LaTeeDa

Okay, I'm going to try to be as gentle and tactful as possible, but this is probably not going to be a popular post.

That's called a "trigger." Something about a particular post that makes you uncomfortable. And those are the ones that, if you really examine your reaction, can help you grow.

Now, I agree that some of the posts on this thread could have been more tactful (mine included), but I don't perceive anything on this thread to be an attack on you. Why would you give away so much power to a stranger who only exists in your life on an internet forum?

The reason I brought up the "pathetic" comment is because it is not the first time I have seen you refer to yourself that way on this board. It can be really hard to move forward in recovery if you are putting yourself down and beating yourself up. I know, I did that for way too long.

I also want you to know that none of the questions I ask in this post, or the ones I have asked prior, require you to answer on a public forum. Or answer at all, for that matter. They are questions I have asked myself at one point or another and answering them, for myself, helped me in my recovery.

I think it's great that you are going to a CoDA meeting. That's definitely a positive step.

L

hbb

I have no problem with constructive criticism or tough love. I need to hear that, i don't expect everyone to help the same way. I have a problem with the talking AT that some do instead of the talking WITH someone. I don't have a problem answering a question here, my self esteem is shot, gone, in the gutter and i'm trying to get some back. I"m not denying talking about myself in a certain way, i'm not happy with who i am, nor do i know if i ever will be okay with ME.

Bottom line for me, i thought i had a future with J and in-turn got someone/something completely different in store for me. Not sure if many have been cheat on but i think that's what has blown any self esteem i've had as this is the second serious relationship for me that this has happened.

BayouSelf

In time.....you will LOVE you, just like we do and you WILL be better than okay!!! You may not see it now, but take it from someone who was not happy with themselves......I love and respect myself now....just took me awhile to get here!

Cynay

That is not a reflection on you, its a reflection on them and yes I have been cheated on and yes it cuts deeper then most things.

You might have the same disease I have though..... its call, my picker is broken yep I have a broken picker. Im not real good at choosing the right men... OHhhhh I have gotten much better over the years and I think Im getting pretty darn close now... but Im also alot older then you are.

Im not trying to make light of this.... but hopefully you can see the love pouring out from this thread too....

hbb

i think this thread has been fine and very insightful. YUP i agree, broken picker! I also ignored red flags because i honestly thought he was going through a tough phase and it was temporary from what he eluded to. I should have known things weren't right before the end. I gave way too many chances and should have never looked back last year but it is what it is and i do think i'm getting better with myself. I have to say i anticipated christmas being tougher than it was.

GiveLove

Heather,

If you aren't happy with who you are right now, what kind of person do you want to be? What would "okay" feel like? (how would you know when you got there, in other words?) Leaving the presence/behavior of any other person except yourself out of the description entirely, what would you like your personal traits to be?

If, for example, you don't want to be the kind of person who dabbles in self-pity, then stop voicing it. Stop referring to yourself as pathetic, etc. in this forum...period. As of now. You are setting yourself up for failure. If you want to be resourceful and creative and happy being independent, work on those things....they're just skills, just like carpentry or gardening or fixing a toaster. If you want to be a woman who loves herself again, start working on identifying and affirming those awesome individual traits you've already got (great eyes, sense of humor, etc.) and gradually cultivate others to add to your list. Remind yourself daily about the things about you that are amazing. It sounds stupid, but it works. If it comes out of your mouth, you will gradually come to believe it.

But you can't start any of that stuff until you decide what you want to be. What would your list look like, even if some parts of it (like "confident in relationships) seems far-fetched at this point?

I don't mean to be rough here (god knows, from reading the above ) but I think it would be a great tragedy to come back here a year or two or three from now, and have you still posting messages about how miserable and jealous you are because of someone else's choices. When you say something out loud, you give it power over you. Processing your pain out loud with this group for a full year now doesn't seem to have moved you forward to where you want to be. Is it possible that something else -- perhaps posting your successes, your small victories -- might be more healing for you? Or is there something unsafe or dishonorable or too "final" about letting yourself move on from this relationship?

Listen to me, Miz Walking Self-Help Book. Sorry about that.

Anyway, *I* see tons of great things about you and it's just frustrating that you seem to spend so little time seeing them yourself, and so much time giving your misery all the air time it wants.

Sending you hugs and strength to do something radical...and maybe move on to a happier spot in your life.

