The Aftermath - Clarity and Confusion

[RomanticFool]

I have not posted here for a few months as the wreckage of my life had to be dealt with. Those of you familiar with my story will know that I got embroiled in a toxic relationship which wrecked my marriage. On top of that my brother in law died and on February 12th my father died after suffering from blood cancer. In the space of 8 months I lost four people I loved. Two died and two are ex partners. Of course the ex affair partner is the most painful loss of all still. It surprises me to say that. Christmas was very difficult as I spent it with my sister and while trying to offer her the comfort she needed after losing her husband, I felt wretched myself as my wife was about to move out and I miss my ex affair partner so very much. I managed to be of some comfort to my sister and we spent our last Christmas with my father. I felt emotionally annihilated over this period but managed to override my pain for the sake of my family. My father's funeral is on March 3rd and it is going to be a very difficult day.

My ex wife is now living on her own and is happy with her new partner. We are friends still and in the end things finished on good terms. I am grateful for that. My family have supported each other through my father's illness and death and I have had to ignore my own suffering in favour of the greater good. In fact my family got annoyed with me when I told them how much pain I was in through the loss of my ex affair partner. They all loved my ex wife and on some level think me foolish, but more than that they have had their own grief.

It's been six month since I was with my ex and two months since I bumped into her at an AA meeting which I promptly walked out of. It was intensely painful seeing her again, not least because she appeared to be with another man and it killed me to see that. I have stayed away from her though and there has been no contact between us since that time. I don't expect to hear from her again. While I still think of her every day and yearn for the good times, I have also been thinking a great deal about the bad. With a bit of distance i can see that she was never as invested in the r/s as I was and her behaviour indicated red flags from the outset which I ignored. Since I was married and still living with my wife, I can now see that this situation made it impossible for me to give my attention to my ex and put me under an intense amount of pressure. I still feel angry at her hot and cold behaviour and the brutality of the final discard, just a week after a wonderful holiday together...but that's her stuff. I can only look at my own behaviour. I have tried every day to look at her side of things and ignore her abusive behaviour to see how it was not a good situation for her. I also regret my emotional thinking at the time and look back wistfully at whether I could have been kinder to her when she was acting out on past trauma and whether my own empathy was so impaired at the time that I was unable to see her side of things at all. I suppose that is my biggest regret, the fact that I couldn't avoid emotional thinking and my own reactive nature. However, I am also aware that it would have been a long and difficult process to try to deal with her emotional volatility and insecurities even had I been free and emotionally available to her. I regret that I never gave myself the chance to find out. However, these thoughts are tempered by the fact that she was not a reasonable person at the best of times, that she attacked me physically and verbally and destroyed me emotionally. I know in time I will conclude that the r/s could not be saved and that we are both better off with other people who don't trigger us.

I have been thinking alot about empathy. I have been pursued for months by a friend of mine from AA who has displayed love addiction traits and has been in a great deal of pain. I have offered her friendship but made it clear that I am unable to have a r/s with her due my situation. I have observed how difficult it is to get through to her exactly what I've experienced. She cries and demands my attention (mostly over WhatsApp) and wants to go over and over the situation to question why I don't want a r/s with her. I have seen impaired empathy in action here and I have challenged her on this very issue. She sees herself as this wonderfully empathetic and loving person but refuses to consider the pain and suffering I am currently experiencing. I have been patient and understanding with her but also boundaried when I've had to be. She has finally understood what I mean by empathy and this insight has been the most valuable thing I've learnt on these boards. I don't know that I'll ever be able to conduct cordial friendships with women who trigger me, but for the ones who don't and are suffering themselves I am able to offer calm and patient friendship and share the insight I have discovered here.

I should say that I have been spending a great deal of time with my male friends and also people outside of recovery. I have met a few healthy women who could see immediately that I am in no fit state for a relationship and they have very healthily kept their distance. I feel that I am becoming healthier and wiser though I wake up every morning still yearning for my ex lover. The major thing I have really learnt is to sit with the pain and don't act out on it. Considering I was suicidal not so long ago, I feel I have made tremendous progress and am untangling myself from the emotional wreckage of my addictive behaviour.

RF

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I should say that I have been spending a great deal of time with my male friends and also people outside of recovery. I have met a few healthy women who could see immediately that I am in no fit state for a relationship and they have very healthily kept their distance. I feel that I am becoming healthier and wiser though I wake up every morning still yearning for my ex lover. The major thing I have really learnt is to sit with the pain and don't act out on it. Considering I was suicidal not so long ago, I feel I have made tremendous progress and am untangling myself from the emotional wreckage of my addictive behaviour.

You're situation is tremendously better than it was. You're wife has moved out and is recovering and starting to probe a new life. You are out of your toxic relationships - you were in for over a decade.

There is a new world that is coming into focus and it brings far better opportunities is you can weather the storm and stay the course. But you have to make hard choices if you are going to have a better life.

The three most important decisions in your recovery are decisions made by others - wife, affair partner 1, and affair partner 2. Letting go of those relationships was necessary - you said so many times - but doing it was not something you could do.

I say this because there are still hard decisions that lie before you and making them is going to be a harder thing than you have done so far.

