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February 8, 2017 2:51 pm  #1


Refuge here, grieving still, losses compounding....

Just feeling so depressed.  My ex-MIL who I loved has been diagnosed with secondary cancerous tumours in her bones.  No one told me.  I heard from my son.  After 27 years as an part of the family, it seems just so sad to not even be informed...

But I am now "persona non grata" as I let the cat outta the bag after a hurtful text exchange where my GIDX told me I didn't deserve to hear HIS truth, but his new gf does as she 'understands' his bisexuality....which of course makes me want to scream as having an open conversation with someone you are dating is TOTALLY different from being betrayed and gas-lighted and belittled as crazy for 20+ years.  And that I was a bad parent to involve our sons (tell them the truth!!)

So with that as a trigger - I immediately sent a group text to his family..... ah the dangers of instant messaging....just after Xmas to tell them that my ex (who was there with his new girlfriend) had been cheating with men our whole marriage and had a 6mo affair with a woman to check and I'm the baddy because I told my sons (all over 21) the truth....

My MIL texted back "That must have been hard.  But he is my son. And now you must move on"  Wow....I guess it was good of her to text back??  Move on....god that is so hard!!  Leave my 27 years of memories and connections with you in the dumpster with those of my marriage...I guess I do need to do that, but how!!!????

So in some ways I can see it is hard for them to not defend their son/brother, but he has done an awful thing....  And you would think they might call or something.... Is that so unrealistic to think?  They are big church goers and it makes me feel so angry that they will be doing their 'visiting teaching' to various random members of their church, but can't pick up the phone to me who was part of the family for soooo long!!!

I've been seeing a counselor and trying to work thru my feelings.  I start to feel I'm doing better and then something like this throws me right back into grieving over the loss.  Going nearly catatonic and useless with reactive depression.  It is hard to not dwell on it all.  Xmas was so sad knowing my two sons where there with my inlaws and my ex and no one reached out.  I was with my youngest and it was a tough holiday to go from a family of five to just the two of us.... I did struggle.  I wished I had sent my youngest to join them all, as I was not jolly....spent the day in bed with flu anyway....

I'm crazy to be jealous, but to see my GIDX with a woman has caused me such pain.  I guess I wanted him to come out or something...  To hear he is happy and open with this woman in ways he still says he 'couldn't' with me is just so hurtful especially when there were so many times when I was really ready to hear what he had to say.  Now he is bisexual and 'over' all the gay activities.  He says how 'kind' she is.... and how he has zero sympathy with my pity party and my pathetic grabs for sympathy when I reach out to my inlaws who I thought were my family too.  27 years.....

...omg he is so toxic.  So I'm just so sad.  I have to stop beating myself up about the text thing, but it is like it always has been - he winds me up and provokes me and then I react and then I am the crazy one and he the reasonable one and the victim of me, the harridan....  It is cray cray making.... And I am feeling so upset and depressed about it. 

Thanks for being here and listening. It is so hard and I am one of the lucky ones as he admitted the cottaging with 25+ men and the affair with a woman - that last bit only when I said I was divorcing him because I thought he was gay!!  Oh god this is torture that seems unending.  I am divorced 8 mos now.  But it feels like the tie is still there.  I miss him still, and I can't seem to really accept and let go which is the really crazy bit.  No one understands this.  It seems to come in waves that really just knock me down completely.  Things we shared, music, places, so many memories.  I'm still in our home, the marital bed.  Surrounded by so much.... But I get up and start again.  We all do.  This too shall pass....

 

February 8, 2017 8:30 pm  #2


Re: Refuge here, grieving still, losses compounding....

Leah, I think Sean has the answer on your ex's behavior.  He's in the next phase of his narcissistic denial: he's discarded you because you won't play by his rules and he's now wining and dining his next victim.  Give it time and he'll be treating her exactly as he did you. 
  I'm sorry about losing your in-laws.  I expect they're trying as hard as they can not to let in the truth, because it's so painful, so they've chosen to sacrifice the messenger.  Doesn't make it any easier to know this, of course.  
  Maybe jk will loan you some of her anger?
 