Love
GL

hbb

It took me over 9 years to think about it not being a reflection of me. The first time it happened i was completely devastated. Now that it happened again, i don't know how i feel other than maybe i was too trusting, but never thought that was a bad thing. I"m not someone's mother, i guess i expected him to respect me as i did him and would NEVER even think about cheating or anything close to it. But like i've said before, that's for his conscience only and he can live with those feelings of disrespect.

:ghug

GiveLove

P.S.

Somebody sent me this link and I think I've watched it hourly for the last two days, being in somewhat of a bad spot myself:

The Secret to You ::: Visualization Tool ::: Official Web Site of The Secret Movie

I'm 'acting as if' I guess....

XOX
GL

hbb

GL, yes i do think completely leaving and never saying his name again IS making it final. I know it's final, over, done and gone. I've been here since this June, my original post started out here as it's been a year ago he quit drinking. I do realize that i'm torturing myself and i am tired, exhausted actually of feeling this way. I DON'T want to be here a year from now or even months from now in the same state. Definately not. Like i said earlier, i have a few resolutions to put into place in a few days

denny57

That's why in the 12 steps we talk in the "I." So if someone talks AT me, I pretty much dismiss what they're saying. It's fun.

I was cheated on multiple times by the same man - my husband. My esteem and feelings of self worth were in the toilet. He blamed me and I blamed myself. If it happened to me again with someone new, I would have to look at the common element: me. That leads back to my choices. My expectations. Who I choose to put my trust in, and why. me, myself and I, not the other person.

MsGolightly

this is exactly what i was going to say. heather, like you, i was cheated on and now my ex is still with the person she cheated on me with. it didn't feel good when i found out, and i'm not totally happy that they're together now, but it's not a reflection of ME that she cheated. she'll probably do the same thing to her new flame, if she hasn't already.

but the thing that i did have to consider, like denny said, was myself. what about ME let my ex do that to me? what kind of signal was i sending out and what were my actions towards myself and others saying? i always told myself and my significant others that cheating was a deal-breaker ... until i was cheated on for the first time and i still fought tooth and nail to hang onto that relationship. but why? by working on myself and my expectations within a relationship, i can confidently say that my ex cheating on me had more to do with her addiction (to alcohol and to codies like me) than it had to do with me "not being good enough."

and with regards to having low self-esteem about all of it... i took the attitude of "fake it til you make it." in my head, i had a picture of what i wanted myself to be like. what i wanted to look like, how i wanted to act, what i wanted to improve about my personality, and that's what i did. when i got myself into a sticky or uncomfortable situation, i would think, "what would i want my new self to be doing right now?" and i think it helped me improve a lot about myself that i wouldn't have done otherwise. i just needed to visualize the goal in my head.

hugs to you, i'm glad you survived christmas!

Lilyflower

Heather what are you waiting for? The New Year is just another day, if you are truely miserable and want to make a change, there is no time like the present.

I know how it feels to hate yourself. As I have mentioned in past posts, I suffered with depression for most of my life. It begun in my early teens, and I am just beginning to conquer it now and I am 28 in Jan. For me, I thought I was worthless. Easy when everyone around you constantly makes you feel that way. I was always made to feel that my opinion didn't matter/wasn't important, my acheivements were not quite good enough etc. I carried this view of myself through to my adult life. Friends (I supposed they were) told me they didn't want me to contact them. Even my family at one time avoided contact with me because I was so low on myself. I had become a whirl pool of dispair and put myself at the bottom of it. Any one who came into contact with me were pulled in, and felt they needed to escape.

I have learnt as I have grown that the hurtful things people said to me could never MAKE me feel anything. I made MYSELF feel it. As a child I couldn't protect myself from onslaughts and took them into myself. Now I am learning to weed them out. I know now that if my feelings are hurt or offended, it is because of an insecurity with me.

I have found a few things useful in healing myself the most powerful for me was to ....
1) think of my mind like a garden...
Over the years plenty of stones have been thrown on my beautiful fresh soil I was given at birth. I allowed these stones to gather moss in my garden because I didn't know better. Any gardener will tell you that flowers will not blossom in a bed full of stones. If I want my garden to be beautiful, I need to dig up those old stones and throw them away. I will plant seeds instead. I will tend to my seeds to ensure they grow, I will nuture them, and provide them with healthy soil to grow in. One day my garden will be a beautiful oasis.

be strong within yourself Heather, you are a fantastic beautiful human machine, YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU SET YOUR MIND TO!