It's really important to get away from high risk people...

the women you are spending time with from the Love Addiction group is like a drunk being the security guard at a liquor store. The women you met at LAA are extremely high risk. Teaching her about "empathy" is too personal - bad boundaries on your part. Hanging out with her is not going to help you learn about how to court and be healthy for emotionally healthy women. get out of AA. The women you met at AA are extremely high risk. Hanging out with this crowd is not going to help you learn about how to court and be healthy for emotionally healthy women.

Hard to do? Yes. Very. And unlike the exit of the other probem people in your life, LAA and AA are not going to leave you - you have to find the strength to leave them.

I have met a few healthy women who could see immediately that I am in no fit state for a relationship and they have very healthily kept their distance. I feel that I am becoming healthier and wiser though

This is huge, RF. Put this on your mirror. This is the real world. Do the hard work to get ready for it. Kick away the crutches.

My ex wife is now living on her own and is happy with her new partner.

She is not your ex-wife until you divorce her. Healthy women will want you to be free of your past - your marriage - your mentally ill girlfriends - your addictions - your have to get all this stuff in your past - and you are closer now than you have ever been in the 2-3 years you have been here.

Break free, man.

[RomanticFool]

There is a new world that is coming into focus and it brings far better opportunities is you can weather the storm and stay the course. But you have to make hard choices if you are going to have a better life.

I agree I’m in a better position than I was but I don’t consider my marriage was a toxic r/s but I agree the affairs were.

There is a new world that is coming into focus and it brings far better opportunities is you can weather the storm and stay the course. But you have to make hard choices if you are going to have a better life.

I am withstanding a hurricane of change with great strength. I’m proud of myself for not buckling.

The three most important decisions in your recovery are decisions made by others - wife, affair partner 1, and affair partner 2. Letting go of those relationships was necessary - you said so many times - but doing it was not something you could do.

Not quite. In the end I took the decision not to pursue my most recent ex. There was an opportunity to go to a movie with her as platonic friends last September and I declined. I knew at the time that I’d probably never see her again. I saw the r/s deteriorate to her accusing me of abuse and then moving the goalposts regarding the nature of the r/s and I just couldn’t do it anymore. I let her go in the end. Yes I sent her a few emails afterwards but ultimately I could have saved it for a few more months in the summer. I just didn’t have the strength anymore. Ok I probably would have taken her back even after that but I allowed her to slip further out of my grasp because despite my emotional dependency on her, I hated the way she was treating me. In the end I found a modicum of pride. However, I accept the point that I have weak boundaries generally and haven’t been proactive in making healthy decisions for myself.

I say this because there are still hard decisions that lie before you and making them is going to be a harder thing than you have done so far.

It's really important to get away from high risk people...

            the women you are spending time with from the Love Addiction group is like a drunk being the security guard at a liquor store. The women you met at LAA are extremely high risk. Teaching her about "empathy" is too personal - bad boundaries on your part. Hanging out with her is not going to help you learn about how to court and be healthy for emotionally healthy women.

get out of AA. The women you met at AA are extremely high risk. Hanging out with this crowd is not going to help you learn about how to court and be healthy for emotionally healthy women.

Hard to do? Yes. Very. And unlike the exit of the other probem people in your life, LAA and AA are not going to leave you - you have to find the strength to leave them.

Ok I just need to correct a couple of things. I have never hung out with women from SLAA - they are usually more boundaried and healthier than AA women. Also my AA friend I have known for 17 years and is the only woman from recovery I am in contact with. I haven’t been to a SLAA meeting for a while due to work but I cannot leave the fellowships as I am an addict in recovery. What I can and will do is leave the women alone.

I am actively avoiding high risk women.

This is huge, RF. Put this on your mirror. This is the real world. Do the hard work to get ready for it. Kick away the crutches.

It is amazing to me how quickly healthy women not only recognise damage but are quick to lay down boundaries and state their values. I really admire them for it.

She is not your ex-wife until you divorce her. Healthy women will want you to be free of your past - your marriage - your mentally ill girlfriends - your addictions - your have to get all this stuff in your past - and you are closer now than you have ever been in the 2-3 years you have been here.

My experience has been that the healthy women I’ve mixed with are less concerned with the technicality of still being legally married than the baggage of still trying to get over and ex. Emotional availability is the issue for healthy people and since my ex wife now has a partner and we are and always have been more friends than lovers the still being married hasn’t been an issue. I find most women my age aren’t really bothered about getting married again. What they are concerned with is my head still thinking of my ex lover. That is a deal breaker. My ex wife and I have agreed that we will get divorced when we are both a bit better off financially. We have agreed terms over the flat which my ex wife will only enforce if I sell the flat. She said she has no desire to make me sell my flat. I am indeed very lucky with her that she is not financially motivated.

A new dawn begins but there is still some way to go before my ex is out of my head. I don’t intend on dating until that day arrives.

I also just want to reiterate that I have lost four people I love in the space of eight months and I have withstood the seismic shock without getting involved in another r/s. I am much stronger than I was even a few months ago. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger but I agree that getting involved with damaged women has been absolutely devastating for me. I must never again look inside the rooms of AA for a r/s. Doing so could have killed me.

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My experience has been that the healthy women I’ve mixed with are less concerned with the technicality of still being legally married than the baggage of still trying to get over and ex. Emotional availability is the issue for healthy people and since my ex wife now has a partner and we are and always have been more friends than lovers the still being married hasn’t been an issue. I find most women my age aren’t really bothered about getting married again. What they are concerned with is my head still thinking of my ex lover. That is a deal breaker.

