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Eliza, it was all just empty words. He’d have said anything to get what he wanted. Then, no follow through.
Wow! Just wow! Thank you both for sharing such intimate details of your marriages and of your journeys. I really needed to hear this today. After H moved out on Sunday I had a really good week with minimal contact and have been thinking this will most likely lead to divorce. Yet I get an email from him today that starts to suck me back in. And it is so pathetic in its lack of feeling or remorse or anything. Its really just an ordinary every day type of note but I guess that is my cryptonite. I don’t buy his flowery words – I get sucked in with wanting things to be normal again.
Thank your so much for sharing this. I think this will help a lot of sisters.
Eliza, mine were empty words too and in the end there was alot of nastiness from him Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Eventually the cruelty and total lack of empathy helped me to get clear–with the help of this site of course!
March, I love thinking of you standing in the sun! 🙂Feelingconflicted-stand strong. I really think that no contact is one of the best gifts we can give ourselves when we are going through this stuff. Unfortunately their words still have alot of power over us and we are vulnerable to getting sucked back in, as you can see. Wishing you strength and clarity.
Thanks, everyone. Bonnie, you’ll always be a hero for the way you escaped.
That’s it, feelingconflicted: “I get sucked in with wanting things to be normal again.” What takes so LONG to sink it, what we SIMPLY CANNOT wrap our heads around, is that things will NEVER be normal, and they never were. These men are defective. And dangerous.
Remember that old song “Killing Me Softly”? “Strumming my pain with his fingers, stealing my life with his song.” That’s what I thought of when I read these emails. The terrible pain and longing in Bonnie and March’s emails and the horrifying insincerity in the SA’s. It was like watching my life play out in your emails. I’m so glad you two have made it to the sunlight and firm ground on the other side of the swamp. Thank you so much for sharing this with us.
I think there must be a Cole’s Notes out there on how to write a letter to your wife after you have fucked the whole world – I thank you both, all of you, for baring your souls to the naked truth so that each of us commits to making decisions that resonate with our own truth – and yes I have no shame in having tried to work through this shit – and for my sons I will continue to do some things that without children I would not even consider but never again will the core of who I am be hijacked by another human being – Sheros unite xox
Thank you Bonnie and March for sharing these very personal letters. It must have hurt you terribly to read them again. They are very sobering. Much love and thanks, Catherine xo
Thank you both for your brutal and heartbreaking honesty. I am so very happy that you are both out no matter how long it took.
meg said it best for me:
“I will continue to do some things that without children I would not even consider but never again will the core of who I am be hijacked by another human being – Sheros unite xox”
I would try to be a lesbian for you Meg but I just cannot seem to get into it 🙂
These letters made me cry. I could have written them because you said what I have said to mine. My therapist said to me today, that I will know when it is time to leave or I will know that I want to stay, with real clarity when the time comes. I need to believe that. Don’t ever punish yourselves for taking a certain amount of time. We are all different (as much as our experiences are the same) and we need to give ourselves permission to take whatever time it takes to make the right decision for our higher and best life. I keep putting a time limit on my situation and then I am upset. I am going to try to be a lot easier on myself and try to take it one day at a time – with my body as my guide. That is my homework for this next week. You girls are so generous to share your hearts with us in this way. Thank you so much!
Thank you, thank you, thank you! The gift of these brutally honest emails is astonishing. You didn’t have to be that vulnerable, but you chose to be, and that is such a gift to me and to the sisterhood. What I realized is that my husband has never risen to the level that your husbands did, he would never have sent me an email with anything close to that sort of insincere flowery remorse, and maybe that’s a gift to me, because if he said anything remotely like what your husband’s are saying, I’d be hanging in there with the same kind of hope that you did. He’s just lobbying for I need to see naked women to be a NORMAL guy, or some shit like that. God, I swear so much since SA came into my life. I’m not even unhappy about that. Maybe this is who Im supposed to be? Anyway, back to the flowery, insincere letters. I would have absolutely fallen for anything even remotely like that. If those letters were like my husband’s, you guys wouldn’t have toughed it out nearly as long as you did. You would have said, FUCK THAT, much sooner than I did. You guys are the best.
Dear March and Bonnie. Thank you. It doesn’t matter what you did or said or how long it took you to get out. All that matters is you got out? We waste a lot of time waiting for them to “get it”. IMHO we need to first “get it” and then “get out”. For me, I found the first part pretty straight forward but I find the last and most crucial aspect hard….really, really hard.
Karen, it is very hard to get out because they are masters at weaving their web of deception, fear, love, getting better,,
,,,etc every time we try to get out, like I had filed for divorce in aug/2012, my stbx managed to get me to stay an additional 6 months, and now I am trying to get out again,,,,I don’t want to be a downer, I used to totally believe that my husband could “recover” and I stuck with him. He was NEVER honest. Jenny–I am raising this post back up for you. If you read it you will see that I (and March, among so many others) really gave this a try.
