Our 6th visit to the Stately Home.....

[oneplusone]

Hi all, took the liberty of starting a new thread. Keep on posting!

It gave me a lot of hope, too, OPO.

PO I am sorry to hear this(all of it). Hope you are ok.x

Well my saga continues, too. Fat
her has rung DH today to say that mother may be too ill for them to come on Saturday. Didn't say why, and DH did not have much time to speak to him, he just said that we hoped still to see them on sunday. Neither father or mother had called me or the house.

Maybe her 'nervous breakdown' is playing up again. She sounded just fine yesterday.

So is she ill or not? WHat is the incubation period for swine flu/ bubonic plague etc?

Sorry I am being sarcastic.

Don't they just make you want to SCREAAAM!!!!!

sorry about that. In red and out pink, as my friend says.

It would be funny if it were not really haPPENING.
x

AN- This sounds like a HUGE leap for you.
I get the feeling that this will ease your anxiety. It will still take time and practice but I think you will see a marked difference I really do.
It was interesting how you have identified the links between your bro and the anxiety. I think I would probably benefit myself from seeking out links to my anxiety.
Problem is I struggle with my memory and it is hard because of that to remember specific incidents.

PO- It is good for you to finally see your father as he truly is. I think you, like many of us on here have probably chosen to see your father as the good guy.
Looks like the veil has been lifted.
Getting in touch with your anger toward him is healthy IMO. x

PM- You are right, you shouldnt have to put up with your dh's outbursts.
I think you are doing the right thing though by setting boundaries with him.
I dont believe it is 'you' or your behaviour that has made him behave like this. I think you are far too used to being made to feel responsible for others reactions.
It sounds to me like he has his own demons from childhood that are being triggered here? Was he scapegoated at all by his parents? What is his relationship with them like?
This doesn't make him a bad person, I think abusive parents tend to encourage black or white thinking, because of the way they tend to label things/people good or bad, naughty or good. They treat their children according to their assigned labels; golden child, scapegoat. They never seperate the behaviour from the child as they should.
So your dh can still be a good man and yet have behaviour that isn't acceptable to you at times.
Loved your therapists analogy about the pushing against a croud, this really describes your mother'a behaviour to a T doesn't it.
I relate to what you are going through Pinky because my mother would do this. A good example;I lived in oz for a good while and each time I came home for a visit my mother would ring/ beg/ badger me into revealing my exact plans for my entire visit.
When I finally arrived she would announce she would be going away herself on holiday during my visit.I only came home every couple of years.
CONTROL>>>CONTROL>>CONTROL

AN I think this sounds like a big shift in your mind- in a good way. I think someone else has described on here (prolly better than I) but it seems like you need to write it all down as a way of giving this stuff away, does that make sense- it's like bagging up unwanted, hideous gifts- here, have them back, or someone please taken them, because they are cluttering up your life, and this is not your guilt, your shame, it is, his. You probably can't realistically give it to your brother, so your therapist is a good choice.

I know that gradually genuinely shifting the blame for all this onto the perpetrator- in my case mainly my mother, father, sister- my anxiety has subsided somewhat. LIke Smithfield I struggle to remember things clearly. My sister made a rather off hand aplogy once for "all the terrible things" she did to me when I was little. AT the time I said not to give it a thought, it is in thepast etc. etc. , but I didn't really know what she was talking about- as I can't remember specific things. But I am beginning to understand that part of me remembers it all somewhere, because it is the root of a lot of my anxiety.

I say genuinely shifting the blame, because it is easy to say it is the fault of my old family, but to really be convinced if this, deep down, I don't know. I am still struggling with this.

Thank you Smithfield. I was beginning to fall inot the loop of 'what have I done wrong?'"maybe I am being mean", going over and over whta I said to her yesterday, what my tone of voice was like, could she have inferred some slight or offhandness from my manner. I feel now that I must STOP thinking like this.
I can picture her face now, all puffed up from crying but in her eyes will be that rage, the bitterness- all directed at me- the cruel one, the nasty piece of work that I am in her eyes. I can feel her heaping all the venom onto me. I cannot take any more it for her. I have nowhere to put it..does that make sense?

