Please hold my hand a bit longer - thread 2 -

[MoreLegsThanMe]

I’m so grateful for all the help and support on thread 1.

Please help me keep going, especially at night. I’m not strong enough on my own.

Dear OP,

Hope you are waking up to a nice sunny day wherever you are!
You are so incredibly strong to have survived the last few months. Please out yourself first today. Don’t text DH who does not deserve your well wishes, I think you would open yoursekf up to even more disappointment if/when his response turns out to be thoughtless.

Remember that in the end, you are the one who has it all (children, family home, clear conscience that you have behaved well, etc) while he has lost the right to your affection and goodwill, all through his own doing.

May today go by quickly, how are the kids have they acknowledged it?

Treat yourself today. Bath, a bit if pampering, or maybe even a new drill and revel in the fact you get the job done without him!

@Wobblywombat

Dear OP,

Hope you are waking up to a nice sunny day wherever you are!
You are so incredibly strong to have survived the last few months. Please out yourself first today. Don’t text DH who does not deserve your well wishes, I think you would open yoursekf up to even more disappointment if/when his response turns out to be thoughtless.

Remember that in the end, you are the one who has it all (children, family home, clear conscience that you have behaved well, etc) while he has lost the right to your affection and goodwill, all through his own doing.

Couldn’t of put it better myself xx

Hope you managed to get through today okay

I hope you’re okay today, OP.

Thank you x

I’m through the day. I spoke with my GP again this morning, and we’ve agreed I’ll stay on the antidepressants for at least another month and contact him for another chat when I’m down to about a week’s supply. I really don’t know if it is the pills, or the passage of a bit of time, or maybe a bit of both but I really feel differently now. It sounds so melodramatic but I can remember the shock and the first few days and I was really terrified. I really didn’t think I could live through this, but I realise now that I am.

None of the DC even mentioned his birthday. His sister who’s abroad hasn’t asked his details of where he lives now so she won’t have sent cards. The same with his poor DF. It’s hard to believe he’s not even in touch with his own DF.

We didn’t get out today. It’s been raining non-stop and is pretty cold. If it’s a bit better tomorrow DD3 and I will go to B&Q but I don’t know if it will be...

The next “firsts” are DD1 and DS’s birthdays, both next month. I imagine he’ll send something. It’s going to be hard even seeing his writing on DS’s card. I’m so tempted to just throw it away without opening it but that has to be DS’s choice, doesn’t it?

x

Well done MoreLegs you've got through the day you dreaded and you're in one piece. Not only in one piece, but knowing that you are getting stronger all the time and you will get through to the other side.

I hope he had the birthday he deserved. It says an awful lot about him that he's prepared to cut off contact with his DF, who must be quite elderly, at a time when his DF's age group is especially at risk from Covid.

Will he even remember DD1 and DS's birthdays? I wouldn't mind betting you were the one to remember and organise anniversaries and celebrations. If he does forget I hope they won't be too hurt. He doesn't deserve them either.

Fingers crossed for a nice day and a decent shopping spree in B&Q for you and DD3. Is she looking forward to starting the new job? With so much competition at the moment she did marvellously well to get it.

Take care. Sleep tight.

Dcs birthdays will be easier because he won’t be the focus, you will be thinking about them and anything from him will be a minor distraction, that is the kids responsibility whether to acknowledge or not.

Also it will be a month further on.

Hey Op,

You are doing so well and should be so proud of yourself !

Hope you managed to get the drill sorted x

Thank you x

Yes @CatChant his DF is in his eighties now. It was so hard telling him what had happened- I felt awful doing it. He’s said that he’d be happy never going see H again.

I think he will remember birthdays, apart from mine presumably. I do wonder if he had any sadness yesterday when he realised the whole family had ignored him. Self-pity more probably, knowing him.

I’ve had to order a new drill and the planters I wanted. There wasn’t a single one left in store and the only drills were all £100.00 plus. I really don’t need anything fancy at all. Hopefully they’ll arrive by this time next week.

The sun has been out though and I’ve had all the windows open. Am trying to look forward a bit to the Spring now.

