this
Victoria,
My heart aches for you and I’m so sorry for all the hurt you are feeling right now. It’s very unfair to you and so cruel what he has done. How they can take love, care, and devotion from us so freely, then never care or ask about our well being, then “say they don’t love us” (mine threw me out of the house after I found out and we were married 25 years, he didn’t love me), is really criminal, cold, and callous.
Thinking of you and please realize they are capable of this cruelty and that is not love.
Love, NapI have also been questioning if he ever loved me in the first place. I asked him after he said he no longer loved me like before, to explain in detail the feelings of love he had during our relationship before I found out his addiction…
He said that he felt happy being around me, felt warmth in his heart, missed me when I was away, brought up a time in 2003 when I was in England and had to stay an extra week – he said that was like torture for him not being able to see me, he was counting down the days, he also had cried at the airport when I departed which I remembered (he was only using porn at this stage), that he enjoyed my company, even if we were just sitting on the couch cuddling that he loved those moments together, felt a connection to me, and that he felt like he was my protector. When I was living with him, I did feel that I was loved by him and cared about.
I told my therapist all of the above, and I think that’s why she explained it the way she did. I don’t think she was trying to give me any false hope, she’d really rather me leave for good, but wants me to understand his lack of love is not because of me. That he didn’t stop loving me because I’m too angry now, too “controlling”, too mean, too needy etc etc which is what I had been feeling was the reason and starting to blame myself. She wasn’t implying that I can dig it out of him and unburry it, quite the opposite – that trying to get anything from him is pointless. She knows he’s not normal, and tries to get me to keep in mind that he doesn’t think or function like a normal person. She’s never met him to assess him, but she knows he is very mentally ill, there is something very wrong with him and suspects a PD. She constantly reminds me that I am human, and the feelings I experience are because I am the normal one. I really appreciate your concerns for me though, JoAnn. I have been through hell with therapists in the past and know first hand the potential of further damage. This one, however, is the best I have found here. She mostly makes me feel more empowered and doesn’t want me to put up with shit.
It’s all so confusing. I can only think that he did love me from the start the best he knew how, but the more his addiction took over his life, the less it became. And now it’s nothing. The first 2-3 years of our relationship, he wanted to see me every single day. He was very full on about being together, appeared very attached and very much in love with me. But then once all the physical stuff started with the strippers after this time, I think that is when everything became less about me in his life. But I still felt loved and cared for by him. I just can’t wrap my head around this. It’s so difficult to comprehend!
I think you’re right that he’s given up. He also now says to me his life’s already destroyed, so what’s the point in recovery. I think if they don’t love us (whether they never did or stopped now) they will not bother with recovery. There’s nothing to fight for. There’s nothing to save. There’s nothing to drive or motivate them. I can see how and why he’s done everything, when you don’t love your partner, it’s all a breeze to just hurt them again and not care how they’re treated.
Thank you for the hug, you have no idea how much it means to me to have all my sisters here as support! I feel so alone and no one else ever understands. I just told my mother and she couldn’t even spend a minute to simply express any empathy for me, for the shock and pain I’m going through, the loss and devastation, how can this be, how can this happen. Instead my mum’s only response was “He deserves to be bashed.” Yeah, sure he does, but what about me? What about my feelings right now? What about the intense pain, confusion, and sorrow my mind and heart must be going through??! She made me cry. I just want someone to listen to how I’m feeling, to listen to what this crazy experience is like for me. I really value the empathy and care I get on SOS, apart from my therapist, you women are honestly all I have.
Sorry, phone cut off.. Bev said she had to “sit with the pain”. This nightmarish to consider, but if you do it you can process all those mixed emotions and not be ruled by them. Keep posting, we will listen.
You are worth so much more than this.
Ohhhh Victoria..I can barely respond. It is just so God awful and I am so sorry ..
My mom was also too focused on H to support me. I told her to get fucked and my brother and my Dad told her to either be supportive or hush.. I know that is harsh but it`s my truth.
I have “sat with the pain” and I still do. I can`t find any other way that works for me. I can drink, or eat, or watch TV, or phone a friend, or run errands, or clean house, or cook… BUT it doesn`t go away until I sit with it. It demands my attention like a screaming baby. So, I just stop and give it my full attention.
I believe ( just my own opinion). That we get caught up in the “did they love us?” “do they love us?” trap without fully understanding that these guys are NOT capable of what we call love. That is not a bash in case anyone is offended. It is honest. This “addiction” is who they are and until they kick it and do the work they don`t even know or love themselves. WE don`t KNOW these men. I think I made the analogy about the best friend being a heroin addict…NO, I would not desert her but I would not trust her and until she had been clean for at least a year then I wouldn`t really know her. I would have to get to know the new person without the addiction.
