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February 9, 2018 5:44 pm  #1


Anger, rage, disgust

My GIDEX husband moved out last month. I am feeling no love for him. I loved a person that did not exist. Now I am feeling more rage and anger and true disgust with what he did. I honestly am repulsed and livid with anger.  I am left alone, isolated, overwhelmed, to try to support our son through this emotional nightmare. I am playing the movies in my head of our 35 year relationship. I am also angry at myself for not seeing what I should have seen. I am so angry. I am truly feeling so much rage. I have been the only grown up for so long and now I want to lose control and just light into my evil ex with the righteous wrath in my heart. I want to call him out on every last piece of BS he told me from the very first day I met him. I was so young and stupid. I should have seen more clearly. God help me. How could I have been so stupid?  Looking back, I should have known where it would take me.  I did not want to see what I should have seen. I was snowed. What is wrong with ME.

 

February 9, 2018 6:05 pm  #2


Re: Anger, rage, disgust

Oh Goonnow, I know this feeling, I posted some months ago when I felt this same overwhelming pain. I wanted to out him to his family and tell everyone who meant anything to him exactly what he’d been doing but I was lucky enough to have lots of kind and supportive messages that helped me back off and regroup before I did or said something that would harm me even more.

Of course you are angry, and you should be. What has happened to you is so hurtful. But this will pass and you may wish you hadn’t acted on the feelings you have right now. I know how hard this part of healing is, but I promise you that it lessens in time.

Deep breaths lovely, you can ride this...use us all here to help you.

Last edited by Duped (February 9, 2018 6:06 pm)

 

February 9, 2018 7:17 pm  #3


Re: Anger, rage, disgust

It's such a hard thing to deal with, isn't it? I am suppressing my anger and it's difficult. NO ONE else knows about this except for him and me. I don't know if I can ever tell anyone even AFTER this over and done with (with any luck).


“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain, when you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” ~ Haruki Murakami ~
 
 

February 9, 2018 9:24 pm  #4


Re: Anger, rage, disgust

Thank you for responding. I just need to vent and it helps a lot to have someone understand my reality even though I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

     Thread Starter
 

February 12, 2018 3:53 am  #5


Re: Anger, rage, disgust

God, I know that feeling.  It is the memories of all those times that get to me.  So many when he took a morally superior attitude to me and in some disagreement actually told me to see the truth about myself.  God the projections he put out onto me were endless.  Telling me I needed to be more honest with myself....so often!!!  How ironic eh?  All the fights where I knew something else was going on, but he only made it about ME.  If only I would be happy and content, then all would be hunky dory.  It was my discontent with feeling emotionally isolated from him.  It was my discontent with a lack of shared interests and values...little did I suspect the rot that lie behind my sense, my intuition telling me that this was not as it appeared. 

And I did out him.  Not that it did anything really for me, except relieve the pressure cooker in my brain that might have exploded as my sons acted as it if was just a normal divorce where we 'grew' apart!  Or my in-laws whom he told I had left him.  All the acting and pretense was just too much.  I don't think we should hold their secrets.  I think we should just take out newspaper ads and list them... Ok maybe best you don't listen to me ranting..... As now it makes absolutely no difference to anything anyway.  I just feel a little bit sad for myself as I just gave him another example to use of MY betrayal of him....god the irony of it all.  

 

February 12, 2018 8:43 am  #6


Re: Anger, rage, disgust

 This thread hits me where I am, too.  Playing through the movies, the projection onto me of his disordered behavior and attitudes, and my willingness to believe, as I was being groomed to do, that it was all on me.  
   I am looking back at our 35 year marriage with a new eye, with new understanding, and I can see that what bothered me then--emotional distance, a lack of shared interests, his lack of investment in a shared life--were the result not of my failures to engage him, support him, understand him, put him first {this last a message from my childhood about a wife's duty), but had their roots in his conflicted self.  I can see that the over the top narcissism I've experienced from him in the last three years since disclosure was not, as I thought, a departure or aberration in his character, but an intensification of what was already on display for our entire marriage.  I think about how he devalued me all along, and how although it bothered me, I never was willing to see it for what it was, and I just took it.  And the blame.
   Of course I would now rather have a real partnership and real intimacy with him than be facing the last 25 years of life alone, but I realize I never had a real partnership or intimacy with him--and not for want of trying!--and I'm feeling that at least I'll have those 25 years free of the emotional upheaval and psychological torment that he brought into my life.  Going forward my "vision" is more clear, and I'll be giving myself periodic "vision checks" to keep it sharp.

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (February 12, 2018 8:43 am)

 

February 12, 2018 9:27 am  #7


Re: Anger, rage, disgust

Leah, yes the irony is so profound, isn't it?  My husband was the ONE person I allowed myself to trust implicitly. He would often tell me I should have more trust in people. God, the irony.

Last edited by Goonnowgo (February 12, 2018 9:30 am)

     Thread Starter
 

February 12, 2018 9:45 am  #8


Re: Anger, rage, disgust

Deleted

Last edited by Goonnowgo (March 19, 2019 1:19 am)

     Thread Starter
 

February 12, 2018 10:48 am  #9


Re: Anger, rage, disgust

Go On,
   I'm 64.  I've spent the last three years immersed in this drama/disaster.  After the shock and the trauma bonding, which comprised a little over a year, I guess I have been slowly coming to my senses.  
   I learned to re-frame (which is what you are doing when you revised "he gave me the kind of love I always wanted since childhood" to "at least that's what I thought I was getting"); counter the self destructive messages by talking back to myself.  Acquiring analytical tools--learning about narcissism (charm, self-pity, rage), etc--helped.  So did reading the accounts of other women in my situation and hearing the stories of those who'd made it through to the other side (Chump Lady is excellent for this, and there is a thread on the private forum--you need to register--for "Silver Queens," those of us who are older--lots of good shared advice and support, check it out).
   I think that finding a new purpose in life is also helpful.  I'm going to retire in a year, so my future is wide open.  This is both exciting and frightening, because where I live and what I do is completely open.  Choice is wonderful, but it's also overwhelming.  But I found that when I reframe the future as finding an new purpose--something to do that supplies meaning to me and makes me feel as if I will be useful--helps.
  If you're not seeing a therapist, I hope you will take the sentiments you've written to one, and ask for help moving out of of these phase.  Cognitive behaviorists have concrete suggestions (like reframing), those trained in trauma, like EMDR, can help in other ways.  Find a good fit.  
   It's not too late.  You can do it.  We can do it.  

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (February 12, 2018 10:49 am)

 

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