SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I stopped relying on who I had thought he was because at that point, I had no firm idea of who he really was.

Exactly this. I don't trust anything about him anymore. I never would've thought him capable of what he's done already. And the emotional and verbals abuse - never, ever. He's screamed a half inch from my face while I sobbed. He's kicked and thrown things. He's got a lot of rage.

I wouldn't be surprised if he became a rapist or set meetings with hookers and robbed them. There are no bounds to what he's capable of as far as I'm concerned because he's a sociopath. He can cry big crocodile tears for himself but that's about where his feelings stop.

Yeah, when I see lack of empathy, then all bets are off and that person becomes something threatening in my eyes. Empathy is what stops us from doing a lot of truly awful things.

My STBX actually has robbed sex workers in a sense. He told me (thinking I'd be pleased) that he sometimes contacts the webcam or phone sex company and claims his underaged "son" ran up the charges, demands a refund and for his "son's" email to be blocked. Then he sets up a new email, does it again, goes back to the company outraged that they gave his "son" access again and gets another refund. When he told me, he was like, "See, I'm not spending that much." What an immoral jerk he is. I don't believe in not paying someone you hire. I don't care what the service is. It just makes him a bigger dirt ball in my eyes.

That is just gross as hell, isn't it?

He's just reprehensible. When I look at my own posts, I'm like, run from this loser and I am running to be sure, but in person, you just would never guess my STBX was capable of this double life. He presents as intelligent, humble and grounded and all he ever used to talk about to people was me - I heard it all the time. He was so enamored, so proud etc. etc. You would not believe he's the same nut job manically seeing hookers, binging on porn, ripping off porn sites, gambling, raging at me because he got caught cheating, etc, etc.

There's so much dissonance. One minute I think he's so familiar, comfortable but the next minute I think he bought a knife to rob hookers or kill me - it's that crazy.

Oh I 100% understand. This is why I couldn't be around my XWH once I left. It is all but impossible to believe that he did the things he did if you're talking to him. He presents as such a totally different kind of person. His mask is on point. It screwed with my brain too much to even speak to him.

Skeeter, I lost my reply earlier, but I gasped when you posted that. What absolute HATRED that man has for women, was my reaction! Just like he wanted them to not only fuck him, but then lose the money they "earned" for it....maybe they got beat up by some pimp because of that. Or he just wanted to "drive home the point" that to him, they were WORTHLESS WHORES. UGH UGH UGH. It's truly astounding how sick they are.

Once in NYC for NYE, I stayed at a real dump of a hotel in Times Square (back in the 1980's). The morning of New Year's Day as I rode the elevator down, 2 police officers and a gurney came out on that floor. To fetch the body of a dead hooker who had been pushed out the window of an upper level hotel room. The officer told me "this happens all the time..." These guys must really and truly hate women deep down, I always thought.

Then, I dated Mr. Nice Guy for 4 years and I MARRIED ONE OF THEM!

How I discovered that was by a credit card statement with a big charge on it. He'd chosen to use a credit card of mine I'd added him to when we married 4 years earlier,for extra but HIDDEN FUCK YOU effect towards his new bride - me.

But the truth only came out 8 months after I called the card company and tried to find out what the mysterious charge was for. They had coded it as "clothing." For months afterwards, as we started working on the new place I bought him with the equity of my old home, I got told a ton of lies about what kind of clothing it was, etc. etc.

He thought he'd covered his tracks real well: it was an escort service that sold patrons "private lingerie modeling sessions" in their hotel room for $300 a pop. I realized right then that this was BIG business in that city, and no doubt had some kind of underworld cover for it.

The next time he had to go there for his job, I went with him at the request of our "MC" and while there, I met with a PI to see if I could hire THEM for his future work trips, and was told that in that county, there was a law preventing investigators from going any further into a hotel than the freakin' lobby...can you say "collusion by county officials?" I can!

Organized crime is a big player in that world, so when your STBXWH's card company processed his "back charges" it makes you wonder what may have gotten back to the hooker! Regardless, WHAT a sick M.F.!

How's the NC going, by the way? Stand strong.

I'm staying strong-ish with NC. I'm absolutely doing it but this afternoon he got an email through by emailing my work account and it knocked me off balance for a minute or an hour or two ;/

He's been emailing my personal account - it goes straight to junk as that's the best google will do. First, he miraculously found an expensive item of mine I had lent him and said he lost, so he was emailing to tell me he'd drop it off in the morning. I have a six foot wall and locked gate around the property so all he could do was leave it outside. I never responded. The next day he emailed freaking out about the knife purchase. Then he emailed a photo of him with his daughter - the one he abandoned at five months old for his SA. He eventually signed over his parental rights to stop being on the hook for child support, which I don't believe he paid anyway. I ignored that. So, today he emails my work account, where he's not blocked because he has never emailed me at that account so I didn't bother. He's blocked on all social media, the phone etc, that's the one place.

His lengthy email was to tell me he can't believe I wouldn't share in his joy at being reunited with his now 22 year old daughter. Then he wanted to let me know that he's moved on and is no longer interested in repairing our marriage or ever reuniting, but he really thinks we should be friends. He went on to say he's not sure why our marriage didn't work out. He guessed, "it just wasn't meant to be" or "maybe it's because we're both bad at relationships." Either way, he still loves me and wants my friendship so long as I can agree to no sex. And he thinks I'd make someone else a wonderful wife, even though he had said prior I wasn't good at relationships .

I have to admit, it felt like a discard and I had a little anxiety attack. His begging for another chance was a comfort of sorts as I detach - odd though that sounds. It meant he realized he fucked up something valuable. Now, not so much.