Maybe she is ill, maybe I am pushing her over the edge. But what have I done? Is it because I asked her to come at a specific time? Is that my crime? "oH don't you pretend, Pinky, don't play the innocent, you know what you are doing, you are mean and nasty and cruel.....' THe other members of the family will be saying,"why are you so mean to mother? WHy can you not just be nice to her? WHy must you spoil everything? You make everything horrible".

They don't even need to say it to me anymore, it's all here, ready to play back in my head.

But maybe she is really ill. But she sounded fine yesterday, when she was too busy to chat and had a full diary of things to do, so could only fit us in for an hour at the weekend.

Maybe it is one of her Really Bad Colds- but then they are usually the fault of my children so it can't be that.

Does this ever stop? DO they ever stop doing this?

Or is it just me. Being horrid and all those things. Logically I can say NO, it isn't me, and I am getting better, but I still feel really guilty- like I am doing this to her.
When really, she is doing this to me.

DH I really don't know. I know his Brother is a very loud amn who only likes his own opinion, and his mother excuses his behaviour all the time. He bullied my DH for most of his childhood, until my DH grew to be talller than him, and started 'winning'. My DH refused to soeak a word to his brother for nearly four years when he was a teenager, his brother is 5 years older.
MY DH describes how his parents heaped a lot of expectation upon his brother, when he showed no interst in academic subjects. DH sort of fell beneath the radar- would read a lot, daydream a lot (sounding familiar to anyone yet?), was 'no bother'. His mother and father like to be involved, but I would not describe them as controlling. HE will not entertain the suggestion that he has any issues. Both his parents have life threatening illnesses and I don't think he could think like that right now. But I do think that my going through this process ahs made him think a little more about things. He is a very kind and helpful man most of the time, but he goes through these patches on angry man/anxiety.

Sorry for rambling on so much.

I haven't posted for a while as I have been fairly okay but I need to talk and feel cheeky just coming here.

Dh has been wanting me to log off so just a quickie

how do you work things through when talking about them make things worse?

sorry to post and run but i have ignored dh for too long

PM - I guess I recognise your dh's behaviour, because it is how 'I' behave , especially when I am being triggered.
No, you are right, you cant push someone else to face their own demons, only the individual can do that for themselves. All you can do is set limits for him. I know for my own part the more dh lets me get away with this sort of behaviour the worse I get. My dh is actually helping me by setting boundaries. Does it help to think of it in that way?
You must feel confident that it is not your fault. He is an adult and responsible for his own behaviour.
Your mother 'is' fine. She is not ill and if she were (which trust me she isnt!), how could you possibly be responsible? You are not that powerful to cause someone to become ill. Total manipulation. She is like a tantruming child holding her breath for attention. Accept she is not a child she is an adult, so this emotional blackmail...manipulation.
When I first cut off from my mother she developed a breast lump . It is all about control unfortunately. I say unfortunately because part of you (the child part) still wants to believe in her.
The guilt will subside. It is without doubt the worst part of the process. It was for me at least. I dont think I had a minutes peace in the early days, I kept turning the same questions over and over. Is it me? Searching for evidence to confirm my conclusions that I was hurting them and I was responsible for all their misery and pain.
They conditioned me to feel like this, just the way you have been conditioned. Not correct. You will come to see that the more you distance yourself from their bullcrap.

AN, I agree with everyone. You have taken a huge step forward and seem to be really seeing and recognising exactly what your brother did that was wrong, and feeling or at least realising your rightful and justified anger towards him.

I can relate to how you are feeling because in a way i think I am going through the same thing with my sisters. A couple of things have happened recently which have been like the straw that broke the camel's back. I feel like i have finally and completely given up all hope of having the sort of relationship I would have liked to have had with them. I have completely detached from them and they no longer matter to me. And I can see clearly now that I have never mattered to them. I was just refusing to see or accept this fact until now. I suppose i was still living in hope that one day they would change and would fully accept me into their little twosome, but I realise now that it is never going to happen. It is as always what Alice Miller constantly talking about, seeing and knowing and accepting your own truth about your own history. And the truth about my history is that my sisters have NEVER once shown me that they truly cared about me, loved me, thought about me in the way they seem to care about each other. I have just been unable to accept that this was the truth as it would have hurt too much.

I don't know what changed to make me finally have the courage to see the truth and shatter my own illusion but that is what has happened.

