catfeeder

Your parents are manipulative, and your GF sounds healthy enough to dump you if you ditch her in favor of such a ridiculous 'assignment'. I'd tell parents that they can either accept my financial contribution toward the issue without lodging insults, OR they can skip my help at all--and those are their options. Period. The only way to gain respect from disrespectful people is to enforce terms that are acceptable to you OR zero. You can do it kindly, but stand your ground on it. It's your call. Think it through.

I loved this whole post, I'd just restate this as 'recognizing' your value. There's no reasons for any of us to try to raise value that already exists.

Ah! Owning the word 'spinster,' sister? You warm my heart. Your story is inspiring, and I can appreciate the care you've used to frame it as one of growth rather than victimization. One of my friends and I have an ongoing debate on using the word 'betrayal' to describe the lens through which we view disloyalty. While I feel liberated by dropping the word from my private story, she holds the word firmly and even sneers while using it. My goal is to not only mitigate damage to myself but actually reverse it into a triumph in lessons learned. I feel more confident in my future and my own judgment when, rather than viewing myself as happlessly betrayed by someone I trusted, I can instead recognize the instances where I opted to ignore the flashing neon signs of another's limits or their standards of loyalty not living up to mine along the way. This isn't about blame. It's about learning. I don't claim that there are no villains in the world. I just accept that it took t.i.m.e. for me to learn what I must do with the dissonance when someone's decisions or behaviors didn't match up with MY internal agenda FOR them. Of course, I wish that I could have acted in my own best interests sooner rather than later, BUT! I'd rather credit myself for acting--at all--and move my focus forward and upward. it sounds to me as though you've made the same decision. Head high, and congrAts!

Trust and peace is maintained by couples who communicate well enough to establish a matched definition of loyalty and consistently enough to reaffirm that loyalty. So what are wife's responses to your conversations about this desire?

Very happy to hear you're embracing your healing, Roxiee. You can use this forum as a sounding board whenever you want to share some thoughts or ask a question. Remember that whenever you fall on times when you're not feeling great, it doesn't mean that you're backsliding. It may mean that you're actually making more progress. Nothing can take away the progress you make. Some things need to feel lousy before it can feel better. I like to think of washing a surface--we stir up stuff and make a mess before we can rinse it away. Head high, and congrats on your wonderful choice!

Unless you're under the age of consent, it makes no sense to describe your situation as something he's doing TO you. Why would you say, "I'm relationship material..." and then hook up with someone who is rebounding from a breakup and doesn't want a relationship? Allow bad matches to pass early, and go meet the next one. Nobody is looking out for our best interests but us. So raise your standards and don't mess around with anyone who doesn't meet them.

I agree. This is not someone who requires your help. This is someone who withheld warning about Covid and who prevents you from communicating with your siblings. Think about how she's able to manipulate you into spending hours on the phone--and you'd want to go see this person IN person? Honey, the woman made you suicidal and already has you contemplating self harm. Stay away, and get thee to a therapist quickly. Phone a hotline, and ask for an emergency referral. You will thank yourself later. And if you do opt to take this woman's call, start off saying, "Hi, I have about 15 minutes. How are you?" When she drops battery acid on you for limiting your time, simply ask if she'd prefer tomorrow instead. But understand, with each convo, you are getting sucked in--and for no good reason. I'd speak with a therapist for help, and I'd silence my phone.

Why not ask her which she'd prefer? If she'd prefer divorce, it makes no sense to waste your time and money on counseling.

I think both my nephew and my niece pulled that on me when they were that age, and I'd been a constant and loving figure in their lives since pre-birth. Don't react or respond. Reward kindness with kindness, but not over-indulgence, and when she turns a tantrum pretend not to notice. Focus instead on any other thing, even an imaginary thing, to feign an interest and call the other child or mother over to see it and discuss it. Addressing a tantrum with attention, even if it's negative, is a reward for the behavior. Better to just allow the child to miss out on your attention while lavishing it on everyone else while she's acting out. Sure, it feels lousy, but it usually plays out pretty quickly if you play it right. Head high, and I hope you'll feel better soon.

I'd stop playing. If she were to contact me again, I'd tell her, "I adore you, but I'm walking away while we both still think highly of one another. You can go figure yourself out, and if you ever decide that you want to be 'all in' for a committed relationship with me, you can let me know. If I'm still available then, maybe we'll meet to catch up. Otherwise, I wish you the best." This leaves your door open a crack even while it liberates you to grieve, heal, move forward and pursue your best life possible even though you're unable to envision that right now. Don't position yourself as her comfort blanket while she moves away from you. That's the worst place to be, as it keeps setting you up for additional breakups you don't deserve. Head high, and write more if it helps.

