Hi CZ

[Amethyst24]

CZ,

I would like to email you directly........how can I do that?   

Amethyst24

[CZBZ]

You have two options 

You can email me at wonmanagers@yahoo.com

OR

You can send a private message (only for those with Survivor Status and up) Click on the envelope on the index at the top of the page to send a message to me. You can also click on my screenname on this post, I think. (Not sure but it's worth a try)


Hope everything's okay!

CZ

[Amethyst24]

CZ.....how do I get Survivor Status to email you direct?  I have tried the envelope and that does not work and I can not seem to get the Outlook set up correctly on my computer.

We have cooresponded when I had some trouble with getting a new screen name a couple of years ago.  I remember telling you your first name is the same name as the OW the exN married!

Although, I have made many positive moves forward after the N left after 25 yrs I still struggle with helping my kids and really moving on.  Their father has a very conditional relationship with his young adult kids and wont see them unless the queen is around for the facade.  It is the kids who are in therapy but he moves along happily ever after in his fairy land marriage.  My son has deep anger issues and my daughter fights depression from his rejection. I would love to move far away but stay in the family home alone, because it is close to each of my kids apts........but the ex is 20 minutes away therefore entangling holidays, etc.  I still am not free of his manipulations and justifications he tells his son....till this day.  And it has been 6 years!

I would appreciate hearing how your children are coping and if you have had to face graduations, weddings, etc with the Ex? 

You have helped me over the years more than you can imagine.  I dont know what I would have done without my friends here on the board over the years of checking in and reading into the night.

Thanks,
Amethyst24

[honeybearII]

Amethyst, I am "butting in" here, because I struggle with a LOT of the same problems.  While my ex did not marry the woman who was his affair partner at the time of our divorce, our kids have suffered a lot over the divorce and his treatment of me.  He had numerous affairs that it took me YEARS to have enough proof to finally leave him.  My son is the only one of three who has married and seems to have worked through his issues with therapy and a terrific wife that I love because she loves HIM.  My girls, on the other hand, have not had ANY long-term relationships, and I doubt they will ever marry.  I am clse to my oldest daughter, and she struggles HUGELY with her feelings about men, about her father's life of lies, and how he continues to treat them.  His new "faux family" (as I call new 20-year-younger wife and her 2 preteens) is waaaay more important to him, on the surface, than his own children EVER were or probably ever WILL be.

It is crazy-making, but all I do with my kids, 5 years down the road, is simply listen.  I have not great insight because lord knows I MARRIED the man and made him their father.  I know, in hind sight, that I should have left his sorry azz years ago and maybe my kids and I could have had a more emotionally stable life.  But I didn't and that is my great regret.

I have had to face him at a wedding and doctoral graduation.  I will most likely continue to have to have contact with him, but I have learned to GIVE HIM NOTHING.  I simply ignore him.  I am blessed to have remarried a wonderful man who adores me and we have a really, really good marriage.  We have been married almost 3 years and it just gets better, so I have most definitely moved on.  I feel I owe my ex NOTHING.  He has never acknowledged how he hurt me, destroyed his family, and emotionally abandoned all of us to pursue his own selfish life.  I spent 32 years with him, and it was as easy for him to shed me as it was to get rid of a dirty shirt.  Frankly, the man is simply irrelevant to me now except as his selfish, self-centered behavior affects his kids.  But they have to work out their own relationship with him and his new family.  That is THEIR issue, and while I love them and would love to protect them from his stupidity, I tried it for all the years of their growing up and it didn't work THEN, so it won't work now.  They have to work out how much they will give him of their time and their love when they get precious little in return.

My advice is to love your children APART from their father.  Yes, you might have to face him and her at "family" events, but you don't have to interact.  My ex tried to engage me in conversation at both events, and I just simply walked away.  His wife, who seems a very nice, gracious woman, I simply said hello to and did not pick up on her attemtps to schmooze me.  Why should I?  I don't want her for a friend, she can create her own relationship with my kids (her stepkids) and it has nothing to do with me.  Let them work it out on their own.

Hugs,
Honey

[Amethyst24]

Thank you Honey fo your kind reply.  Your story is almost exactly like mine.  And you are right on all the points.

It is hearbreaking to watch my daughter (28) struggle with dating relationships and self esteem issues.  And my son, I fear is abusive verbally to his girlfriend and attempts to live in denial of the pain his father has caused.  He has said some pretty hurtful things to me and tries to gloss over the devastation of our family.

I am seeing an old high school friend I reconnected with at our hs reunion.  He is divorced but his own children have issues.....one with Obsessive Com. Disorder and his 19 year old is on drugs.  The kids live in another state.  So, I fear this situation may not bring even more pain to my life.  The sad thing is, this guy is wonderful, compassionate.......and I trust him and my kids really like him.  So I am not sure where this will go.

So, it seems I am never away from upset.  The Ex has told my sons girlfriend over the holidays, he has no regrets in starting his new life.  His wh*** told my daughter she wants to start a successful divorce magazine and flaunts her material possesions in front of the kids.  She is 17 years younger and is spending the money he never shared while raising our wonderful children.

It is heartbreaking.  I am still waiting for the shoe to drop and by the looks of it, he is pretty happy and successful in his new manufactured life.  I have maintain no contact  but I know if once, just once he could be there unconditionally for his kids and aknowledge our pain.......it would go a long way in the healing.  He never once apologized to me.  At least I can confirm through the treatment of his kids in recent years......he is as the therapist has said...NPD.  I thought of writing to him over the years to help the kids and each time realize, it would do no good.  He is under the spell of his "trophy wife"

Others,  please join in........thanks

Amethyst24

   

[CZBZ]

Hi Amethyst!