AN, you say you feel scared to be angry at your brother. I too feel scared to be angry at my sisters. By that I mean overtly angry to their faces. Inwardly and privately i feel very angry at them, i feel hatred towards them. But i don't think i could show my true feelings to them. But i know my feelings are justified. They have been continuously cruel, callous and thoughtless towards me and i know that i am right to feel angry and hateful towards them. In fact i now am wondering why i was so desperately pursuing them all this time, why i have wasted so much time and energy worrying about whether they were angry at me, wondering if i had said something to annoy or displease them. I know that it was the child in me who was attached to them who was thinking all these things. I think that child has now realied that those 2 people will never be able to give her what she needs and so she has finally let go of them and given up the hope of having her needs met by them.

PM, i have found that intellectual knowledge of something usually comes before knowing it an a deep and emotional level. Quite often i work something out in my mind at a purely rational level, but i don't feel the emotions i should be feeling at having that intellectual knowledge. But like AN said, it is the first step and i have found that the associated emotions are usually triggered by something in everyday life. It's quite a difficult process to describe and it takes a while to recognise when emotions from your past are being triggered by an event in the present. Many times i have made a mistake and thought the present event is the cause of my immense rage/pain/anguish, but often after thinking about it i come to realise that actually the present event is merely a trigger for emotions that have been buried for years.

I now feel that I simply want nothing more to do with my sisters. But on a practical level i don't know how to manage the situation. They are completely unaware of the mental shift that has taken place in my mind. I am sure they are finding their interactions with me confusing as i am constantly putting up boundaries where before they were able to go charging in and attack without any resistance from me.

And i know they are 'blaming' me for simply putting up these boundaries which are pefectly reasonable and should have always been there. But because before there were no boundaries and they had carte blanche to say and do as they pleased without me saying a word and now that their freedom has been curtailed and restricted they are angry. They think I am being unreasonable in wanting to be treated with some respect and consideration for my feelings; they think I am being oversensetive because i will no longer tolerate their nasty, insensetive words and behaviour towards me.

I know I am not being oversensetive or unreasonable but they simply cannot see it. They think their treatment of me is ok because that is what they have been doing for years and i have been allowing them. Now that I am putting up boundaries to protect myself, they are blaming me for no longer being willing to accept their rubbish.

I have finally begun to actually do what i have been telling myself i should do. I no longer prioritise my sisters. If either of them or a friend suggest to meet on the same date i will always put the friend first. I guess it's just a question of breaking old habits and forming new ones. But old habits die hard as they say. But i have done it now for the first time and it felt really good. I think the first time surely must be the hardest but i am pleased that i managed to do it and i don't feel the anxiety that i normally feel. If my sister cannot meet me on a different date i just don't care. I am writing that but don't know if i fully and genuinely believe that right now, but hopefully given time i will truly believe it.

OK, ramble over, am off to read Alice Miller's latest book.

Hi all, I have posted on one or two of these stately homes threads about my dreadful relationship with my mother and her partner and you've all been incredibly supportive - I've admired and valued your honest input.

Well, in May things came to a head and I asked her not to contact me ever again and blocked her email addresses and those of her partner. It was past time to start protecting myself and my kids from the two of them, so I did it. I was furious and the break was made angrily, and my mum has used it to turn my Grandmother against me. My sister's confused but hanging in there. I know my Mum talks to her a lot and has told her how cruel I've been, so it's really all credit to her that she's keeping the channels open with me. I suppose also she knows what mum's like, but it doesn't affect her as much. Mum behaves better to her, and also she minds it all less (I think, unless she's in denial). My brother understands and is rock solid.

But my mum is trying to turn people against me, with some success, and I'm finding it hard to cope with. I suppose I thought people might be a bit more open minded, but I should really have remembered who I'm dealing with. My delightful mum is a master-manipulator and career Victim, and I really hate knowing she's getting milage out of my anger - which I feel because of her appalling behaviour!

Just wanted to offload a bit, and see if people had any advice for helping me remain zen-like.

My wish is not to talk about it, and also to allow people to have the best relationship with her that they still can - but she's determined that people should cut me out, or else they are being disloyal to her.

I know there's not much, if anything, I can do. Unless you can think of anything? I'm just choking on it all a bit.

DH is my rock, thank goodness.

RCBxx

Well, I am 36 so the age excuse has been off limits for a good 15 years I think!!