You have long held unconventional beliefs about marriage. Your marriage. Your affair partners marriage. The idea that your affair partner (#2) let you down by not wanting to support you through the divorce process.

I wish more insight for you, but I it's your choice, your life.

I also just want to reiterate that I have lost four people I love in the space of eight months and I have withstood the seismic shock without getting involved in another r/s. I am much stronger than I was even a few months ago.

That is progress. 

[RomanticFool]

You have long held unconventional beliefs about marriage. Your marriage. Your affair partners marriage. The idea that your affair partner (#2) let you down by not wanting to support you through the divorce process.

I wish more insight for you, but I it's your choice, your life.

You mean the woman who wanted to marry me and told me I was the love of her life and that she’d been waiting her whole life to meet me? Now why would I ever take anything she said or did  to heart?

I don’t doubt that my marriage was a major factor in the toxicity of the r/s but it cannot be ignored that the woman I was involved with was mentally ill and extremely unreliable. Whether I’d been married or not the r/s would have been a nightmare, that much I am certain of. She let me down, not so much because she didn’t hang around for me to break up with my wife but because she physically, verbally and emotionally abused me to the point where I wanted to kill myself. I would think most sane people would say by the time she unceremoniously dumped me I’d had a lucky escape. I’m beginning to see that now.

 I have specifically asked a few healthy women about my situation and what their views on it would be regarding still being legally  married but separated and leading separate lives and the answer I quoted above is what they told me. These are less my unconventional views rather than a few healthy British women’s practical views.

[RomanticFool]

I also think for the purposes of clarity here it is important to point out that my marriage is over and has been for a long time. There is no hedging my bets hoping to get back with my wife. I’m sure people on these boards would have figured that out but it’s important to make that clear. At the age of 56 I have completely broken free of all ties and at the moment I don’t feel like I want to be in a relationship either.

I was let down by my ex lover but not specifically because she didn’t hang around for my marriage break up but because she showed no empathy at all towards me and behaved like I was not a human being with feelings and love in my heart for her. I have distance and clarity and I know the difference between somebody keeping away from an ex lover for sanity or the more popular reason for narcissists and borderlines: punishment and moving on quickly. My ex resides in the camp of treating people like instantly disposable commodities despite having professed undying love a few months earlier. I am at the stage where I have looked more at my own poor judgement of getting involved with her and not handling the situation well. However, I want to state very clearly here that the person I was involved with is selfish and dangerous and her total lack of care, consideration and empathy for me and false accusations of abuse and the violence she visited upon me is not acceptable in any kind of relationship and had I done to her what she visited on me I’d be in prison. I take responsibility for getting involved with her but I don’t take responsibility for her antisocial and violent behaviour. That is all hers.

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I have specifically asked a few healthy women about my situation and what their views on it would be regarding still being legally  married but separated and leading separate lives and the answer I quoted above is what they told me. These are less my unconventional views rather than a few healthy British women’s practical views.

RF, I really didn't mean to upset you. My point, only, is that your views on marriage are unconventional. This has caused you are great deal of pain in the past. I believe it will cause you pain in the future if you start dating again without having a divorce or being actively engaged in divorcing. Many wome won't risk getting serious with a marriage man, a separate man, or even a man recently divorced.

You dated a married women when you were single - they ended badly. You got married - when you encountered problem - you cheated on your wife with a married women. That affair ended badly - it was hurting her marriage - and your marriage was lost in years of emotional disconnect. You then got into another affair. She was upset that you lied about being done with your marriage. You told your wife your were dating - she left you. The affair partner never recovered from the lie regarding your marital status (that you were actively getting divorced).

However you look at it - being single and dating a married women, or cheating on your wife, trying to break up another marriage, or having a relationship crash - it might be worth reconsidering your views.

You're an adult and these things are never black and white. No one here is lecturing you on your morality (at least not in this thread   ) Life is not black and white - not all people think the same.

My only point is that you have underestimated the destructive nature of dating in the married pool for 15-20 years and it has been disastrous.

I remember you telling us all here how your wife would be ok with you having an affair and probably knew - but that wasn't true - when she realized it she was broken. I remember you telling us how your last partner accepted that you were well on your way to divorce - and then you took you wife to Italy on vacation and your new relationship went into a tailspin and never recovered.

My only point is that it's important to learn from our experiences.

These are less my unconventional views rather than a few healthy British women’s practical views.

Google "dating while separated".  That is your reality. Tell me what you see.

And yes, RF, your affair partners have been difficult, and losing your wife has to be hard (even though the relationship was long gone), and losing people close to you in a short period of time is devastating. These are most definitely major contributors to your emotional pain.

[RomanticFool]

And yes, RF, your affair partners have been difficult, and losing your wife has to be hard (even though the relationship was long gone), and losing people close to you in a short period of time is devastating. These are most definitely major contributors to your emotional pain.

And my father dying too. Any human being on the planet would be sympathetic in this situation. My ex knows about my father's cancer and about him dying. There has been a deafening silence.
 