Then I decided to re-read with an eye towards what he was really saying and how he was trying to manipulate me. Basically, I decided he wanted to reassert some control by declaring he was in full agreement on breaking up and didn't want to ever have sex with me again - ha - he'd have sex with a tree stump. He was also hoping to reel me into maintaining a friendship so he can continue to look like a good guy to the world - "It just didn't work out, but see I'm a nice guy, that's why we're still friends." Nope. That ship has sailed fuck face.

If you all want to read the vomit I can post - it was really destabilizing initially. I feel better now. He's not getting a response.

Yep, totally cray-cray.

I mean, really.....

Totally cray cray. To ponder why our marriage broke down with no acknowledgment that it was because he cheated on me dozens upon dozens of times?!

And, meanwhile he's camping - he made sure to wax poetic about how amazing it is and how he's loving it and the weather's perfect etc. If camping is so fucking great, why are emailing the woman who's divorcing you, who asked you to never contact her again, who hasn't responded to the other 3 emails you've sent in the last two days??? Why aren't you ejaculating in your sleeping bag while you have phone sex with some rando?? You've moved on, remember?

Ugh, I'm just so angry, so sick of the manipulation. This is my fucking life. I'm heartbroken and he just wants to toy with me.

Much like the tides, there seems to be a rhythm to our feelings: the incoming tide is our feeling of relative power or security when we think they are at least pursuing us, and that outgoing tide is that moment when we feel any loss of their interest, right? Like the tides, these moments come in for a time, and then they go out. Until another cycle starts...

After years of this, I can say that sickening feeling isn't really connected to the person who's now "rejecting" or "retreating" from us; it's more likely our own reaction to the sudden void we feel: a loss of incoming attention, affection. Yes, of course it IS destabilizing, but I believe it's TEMPORARY.

Simply put, those feelings we get are actually independent of whoever we feel is causing them. Once you know stability is a genuine need you have, for your own heart, independent of HIM, then his bullshit won't have the power to upset you.

[This message edited by Superesse at 10:39 PM, September 30th (Wednesday)]

You're so right, Superesse.

It's a false security to have him in pursuit. What does that even mean, that I'd take him back or that I have someone I can rely on? Not so much. It's just the impression of stability. Losing a partner, even a crappy one, leaves a hole. At some point I'm going to fill it, but until then there will be some dizzying moments when I stand at the edge and look down.

This process is hard and messy and embarrassing and stupid. I hate that it put me here and I have to navigate this crap fest. What a worthless pos.

I don't know what this means but I've found myself inadvertently typing "it" in place of "he" or "him," turning my STBX into a nonhuman entity.

Appropriate, I suppose ;/

Does anyone else feel panic when they ignore their STBX, especially when the STBX is in a heightened emotional state? I get very fearful of some indeterminate backlash, which in the past has compelled me to respond. I won't this time. It may come from my childhood.

Yes, I've had those kinds of irrational low-level antsy feelings and you are right, they do hark back to childhood.

One that I clearly used to identify was when he would sit down to do the "bills" and I'd stopped working for money (just did construction work on the farm for "equity" share). I'd get this sick, sinking, helpless feeling and want to just disappear. I knew it was me worrying about the money but having zero power to help pay any of those bills...it was ALL him. I will NEVER give anyone else that kind of power of my life. It was a big-ass mistake to allow myself to be a kept woman.

But one day I realized the last time I'd felt just like that, I was a teen and my father and mother were having some stressful situation after he got laid off from his well-paid government job. Suddenly, my father went from "bringing home the bacon" to having zero income - just like I was. Awful. But it's your memory saying "this looks familiar."

Don't give your STBXH that emotional power. Even if he can't detect it, you are losing energy to it.

Does anyone else feel panic when they ignore their STBX, especially when the STBX is in a heightened emotional state? I get very fearful of some indeterminate backlash, which in the past has compelled me to respond. I won't this time. It may come from my childhood.

I felt that. I tend to run on anger in such situations, so I just decided to be prepared in case it was war. Hence the gun. Not saying that's the right way, that's just how I handled it. It's also not terribly healthy to think "if I have to shoot his dumbass because he tries something on me, I will". I harnessed anger instead of appeasement because it helped me feel more in control, which is a hard thing to feel when dealing with someone who doesn't behave rationally. A lot of my healing has been focused on looking past that immediate response of anger and dealing with everything that this anger has protected me from feeling. It propelled me out of the situation quite well, but it isn't a sustainable state of mind.

My response is fear. I had a very volatile father, who could get physical and was terrifying. I may be responding from that place, expecting to be sucker punched in some manner. I don't think it's only a reflex. My ex BF, also a cheater but not as prolific, ended up stalking me, slashing tires, throwing rocks through my windows, etc when I finally cut him off.

I also identify with feeling panicked and super emotional and I get no pleasure from knowing he's suffering. I realize it's not my job to provide succor, and in fact, he needs to learn to self-soothe, but it feels bad to leave him hanging. I wouldn't with a normal person, but because he's so damn toxic I can't engage for any reason. He's got other resources.

So, today I need to go to the courthouse to file for a default judgement. It involves a few steps and mailing him a copy. I'm feeling so anxious.

But you went ahead anyway, right? One step at a time through these waves of emotion.

I did, Superesse!

I filed for a default judgement this afternoon. Apparently, he gets until Oct 4th to respond - so it's a second chance at fighting the divorce. Makes zero sense. On October 5th, provided he hasn't responded, I can go back to file for a dissolution judgement without a hearing. From there, it takes around three months. So many trips to the courthouse. Hopefully, the next one is the last. It doesn't help my anxiety to have to jump through all of these hoops.

I'm going to do a full moon ritual. The full moon is about releasing so it was a really appropriate day to file those papers.

I hope everyone's doing well.

Ice cream cake from Baskins for you, lady!!

Omg - now that you said it, I need ice cream! Although Baskin's closed in neighborhood ;(