The beginning of the end
I was here before - back closer to my original DDay (well, DDay #1, anyway - 12/1/21) and I left because of...well, my own shortcomings. My WH had started using this site as an attack point against me - it was a cult, brainwashing me, etc. For those fellow lurkers still 'lurking' (since I requested my account be deleted but never really 'left') trust me when I say that when they tell you not to show this site to your WP right away? There's a reason. I thought my WH was an exception, too. That WE would be an exception. He's not. We're not. TRULY remorseful Waywards are a VERY RARE breed. Please listen when I say - for your own sake - that you need to look out for you the way you wish your Wayward had. 🙏
Easier said than done, and it's hard to take your own advice. Probably why I'm camped out on my living room couch now.
I was here before, on my couch; for a few months, in fact. In a two bedroom trailer that we share with DD(13), sleeping separately means someone sleeps on the couch - and, with WH being disabled (and, y'know, me actually unable to turn off my conscience...unlike him) I took the couch.
It wasn't a full 180, not really - but by that point, at a year past DDay and already having experienced abuse on top of the trauma of discovering the A, I just couldn't stand sleeping next to him at night.
Didn't stop me from spending most of my free time (when DD was asleep) with him, though. I suspect I'm severely co-dependent, but since I'm the sole earner of the household and I can't afford therapy for all 3 of us (WH and DD are currently in IC) I have no professional assessment of that. Does telling WH in the beginning days after DDay 1 that we didn’t need to look at codependent literature because I wasn't worried about that and didn’t care if we were codependent or not count? (Yes, I said this. Out loud. 🤦‍♀️)
I started to detach, though - slowly (very slowly) but surely. WH was kind enough to make it easier on me, though. How long can you stay in love with someone who, even now - 2+ years after DDay 1 - still gets angry and defensive to the point of emotional and verbal abuse? I still have NO TIMELINE - best he's been able to do is break it down to year and season. WH has sent that when he gets mad when I bring up I still don't have a full timeline, but so far I've refused to read it - told him that I deserved better than just the year and season, especially since I discovered the A by AP messaging him and KNOWING that he had deleted messages. I knew because I'd read their Facebook messages years before. All gone. Never heard about AP again - not because WH had stopped talking to her, but because he was doing it secretly. He needed a friend; most people don't believe in EAs, anyway, and any reputable therapist doesn't either! All things he's said when he's angry / upset, that of course he didn’t mean. So when WH says he 'hasn't denied it was an A in a long time' it's true - those times when he's defensive aren't supposed to count. He was upset! Emotionally disregulated! That's not how he REALLY feels! 🙄
WH was upset when he told me I was 'just like every other whore.' WH was upset when he tried to throw me out of the house (that, because of the financial situation, is in my name.) WH was upset when he told me I would never be a real parent. (Our DD is from his first marriage; I've never had any biological children, but WH's XW hasnt talked to DD since she was 5 or 6.) WH was upset when he told me that he and DD are the only people who've ever even loved me.
It's almost funny, typing it up, when I look at my list and compare that to the memory of WH confronting me about 5mo post DDay 1 that I was becoming abusive because I was constantly calling him an idiot.
Of course, nothing upsets WH more than me bringing these things up still. The insults, or WH's past with AP. I guess because he was upset, the insults shouldn't count. Or because he apologized once I'm not allowed to speak of the insults again? Of couse, when I say 'apologized once', I mean that about the insults. WH has apologized for the A and said it's his fault multiple times. WH saying 'I just needed a friend' shouldn't negate that because he was upset and didn’t mean it.
Please note the sarcasm here.
I can see, looking back, that WH became very good at emotionally manipulating me into playing the KISA to him. In my OWN defense though, I don’t think it's just the emotional abuse I've obviously dealt with that's the only problem here as I try to navigate my own reality.
Not long after DDay, WH - from the trauma of DDay - remebered long-ago repressed memories of CSA.
Navigating that with empathy I think is at least, in part, why I keep putting myself here. Why I keep giving WH a chance when everything sane in me says to not. How can I not empathize when WH, like me, had a traumatic childhood? (Including CSA.) I was lucky to have a Grandma that fought for custody of me; that took me to therapy to get help. I lived for three years as a shut-in, only leaving the house once a month (if that) to go get groceries - and even that I couldn't handle alone. I get struggling with trauma for a long period of time.