RF, I really didn't mean to upset you. My point, only, is that your views on marriage are unconventional. This has caused you are great deal of pain in the past. I believe it will cause you pain in the future if you start dating again without having a divorce or being actively engaged in divorcing. Many wome won't risk getting serious with a marriage man, a separate man, or even a man recently divorced.

        You dated a married women when you were single - they ended badly.
You got married - when you encountered problem - you cheated on your wife with a married women. That affair ended badly - it was hurting her marriage - and your marriage was lost in years of emotional disconnect.
You then got into another affair. She was upset that you lied about being done with your marriage.
You told your wife your were dating - she left you.
The affair partner never recovered from the lie regarding your marital status (that you were actively getting divorced).

However you look at it - being single and dating a married women, or cheating on your wife, trying to break up another marriage, or having a relationship crash - it might be worth reconsidering your views.

You're an adult and these things are never black and white. No one here is lecturing you on your morality (at least not in this thread  Being cool (click to insert in post) ) Life is not black and white - not all people think the same.

My only point is that you have underestimated the destructive nature of dating in the married pool for 15-20 years and it has been disastrous.

I remember you telling us all here how your wife would be ok with you having an affair and probably knew - but that wasn't true - when she realized it she was broken. I remember you telling us how your last partner accepted that you were well on your way to divorce - and then you took you wife to Italy on vacation and your new relationship went into a tailspin and never recovered.

My only point is that it's important to learn from our experiences.

You are making many inaccurate points here. My views on marriage are not particularly unconventional and my most recent affair partner had a history of dating married men. The fact of them being married didn't seem to bother her. Also, the relationship didn't go into a tailspin after i came back from Italy with my wife. She then subsequently went away to France for a week and we were on fantastic terms when she came back. The r/s went into a tailspin after she punched me the first time.

You have always gone on and on about me being married and frankly it got in the way of me trying to get help here when I was with my ex. I feel I need to say this honestly, but I think your fixation with my marital status has prevented me getting the help in dealing with my ex's issues here. She always knew I was going to leave my wife and she also knew that I had left just before she ended the relationship. What the problem with my ex was is that her personality disorder meant that she lacked empathy and wanted revenge over her perception that I had abused her - which was projection to cover the fact that she has abused me. I came on here to get help in dealing with these behaviours and I ended up getting lectured about my marital status and you are still doing it. You are going to have to accept my word for the fact that whether I am divorced or not is irrelevant to me and any woman I am likely to meet. If it becomes relevant then I will cross that bridge. I have been on four dates with healthy women and not a single one of them has mentioned the fact that I'm not divorced. They do not care. That is not me making it up, it's a fact. Neither did any of them have any interest in getting married again because they had all been married and divorced. Indeed what I have found is the women who have been through divorce know how traumatic the whole breaking up and moving out is that they don't quiz me about the paperwork. When they hear my wife and I have broken up and she is with another man it is enough. So can we please put that issue to bed. It simply is not an issue in the way that you think.

My ex was not upset that I lied because I didn't lie to her. I told her that I told my wife two weeks into the r/s and then I told her that I wanted to see how things went. This wasn't a lie, but it was a backtrack. She called me a liar and a narcissist from day one because she was disordered and not because there was any factual basis in her accusations. She also said I was using her for sex, she also said I was a worse abuser than Weinstein, she also said that I must have had a history of abuse which I do not - it was all part of her paranoic state because she felt shame for the fact she had attacked me. I'm not saying being married wasn't a factor in the r/s - it was - but what was more of a factor was her disordered mind which went from love-bombing to devaluation to brutal discard. We have never really talked about that because you've been so busy going on and on and on about my bloody marriage. I came on here to learn something about disordered people, not to discuss whether or not the legalities of my separation have become divorce yet. Nobody gives a damn, least of all the healthy women I've met. In the end my ex didn't really care about it either, what she cared about was herself. She was able to come on a week's holiday with me and dump me a week afterwards. Have you any idea how devastating that was for me?Have you any idea how devastating it has been not seeing or hearing from her when she knew my brother in law had died. The woman has no empathy and I have been on the receiving end of abuse so please don't keep telling me it was because I was married.

My wife wasn't broken. She was upset when I firs told her but she ended up meeting somebody else fairly quickly after we agreed the marriage was over. The biggest mistake I made and the biggest regret I have was not following through when I told her I had a crush on my most recent ex and being with the woman who had my heart. I will regret that for a very long time because as crazy and disordered as the ex was, I wish I'd been able to see her without having to sneak around. It was not an authentic way to live and I was lying to myself worst of all. I had a mixed up idea of loyalty to my wife and lacked the courage to follow through with the break up because I was concerned about the affair woman's mental health.

I know I'm an adult and believe me I have paid a heavy price for my mistakes. I also do not see things in black and white terms, it is a very grey area with my ex. I feel abandoned and deeply hurt but I try to be empathetic towards her because she had her own issues. I will probably go to my grave regretting things about that r/s. My own avoidant behaviour, my inability to deal with her rages and her changeable moods. But instead of discussing all of that and giving me tools to deal with it, all we've discussed here is my bloody marriage. I am really quite angry about that, so please let's not keep doing the same thing again and again.

[Bhs]

Do you ever wonder why you are so defensive about your marriage?

You have always gone on and on about me being married and frankly it got in the way of me trying to get help here when I was with my ex. I feel I need to say this honestly, but I think your fixation with my marital status has prevented me getting the help in dealing with my ex's issues here.

