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).

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.  

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)

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)