I'm a bit of a lurker as I'm beginning to realise through therapy that I have a toxic and somewhat naricissistic parent and was manipulated and emotionally abused as a child (and to some extent still am.....). When I feel brave enough I may say more but for now am finding it so hard to admit all these things and to cope with the shame, guilt and sense of going mad with it all...

RCB I think you are incredibly strong and brave and that you have re-taken control and taken back your power. It's now YOUR choice how you deal with and accept the fall-out, how you CHOOSE to live now is within your control and you have empowered yourself, though I can see it doesn't always feel like that. maybe sometimes it's worth thinking about what you've gained (power, control, self-esteem) rather than focusing on what you've lost? Am new to all this so apologies if that sounds stupid!

Thirtysomething, I understand the shame and confusion very well. It's really hard to think these thoughts at any time, not just for 'newbies' (!). It doesn't get easier exactly, in my experience at least, as these are not easy thoughts and emotions, but you do get more accustomed to thinking and feeling them...

Thanks for your words. You're definitely right, but I still can't help grieving the damage to relationships I had which were pretty good. But perhaps they weren't as good as all that if people are so entirely influenced?

I'm certainly more peaceful overall for having drawn a few lines in the sand, and that benefits my husband and my boys as well as me.

AN, you are right and i do understand what you say about different degrees of detachment suiting different people/situations.

Wrt my sisters, somehow the situation seems closer to that which many of you have with your parents. The feeling that they always hurt you, don't really care about you, you are always disappointed by them, they always let you down; and yet it is so hard to walk away when you know in your head that it would be the best thing for you.

This is how things are with my sisters. Recently I have felt a lot more anger and hatred towards them than i have felt before. I know I should feel huge amounts of anger at them as they have both so often been so cruel and callous and thoughtless and uncaring towards me, have deliberately and knowingly and maliciously excluded from things they are doing to make me feel bad, have ganged up on me many times, have mocked me and my friends etc etc. And yet, whilst i have felt some anger and hatred towards them recently, i still sense in myself a fear of feeling the true extent of the anger that I rightfully should feel towards them. I suppose the fear is because i am still scared that if i showed them the true extent of my anger towards them and also acted upon my true feelings and perhaps gave them both a taste of their own medicine (I admit i have been having thoughts of revenge and retaliation against them for all the nasty things they have done to me), they would reject me. And I don't want to be rejected by them. I am still not at the point where i can say they really and truly do not matter to me. I am getting closer and closer to that point, and i keep thinking i am there, but i think there is actually still a little way to go.

I suppose i haven't yet found a replacement for my sisters. I have friends but none that i feel i can totally trust and rely on and i think this is why i still have an attachment to my sisters and still feel at least slightly dependent on them emotionally. I cannot seem to cut the ties completely, if only in my head and not physically.

RCB and thirtysomething, hello and welcome to the thread. Am sure you will find lots of support and understanding on here. Keep posting. x

RCB I fear my family relationships may well be going the same way. My brother is so very distant from me anyway, and dismissive, and my sister is quite frankly bonkers- there is no way I could safely discuss any of this with any member of my family. One of my Aunite's is very nice and friendly to me, but my mother has been making a point of befriending them, and she overheard my aunty invitng us over to their house. I am failry certain she will have been going into overdrive to get her on side.

Also- and this may seem really strange- I am so used to my mother controlling the relationships I have with other members of my family, that I feel I cannot get in contact with them because it seems disloyal to her. I sent an email to said auntie this week, with some photos of the children, and I feel guilty about that. It is crazy I know- it is another aspect of the 'conditioning'. But DH says 'ring her up' and I can't. I am scared of
a) her saying she doesn't want to speak to me becuase I am being cruel to my mother

b) my mother finding out

c) the guilt.

I should phone her, I should be sticking up for myself. But my fear of the above, coward that I am, is making me roll over and say ok I will relinquish this relationship, I will take that as a sacrifice for breaking free from my Mother and Father and siblings. But then I'm not breaking free if I do that, am I?

Sorry to go on about myself.

But I'm struggling again. Father left a message on our house phone at the weekend to say that mother was too ill to come so they cancelled. But the message wasn't addressed to me, it was to DH. He left it on DH's mobile first then the house phone, but referred to himself by his first name, and likewise mother, so he wasn't talking to me, was he?

He didn't say what was wrong with her. DH thinks it was a ploy to get me to ring and want to rush over etc.