But how much grace am I supposed to give WH's past traumas that, while fresh from being previously repressed, keeps causing me to get re-traumatized in the process?
For the past 2 - 3mo I've been slowly giving WH a chance; moved back into the bedroom and have been trying to be vulnerable again by showing my hidden-away emotions. My hurt. My anger. He's been watching videos on YouTube about CSA and coping mechanisms to handle triggers, emotionally disregulating, etc. (Not to mention the IC.)
I had a really bad day at work today, and I came home upset. I've told WH in the past that since the A, having a bad day at work, if I get angry, just eventually leads to me feeling angry at him. I feel angry because I married WH before I finished college, and he had become disabled before we even married. I had no chances to intern; I didn’t even enter my field until about 5yrs ago, because WH couldn't work, doesn’t drive, and contributes no income of any kind. I resent that while I was struggling to hold up the entire family in a 1 bedroom RV, not working on my career but just doing what I could to keep us afloat financially, he was constantly bitching at me about the small size of the RV, how our DD deserved better - all the while crying and moaning to AP about how hard it was for him and DD. That while I was willing to sacrifice myself, my youth and my future for a family (that, ultimately, I took on because I loved him) I never would've sacrificed myself for someone who I knew didn’t love me and respect me the same way I did them. I never would've even put myself in the position (as much as I love DD) to become a mother at 25 for someone who was still in love with his real desired step-in wife and just wanted me as a backup / stand-in.
I was reiterating this, and during the process of disagreeing with me on one statement I made about the way he was with AP vs how he is with me, WH started to raise his voice.
"I don't see how talking to someone once every few months is protecting them". Then something about how he was sorry, or something similar. I don't remember that part as well because of his voice raising.
I pointed out that even now he was getting angry. WH says, obviously at the very least aggitated, that he's not. I said "Clearly you are", and he yells "Well now I am!" and storms out.
Follow two more storm outs of the house (both WH,) yelling that he and DD are leaving because if I don't want to be with WH I'm obviously throwing them out on the street, and one hour of me sitting in a parking lot later and here I am.
What WH did was wrong, no doubt. I can't even argue that he's not abusive, because the signs are as neon bright as the store signs, in the dark, sitting in the parking lot at 11pm at night.
WH said when I came home that he was triggered because I told him he was feeling something that he wasn't. He was frusturated, but not angry. When I pointed out an Anger Chart to him that I found online, WH said he's never seen them as being the same (frustration and anger.) He did also say that, thought I probably wouldn't believe him, he was sorry. I told him whether or not I believed him or not was irrelevant - the end result was still the same.
I'm so tired. How many times do I have to HEAR sorry before I actually SEE it? I'm not the same woman that, only a year ago, was literally on my knees - crying and begging for him to LISTEN to me, to actually HEAR ME for ONCE; that he kept villianizing me to keep himself as the victim and that I couldn't take the emotional and mental damage anymore. That he was killing any chance of R.
I pointed out to him that I'd seen stories of remorseful Ws begging for another chance, sometimes even on their knees (as I was to him.)
WH asked, with incredulous disdain, "what, you want me to grovel?"
After everything, after tonight, I don't even know that actually getting on his knees, like I was, would be enough to ever feel any romantic love for this person ever again.
But that woman that was so desperately, pathetically in love with him is still in me crying somewhere.
Because I think even she is finally starting to realize that he never would. Never will.
AP and WH dated for a week, 20 years ago, after breaking up when she had sex with his cousin right in front of his face.
Chasing / pining after his XWGF / AP for roughly 20 years is okay, but coming out here and even attempting to ask me for one final chance; show how much he wants me (and not just as a safety net) and our relationship is too distasteful.
The light's off in the bedroom, so I can only assume he's at least sleeping (even if not peacefully.)
In contrast, I'll be waiting up all night, for that crying woman inside me that loved so deeply and just couldn't stop hoping.
Thanks for reading my tired ramblings if you got this far. Any comments, advice, or 2x4's welcome.
8 comments posted: Saturday, February 10th, 2024