Many other people responding to your posts have said the same thing. I have refused to date men who weren't divorced because they aren't available if they are married.  Doesn't matter if it's only paper - it's a connection that should be severed to be available.  I'm not sure what women you are talking to about marriage - but I know few women who want to be involved with a man who isn't divorced because it raises the question of why not?  If you don't have the money to get divorced it raises questions about financial independence...and if it isn't money then why not just pull the trigger and get out of each other's lives? The man I dated who brought me here was divorced but still had some strange enmeshment with his ex-wife in terms of using her as a barrier to our intimacy. Believe me when I say that's a red flag I recognize now.

No one prevents you from getting the help you need except you. When so many people are giving you what they feel is constructive advice about the marriage, why do you call it a fixation and refute it?  You are entitled to feel whatever way you want...so are the other people offering up their opinion. There's an angry undertone and a sense of being righteously indignant to the advice offered by people with good intentions.  It's one thing to disagree - it's another to hold someone else accountable for not getting the help you need.  Many people have tried to help by sharing their feelings. Don't we seek the advice of others precisely because we are sometimes blind to certain aspects of ourselves and our situations?  

My own avoidant behaviour, my inability to deal with her rages and her changeable moods. But instead of discussing all of that and giving me tools to deal with it, all we've discussed here is my bloody marriage. I am really quite angry about that, so please let's not keep doing the same thing again and again.

It seems if you don't like one aspect of what people say you throw out the baby with the bathwater. You acknowledge your avoidant behavior so perhaps you should give some consideration to the fact that the avoidant aspect is at work in your last post. Pay attention to the things you get angry about...there's probably a lot going on with those issues.

Nobody gives a damn, least of all the healthy women I've met. In the end my ex didn't really care about it either, what she cared about was herself. She was able to come on a week's holiday with me and dump me a week afterwards. Have you any idea how devastating that was for me?Have you any idea how devastating it has been not seeing or hearing from her when she knew my brother in law had died. The woman has no empathy and I have been on the receiving end of abuse so please don't keep telling me it was because I was married.

The healthy women I know would give a damn for the reasons I mentioned previously.  If you choose not to take that for what it is that is totally up to you - I won't be angry. With that said, once you recover from the losses you have experienced recently - and those are tough losses, I went through a string of them myself - you may want to stand back and take an objective look at what was said to you and what you have said. No one is saying the "abuse" was justified because you were married - however, when you are having an affair it raises the question of your empathy. Perhaps that is tough to hear - but you seem to justify your behavior by saying your wife wasn't hurt...but a healthy woman isn't going to have the kind of respect necessary to sustain a relationship with a man who has carried on multiple affairs while being married and  excusing it by saying "my wife didn't care".

I was getting 6 months of treatment for a disease I have and hosting my brother and only living family member (mom and dad are deceased) when my partner inflicted the silent treatment on me because I told him I didn't have the bandwidth one evening to listen to him talk about his ex-mother in law having cancer. I said that because I had an IV in my arm for 40 hours a week - one week a month - for the six months prior to that call..and in between I was trying to meet the emotional needs of my brother who was staying with me while he received chemotherapy and radiation. Most people on this board understand how devastated you were in that situation - it's why we are here.  I'm sorry for your losses but becoming angry and accusatory with people who are trying to help because you don't like what they say to you isn't conducive to receiving the honest and sometimes painful feedback you likely need to change your path. Those of us who have made progress on this journey have likely received painful feedback in the process so you are not alone in that regard. People don't end up in these types of relationships for no reason.  People stay with people who hurt them and continue to love them because there is something lacking within themselves. No one is saying the behavior of the partners is healthy, but we need to look at what isn't healthy about ourselves to solve the issue...and having multiple affairs and getting angry about being confronted by the fact that you insist you aren't married when you are is something you should look at. You can define being married however you want - point is under the law you are married until you are divorced. There's a reason you get mad when the inconsistency in what you are saying is pointed out to you. I don't know what that reason is - I just know that should be a signal for you to look at that issue. Further, if you are surrounded by people who don't care about that - then why does it matter if people on this board have a different opinion?

I wish you peace at this time and I'm sorry for the losses you experienced. When you go back for more pain and more rejection you need to stand back and ask yourself why?  You say you didn't receive the tools you needed to help you deal with her rages and her changeable moods, but why do you want to deal with those things when you repeatedly call her disordered and say she has no empathy?  The point of many of the tools are this - if you want to stay with her you should be prepared to accept her behavior with the expectation she won't change.  Despite what you may think in the moment, people are giving you the tools and the feedback to deal with your own conflicted feelings and behaviors because the ability to accept those things in others begins when we can accept those things in ourselves.

Peace

[RomanticFool]

All I can do is respond in the same way. The women I am currently meeting who are as far as I can tell healthy, not addictive in any way, balanced and sane, simply don’t care. They know I am living in my home, separated and that my wife is with someone else and that is enough. I’m not throwing anything out, I’m sick of saying the same thing. Frankly it makes me question the whole edifice of this website when people don’t listen . I’m sure you don’t want to date men who are still married, but I have now met five healthy women and not a single one of them has expressed an issue with my separation not yet being a divorce. In fact on Sunday my date asked me specifically about the situation and nodded in acknowledgement when I said we’ll get divorced in due course.