I didn't, I sent a message to my mother sayiing I hope she felt better soon and to let us know so we could arrange another visit. That was ok, wasn't it? Probably not. SHe has told DH before that she considers me sending emails and texts as me "being cruel and impersonal".

I'm really feeling it at the moment, the whole it's not her, it is in fact me and I'm making it all up and being very horrible to my family and being a very bad daughter. I feel like I'm actually nuts, have a victim complex. Everything bad I ahve ever done in my life keeops popping up in my head by way of supporting evidence to this theory.

A converation I had with her when I was feeling depresssed keeps coming back to me. I was saying I felt I din't have any friends, and she said 'don't worry, lots of people only have their mother for a friend'. This is spurring me on, as she went on to talk about one of my aunties who spent most of her adult life caring for my (very emotionally manipulative) granny, and how she was ok.I think this is what my mother has had in mind for me all along.

The chances are she has been souring my relationships with my extended family before I begain to break away. Ultimately I feel she wants me entirely for herself- she has always hated me having any contact with members of my family independently of her, and she always required me to tell her everything I talked about or did. "you never rang me to tell me your sister had rung" was always a classic.

I can't live like that, can I? The way she is goes far beyond the meddling granny (you know, people who say, "oh my mother is really annoying, too".) I mean I could give in and let her take over my life if it was just me, but I can't do that to my children or my husband, it is not fair on them.

I am feeling very little of the "benefits" as you describe, Thirtysomething, right now I just feel crappy.

Sorry haven't been posting much lately. Good stuff and not so good stuff happening, finding it very hard to articulate. But am still reading. Pinky, so sorry to hear about your mother's (and father's) latest escapades. They really take the biscuit, don't they. I know what you mean about it just feeling crappy, I just hope it helps to know there are people here who believe you and take your side. Hopefully eventually you will be enough on your own side too that you can start to reap the rewards of not playing nice with them any more. If that makes sense.

OPO, sounds like you're getting more and more clarity about your relationship with your sisters, you know what's going on but like you say you haven't reached the point of emotinally knowing it - I think you can only cut off from them or treat them the way you want to treat them when you have the emotional safety to do so. Was very to read about your DH and the emotional blackmail he uses, but you're totally right that separating from him is on another plane entirely from making a break from your sisters, and would shatter your DCs world in a way that not seeing their aunties/cousins wouldn't.

AN, I agree with all the others that you've made a huge breakthrough in your thinking re your brother. I think that's great.

Hello thirtysomething and hi again RCB.

Yesterday was the day of the family get together that we were invited to. I was actually very, very glad not to be even thinking about going, it becomes more and more clear to me all the time that separation is the only way forward with my family - and that's an advance, as a few months ago I would have felt that maybe we were "missing out" by not being there. It still had its effect though - still gets to me that they're so able to manage without me/us, that nothing stops the juggernaut in its tracks, and I had a bit of a wobbly day yesterday and some of today; but I had a bit of space to do some work around it and that helped a bit. And now it seems to have cleared.

Smithfield, I think you said a while back something about it being a worthy venture, to try and undo the damage of the past and be the people we are and be better parents to our own DCs. I'm paraphrasing hugely I know but I think that was sort of the gist. Anyway, I know I agreed with it absolutely when I read it!! And the longer I do this work and try to put my life back together the way I want it to be and the way I think I deserve it to be, overall, the better it does get.

Rose - if you're still getting a chance to read! - your GM's comments about nursing the cat while your DH held his own daughter - wow, she really is on another planet, isn't she!!! glad you didn't let her overstay!

Love to all.

Bop thank you. Yes it does mean a lot to me.

I rang my parents today to ask how mother was, and I got father, with his 'forbidding tone' on. Apparrently she is suffering from depression. I could sense he was trying to get me to feel bad/responsible for it but I just asked the normal sort things like has she been to GP and hoped she felt better soon.

Then mother rings back and leaves a sobbing message on my phone thanking me for the call.

In my head I caN SAY i AM NOT to blame but I still feel guilty and responsible. I don't know if she is depressed or just sulking because she is not getting to control me any more. I would love to be able to tell her GP what is going on, because I bet she has the victim thing going on.

She is still planning a vist to her friend's at the weekend. Mother's 'bouts of depression' often only last a week or so.

I'm not going to cave in. That's what I would normally do. My sister would ring up and tell me to stop being so cruel to mother and I would ring mother up and apologise ffor anythign and everything. We shall see. Sis has not rung yet.

