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1 of 1- Daisy LD
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How do I reconcile love and hate?
As much as I love this man that I've been married to for 26 years, I hate him for lying to me about who he really is for who knows how long. It's all good and all bad at the very same time. Laughing and crying in the same moment. It's like living hell on Earth and it's making me crazy!
- OutofHisCloset
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Re: How do I reconcile love and hate?
Daisy,
Yes, the cognitive dissonance is a hard place to dwell. Because you've been honest and straightforward, and loving from a place of trust, knowing now that he was deceiving you, lying to you, and using you makes you feel as if you can't know reality or trust what you see and hear.
What you are feeling is the result of finding out that the man you loved was an illusion, a false front constructed to fool you, the world, and himself (even if he's not GID, he tried to fool himself into believing what he was doing was ok). After my stbx disclosed to me, and in one anguished conversation early on I said that my whole life with him--over 30 years married--now felt fake, he said, "But it happened as it happened. I was those things you thought I was." I knew at the time that just because it felt genuine on the surface didn't make it so. My feelings and actions were genuine. His weren't. That's how I resolved the cognitive dissonance and began to move forward. My love was real, but that's the only certainty. The man I loved, it turns out, was an illusion, a master illusionist. He was far more and other than I knew, and I had to integrate my new knowledge about him into my old ideas of him. That's what you are doing, and you are doing it in the context of not wanting it to be true and wishing very much your marriage could be what you wanted it to be.
I'm sorry you've been hurt as you have, and sorry that you're hurting. Just one little piece of the hell they introduced into our lives.
- StrongerThanIKnew
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Re: How do I reconcile love and hate?
Daisy, I have always heard that anger and hatred are secondary emotions, and I believe that. For me, when I sat with my anger long enough, I came to understand that it would rear its head when my STBX did something that hurt me. My spouse would do something that triggered those feelings of betrayal, those feelings of being used and tossed aside. Sometimes she does something that leaves me frightened for my future - how will I be able to survive and care for my kids, etc? So, for me, anger is just hurt and fear on steroids. And my spouse's actions hurt so much because, despite everything that has happened, I still love and miss my husband. That is how I reconcile it.
And by the way, I have made peace with my anger. It propelled me to take action. It helps me keep my guard up when I desperately WANT to think of my spouse as the kind and loving man I married instead of the cold and selfish person she is now. I won't need it forever, and I hope I will be able to let it go when I no longer it. For now though, it protects me - if that makes sense.
Stay strong.
- phoenix
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Re: How do I reconcile love and hate?
oh that cognitive dissonance. I lived there for so many years!
I wish I didn't, but I still have hate in my heart for my ex. It's much less now that 2 years ago. It's now further down the list of emotions as I've worked very hard to forgive her. That concept of having forgiven, but still holding some hate in my heart seems like it shouldn't be possible. Like those things can't coexist. But I think in the complex emotional parts of our heads and hearts we can still harbor conflicting emotions.
Keep in touch with your emotional state. Don't let those mixed emotions send you to a bad place. Your happiness and future are worth putting yourself first. Your husband clearly hasn't.
-Formerly "Lostdad" - I now embrace the username "phoenix" because my former life ended in flames, but my new life will be spectacular.
- KitKat
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Re: How do I reconcile love and hate?
As stronger stated it’s usually from a place of other emotions. My therapist has a whiteboard that has an anger bush on it. The roots of that bush are fear, anxiety and hurt. Those are usually what feed the anger/hate. We have all been hurt and will all resolve that in our own ways. As time passes and I see who my STBX has become (still don’t think he was always this way), the love is going away. He is so hateful with no apologies or remorse so I’m trying to disengage and let go as much as I can. It’s a process of grieving and we will all jump around to different places at different times in that.
- OutofHisCloset
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Re: How do I reconcile love and hate?
KitKat,
Yes, it's amazing that they actually help us detach and "fall out of love" when they act in the selfish and entitled ways they do. I would never have believed that after loving my stbx for over 40 years I could ever not love him. But I no longer do.
- 4everdamaged
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Re: How do I reconcile love and hate?
Staring down the barrel of a loaded shotgun and ending up in the hospital cured me of : “I’m going to love him for the rest of my life “ lol. And I CAN laugh. But beyond that, the time and distance away from him has been the biggest healer. I know I loved a fake. If he ever really “loved me”. I’ll never know and don’t care anymore. I’ve said before. Despite everything I don’t hate him.
- Lena
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Re: How do I reconcile love and hate?
Daisy,
After discovering more and more facts about my SDGHID and his lack of remorse regarding his actions before and after, made me to see his true side to the point that I often ask myself a question " How could I love him ever?"
Sometimes I miss what I had lost, but then I keep reminding myself that" lost thing" never existed thank to him.
I would never forgive him what he have done, especially how he handled things after my walking away from him.
- 4everdamaged
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Re: How do I reconcile love and hate?
Daisy,
I’m getting ready to leave for my delayed honeymoon. So I won’t be posting for a few weeks. To soften my last reply. I just want to add that I can echo !ena’s comments, with one exception. I do forgive my XH despite EVERYTHING he did to me. I have to work on it, daily and at times it’s hard. But forgiveness is FOR ME! I couldn’t go the rest of my life hating him and have any chance for happiness and peace. After the attack, I made it a point to pray for him daily. It was HARD, really HARD to pray for the man that tried to kill me. I dont do it every day anymore, I do pray for him sometimes, usually when I find myself starting to wallow in self pity over what happened to my life. Or when I’m angry again over everything and everyone I lost. Or when I’m in physical pain from what he did to me (as I have been lately).
But then I turn it to a heart of gratitude for what I do have. A new and better life without him including a new and awesome REAL husband. I have my arm, even if it does hurt. Sorry if this has come off preachy. I just wanted to leave you with kinder words.
I know you are suffering right now. If I’m too strong or blunt it’s only because I truly care. Blessings honey as you continue on your journey .
Last edited by 4everdamaged (October 23, 2018 11:24 am)