[Bhs]

Just because people don’t agree with you doesn’t mean they aren’t listening. But you have the absolute right  to not listen to those who don’t agree with you. Its just  a matter of perspective in terms of who isn’t listening.

[RomanticFool]

It’s an absurdity. I’m three years into my time on these boards. All of my troublesome relationships are over. My wife is firmly ensconced in her new flat and is with her new partner. She came with me to my dad’s funeral yesterday and we both are delighted we now have a strong friendship. I’ve gone through periods of suicidal ideation over my ex partners, both of whom in the end weren’t really concerned with my marital status because I had been firmly devalued and discarded. I have now had no less than 5 dates with lovely healthy women, all of whom want to be my friend and stay in contact (I’ve not slept with any of them). None of whom care about whether I’m divorced - for them my wife being with somebody else in her new flat is enough (and her new partner doesn’t care that she is legally still married)...and here we are still talking about my marital status. It’s absurd to me and I reiterate my point that it got in the way of me getting the help I needed with my most recent ex. In the end the advice to leave her was the right call but it might have been nice to have been able to come on here without being lectured about my marriage when I was being physically attacked and devalued. Some tools to deal with that would have been welcomed.

Never mind. I’m out of the madness now and SLAA taught me some things about emotional dependency and love addiction. I learnt on here about empathy and a three legged stool (which actually wasn’t relevant in my last relationship) because with hindsight I now believe that I didn’t follow through with leaving my wife partly due to emotional dependency and partly because of the red flags I saw in my affair partner. I’m not so much criticising anybody here just pointing out what would have been useful to me at the time.

[Skip]

What's been going on with your dates? Can you give us a rundown on the five? Who they are (in non-identifying terms)? How you met? What the dates were like? What you like about them? Where things stand going forward?

[Bhs]

I now believe that I didn’t follow through with leaving my wife partly due to emotional dependency and partly because of the red flags I saw in my affair partner.

That's an important insight. Have you considered that the "fixation" of others on your marriage was because they were hoping you would make that connection? By way of example, in my experience really good psychologists don't tell you, "hey man, you're emotionally dependent on your wife"...rather they ask you a series of questions, or point out the contradictions in your thought processes so that you start to learn how to question yourself - so that you start to think...am I emotionally dependent on my wife?

Psychologists who are really good don't tell you what your problems are precisely because the goal of good therapy is to make you independent - to get you to a point where you can observe and change your own behavior rather than relying on someone else to save you.

Really powerful insights come from within - not from what others tell you. To that point, if you read what you wrote it sounds like you are saying part of why you didn't leave your wife is because you had an inkling you might be alone on the other side of it...because you saw these red flags in your partner and you didn't know if that was a safe bet.

Here's the thing RF...based on what you say, it seems like you are hanging on to that marriage as a security blanket.  This is at the heart of your own observations about your emotional dependence...you shouldn't need to find someone BEFORE you get a divorce.  If the marriage is over - get divorced and be on your own. In that same way, the advice to state things as they are - as in, she isn't an ex-wife until you are divorced - is about you being truthful to yourself in terms of what the connection is.  

These comments you think are getting in the way of you receiving the help you need are really part of the help you need, which in some way is dealing with your emotional dependence and hanging on to relationships that don't serve you. Maybe if you go back and reread your posts you will pick up a pattern...you ask for advice, people give it you, and you fight with them and tell them they aren't listening and they aren't giving you what you think you need. What you need is to see this pattern yourself.

Just my opinion, but you get upset when people encourage you to see your own part in your situation. If that is pointed out to you, you feel people are justifying the bad behavior of others.  It's not an either or situation.  Others can act badly, and you can also make bad decisions that keep you tied to these people. But no-one can change someone else's behavior, and acknowledging that you have been victimized doesn't do anything to help YOU recognize what you need to change in yourself to stop being a victim(which is the only thing you can change).

Maybe things are different where you live, but in my opinion there is a difference in how a woman feels about your divorce status if they are "friends" with you versus being interested in having a meaningful relationship with you. And truth be told, it's your "fixation" on not being divorced that troubles people who read your posts because it isn't clear why you wouldn't just cut yourself loose to move forward if you weren't still emotionally tied to your wife. What is the rationale? I have yet to understand that...and as I said earlier, if it's money then maybe you need to focus on putting that part of your life in order so you are prepared to have a healthy partnership in the future.  If it isn't money, then what is it?  Your wife has another relationship, you say you aren't hanging on to her...so it's hard to understand why you are still married. From the viewpoint of readers we can't understand ...something just doesn't seem to make sense - it doesn't pass the smell test.  

Ultimately it's your choice to divorce or not, but if the only good advice is the advice you agree with then you have to consider you might be overlooking some pearls of wisdom.

Peace
 

[RomanticFool]

What's been going on with your dates? Can you give us a rundown on the five? Who they are (in non-identifying terms)? How you met? What the dates were like? What you like about them? Where things stand going forward?

I met them all on a dating app. I wanted to see how I reacted with what I'm assuming are non addictive, healthy women. It has been both what I needed and what I feared rolled into one.