Sorry Pinky if you took my comments as a judgement - far from it, what I meant was that it takes enormous courage and strength to break away from controlling, emotionally manipulative abusive relationships, especially with family, and that doing so is a sign of re-gaining some power and control over your life so it's a huge step in the right direction, even though it may not feel like that as we who have parents like this are so very conditioned to feel guilt for everything we do. So I'm sorry if you took it the wrong way.

FWIW you sound very lucid and strong. Your mother wounds incredibly manipulative and controlling and has clearly spent years perfecting the whole victim/martyr routine and heaping enormous guilt on to you. It sounds like the parent/child roles are reversed with you being made to act as parent to her, placating her, pandering to her and being expected to sort her depression out etc..... By doing what you are doing now and resisting the victim/persecutor/guilt cycle you are finally becoming an adult (and not just parent/child)?

Thirtysomething oh no I didn't take it as a judgement, I was just saying that I am not 'there' yet. I feel like a coward, becauseI am afriad of the telephone- I actually physically jump when it rings. The call screening thing is helping. But you see, I did manage to ring them, and what did I get- emotional blackmail. I don't really know what I expected.

But yes, I have often felt as though I am treated like a child by them, when really I am fulfilling their needs as a parent to a small child might do. It is like a toddler who needs their self esteem boosting- nothing can be their fault- I must shoulder all the blame- and it has been like that all my life.

An yes I think she is a loon, and I am almost on the outside looking in these days and I can see just how much of a loon she is, but I still feel as though I should be making it ok for her.

You are right, though, it does her no good to just constantly perpetuate this cycle. I do hope that at some point I might be able to have a more 'even' relationship with her, at least on a superficial level. I will have to wait and see.

PM, you are right to stay strong and not give in to your mother's manipulation. You are not responsible for her moods, she is your parent, she is responsible for you, not the other way around. You are so used to being made to feel you are responsible for her happiness or otherwise you beleive it is your responsibility. But if you think about it you know it's not.

Perhaps a good way of looking at it is putting your DC's in your position. Would you ever feel they were responsible for your moods/happiness? No. And so neither are you responsible for your mother.

My mother sounds very much like yours. She has always made me and my sisters feel it is our responsibility to maker her feel happy and make up for our dad's awfulness. I know my sisters have taken on this responsibility but i never really did, not sure why really. Perhaps i could see so clearly how she had failed me as a mother that i felt no responsibility towards her whatsoever from quite early on.

I am in such a dilema about my sisters. I just don't know what to do. I discussed it with DH and he thinks keeping in contact with them for the sake of the DC's is not a good enough reason in comparison to the amount of pain and anguish they always put me through. I know what he is saying makes sense. But i can't help wondering if he has an ulterior motive in encouraging me to cut ties with my sisters. He might think if i did that it would make me more dependent on him again and he would regain some of his power and control over me that i am sure he can sense he has lost. I know that sounds an awful thing to think about my own husband but i feel i know him well enough by now to know he rarely does things purely because they are in my best interests. There always seems to be a hidden agenda with him and unsurprisingly it is to his benefit even if it appears at first that he is doing something purely for me. I was under this illusion for quite a while. I think i convinced myself he truly loved me and would do something to his detriment if it would benefit me. But my blinkers are off now and i know he would never do anything so altruistic. Even if it's not immediately apparent to me, everything he does is ultimately for his benefit. I am not as upset about realising this as i thought i would be. I realise my expectations about him were unrealistic. I was epecting him to behave as a parent would, making great sacrifices for me without expecting anything in return, loving me unconditionally no matter how i behaved with him.

I realise now there is nobody who has loved me unconditionally and it is unlikely that anybody ever will. Every bit of love that i receive has to be worked for/earned. I know this rationally but perhaps not emotionally. It is a tough truth to live with and i am not sure the full impact of it has really hit me yet. But then perhaps i am so used to living without feeling loved that i cannot miss what i have never had.

Why do I want contact with someone who doesn't want it with me and has hurt me so many times?

Why can't I just leave it?

I managed it for 3 weeks after a session at the hospital and I have been back and forth ever since.

He has emailed me once and texted once, in reply to me but he ignores most of them.

I am going to ruin my marriage if I carry on.

I am scared.

What if I never go through this?