I just wish I could get them out of my head. I still think about him every day. I imagine I don’t figure very prominently in his thoughts though.

I’ll never understand this will I. It’s daunting to realise that.

x

Hi op,

I used to think like that, if only there was a pill to erase memories but these events through time although awful are also part of the healing process. The pain you go through is completely natural but will ease with time.
As with any mental anguish, the feelings of pain do not remain a constant, you will feel better.
Do not loose hope of that.

It is still early days and you must not put pressure on yourself and expect too much. Be good to yourself and kind, you have everthing in your life which is good, all you have lost is the bad. One day you will realise this and wonder why you ever pined for him.

Take care, hope the gardening goes well, lets get it looking like something out of the Chelsea flower show this year.

Sleep well

There isn’t a way to understand it. Tonight in a few minutes it’s exactly two years since the penny dropped for me that he was having an affair and in a hotel for the night with another woman.
Two years and I still don’t understand it and I gave up trying months ago. But it doesn’t matter that you don’t understand it. It really doesn’t.
How you feel about it and what you do about it is all that matters. Don’t bother trying to understand. If you were capable of it you just might understand it.
But if you’d never, ever do such a thing, you’ll probably never understand it and that’s no bad thing. It says a great deal about your standards and integrity. Why anybody would do such a thing, and to somebody they professed to love, defies comprehension.
I think you can forgive yourself for thinking about him. You were together a very long time. Also your brain has flagged this topic up as ‘dangerous’ and as such it will keep bringing it to your attention in the mistaken ancient belief that putting anxiety producing thoughts at the front of your brain will aid your survival. It’s an ancient grey matter response that hinders rather than helps in the modern age. It was useful when we needed to run away from stuff to stop us being eaten, but nowadays the same automatic response flags up stuff we would rather not think about.
See it as a dispassionate neorochemical event. He’s not worth your cognitive energy.
Take care of yourself, Legs. Healing will come. Time is your friend. XXX

MoreLegs you'll never understand because it isn't in you to behave as cruelly as he has. More importantly, one day you're not going to be troubled about whether you understand what's happened or not, because he won't matter to you any more.

But as @Onthedunes says it is still very early days and although you are doing amazingly to have held everything together over the past couple of months, it's still going to be painful and it's still going to be hard to keep them out of your head. But little by little you are getting there.

His poor DF. How utterly lacking in compassion to have cut him off because he was afraid of hearing a few home truths. Silly, selfish man.

Hooray for the sunshine and being able to open all the windows. Let's hope Spring is properly here and you can get out and garden properly. It is the best cure for sadness I know.

Sleep well. Take care.

I think @Thewookiemustgo is right there is no way to understand it, it hurts, its painful and it takes so much energy going over it, it absolutely wears you down.
I found myself trying anything to just over-ride the intrusive thoughts, I even tried EMDR therapy, it didn't work for me but I was trying to rush through the healing.
I couldn't, the only thing that helped was time, it lessened all feelings.

As time goes on thoughts will become clearer and anxiety will decrease.
You will forget, I have times now where bad memories come into the forefront of my mind and I think, 'God I'd forgotten about that particular shit event.'

It gets better. x

x

Also there will come a day when you will rather be sat waiting for the next episode of Bridgerton (insert favourite show) than either hitting him repeatedly across the head with a yard brush or having the opportunity to endlessly explain to him how hurtful he has been.

The thought of that bores me now.
He can do what he wants.

@Thewookiemustgo
Wow... I’d never had a neurological explanation of why we seem to keep almost re-traumatising ourselves when we don’t want to.
That explains a lot. Thank you 😊

@MoreLegsThanMe - you are doing better than you’ll ever know. I bang on about meditation these days. If nothing else, it allows me to acknowledge what he did... sit with it (and it’s painful) ... and then move on with my day.

There can be no rational answer to the way they behave. Or I’ve yet to come across an answer that fits with my moral compass anyway.