The build up to all of the dates have been very businesslike and limited contact, which I haven't been used to. But I went along with it and the dates we interesting and relaxed - they were all more nervous than me. I told all of them the truth about where I'm at emotionally and I found them all understanding and guarded.

The first woman I met was divorced with three children. A lovely and warm person I liked her very much as a person. She invited me to her house for the weekend after three dates which I politely declined. She asked me what kind of relationship I wanted and I said at the moment just friendship until I really get to know someone. She then 'friend-zoned' me and it transpired that she had a married  lover in the background who now decided he was leaving his wife to be with her. I wished her well and we remain friends.

The second woman I met was a lovely woman with two boys and again she was guarded and careful. We got on very well and after three dates she told me that I was the first man for a while who made her heart skip a beat. On our fourth date she invited me to her hotel room (she lives out of town and was staying over) which I again politely declined. We had one further date where she told me liked me very much but felt I was not yet over my ex girlfriend and I agreed with her. We have once again remained friends.

The third woman was a bit more of what I'm used to. She was very chatty in the lead up to the date and when we met she was flirty and fun. She told me she has one grown up daughter. We had a lunch and I walked her to the tube station (we met near my flat) and on the way there she asked if she could use my toilet. I agreed and when she came out of the toilet she kissed me. I told her it was a bit soon for me as we had only just met. I think she was a little taken aback as men clearly don't turn her down. I told her I liked her as a person very much but wanted to take the time to get to know somebody before intimacy. She left and we remain in contact but I haven't met up with her again. I see red flags and I'm observing them.

The fourth woman was a lovely lady who also has three grown up children. We hit it off really well and went for a lovely walk around the picturesque town she lives in just outside of London. We had meaningful conversations about subjects close to our hearts and I felt we got on extremely well. Once again she was nervous and I wasn't and my relaxed manner put her at ease and we spent half a day together with no suggestion of any physical attraction but just enjoying being in each other's company. I came back from the date feeling better than when I had started out as that day the grief around my ex was on me very strongly.

The fifth woman was not somebody I met on the dating app but somebody I met organically. I was very attracted to her and almost got triggered. I stopped myself and did the SLAA thing of talking to her as a woman rather than a potential sexual partner. I'm very glad I did. As lovely as she was and there was clearly chemistry between us, I thought she was too young. She was almost 20 years younger than me and I simply did not want to go there. The main reason is because she told me that she was moving to the North of England soon and I felt I was simply going to be either another notch on her bedpost (I should be so lucky) or more likely, a few dates with an admirer that she had no intention of taking any further. I decided to save myself the stress and potential heartache and told her that I wasn't the right person for her.

In the background through all of this has been the AA woman who became addicted to me. She has continued to pursue me and we have met up for coffee and seen each other's shows. On paper she remains the most suitable in terms of interests, humour and knowing about my life. However, she is like my ex lover with turbo. Her persistence both annoys me and scares me and makes me want to run. I have told her this to her face many times but she isn't listening. She wants me because I am emotionally unavailable to her and she isn't giving up. It has been painful at times because she way she is behaving towards me is probably how I behaved towards my ex at the end and the constant pursuit and declarations of love are off putting when they are not requited. However, I then pull myself up short and remind myself that my ex did return my feelings throughout much of that r/s and what went wrong, in my opinion, was as much to do with her pathology and stage in her recovery, as it was anything I was doing. I have tried to let my pursuant down gently and I have done a good job of showing tolerance and empathy without allowing her to take me hostage emotionally or indeed physically with her constant offers of solace and outings.

I am enjoying meeting new people. I have made new male friends and tonight I'm going out to a comedy club with some new guys I've recently met. I feel stronger than I was and spending yesterday with my ex wife (ok estranged wife) was lovely and I dropped her off to her new home (from a distance) knowing that she was seeing her new man, who by all accounts is an artist and handyman and all round useful guy. I had a moment of self pity but then felt happy that she was happy. We have had many conversations about my infidelity and I never miss an opportunity to apologise to her for my part in things. She is a decent woman and I do feel guilty about how I behaved in our marriage. I do miss her too but I have let her go with grace.

That's where I'm currently at. I've lost four people in the last year that I love. They are all hard losses in their own way. I have always felt that my ex lover was the hardest one, but yesterday I felt the loss of my wife and father very keenly indeed. That's probably where I should be at since I've known them both longer than my ex.

[Skip]

Who did you feel chemistry with?

[RomanticFool]

Bhs,

I feel like we are in Groundhog Day a little. I want to thank you for your input into my posts. I don't want to come across as hostile or ungrateful. I simply want to stop talking about my marital status. I am no longer hanging onto it - it's over and my wife is happy with somebody else. We will divorce in time. Can we now please draw a line under that?

I think the realisation I had about my ex lover was very strong at the time of the r/s but I had already told my wife about  her and I couldn't backtrack. It wasn't so much I thought of coming out of it on the other side alone, but rather I didn't want to put my wife through the ordeal of breaking up if the woman I'd met was unreliable, as she did indeed turn out to be. Not to mention volatile and disordered.

Just my opinion, but you get upset when people encourage you to see your own part in your situation. If that is pointed out to you, you feel people are justifying the bad behavior of others.  It's not an either or situation.  Others can act badly, and you can also make bad decisions that keep you tied to these people. But no-one can change someone else's behavior, and acknowledging that you have been victimized doesn't do anything to help YOU recognize what you need to change in yourself to stop being a victim(which is the only thing you can change).