Please stop trying to make sense of his words and feelings. If you start to heal and he does his work then maybe you can come together at some point and have a real, honest talk. You are asking him to speak of things that he just doesn`t understand. Take your memories and make them yours. Keep the good ones. They happened, you were there and it was real..
I will be thinking of you and sending you cyber energy and hugs. Don`t fight the sad…Just let it unfold. We are here for you!! Love, bev
Victoria,
I’m happy you have a good therapist and I am fortunate to have a good one too. They are hard to find. Sorry about your mothers response. We get it Victoria. This hurts like hell and very confusing the emotions. Were here for you keep being with people who understand and care. So important not to be alone and isolated.
Love, Napvictoria,
yes, i think you have a good therapist.
“I saw my trauma therapist and she thinks because he clearly hasn’t consciously made the decision to quit holding onto his addiction, his mind HAS TO stop feeling love for me in order to keep doing what he’s doing.”
i think she may be right.
please remember, even though you were mistreated by this weak man, you DESERVE to be loved. and you are loved. you deserve to be loved fully, wholly.
he probably does love you, but not in the way you deserve. the addiction is his primary relationship. that is what he loves. sad sad man. it has destroyed him.
please please find some love for you in yourself. and spend as much time as possible with people that care about you.
no matter what happens, this hurt will heal one day. for now, one minute at a time. distract yourself. care for yourself, even if it feels like faking it.
much love to you
lisa
Remember, too, that what he says and does CANNOT define you. Who are we if we allow someone who navigates through the world by his penis to deem us lovable or not? Love yourself!
JoAnn,
So many new members! It can’t be all bad.
I posted on Jessagape14 new member welcome a response about the positive/neg debate that II think mightI
newbieskunderstand usOVictoria, I like what Bev said about sitting with your pain. I keep trying to run away from my pain, but when I just sit with it and allow myself to grieve it helps me look at the reality of my life. I’m realizing that the best thing I can do is take care of myself. I’m sorry about how you are feeling. Sending you a BIG HUG.
DawnWhen I read your post V all I can see is you busted him so he’s letting you go to hang onto his addiction rather than deal with it. I think telling you he doesn’t feel it anymore is cruel but it could also be very true. Never try to make someone love you that tells you they do not.
Victoria,
Big (((HUG)))!!!
“She said that his feelings for me from before are probably inside there, but it’s all blocked/pushed down, like a defence mechanism for him for him to continue his addiction. She also said that I represent a mirror to him, through me he see’s everything bad and wrong that’s he doing, and he doesn’t like looking in the mirror.”
These are some very perceptive words from your therapist. I think alot of these guys want to have a loving relationship but it is more like an ideal. Or, once they start down the SA trail, they “split” or compartmentalize and begin to objectify the relationship.
In the narcissist article that March posted back a ways, the author discusses the process of the NARC seeking , using and then discarding his partner when they are exposed.
I watched her youtube clip and found it interesting.
The fact that you gave so much love and support and suffered so much of his abuse believing in his recovery testifies to the kind of woman you are. that is who YOU are. He is separate from you and is separating for his addiction. Although it hurts you so much, he just might be giving you the biggest gift of your life. YOUR LIFE.
You have read here many stories about the midlife wives. We are the vast majority here. It went on the whole marraige.
You have been through a war. Nothing a young girl should have had to endure. BUT…YOU are smart and loving and strong and there is the rest of your life with someone someday who is worthy of you.
Take good care of you. Grieve hard and then start a scrapbook of what you want your new life to look like.
Blessings upon your head,
Debora
[biggest hug everrrrrr] Victoria!!
Girlfriend, I just laid here and cried as I read your post. Your pain is so raw right now. I am Sooo sorry you are feeling sad and lost. I wish I had better words! The sisters are wise and intuitive. Deborah- excellent post!
I know how much you have loved him- it has always been obvious and that just seems to make it so much harder! By the time Dum Dum and I were wrapping up our little cat and mouse game- I was just soooooo over it, and exhausted, I just simply didn’t care anymore! I wish I could transfer those feelings straight to your body to spare you the pain. But like Bev, we all have to sit with our personal truths and just absorb it. Head out to the patio if you must. Own it, feel it, reconcile it, and then lose it. You will be all the stronger, wiser, better!!
Just know that your sisters are here for you, night and day!!