Lily xxxxxxxx

hbb

I went out for dinner with a friend of mine last night and he and i were talking about cheating and how i felt it was a reflection of me for so long. His wife had an affair 13 months after they got married and he said from day one that cheating was a deal breaker immediately. There was no looking back EVER for him. He had never taken it the way i had, he said it was her, all her and her problem.

What i have a hard time with, you mention that looking at me in the pattern of cheating. Am i suppose to constantly have my guard up and second guess everything. Shouldn't you live life trusting your partner and expecting that they wouldn't cheat on you? I can't live in constant fear that that may happen someday. How can you live like that? In both instances there was nothing within the two of us, it was an outsider that was met in this case his ex which i'm sure said the right thing to sway him. It wasn't me. And in the first instance years ago, he met someone at work and things went from there. I guess i'm just confused. For example, my parents have been happily married for 37 years and if my mom or dad cheated on the other i would think it's the person cheating not the other partner.......

Barbara52

Heather I think you are missing the point people are trying to make. No one is saying you are responsible for his choice to cheat on you. That is always the choice of the one who cheats. But....

Be patient with me I am trying to find a way to say what I want and its not easy because its a complicated subject.

Here are a couple of quotes from you in this thread:

What these quotes say to me is that you are taking responsiblility for the choice of your partners to cheat on you. You do see it as your fault on some level because in some way you do not see yourself as worthy of respect. You also seem to be thinking that expectations equate to reality. Whether those expectations are valid or not is irrelevant. Expectations are something within us and not necessarily within a partner. They relate to how we see ourselves, even on the unconscious level.

Now another quote:
As diffilcult as it is to look inside ourselves, our behaviors and expectations do tell our partners how to treat us. People are asking you to look inside to find what you do and say, what expectations you have when getting into a relationship and staying in a relationship, what part of your personality and makeup lead you to use that broken picker (God I love that phrase!) to get into relationships that if you looked at them dispassionately, you wouldn't get into.

My broken picker led me to pick a husband who needed rescuing, who presents a persona that bears little relatinship to reality, who found me a person he could rely on and use to maintain his lifestyle, who could drink and verablly abuse without real consequence. I am responsible for my choice to get into that bad relationship becasue I chose to ignore the red flags, I chose to take on the role of rescuer even though I knew that was not a role that was healthy for me. I chose to marry an emotionally unavailable flawed man because I have issues resulting from being an ACOA. I am not responsbile for AH's choice to drink, be all the negative things he is and all the rest that are his choices. I am respnsible for my willingness to allow myself to be used. I am working on my issues and the pain of sifting thru all that will be worth it in the end because I will not get involved with such a man again.

ICU

Hoping that my brain is functioning better today then of recent days, I'll try to give my take on it.

The act of cheating is a reflection of and on the person who is cheating. It is his/her lack of integrity / action In my mind, that's pretty b&W.

The 'shades of gray' of it all (again, in my mind) is.....who I select to be in my life in that intimate way. What were the characteristics I look for in a person? What do I accept? What do I not accept?

For example, if (and that's a really BIG if) I resumed dating again, and the man I was with told me his previous one, two, three marriage(s)/relationship(s) broke up because he cheated, lied, etc.....and I choose to continue to build a relationship with him, then the choice of choosing him is on me! Still, it's his responsibility if he cheats, but, I'm co-to-blame because I chose him. I settled for less integrity in a person than I should have.

Then there are those situations where there are absolutely no clues available to pick up on. Those are the situations where I feel we're not even partially responsible for some people are masters at deception! But I think those situations are few and far between.

I used to get caught up too when someone would suggest I had at least a partial ownership in someone's behavior and choices. I think because I was missing the 'shades of gray' part of the puzzle. Let's just say that as I learn more and more, I reserve the right to alter what I once believed. God....I'm eating my previous words here, aren't I, LOL!

LaTeeDa

It goes back to whay Cynay said about the broken picker. How do you fix it? You work on you. You become a happy, confident, person. Then you will attract happy, confident people. You will not only have an improved picker, but you will have better choices to pick from. And, in the process, you will have protected yourself by knowing that if someone you pick does cheat, you don't have to put up with that in a desperate attempt to be loved. None of that happens quickly. It's a process, but it's a path you can begin to follow whenever you are ready to start. (Hint: you could start by not referring to yourself as pathetic ever again.)