You already have 'survivor status'. It's listed beneath your screenname. 

The envelope I'm referring to is the one at the top of the screen, in-betweeen the kitty cat and the three kitty cats. If you hover your mouse over the image, it slides to reveal the text: "my messages." Click on My Messages and you'll get a screen that functions like email accounts.

Some people are having trouble seeing the picture icons, maybe you are too. We'll be changing the template on this forum to make it more user-friendly for ALL computers. So don't freak out if you log-in to WoN and it's different that what you're used to. All the messages and categories will stay the same but the background will be different.

Otherwise, send me an email from whatever email account that you use: wonmanagers@yahoo.com . I promise not to sign my real name.   

I hope people will reply to your thread, Amethyst. Honeybear and I have known one another for quite a few years now. We've been through similar experiences and both of us have adult children, so we realize how hard it is on them even though they aren't children. I think a lot of people misunderstand the devastation of divorce on the kids---especially when they're older. You'd think it wouldn't be so upsetting to them, wouldn't you? But when our children are older, they recognize the hardship late-life divorce has on their mother. For young women, they see themselves in their Mom and they lose trust in any man to stick by their side even when they're older.

Women have it tough in a no-fault society where folks are indifferent to the older woman's plight.

It's a double insult to have the OW spend the money we helped our X's earn...all those years of scrimping and saving for the future and another woman steps in to reap the rewards. Then society tells us to just 'get over it' and 'move on' because after all, it 'happens everyday'. Hard stuff to deal with Amethyst. We need each other to help us get through it. I try to focus on higher values than material gains but when we're budgeting for medical insurance, it's pretty hard to think spiritual thoughts. 

The X appears to be happy with his decision, too. But then again, aren't most narcissistic people happy with whatever they decide to do? If you don't feel the pain of remorse and you don't have a guilty conscience and the most important value in your life is yourself and your pleasure, then why wouldn't you be happy with whatever you decided to do? It's hard for all of us to accept the fact that the narcissist is content---because we sure aren't--and we couldn't be content were we to make the same decisions they have. Getting to the point of acceptance is key because we are NEVER going to receive an apology---or see remorse. That's why people write about narcissistic X's and not just X's.

Talk to you in the morning!
 

Hugs,
CZ

[honeybearII]

I think what was so shocking to my children, all of whom are in their 30s, is that we WERE a "happy family".  We spent a lot of time with our kids - at least I did - and the N was a great Fun Dad when he deigned to grace us with his presence, LOL.  Ns are loads of fun when they turn on that part of their personality, and we travelled and did a lot of things with our kids that WERE great.  Also, both exNH and I came from families that were large, extended, and spent holidays with either my family or his - year after year.  We went almost every summer to a large church music conference where the children made friends with other children (and then teenagers) and those friendships have lasted for years.

The shock of the reality of what was REALLY going on behind the scenes was probably more shocking to THEM than to me.  I had had suspicions for years but managed to live in Lalaland.  Even if they suspected their father was a serial womanizer, and I don't know how they could have not seen it on some level, (he brought his "friends" around with THEIR husbands and kids, all one Big Happy Group), I don't think they could reconcile Mr. Church Father with the man who dumped his wife of 32 years and just moved on to another family.

I have sat and listened to my beautiful, smart, loving 34-year-old daughter sobbing bitterly about her inability to trust ANY man.  I have seen the devastatioin that having an N for a father does to daughters.  Ns don't bond with their daughters in any normal sense.  My oldest D was a "substitute woman" for him when we were first divorced and the woman du jour broke it off with him.  Suddenly her father was calling her every day, they were going out to concerts and dinner, she was the Supply for him.  She reveled in the first "real" (NOT REAL) attention she had ever received from him, and she pretty much ignored ME during that time.  Guess what happened?  He finds new woman, D is ignored and she hardly ever hears from him.  He has done what he did with me time and time again.  New supply, new obsession, dump the old one until needed.

Can we even begin to imagine the hurt this inflicted on his D?  I know how it was for me, but wives of womanizers somehow get used to the D&D scenario, and if we stay we find ourselves D&D'd numerous times until the final curtain.  But this was so new to his D.  She had never been emotionally seduced like that to serve his need for companionship and to fill the emotional void in his life.  She thought he was finally interested in HER, and when it became obvious that she was simply stepping in to prop him up for a time, and then she was dumped, the hurt was and IS massive. 

I can't fix this for her.  I, too, have thought numerous times about emailing my clueless ex and laying it out for him, but to what end??  I tried that technique during our marriage, and all he does is get so defensive that he hears NOTHING.  It becomes all about him, and he gets nasty, argumentative, defensive, and we get nowhere.  So I don't bother.  I just quietly agonize over the impact on my children and pray that life will, ultimately, treat them in the loving and gentle way their own father failed to do. 

Honey

[Cornfield]

Amyethist, I started a long reply, but bumped something and lost it.  I will recompose my thoughts later when I have more time.   But, I want to talk about several issues:

1.  The damage to other family members is more serious than we can imagine even though the adult children have age and experience under their belt.  I have two children over 50.

2.  Leaving a relationship sooner rather than later can be a blessing to the family to stop the continuing damage.
     Patience is not necessarily a virtue in this case.  I do regret not leaving early in my marriage.

3.  We need to continue to promote education, therapy and healing behavior in everyone's future so that the next
     generation of family members learn about healthy relationships and can suceed in forming bonds.  We can't
      continue the mistakes of the past and expect everything to turn out just fine.

4.    We need to learn how to live in happiness while living in reality.  That's a lifetime job!

Cornfield

[Cornfield]

Speaking of learning, I need to learn to spell names.  I think I have never used the word Amethyst before.  Sorry.

Cornfield