 

February 8, 2017 10:20 pm  #3


Re: Refuge here, grieving still, losses compounding....

Leah, 

Yeah dont think about his new girlfriend..  you should feel sorry for her...she's gaining a liar and cheater.  
When your kids talk about him and his place just cover your ears and sing "lalalala"  NO CONTACT

I miss my in-laws too.  They were such kind parents to me.  I will see them at my kids games and if they need a ride to see them...but it does hurt to be excommunicated. They liked me a lot.
I feel sorry for them...they are naive zombie followers of my crazy ex now.

So sorry Its a rollercoaster..don't give up.

Last edited by Rob (February 8, 2017 10:27 pm)


"For we walk by faith, not by sight .."  2Corinthians 5:7
 

February 9, 2017 6:20 am  #4


Re: Refuge here, grieving still, losses compounding....

Leah, 
Torturing yourself by immersing yourself in his s*!t is not going to help you, not one bit.  You are only going to hurt yourself clinging to the past and your need to tell the truth.  Whatever you say, if you are out of the circle, it will be twisted, misconstrued, or changed.  It's really not worth the fight.  You know what happened to you, you don't need other people's endorsement.  He knows too.  Let him live with it.  You can move on to better things. 
I know how hard this is, many of us do.  You don't just lose your spouse, you lose your family, the life you had. The fact that he has moved on and his family seemingly accepts that is something you can't change.  Pushing against a brick wall with a steel door is only going to exhaust and deplete you.  

Take care of yourself.  YOU are what is important.  Move forward, as hard as it is.  You deserve more than sitting and watching him build a new house of lies.  It is good you don't have him in your life anymore.  It hurts like hell, it's tiring, and it is incredibly sad.   But there is hope.  For a much better life, where all of your energy is spent on YOU.  Bravo for going to counseling.  Start building a list of coping behaviors.  Reach out to friends.  Try to stay out of your head grieving about what was, what has happened since, and what might happen in the future.  You have to, or it sinks you.  
Even the littlest steps to do something for yourself can be HUGE in recovering from this loss.  
What can you do for yourself today, just for YOU?  Remember you?  The important one.  
Hugs and know that it does get better. 


“Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely of places.”
 

February 9, 2017 7:51 am  #5


Re: Refuge here, grieving still, losses compounding....

Thanks so much for the helpful replies.  I wish there was some sort of justice, recognition from others that this was NOT me (despite my GIDX's views).  I wanted them to know the whole story, but you are all right in that I'm just prolonging my agony in marinating in the past hurt. 

I loved a person who is not there, never really was there for me.  And it is hard to untangle the me from the us and his mental manipulations and projections onto me.  I've felt now that all the things he would throw at me: "You're crazy, You are overemotional" where reactions to his goading me into rejecting him, so he could be the victim.  When I criticised him for any little thing -  the mundane justified, normal marital disagreements, then he reacted with such violence and hatred that I felt so distraught and got so emotional.  I felt it was me, my complaints that caused it.  Now I see the weight of his guilt and self-loathing really were what was behind his reactions.  So much of it had absolutely nothing to do with me, but I have been conditioned over a long period of time to blame myself for our problems.  And it still goes on.  He actually said "You could turn a straight man gay"  That has fuelled so much rage, thinking how often he made it all about me and my delusions and how I needed to change.  And sadly I have taken that on board for so long that many mental habits are ingrained and it is slow changing that.  My self-esteem is in tatters.  I still have the echoes of years of his voice and the real voice telling me how unkind I am, what a bad parent I am.  And being prone to self-deprecation, I still believe it at some level. 

So like JK and thanks Maresyd, I do need to focus on myself, which as a mother of three who only did a job (one I love and am passionate about, but is not so lucrative) as a sort of hobby spending my life too wrapped up in my role as a wife and mother, I feel so unsure and scared, but slowly slowly I am making progress.  It is tough.  He actually blamed me for not having more of a career as "I could have done anything" which is so rich as he blocked me retraining by making me feel guilty for spending money on myself and asking more from him when he was working so hard.  But it was easy for him to do as I was brainwashed into thinking that my best use of my life was my devotion to my family as a mother and wife....bloody Mormons.  It now seems those roles are gone.  And I have a deep sense of failure to add to the mess.   

