Hi Emma
I read your post which has brought tears to my eyes. I am going through the ‘letting go” stage, well trying to anyway. I’m finding it so difficult and reading your response to bluestar has made me think there is hope!!
It’s been nearly 3 months now and it doesn’t seem any easier especially with kids involved. It’s like I can’t cut all ties. I say this is due to the kids, but truthfully i know its me. 20 years together is a long time even if 10 of those years was a 3 way relationship with cocaine. The later 2 turning in to a 4 way relationship as he was having an affair. Hence, the realisation I needed to let go. How much pain can someone take until they wake up and think right that’s it no more. I may have threw him out of the family home and i know in my head there is no going back. However, hope is still playing a major role in my thinking and leads to my hesitation in taking action in having no contact with him. I thought the pain would get easier without him in my life this is not the case. I don’t miss the lies, deceit, cheating, lieing in bed all day, no help with housework and general moodiness, laziness and being miserable. However, it’s like I still crave a part of him to be here. Like my own addiction to him!!! How crazy is that after everything he has put me through!! It’s like torture….the constant wanting to know answers to QAs, how can he do this, why me etc. He barely sees his kids youngest being 4. Yet he manages to squeeze his new gf into his plans not that he openly reveales her as being that. She’s still somewhat a secret. Even has the audacity to claim he wants to be bk with his family whilst he still with her. It’s like talking to a crazed man who has no sense of reality. No one can be content and happy in that life. On some occasions i think i can see happiness, but you will know yourself its like dealing with several different versions of one person. Seems happy sometimes, not a care in the world, then down and miserable next with a splash of motivation where he proclaims hes going to do this and that in the future. It completely messes with your head as you start think you are going nuts as its not normal behaviour.
Like u mentioned the unpicking of lies and questioning is consuming me at the moment. I just want to get passed this stage. I want to see some light at the end of the tunnel. I don’t really know what’s best to do in regards to the children. I do know he loves them, but his interest becomes less and less and I guess I’m left deciding whether I stop access completely or give him the benefit of doubt for a bit longer……prolonging the heartache really!
I’m glad you have found happiness and escaped the hell! Can I ask do you still think of him and love the person he once was? Will he always be a part of you or does that diminish over time once you move on?
Xx