@ByeByeMissAmericanPie it’s to do with the ‘fight or flight’ response being automatic rather than in our conscious control. When something scares us, we breathe more heavily and quickly and our heart beats faster. We may even need to, ahem, poop. We are now lighter, pumped full of oxygen, adrenaline and energy and better equipped to run fast or punch the heck out of something. When it was (or still could be if we meet an attacker) something physical scaring us, this is a really useful automatic survival response. Studies about anxiety and panic attacks suggest that sadly our modern day worrying thoughts which produce fear hormones, even thought they don’t threaten our literal survival, trigger the ancient automatic response. Rationally we know these thoughts aren’t going to kill us, but we have no conscious control over the response our body has. And it’s horrible!
On this response being activated by any anxiety producing thought, the brain thinks “Aha! This must be really important for my survival, so I mustn’t forget it, therefore I’ll attach a little chemical marker to it. If anything even reminds me of it, the marker will trigger the survival response and keep me safe. Sometimes I must even revisit this over and over again to check it’s still scary and that the marker is still working.”
So if anyone is constantly worrying, knowing it doesn’t help, hating how it makes them feel, frustrated that they can’t stop revisiting painful topics even though they don’t want to, dreading triggering panic attacks and embarrassed about their response, please, please cut yourselves some slack. You’re fighting against your own brain. You’re not weak or silly. It takes a lot of strength to battle an automatic response. Because you’re not designed to do it.
The answer?
Warning: easy to type, hard to do. Don’t run away from it. Don’t stop trying to think about it, it’s impossible. Let it ride. Concentrate on your breathing and slow right down. By deep breathing and ‘floating’ with the anxiety instead of fighting it, you are re-training your brain. Your brain starts to re-label the anxiety producing thoughts as ‘benign’ and the unwanted response is triggered less and less. There’s therapy for this and it really does work. Mindfulness based cognitive therapy is brilliant. NHS waiting list appalling, but worth the wait.
Sorry to bang on, but this thread is full of so many of us who have either suffered in the past or are still suffering, it might help to realise why we sometimes torture ourselves. Separating ourselves from our thoughts can cut everyone a bit of slack and help us forgive ourselves in hard times. X

The wookiemustgo......
that was a wonderful post. I'm sure lots of people will find that very helpful.

@Moviestar thank you. X

Thanks again @Thewookiemustgo.
Easy to get your head round it when it’s explained like that. (And excuse the pun)

I only need to see his name come up on my mobile phone when it rings, for my heart beat to double.

And I guess that’s why stuff like meditation helps? Allows you to sit with the trauma and re wire your brain bit by bit.

Fascinating post @Thewookiemustgo. Every day's a school day.

It’s the sitting with it and letting it pass that helps. We fight and resist unpleasant thoughts and feelings, which is completely natural and understandable, but if we can let them ride and label them as ‘just thoughts’ and breathe through it, the impact on our body is less and the frequency of the thoughts and the panic gets less too. With practice and over time, obviously. It takes work, patience and time. And someone who can teach you properly and support you through the process. There are books and online tools too. The charity MIND are fab, and OCD Action are particularly good, even if it’s not OCD, there’s stuff on there worth reading if you have troublesome thoughts or anxiety of any kind.

Thank you all so much and to you @Thewookiemustgo that’s a really good explanation. What I’m doing is just letting the feelings come. I can’t stop them so I figure just let them come and slowly slowly they won’t hurt as much. As I keep saying - sorry - the nights are always worst for me but now I know I’ll feel like that and that eventually I’ll feel it less and less til in enough time it’ll only be special days that upset me. Today it was after lunchtime that I realised it was the anniversary of him leaving, and I also can’t remember if it is nine weeks or ten now, so that’s progress!

Tomorrow- hopefully- I’ll jetwash the patio bit and the front path. Tuesday I’ll do the grass. I really don’t need him for any of this.

Onward into another week.

x

Absolutely, onwards and upwards MoreLegs, that is definitely progress.

Good luck with the jet washing. It makes such a difference but it is a soggy old job. I need to get out and tackle the weeds in my garden before they take over (I shall turn a blind eye to the grimy paths and patio until it is a lot warmer).

Sleep well and take care.