Last night I spoke to one of my sis in law, and she was kind, but it feels like I'm just too toxic to them to be in touch as my anger and disbelief come up.  I just flood with emotion and the desire to tell them all the bad things their beloved brother has done which, of course, is not going to make them feel like talking to me is anything but painful and unpleasant, because you know what! This is painful and beyond unpleasant.  And it makes me crazy with a sort of destructive rage.  So they are not unkind, just protecting themselves from hurt which I seem unable to do.  I need to save my strength as you so rightly point out.  Focus on me.  My life is good in so many ways.  Gratitude to all of you for being here.  It is a refuge.  X

     Thread Starter
 

February 9, 2017 8:31 am  #6


Re: Refuge here, grieving still, losses compounding....

Leah..

That is awkward talking to your sis inlaw.  There is no way she could comprehend the abuse you lived. .not if you had a million therapy sessions with her.
Alas she cannot be the friend you need ..even if she wants to she cannot speak that badly about her brother.
  I too am trying to get the cruel words out of my head..the mean things.  The thing is my ex said so many of those things in the end to justify to herself that her affair was ok...so I see every put down of me, every swear, etc for what it is now ..a lie.  Every one..from the day we married decades ago.

Even reading your story from afar.."you could make a straight man gay"..is a lie..there is nothing a woman or my ex could do to make me gay..not if you put a gun to my head.

I urge you..if his lips were moving it was a lie.  Just because they say something does not make it true..screaming it in rage and beating us with it..does not make it true. 

No contact with him..none. We are more than victims and refuges. We are good authentic people who know right from wrong.  I feel priveleaged to know you and your story.  I say we move on with each other, with friends and family and good people that know and support us.   I feel blessed to be away from my gay narc ex..scared, confused, sad,...but still blessed..  let's see if we can all move on together.


"For we walk by faith, not by sight .."  2Corinthians 5:7
 

February 9, 2017 8:32 am  #7


Re: Refuge here, grieving still, losses compounding....

Leah, 
  You hit the nail right on the head when you said "the weight of his guilt and self-loathing really were what was behind his reactions."  He was projecting onto you that guilt and self-loathing, so he could continue to function, and continue using you to deny the reality of his sexuality.  What a complicated, sick dynamic it is.  And how common it seems to be--so many of us have been manipulated in this way.  We are needed and resented at the same time, because our spouses hate needing us and hate hating themselves.  
    I so so understand your "bloody Mormons."  My father was Mormon, and although he married out of the church and I was not raised in it, it essentially defined the way he thought about men and women, a fact I realized only well into my adulthood (I think my mother and I were working through it at the same time).  I remember my father telling me, "Your job as a woman is to always put your husband first."  One time he even said to me, "I'm surprised your husband lets you have your own opinions."  The idea that woman should abdicate her self, that she has no right to a self, that she finds her fulfillment in giving up her self to others...so convenient to the others, isn't it?  And it just sets us up for emotional abuse: being nothing, we're objects of contempt, the cringing dog in the corner just waiting--begging, in their eyes--to be kicked.   What is required now is to turn our care and compassion on ourselves, to remember that we didn't fail; we were set up for failure.  By the church, by our training, and by our husbands, who although they were also failed, still in that system held power and sway over us.  
   

 

February 9, 2017 10:28 am  #8


Re: Refuge here, grieving still, losses compounding....

Hi Leah,

I'm so sorry you're going through this.  It's not right, it's not fair, and you don't deserve this treatment - from your ex OR his family.  But blood, as they say, is thicker than water.  He is their family, and they will keep him as such.  They cannot keep him and be welcoming to him and his new gf if they are also in contact with you and sympathetic to your plight.  You would think there would be a way to do both, but it's just not the way people operate.  They know that if they reach out to you, all you will have to talk about at this point in your journey is what their son/brother/father did to you, and they can't handle that.  They want to love him, and they know knowing more will conflict them.  So they turn away from the cutting truth in order to have peace.  The fact that he's actively deluding them by bringing a woman around means that he's not above lying to them about you and your role in all of this.  So while their reaction seems harsh, it could just be that he's told them all untruths about you, and no truth about his role in this.  And they therefore align with him.

