My deep fears about my ex

[joeramabeme]

Apologies for length of post - required.

Towards the end of my marriage I would have moments (days/weeks) of feeling this deep sense of being frozen around her.  Although I/she called it fear; "it" was something more primal and visceral. 

She always knew when I was feeling "it" and would demand that I not feel this way telling me that "I have nothing to fear from her".  Additionally, she wanted an explanation for my feelings. Though I attempted to explain "it", I was unable to find words, for me or her.

This all came up for me recently as I have had inadvertent exposure to her through mutually visited online sites (sometimes even emailed directly to me by the sites automated system).  I see her hanging with a guy who is a loser and feel so hurt that I was discarded and replaced with this piece of sh!t and that she likely favorably compares him to me.

This and the holiday season have brought back another wave of feeling lost, confused and hurt deeply wounded and a recurrence of that primal fear - the "it".  This time, I think I got a clear sense of what "it" was.

I knew how deeply in love I was with her (despite my anger and frustrations).  She was my everything and despite her stated dissatisfaction with everything Joe; she kept being all those ways a loving wife would be.  I was sure that someday I would reconcile it all. 

But toward the end, no matter what I did, I could see she could not (would not) receive my messages of love and so I tried all the harder to show and tell her what she meant to me.  My efforts were simply in vain and seemingly acted to reverse her good feelings/actions towards me.

I felt powerless and scared.  Like a child reaching out to a Parental Actor and getting all the signals that you are loved but sensing there was not a reciprocal connection. 

There was a frantic helplessness like drifting out to sea!  She was right in front of me, in the flesh, talking and laughing while she continued to slip away.  I felt so confused and began to feel like a second rate guy married to a woman that did not feel I was worthy of.  Acting like a teenage boy trying to show off and impress the woman I was married to for 10 years to woo her.  Crazy!

Repetitive attempts boomeranging on my love with anger and distance, leaving me to slowly and grudgingly acknowledge that I could not change what was happening. 

I was scared.  Not scared "of" her, but scared "by" her.  It all 'looked like', 'felt like' and 'seemed like' she was authentic and genuine - I am sure she was; but it wasn't connected.  It was fragmented - pieces hobbled together with the mightiest of effort. 

My wife The Actor received an Emmy, but my wife the spouse walked off the stage while I cringed for her to stay and live the movie that we were cast into with one another.

I know none of this is "new news" for this board but sometimes the depth of my feelings catch up to all I have read and I just want to vomit all over the place. 

I loved my Wife, the actress.  I hate the women that walked off the stage to go back and live in Hollywood.  She has no clue that one side is a performance and another real-life. 

I don't want to feel how split my insides are.  Me being a real life person in a reality show and unknowingly being paired to an actress who was trying to complete an episode that, once over, would bring her to the next challenge.

The joys from her performance are not equal to the admission price of a now empty theater.

 

[Skip]

Betrayal trauma, Joe. And it sounds like depression set in. Have you tried this?
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=79772.550

It's hard to lose someone you love. Frustrated as you were, you wanted it to fix. Fixing was certainly possible, she just invest herself in it for some reason - probably resentment stood in the way.

That much time together, she is a part of you.

You have suffered a great loss.

It is only natural that it hurts.

[bestintentions]

Joe -

I have followed your story somewhat and am just posting to... .respond.  In trying to detach myself, I can liken my situation to what you have described.  Waiting for my actress wife to retire and live a serene life in a secluded cabin or farm where contact with the outside world is hardly necessary.  To live out to old age by the light of a fireplace with glasses of wine.  Hopefully I will realize this dream, albeit very likely with someone else.  I hope that sooner or later the boomerang won't come back... .

It sounds to me as if you actually received some communication & reciprocation at some point, and it's my guess that this is making it all the more difficult to detach.  I guess I must have as well in 25 years, but I'm having a tough time recalling those moments in any reliably meaningful way.  I think they may have been mostly my own projections and delusions.  This is what I try to focus on to move on.  I think I have a high EQ and ultimately it got in my way during my marriage.  I have to remind myself that most people I deal with daily aren't living with a PD, and that any expectations I have of my stbx are, and always were, completely unrealistic.

I am going to FL to visit family next weekend myself and I hope you do the same and find some peace, even if for just a short while.

bi