My ex came to the house

Your friends should not have said anything to you about seeing your wife. Also, just because a man is well dressed doesn’t mean he is better. Also he may be a user that ends up just using your wife and dumping her. I question if these so called friends are people you should consider as friends. A true friend would not want to tell you things that only serve to upset you. Your wife is hoping they will report to you so you feel bad. That is what toxic people enjoy doing and get an ego boost from “ hurting others”.

Your wife is a user and anyone she is with will be used. You are better off without her. She is not and never will be the person you created in your mind that is a good person or healthy for you to have in your life.

@Open Eyes

You're right. You're completely right.

I look at the people in my life right now. There are so many good people; deeply good people that command no attention at all. It's easy to see the surface.

I think it was right for my friend to tell me that about my wife. It hurt a LOT, but all these things continue to solidify in my mind that she's not who I thought she was at all.

This may sound crazy, but I actually thought..... IF I loved her so much, and IF that was because she was merely playing a role and reflecting me back to me, THEN I bet I'll really enjoy my own company.

Like I said to a friend, I go through these periods of depression and feeling overwhelmed, then when I come out the other side, it's like I'm at a new stage in my recovery. Each new stage is fragile and needs time to develop and take root. Right now, I'm not where I was two weeks ago. And comparing this to where I was in August is a big difference, because a lot has suddenly happened and it's forced change and growth. I'm lucky I can change and grow.

I've talked before about deeply enjoying the peace and quiet here. Enjoying the complete dark and silence of the house at night, and not even wanting music on. Just craving the peace. Then that changed. There's music on much more often again. I still enjoy the peace, but the deep profound longing I used to feel during it is waning.

I think I'm someone who feels deeply, and I don't defend myself very much. I'm not a good "cognitive first" thinker. I'm more of an "emotions first" thinker. I'm working on that.

My kids are SO healthy and doing SO well. They've gone off-roading for the afternoon and I'm working at home. Yesterday we were all at a baby shower for a young couple my son has known since kindergarten. Afterwards two of them went to visit friends, and me and daughter went riding dirt bikes.

My son is taking some vacation and tonight we're watching scary movies together. The big fella is taking his kid sister to Spirit Halloween to look for costumes later today too.

My daughter's therapist called me last week just to tell me my daughter is doing, so, so much better, and to tell me how profoundly my daughter loves me.

These things are blessings.

I'm scared of court. I'm scared of being financially ruined, but I also go through periods of being hopeful. Right now, I am far more mentally prepared to see her in court than I was a few weeks ago. I'm scared I won't be as genuine in my version of things because I've had some time to heal.

Anyway. I'm OK.

Quote:

I'm scared I won't be as genuine in my version of things because I've had some time to heal.

you will be better because you are stronger & have processed what has happened & it is much clearer to you now

I genuinely feared her.

I could never understand how to explain that or why it was so extreme.

I think it was because of the extreme gaslighting, and the conditioning to just take her anger and bitterness defenselessly.

And, I'm thankful to my current therapist for pointing out that I was physically abused. Long term sleep deprivation is physical abuse. Dr Ramani talks about that as physical abuse as well. She incited panic in me by bursting into the room repeatedly to say all these heinous things to me then leaving.

I hope I'll be able to speak from a genuine place and an honest place. I'm actually scared to heal too much before I have to speak about this in court because I'm scared if I'm too calm it will reduce the legitimacy of what we experienced.

It won’t kill the legitimacy in court. You can tell the facts and give a couple of strong examples of the abuse to support the facts. Say that you were and are afraid of her. Be prepared. Your lawyer should be prepping you for that.

Thank you

This is what things are like now....

Friday, my son took a half day off work. He picked up the youngest from school before 3pm and they went exploring and offroading.

I got home about 5:30pm. He met me in the driveway and excitedly began telling me about their adventure and the things he was able to do with his truck. He has a kitten now. The kitten goes everywhere with him, including on offroad adventures.

The youngest had already gone to a board game cafe with friends for the evening. I told the big guy I had to get some laundry going and get my minivan fixed. He offered to work on it for me, but asked if his GF could come over.

Sure.

OK... Can you make us chicken stew?

Sure.

Ok... It's her laundry night but she wants to come here. Can she do laundry here?

(sigh) Sure.

He comes in two hours later from the garage, with GF and her laundry basket.

I leave supper for them and go pick up other kid from the cafe. Other kid wants to bring a friend home with her.

Sure.

We get home, and big kid and GF are gone. Daughter and friend go crazy playing with the kitten. Then they take the kitten to her room and I can hear video games and ongoing kitten play and teen girls squealing and laughing. I chill on the couch listening to old rock songs. After almost an hour I call the big kid.

He and GF have gone out to pick up nachos and cheese and other goodies and buy new board games so we can all hang out and play board games and Uno and eat when they get back.

Sure.

Saturday the big kid goes for the day with a local 4x4 club, and DD goes to her BF's house. I meet a friend for coffee in the morning, work in the garage and workout for the afternoon. My kids and their friends are all here in the evening to empty my refrigerator again.

I get a message on my phone that DD is getting an award for academic performance at school, and there's a ceremony next week.

Today, me and DD went to the neighbors for coffee and breakfast. I'm working for the afternoon and evening. There's a kitten asleep on the widow sill beside me while I'm typing this.

I still feel some inner turmoil, but the deep profound longing, and the profound rumination is subsiding. The desire to just make her see, see how good this all is, the longing to have her with me here, to see and enjoy the goodness here.... All of that is going away. I'm realizing more and more how much deep goodness is here and how healthy this all is.
The goodness of stability and ease of having friends around is really profound.

I sometimes go for in excess of 24 hours without even giving my wife a thought.

What I hear is that everyone gets to enjoy themselves including you now that the toxic presence is out of the house. You have finally been able to see that and you are realizing that your wife cannot be part of your family life. You can’t fix that either and your wife has no interest in being part of. Instead she is an intruder that you and your children have to insist on having boundaries with. Your wife has shown that she has no respect for boundaries.

@RDMercer.....what @Open Eyes said is so true. From my personal experience, I closed on my little farm in mid May 2100 miles away from my husband. It wasn't until I needed to go back to Ca for an MD appointment that the thought of my husband even crossed my mind because I was experiencing a peace in my life I had never experienced before. Even then my thoughts weren't about wanting him back in my life but how happy I actually was without him & how more normal life seemed.

My mom always said "absence makes the heart grow stronger". That was when I realized my heart never felt anything for him except the anger he created in my life. It was when I also realized that there was no way he could possibly fit into my new peaceful life. Sometimes we do need to come to those terms in our own mind & reflect back on whether in reality it ever was the "good relationship" our mind said it was when it was powered by wishful thinking. By that time I never wanted to share life with him ever again while I found out years later he was sure I would come back to him in a couple of years. When I didn't, it was only then he thought he might have been the reason I left.

Leaving was the best choice I ever made in my life & life NOW is always what I wanted even without being married. It is actually bringing out thinking into allignment with our actual REAL happiness not what we wish. That allignment is what makes us truly at peace. You have an awesome life now with your kids to be trult thankful for

Something strange happened this afternoon

I wrote that post earlier today.

Not long after, I took one of the kids out to shop for stuff for Halloween.

We were walking through the store, and I was suddenly filled with panic - What if she's here? What if I bump into her? What if she makes a scene? What if she jabs me with a comment that just isn't true here in public? What if I try to stand up for the kid and she starts saying I'm blocking contact and she has her flying monkeys with her?

We finished shopping and I swear, 20 minutes later I still felt like my blood pressure was sky high.

I thought I was past that.

Its like running into a russian assassin with a poison umbrella.