He lied to you and deceived you for 20 years.  There is literally NO reason to believe that anything he's telling you now is truth, either.  His new gf may not know ANYthing about him being bi, or having cheated on you.  He's singing her praises in the hopes that you will compare yourself to her and feel bad about yourself.  And it's working!  The fact that he feels the need to say anything about his new gf to you is just odd, if you think about it.  What would be the point of that except to make you feel bad?  Is he really that happy if he finds himself needing to actively hurt you when you're already divorced.  It implies that what you think is still important to him on some level.  This while having a terrific gf who's so kind and understanding?  I call bullshit.  That poor woman - she has NO.IDEA what she's in for. And even if she is knowledgeable of the truth, she's trusting him to behave when she really shouldn't - the past is the best predictor of the future, after all.  Poor, deluded her.  Horrible, deceiving him.  Nothing's changed - he's just got a new woman to torture is all.  Because the old one wouldn't let him do that to her anymore.  Decide that you're not going to start now.  DON'T ANSWER any of those texts.  The only thing you two have to discuss now is your children.  And that should be at a minimum considering they're both adults.

You need to go no contact.  I know you probably don't want to, because then you wouldn't even have the little strings that bind you left.  But the contact you have now isn't healthy or beneficial to you at ALL.  Think of yourself now and make decisions based on what you'd tell your best friend to do for their sake.  You don't even need to tell him you're going no contact.  Just stop contacting him for anything other than emergencies.  And by emergencies, I mean "Our son just got into a car accident and is at X Hospital's E.R."  I'm serious.  Stop answering his texts at ALL.  ANY engagement from you tells him that you're still hooked on him - that he's got TWO women in his back pocket.  Decide that NOTHING he says gets a reaction from you - not "my new woman is so much better than you", and certainly not "I miss you and think I might want you back".  NOTH-ING.  It is the easiest, fastest way to cutting the remnants of the emotions that bind the two of you.  And that's what's best for you.

As for memories, there is little you can do there except decide that you want to get RID of the marital bed and find something new for yourself - EVEN if only to get his skin cells off your bed and make you feel less weighed down.  Get all new sheets and pillows and bedding, too.  Wash that man right out of your hair.  I don't care if the old bed is the most blissful thing on the planet - it's full of memories that you don't need anymore.  Start making your home your own - pick out a few new paint colors, move the furniture around, but some new things.  Get fresh flowers for your kitchen or your bedside table every week.  Go look for a few classes that might interest you - from learning to write to learning to cook a souffle.  Think about the things you've always wanted to try and chase them down and try them.  Reach out to old friends you've lost touch with and plan a dinner out.  Trade the car in for one that only has your name on it.  Spend the evening in fuzzy p.j.'s, drinking hot cocoa or having a dinner completely of cheese, crackers, fruit and cheese. Adopt a pet.  Start.Chasing.Joy.  It's there.  But you cannot find it where you thought you could.  And that's good knowledge.  Now you can start looking for it elsewhere.  I can guarantee you'll find it!

You can do this!

Kel


You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm.
 

February 9, 2017 10:43 am  #9


Re: Refuge here, grieving still, losses compounding....

Wow YES. Mormonism promotes some sort of mutant hybrid cross between a 1950's perfectly coiffed housewife - pioneer woman canning her own fruit, and a career woman with six kids.  Idealistic types like me fell into a sticky trap that suited an oppressive patriarchy and creates an atmosphere that encourages perfectionism and self-denial for women in their roles as wives and mothers.