L

Lilyflower

I wouldn't say it is about constantly having your gaurd up and second guessing... that is the way to insanity! Your right that you should be able to trust your partner. When we enter a relationship we still carry all the emotion pain and frustration of ALL the previous ones we have had; with our siblings, parents, partners teachers etc. This can make things difficult in an arguement or upset when deciding if we are truely hurting because of one person or because of all our past dissapointments. I try to remember that just because one person treated me badly in a certain way doesn't mean everyone else will do the same. The challenge is to apply this reasoning to our hurt emotions which instantly expect the worst.

Fear only inhibits (sp??) us. I don't live n fear. I try everyday to apply what I've said above to all my life situations.

Blessings
Lily xxxxxxxx

Pajarito

Hi Heather. Boy, it's taken me a long time to get through this thread, but it's been a really good one- paths all over the place. I get so much out of everyone here whether they're farther along than me or not.

My AH cheated on me twice. The first time was 9 years ago with a classmate. For one year he did things with her that I was uncomfortable with- running together, playing cards, studying, going out to lunch. She would call our house and ask for him- but not acknowledge me. He worked at a bar every friday that she and other classmates went to. I- in the meantime- was working and trying to raise our 18 month old daughter- and feeling very alone and frustrated. Every time I tried to talk to him about how uncomfortable I was with his relationship, he'd get angry, impatient and pretty much dismiss my feelings. I found proof that their relationship was inappropriate a year after it started- and there was no denying it. He was busted. Looking back I wonder why I continued to live with him? I was scared. I blamed myself. I had an idea of what our life together was going to be, but he wasn't fitting neatly into that plan. He behaved horribly- but I let him off the hook too easily. That is MY issue. Yes- he stinks- he cheated on me- that is HIS issue. I took that opportunity to work through some things by trying to be nicer to him, more understanding of his stresses in being in school. (What crap!) I stopped going to counseling with him, because he didn't want to go. WHAT? We'd talk about what happened from time to time, but for the most part I tried to live with it. Big mistake. Why did I let him off the hook? Fast forward to now- I am a different person. He has had an emotional affair with a woman he works with. This time I am done. I still have a lot of work to do on myself. I am hurt, I am sad, but I in no way have any desire to be with a man who treats me the ways he has. Alcoholism in itself is a horrible situation to try to live with. Infidelity adds a whole new layer to the insanity. My AH behaves like he doesn't care. Maybe that makes it easier. I feel driven to be stronger. I will not allow just anyone into my life anymore. I thought he was the one. We've been married for 12 years. It so hurts to realize that dream of what you wanted is not going to happen. I'm not going to be able to give our daughter that "Norman Rockwell" family. I have to give her something else. Hopefully I will give her a strong role model- self sufficient, happy and full of friends and life.

From everything I know about you, you have it in you to believe in yourself. No one has the right to treat you the way you've been treated. Cheating is your ex's issue- it's not about you- that somehow you aren't enough. I feel like that too at times, but I then tell myself that it's bs- I am enough. Maybe not for my AH- but I'm enough for me- and maybe some day when I am truly healthy and strong, I'll project that out into the world and find someone who can fit into my life. I am not looking for it now. I am trying everyday to read, listen and learn from everyone (even the ones who are "rough around the edges") I come into contact with. It's hard- a lot- but I am worth it- and you are too. You are enough for someone- you! Believe in yourself. Be ok in your aloneness. Take it and learn from it- volunteer, surround yourself with good friends who fill you up. Live healthy- and one day you will look back and realize you have come so far.

Pajarito

Barbara52 and LTD- you two nailed it! Heather- I hope you feel better today. You have friends here who have some amazing things to say. . . soak it up!

denny57

That's my whole point, Heather, the cheating had nothing to do with me and everything to do with him. No matter how I was feeling in my marriage, I never considered cheating. So I know I'm not that unique - there are plenty of people out there who don't cheat! I don't worry at all about it, truly. I just don't live my life like that. I made a choice not to.

I know the reasons I stayed with AH; they are important only to me. You've posted many times now that you had a dream of you and J sharing a life together, etc. THAT is where you can start looking for some answers. Looking honestly at a situation is painful. From where I sit I see a man who went back to an ex after a less-than-a-year relationship with you. Discovering the "truth" of my marriage hurt like hell. The good news is I feel great today having worked through it.

((()))