Love you so much,
SL
Dear Victoria,
You are going to have to heal yourself now dear girl? There is NOTHING else you can do about him. Like March said…I wouldn’t let someone like him determine if I was loveable or not. You have to let him go now Victoria. Your REAL life is waiting for you sweetheart. Feel it, heal it and move on from the soul crushing waste of space that he is.He is never going to give you what you need. HUGE HUG Karen xx
Victoria,
The pain that you are in right now is overwhelming and takes over every cell in your body. The confusion about your situation swirls around your mind making it impossible to think of anything else. This kind of heartache is so different than any other. It is complicated with the many different avenues that need consideration and time to work out.
You are processing everything right now and that is a good thing. Try to find moments of calm between your thoughts as you continue to find your way through this mess. Keep asking questions and posting your thoughts. Keep putting one foot in front of the other, even when every step hurts worse than the one before. Let us be here for you to catch you if you fall over.
I remember being so frustrated with family members and dear friends who could not “really” understand what I was going through. It made the whole situation that much worse and made me feel even crazier than ever. It is so easy to question our own ability to make the right decisions on our situation, and than we have our loved ones fueling our unease. Your loved ones DO love you, they just do not have the experience with this situation that allows them to guide you in an understanding capacity. Now you have another level of complexity than the one you are originally having with your SA. It continues to get complicated. You must be strong in your ability to know when a loved one simply does not get it. It is not personal, they want to help, just try to leave it at that. Than come running back to us. We here GET IT!!!
I am so sorry Victoria that you are on this bumpy road. Hold on to yourself as you navigate these roads. Continue to trust in yourself and your ability to identify what is happening in your world. Your experience is valid, and your feelings are accurate. I think you are doing very well on your journey, you just need to march on. Do what makes you feel better each moment. Let yourself continue to heal.
Hugs,
CindyMarch,
I want frame what you said…..
“Who are we if we allow someone who navigates through the world by his penis to deem us lovable or not? Love yourself!”
What a great quote!! It moved me when I read it.
Trying to figure where I’d hang this 🙂
Victoria, you are beautiful, smart, sensitive and you are going to make it, you are perfect on your own without the love of this man, these sociopath act love but they don’t truly love, but this debate is futile, just keep loving your self and taking care of your self, and loving the world for giving you the opportunity to grow and be healthier through all this mess
Victoria,
I just want to tell you from the depths of my soul how sorry i am. I feel for you so much because i know EXACTLY what you are going through. This is just a quick note. I will write more later when i can. I am crying and so devastated for us all i just dont have words at the moment but i just want to give you a big (((HUG)))
Love, JulesVictoria, I know exactly how you feel and share your pain.
I think everyone else has said it all… but it doesnt take away the feelings does it?
I think the only thing left to do now is to continue to show them what they are missing – to become the best, fulfil our potential as beautiful, intelligent, loving and wonderful women.
Only last night a friend said to me that we will never hear the things we want to from these men, because it means they have to own up to who they are and how badly they screwed up.
I too am facing that the man is a pathological liar, lying even to his sponsor – its funny – I found a text last night sent to his sponsor saying that I had let him down and he had to care for his son last wednesday instead of meeting his sponsor… that he was really pissed off. interesting given that my son was with my mother and I had gone sailing with him, had supper with him and ended up in bed with him. Then I found another text all pissy about my facebook status to an ex-girlfriend and the fact that all he hoped for was to get out of the relationship in one piece and that I kept begging him for sex…
Well, I think that’s my gift and I have reached the end of the line. So perhaps Victoria – painful though it may be right now, its your gift. You are released. You are free to fly.
Be brave beautiful. You are better than this. We are better than this… We are worth more than this.
Dear Jos,
Nice to see your pretty face back. Been wondering how you are? I’m sorry you are still struggling to let go of him, as he clearly does not deserve you, dear girl. Its a heck of alot easier to get into a relationship with these guys than it is to get out of one it seems….. Karen xx
Hey Jos,
It’s incredible sometimes to read with your own two eyes the lies that these guys come up with. Unbelievable. I hope you have what you need to once and for all, move on. This has been a long, hard road for you and I understand. But, you don’t strike me as the kind of woman who wants to live with a pathological liar, nor should you.Looking forward to following your journey. Set yourself free Jos! It’s time!! XOOXOXO!
It is time. It took a long time. I had to leave immediately but it took a long time to give up the hope. And do you know, now that the hope is gone, its easier. I just got to find the money to finish the divorce – credit card to the max 🙁
I know who and what I am. I know where I have come from and that I have a future ahead of me. Thank you sisters.
Victoria, I’, sorry for hijacking your post. I hope to God you find some peace and rest and look forward to the future where you are safe and can trust your feelings again xx
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