OutofHisCloset wrote:

"  The idea that woman should abdicate her self, that she has no right to a self, that she finds her fulfillment in giving up her self to others...so convenient to the others, isn't it?  And it just sets us up for emotional abuse: being nothing, we're objects of contempt, the cringing dog in the corner just waiting--begging, in their eyes--to be kicked.  
   

 
That is what I feel.  I bought into that so heavily.  He had it both ways, a Mormon wife and a non-Mormon life.  Even though when we married, it was a relationship was based on shared values of Mormonism - and if not Mormonism, at least basic honesty and compassion.  He manipulated me so skillfully.  I find it hard to believe at times looking back, how he could even look me in the eye, let alone come to me as a lover.  I just never thought he could be capable of such a massive betrayal and so often done.  He minimises it all the time saying how he loved me soo much, so often, but he hated me equally as often and it was a confusing and unsettling experience.  I never really had any security of emotional support as any complaint could potentially be met with a self-esteem shreddingly hateful reaction.

But he was a victim of the Mormon's too.  Coming out was not an option and exploring one's sexuality in that culture is just not allowed.  And I suppose my compassionate nature has tried to see that, but we came out of the church early in our marriage (a move that was painful for me, and I wanted him to appreciate that it was a move towards a stronger US that I made, showing my loyalty and commitment to him as a person, my husband and the father of my sons hoping he would feel more loved, valued!) But all he heard if I mentioned this was blame.  And so he always reacted so unkindly, so hostile to the thought that he had in anyway influenced me...as that was such It was a crazy dysfunctional dynamic and so sad for me as my intentions were good and made from a place of love for my family which only feeds my sense of the injustice of it all.  But I'm grateful for the diversion of my path out of that disempowering culture, which I continue to scratch my way out of the vestiges of.  It's like a murky forest with spiderwebs hanging about and holes that I drop into as I go thru, but hopefully to the light ahead....even if I keep falling.

Now he tells our sons we were ill-suited from the start....well we were perfectly suited if he actually was what he made everyone think he was.  An upright man of strong integrity who valued truth and compassion for one's fellow man.  I did have a funny retort to one of his barbs, when I said how much I had tried to meet his needs, he replied 'You never met my needs" And I had to reply "Well you could not be more correct there, gay boy!"  Immature I know, but yea I never had a cock, so I guess that "need" was never gonna be met by me!!  I need to tap in to my sassy, angry, strong witty side more often. 

And yes I do need to recognise that the loss of my in-law as family is pretty total and leave them be.  It is soo soo hard.  So painful to think that to see my MIL (or any of them really) would only be painful for us both.  I wish that wasn't the case, but sadly it is.  And with her so ill, I may never see her again.  I sent flowers and a kind email remembering good times, so that is all I can do. 

Anyway it is cathartic sharing this out with you all.  I haven't really been able to fully express things and that it is starting to flow outward is good.  And to have others witness one's pain is helpful as there is nothing for it...one has to just go thru it....  good to have company on the journey though!  X

     Thread Starter
 

February 9, 2017 10:58 am  #10


Re: Refuge here, grieving still, losses compounding....

Leah, what struck me is your comment that you are still in the marital home and marital bed. Since you are now divorced I assume that it is now YOUR home so it probably time to do some redecorating. Think about removing the marital bed, either to a guest room or donating or selling it. Decide what you want YOUR bedroom to look like. Paint is cheap so figure out what will makes that room restful for you.

My ex wanted the marital bed (I didn't) so once I bought a home I surfed Craigslist until found one that was just what I wanted. Then I bought a new mattress and box-spring that was my comfort level. Over time and on sale I have added new bedding. A big pile of pillows too.

I find that painful memories tend to happened when I am between sleeping and waking so having a good sleep is important. My husband of 30+ years left because he said he was gay but at one point was dating a woman. That was hurtful because he was going back from what he had told me and was leading our children to think he really wasn't gay. By that point though I had no regrets that he was gone: another mantra "Whatever he is he isn't for me." I don't know which of them ended it but it did not work out and he is now with a man.

I think it was Dorothy Parker who said "Time wounds all heels." Let it do its job and take care of yourself.


Try Gardening. It'll keep you grounded.
 

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