Also: one more ray of sunshine--our local drive in is opening for the season this weekend to show Avengers: Endgame. I'm going to get BBQ from my favorite spot nearby and go to the show, and then get ice cream at my favorite spot on the way home (if its open for the season--might be a little early). I am SO GLAD I called an end to it all. Like Captain Marvel, I'm going to emerge from the lies and gaslighting to become one of the most powerful weapons in the universe:  "I’ve been fighting with one arm tied behind my back. But what happens when I’m finally set free?"

Estella,

Good for you.   You got yourself away from someone that has no problem duping another woman..   You can surround yourself with better people now.

Dear Mimi, 

I am with you there.  I am so angry.  UNLIKE you however, I did NOT keep my ex's secret.  And so destroyed the relationship entirely which is actually a good thing.  And here is why....

This last weekend I saw my ex with his new beard (wife) and he pretended I didn't exist.  So I went up to say hello and meet his new wife of one year standing.  She said, "I thought you looked familiar"  which is amusing to think she would not have done her research enought to recognize his ex wife of 27 years!!  But it was my son's event and I wanted to show myself above the farce of ignoring one another in a small space, but it was to no avail.

My anger IS The intended effect he wants to get as from his POV as he told me if I called his behaviour out by telling others then it would cut off all hope of any relationship.  So we never speak.  And even now 3 years post divorce, he cannot get over it and be adult enough to greet me as an acquaintance.  God it is so messed up that I am treated unkindly in public and punished further - and my sons are too.  No kindness or compassion for OUR shock and grief at the late breaking news of his decades of sexually adventurous explorations that defy what was our assummed reality and broke our marital agreement.  
And this grudge he will hold til he dies, because to forgive me for being human and hurt and angry is just not his style.  He is a proud man.  And NOT gay...just a sexual adventurer with all....or some other story like that.  
But this is simply internalized homophobia.  Bisexual is simply a accurate description for someone who enjoys sexual contact with both sexes.  And gay if it is mostly men.  So to say he is bisexual or "was" really shouldn't be an issue.  And homophobia is the problem here.  We should be able to label their behaviour accurately even if they do not.  And if they could be honest and brave enough to do so, but they are not.  It is fear and cowardice.  Plain and simple.  So why should we fear saying the truth and fighting homophobia in this basic way by talking openly about OUR experience?????  

So though I am angry and hurt, I feel liberated too.  He only reveals how unkind and cruel he is to ignore the mother of his children and a loving wife for so long.  I simply called him out on his behaviour.  That is my crime.  The new wife was full of tension and chatted as he looked on in stony silence with his grim little sardonic smile.  I pitied her and I felt actually she is carrying him now, just as I did for so long.  
And I am now free.  So I am trying to work through my anger and rage and see it clearly for what it is...further evidence of his lack of loving kindness towards another human being who he has treated with disrespect and contempt.  And the hypocrisy of expecting ME to act like a martyr and hold on to his false persona and lies and let it corrupt me from the inside.  No thank you.

He has lost face.  He has lost respect and friendships too and though I take some little pleasure in it, really it is ALL down to his choices and HIS behaviour.  And it is kinda sad that in this day and age people are going to judge and reject people who are honest about their lives.  If our spouses were honest - with us first - and then the world, then this forum would not be full of so much heartbreak.   Me revealing his betrayals was also due to his choices and behaviour - never did he ask me permission for his actions out of our marital agreement and neither did he openly ask me to keep his behaviour secret, but he did threaten me with what he would do if I did.  I had nothing to lose as I wanted a divorce, so here I am.   He is only following through on that threat now.  So why should I be hurt or angry after all this is what he did for so many years while married to me.  It was always my fault and he was ever the long suffering one despite the verbally abusive barrage and simple contempt that flavoured any dispute and many interactions. 

Anyway I came here to vent as usual and your post really made me seethe too.  Why is it us that suffers?  We must choose more wisely NOT to allow ourselves to buy into their narrative.  They cannot make us suffer unless we choose to deny reality WITH them.  My ex is not a kind and loving man who I have lost.  He is a selfish man who is angry that he doesn't get the respect and moral high ground he feels he has a right to.  And so like a toddler in a rage, he has thrown me out of his playpen.   That is all I was to him.  Useful, until I wasn't.  So aren't I lucky to be out of that particular play pen?  YES! I so am lucky, blest and living free of that everyday insiduous abuse of someone who is so disgusted with themselves that they are only disgusted with those around them and spread not love, but grief and self loathing in their wake.  I'm only now throwing off so much of the self-loathing and negativity that living with this poisonous person left me with.  And we have a right to be angry.  But we don't have to suffer, especially in silence!!!  

I wish you a more easy and comfortable mental state soon, Mimi! 

Last edited by Leah (May 2, 2019 6:16 am)

Leah wrote:

My anger IS The intended effect he wants to get . . .

So though I am angry and hurt, I feel liberated too.  He only reveals how unkind and cruel he is to ignore the mother of his children and a loving wife for so long.  I simply called him out on his behaviour.  That is my crime.  

. . . So I am trying to work through my anger and rage and see it clearly for what it is...further evidence of his lack of loving kindness towards another human being who he has treated with disrespect and contempt.  

 It was always my fault and he was ever the long suffering one despite the verbally abusive barrage and simple contempt that flavoured any dispute and many interactions. 

We must choose more wisely NOT to allow ourselves to buy into their narrative.  They cannot make us suffer unless we choose to deny reality WITH them.  

My ex is not a kind and loving man who I have lost.  He is a selfish man who is angry that he doesn't get the respect and moral high ground he feels he has a right to.

And so like a toddler in a rage, he has thrown me out of his playpen.   That is all I was to him.  Useful, until I wasn't.  So aren't I lucky to be out of that particular play pen?  YES! I so am lucky, blest and living free of that everyday insiduous abuse of someone who is so disgusted with themselves that they are only disgusted with those around them and spread not love, but grief and self loathing in their wake.  

Leah, thank you so much for this.

Especially, “My ex is not a kind and loving man who I have lost.  He is a selfish man who is angry that he doesn't get the respect and moral high ground he feels he has a right to.”

I have really been working with these ideas too.  Our spouses feel so much that they deserve things—including respect and and moral persona—that they cannot bear having anyone suggest anything otherwise.  And then they punish, and that punishment makes them into that very person they imagine they are not.  And, one of their harshest punishments is to twist the story: to insist that those they have hurt are the ones doing the hurting. And then they punish the hurt ones more because they “deserve it.”

It is mind spinning.
 

Last edited by OnMyOwnTwoFeet (May 2, 2019 7:48 am)

Leah, I was nodding my head, "yes" over your claim that what they exhibit is an internalized homophobia. I suspect that the closeted and in denial feel they deserve the moral high ground because they have spent their lives denying who they are, and this is because they cannot bear to admit they are what they believe to be immoral.  And so, in the twisted logic of the closet, having spent their lives living in defense of what's moral (by denying who they are because they believe "that kind of person" to be immoral), they believe they have earned the moral high ground. 
  As OnMyOwnTwoFeet says, "It is mind spinning."