I don't seek to justify my behaviour but to understand my behaviour in conjunction with the behaviour of the damaged people I have involved myself with. My ex lover was somebody I adored and I wanted very much to understand her but the volatility of the situation was simply too much and I couldn't step back from it and be empathic - I was too stressed, upset, fearful, addicted at the time. I've been in AA recovery for 17 years and I've spent much of that time looking at my own behaviour and adjusting it accordingly. In many areas of my life I've been successful in doing just that. However, in relationships I have failed dismally because I didn't know how to handle the behaviour of the damaged women I became involved with. Things are becoming clearer and I'm sure more will be revealed from the trauma I've experienced.

[RomanticFool]

Who did you feel chemistry with?

Only one of them (the fifth) and it was short lived. I am not over my ex or the trauma of the last year and I don't want to go there at the moment.

[RomanticFool]

Bhs,

The reason neither my wife nor I have divorced at this moment is money. We are both broke and I am currently in a lot of debt. If I won the lottery tonight I’d file for divorce tomorrow. There is no hanging on. It’s finances pure and simple. That’s sometimes the trouble with these boards, people either forget things I’ve said a while ago or assume things that aren’t true. I’m not so much arguing with people as correcting facts as I see them.

Peace to you also

[juju2]

Hi RF.

I think that I had to take a break from here, it was a break that I needed. 
What I learned is to not have so much here.  My life is the day to day.   

Not to take away from the service, help, and hope that is provided.   It's a critical lifeline.

I came here in 2017 confused, mixed up, hopeless.   No one I could really share with, no one in my life.  This place is a safe space...

I think what I needed I did get from getting enough strength here, is time to regroup...

My life is not figured out.  What is different is am not in crisis.

[Bhs]

I sympathize with you RF - you are going through a lot right now. Seems that life has a way of doing that sometimes. I check this board every once in a while because when I feel like I miss the ex - or I feel lonely, it helps to log on and hear the pain of other people still caught in these relationships...some validation that the immediate sense of being alone is better than the perpetual confusion of trying to make an unhealthy relationship work.

That said, I've read your posts and remembered most of them...especially the ones around the holidays when you were at a low point. You can draw a line however you want in terms of what you will discuss. It's up to you.

You either get things from what people say to you or you don't.  If after three years you haven't heard things that are valuable or that have helped you then perhaps this isn't a good venue for you.

I think the realisation I had about my ex lover was very strong at the time of the r/s but I had already told my wife about  her and I couldn't backtrack. It wasn't so much I thought of coming out of it on the other side alone, but rather I didn't want to put my wife through the ordeal of breaking up if the woman I'd met was unreliable, as she did indeed turn out to be. Not to mention volatile and disordered.

The last thing I will say on the topic is this...it's hard to get a clear sense of where you are coming from and I say that given your groundhog day comments. I read your comment above and you are saying you didn't want to put your wife through an ordeal - maybe you just mean leaving not divorcing.  Prior to that you are talking about holidays to Italy with your wife which doesn't give one a sense of you being broke. So my question really is...why all the paragraphs devoted to telling people they aren't listening to you and saying you didn't want to talk about being married because no one you dated cared. Why draw all these lines in the sand about what people can say to you and not say to you? Why not just say...hey - I hear ya, but I'm broke. Seems like that one sentence would have moved the conversation elsewhere because it would provide some clarity on why you were at this point.

In my first post to you in this thread, I said if the reason for no divorce was finances you might want to step back and get your house in order. And I think that is an important point. I don't have a sense that you have ever spent much time really being alone and focusing on your self and your own life.  That might be helpful. Why not just try being alone - no dating - get your finances in shape - get yourself ready for the future. At 56, maybe it's time to consider re-prioritizing - away from finding a partner and dating - towards spending some time alone and really working to have a happy, financially stable life alone. I hear you talking about spending time with male friends and that is likely way more helpful than dating at this point. When so much is going wrong it can sometimes seem like finding someone is an answer...but sometimes that's an immediate good feeling that serves as a distraction to really digging in and getting your life together and spending time alone reflecting on how looking for love has led you to this point.

Moreover, think about how you present your narrative to other people...consider whether you have clarity on how you really feel...because it doesn't always come through in your posts. Just saying...maybe that's part of why you don't feel you get what you need and that's something you can control. Seems you are saying you don't feel understood and listened to...and that's a tough place to be. The irony is that I think it's the same feeling for some people who post back to you. You are missing the forest for the trees. I wish you luck and I hope you find some peace on the other side of all this loss. I lost 4 people in the last 24 months and that doesn't include the partner that brought me here. With that said, the one thing that saved me is just stopping it all...no dating right now. I'm just focusing on being happy by myself...putting my life back where it was. I have a good job that I like and that can do more for one's sense of self than a couple of good dates. We are both in our 50's and my parting advice is that the best thing you could do is stop looking for love outside of yourself and focus on finding some love for yourself internally - focus on building a life where you feel secure alone with your male friends - a solid job - and some things that bring you happiness outside of a partner.  You can try to make sense of why disordered people do what they do - or you can spend your time putting your life in order. With a limited amount of energy, the latter might be the best bet. Good luck RF.