theuncertainty

Edit: Man, I hate auto correct. The title was supposed to be A Couple Late Realizations... But I bet it made you look.

I feel incredibly slow on the uptake. I've been going over the past year, what XAH has done, what I've done. I kept going back to just before he left for rehab. Torturing myself, I guess. When he drove under the influence with DS in the car, when he stopped drinking so he'd 'be the first sober guy to check in' to the rehab, when he kept telling me he loved me, that he was going because he loved me, when he kept touching my ring (on a necklace around my neck) and my left hand where the ring 'should' be.

I just realized that he thought he was losing his enabler, because she was making him go to rehab, and he was just trying to line up the next one. There was no love involved. It was all: TheUncertainty never made me go to rehab, she just walked. She put up with nearly 16 years of me before walking out. I kept her in fear for the last few years, I kept her in the back room. She's had a break, she'll let me keep doing the same stuff.

It's taken me a year to see this, even though friends told me it was the case.

Thing is, I truly think that if he hadn't driven drunk with DS in the car and had come straight out and said 'yeah, I was sleeping with her, but I've changed...' I would have taken him back.

But he did drive under the influence with DS and he admitted NO wrong doing and I HAVE changed. And that last one is the most wonderful realization. Even if the first realization (that it took me a year to see) hurt.

StarCat

Absolutely - sounds like a heck of a diet plan. I wonder how many calories that is?

Looking back, a few people warned me about XABF, I just didn't listen.
They didn't mention all the abusiveness or anything, I wish they had, but I wonder if I would have listened to that, either?
It's easy to dismiss people outside of a relationship, even if what they're saying is true, because of the "I'm different, it will be different with me" or the "They're not me, they don't see what I see" complex. We're all guilty of it.

If he hadn't gone to rehab; if it wasn't over Christmas break at work so I had some time to sort out myself; if he hadn't tried to control my life from inside rehab; if I hadn't run across the list of "pre-indicators of spousal abuse" and realized that I could highlight half of them (and that half of those highlights were new within the last two months, so he was certainly escalating); if I hadn't read "Why Does He Do That?" and realized that this was my story...
I would have ended back up there, too.
I am so glad the planets/events aligned just right to open my eyes. I am really lucky.

Hooray! :ghug3
Hurt hurts, yes, but I have learned so much in the process, and have become such a stronger person as a result. The stress at work doesn't seem to affect me anymore, because I have been through worse, come out the other side, and learned not to blame myself for other people's failures, even if they prevent me from doing a good job on my end.

And you are changing for the better!
I will say that I do not miss the pain and suffering caused by this whole affair... That said, I am extremely appreciative of all the help and tools and life experience and healthy thought processes I am learning... It's almost like it was worth it. Almost.
Because of all the help available for people who have gone through the experiences we have survived, and all the work we put into ourselves as a result, I think that people who really work their own program eventually become more balanced and happier than the average person.

We did our penance on the front end.

GettingBy

I'm right there with you!!! I met up with an old friend yesterday who reminded me of all the shenanagins I put up with the first 3-4 years of my marriage. He was so surprised that I stayed as long as I did. He always wondered why I never "got it" with any of the previous incidents!

Amazing, isn't it? We sit and we wait and hope that THEY "get it"... what about us? What about waiting and hoping that WE "get it"??!

When enough is enough... we open our eyes and truly see the problem and do something about it. Just like them.

theuncertainty

A year. *wonder* I've made it almost a year from when I started to thaw. A year from when the pain came roaring back. I'm astounded. There were days I didn't think I'd make it 5 minutes, that DS would be left alone with XAH. A year, I made it a year. If I can remember that, I can make it through any thing else.

Shellcrusher

This right here.

wicked

I am still trying to come up with the joke line,

A couple ate realization and had reality for dessert.
?

Beth