Thank you, everyone. I’m in this ugly soup of grief, fear, dispair, and even resignation as I see what I’m dealing with. I think we would hear about people who made it work, and I’m going to ask my therapist, when I see her Thursday, what the fuck we’re really doing here and has this practice ever had a success story? Or are we just putting off the inevitable, and the procedure is to try to treat my trauma until I’m ready to learn the truth and make a decision to save myself. I’ll let you know what she tells me.
I wish I could post a picture to this thread, to go along with what your SAH’s wrote to you. I do not have a letter or an email, but he scrawled a message, in chalk, on a chicken statue we have. Yep. A chicken statue. I took a picture of the message, all serial killer style and bizarre. I will post it in the photos folder if anyone wants a good laugh.
Thank you for letting me read those letters. I’m crying right now, but I thank you so much.Jenny, we often say “you cannot make this shit up.” That’s all I can think of to say about that chicken statue message.
Dear Jenny, I just wanted you to know that you aren’t alone. Most of us have tried very hard and really believed. Maybe it is possible for this to work out, but it sure seems slim… I think the general hope here is to empower women by sharing our stories and painting a realistic picture.
Sending you love and support.Oh that’s novel; reality? The truth? Maybe even with a splash of empathy and compassion? All things I should be getting in my marriage. And sort of ironic that the same tool that allows him to check out and act out, is the same tool that’s giving me some clarity and support.
I posted the chicken photo in the “Just For Fun” folder, because I couldn’t find a “What The Fuck??” folder.Jenny, after my disclosure I wrote two heartfelt letters to my H, one of which I posted here in the Disclosure Aftermath part II thread. His only response to all my pain was this: “I have read your letter multiple times. Since Wed I have been waiting for the hammer to fall on me. At one point during one of my sessions with Kent I told him I thought I was past a point of redemption. I didn’t think you would consider trying to work this out with me. I couldn’t or wouldn’t have blamed you if had kicked me to the curb. I certainly do not deserve another chance. I am absolutely willing to do the work to become the person you deserve and to be honest – the person I feel I lost. I will continue to work with Kent on my ugly flaws. You definitely didn’t deserve any of this – especially from me. I desperately want to be your champion again. Love You very much!”
I’ll give him this much – it was better than a sentence scrawled on a chicken statue. But it in no way matched the pain and grief I poured out for him. He may have been sincere about how he feels about what he has done, but he didn’t give me any of the reassurances about how important I am to him that I was longing for.
Early on when I joined the ‘hood, it seemed like perhaps my H and I would be able to heal and move on together. Now, after 10 months, there has been little emotional growth on his part and on my part, my emotional growth is to realize that he has not been able to be a real partner to me and it may be beyond his capabilities to ever be one. So the question for me has become whether I can or should stay in a marriage that will probably never be emotionally fulfilling to me. That to me, is incredibly sad.
Thanks so much Bonnie and March for sharing such painful and heartfelt thoughts.
Today my lawyer submitted our divorce agreement to court. We were married 37 years.
This thread helps reassure me this is the best path. Like Bonnie and March, I have some beautifully written, remorseful, love letters from my ex as well. But, he had a really big “slip” 3 months after our disclosure. He still begs for another try but my heart is too smashed up to put it out there again. Some of his phrases are “I’m not that guy anymore.” “My eyes are open now.” “I was an idiot.” “I’m moving forward on a path.” He prays for my healing and our reconciliation, etc. You ladies hear this too?
We have been separated for over a year and are several states away. In some ways I feel very relieved, in others profoundly sad. I am so jealous when I see married couples my age out and about with their families and grandchildren. Holidays are hell. ‘Never thought I would be robbed of that.
Over the past year or so I’ve talked with 4 or 5 couples who seem to be surviving and making their marriages work. It takes a lot of work and forgiveness. Only one has “graduated” out of the recovery program. They are probably in their mid 60’s.
I guess this SA crap is with you for the rest of your life one way or the other. I started attending a 12 steps group (Al-Anon) to give myself some tools for going forward. I want to cut my losses, and give myself permission to let him fuck up his own life. Note: I did not like COSA and I do not think I was co-dependent but I want to learn how to “disconnect” better. It’s hard when you’ve been with and sincerely loved someone for this long.
Eventually I hope to have a “happy” life but I’m not quite there yet. Would love to find another man one day but not ready to deal with that now. My single friends tell me the single guys are all perverts!!!
Sorry for the sad report from me. 🙁
KandiceKandice- No way are you old enough to have been married 37 years? Did you get married at birth?
I think it sounds like you are on your way, Kandice. It does take so much time to heal after this shit. But you are taking steps forward. Big events like court dates are painful and bittersweet. Take care of yourself while you grieve the loss of your marriage.
Kandice, thank you for your report. It is honest and straightforward. I think 12 step programs have good tools for all of us to live by, EXCEPT, when you are using them to hide in a dysfunctional relationship. I spent time in cosa and though I was unable to embrace their philosophies…I did meet some very sick women who were able to gain some measure of detachment by being in the group. Alanon is a tried and true program that has helped many people cope with the ravages of alcoholism. Beyond that…it is all down to time and efforts on your part to rebuild a single life. I know it must be very daunting when you have been a “we” for so long. There is a price to pay either way and I guess there is little point in pretending it is easy.
Hugs, Karen xx
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