So, what's YOUR definition of a rebound?

The problem with setting yourself up as a rebound is that you'll most likely end up discarded as a rebound. You don't need someone else to tell you this. You have a calendar, and if someone's breakup of a long term relationship or worse, a marriage, is within a year on the thing, don't mess with that. Head high, we all learn from living.

This isn't about what anyone else thinks of casual sex, it's about how YOU define it. If you believe that the term 'casual' must somehow mean that you disregard your Self and your own safety and would place yourself in high risk situations with strangers who disregard you also, or worse, could turn dangerous or deadly, then that's an unfortunate definition. IMO, there is no reason NOT to learn a valuable lesson about taking up with anyone you haven't come to know well enough to trust with your safety, regardless of whatever label you want to put on sex with that person. Is there a reason you don't regard yourself as relationship material?

One of the most liberating things to grasp is that most people are NOT our match. That's just natural odds, and it doesn't mean that anything is wrong with you. Great chemistry is rare, and it's supposed to be rare. The idea is to hold out for the RIGHT match, like finding a needle in a haystack, with someone who really 'gets you'. Most people DO make a decent companion for a couple drinks, so setting up meets with lots of people isn't a waste of time. When you find true simpatico with someone, you'll know it. Head high.

It's not possible to earn the trust of someone who comes in with a bias against trusting. There are two forms of jealousy; the kind that's provoked by suspicious behavior, and the kind that's already predetermined based on a failure to heal from damage in the past. The second kind is not relationship material. When you're crystal clear that your behavior is not provocative but you are continually challenged into the impossible position of proving a negative, that's not just a red flag, it's a giant neon sign of trouble. Unfortunately, I'd tell BF that I adore him, but I need to walk away while we both still think highly of one another. He gets to decide whether he will seek therapy to heal his suspicious bias against women in general, and if he ever reaches a point where he believes he can take a more trusting approach to commitment, he can let me know. If I'm still available then, maybe we can meet to catch up. Otherwise, this situation will not get better, it will get worse, I'm sorry to say, and you can research that.

My intent is not to be dismissive of your legitimate grief, rather it's to point to a productive direction of healing and learning instead of allowing the experience to cause you unnecessary harm. Learning inspires confidence in our capacity for better decisions as we move forward, while viewing our experiences through a lens of just happening 'to' us imposes insecurities and a belief that we are somehow at the mercy of other people's lousy judgment. So I'd find value in recognizing my own willingness to overlook all of the red flags along the way. A person's capacity for disloyalty toward a spouse being the biggest--it's a foundation of deception that you can't overcome. It's a giant neon sign that tells you exactly what's ahead for you if you mess with this person. Advice from Grandma: "The problem is not that snakes will cross your path, they will. The problem comes when you're too lonely or desperate to recognize a snake and avoid picking it up to play with it."

You do have the choice to decide how painful, exactly, this 'must' be for you. The voice we each run in our own head is our driver for which lens we choose to adopt, and which emotions we want that lens to tap. You might find it helpful to regard ex's outburst as a degree of insanity, and while it's unfortunate, you own the power to decide the degree to which you'll allow it to impact your outlook and your future. This is not to dismiss your legitimate grief, but rather, to turn your focus onto an outlook that heals instead of damages you going forward.

Your gut has been telling you to stop dealing with this guy. I'd listen to it.

Some people are under the mistaken impression that another needs to be a villain in order to justly parting with them. So they revert to the reptilian part of their brain, and they operate accordingly. If it's any comfort, he's likely to regret his behavior at some point. Make it your goal to be fully healed and onto building your fabulous future by then. Head high, you'll thank yourself later for moving forward today.

I don't understand the premise that a fully grown man should have sprung from the womb, fully formed, and without a sexual history. Or that he should be positioned to discuss his private sexual details with anyone. All adult relationships being voluntary, the only history we 'owe' anyone who we want to date would be a clean STD report and an honest account of the date of our last breakup and whether or not we are still involved with an ex. The rest is just noise and manipulation, which demonstrates unreadiness for a committed relationship. I'd break free and decide whether either person wants to try contacting the other in a year or so after viewing one another through a more mature lens.

Not only was he disrespectful, I wouldn't have stayed there long enough to have even discovered the messages and cheating. He already showed you his capacity for disloyalty by cheating on his wife, and usurping your entire life to be with him so quickly was also a mistake. But this is the part that would have sent me back home, pronto: That's the kind of gaslighting that would have opened my eyes--so the rest would have been undiscovered, and in hindsight, it's irrelevant. The guy was horrible, and you've dodged a bullet. The sooner you can grasp that, the better for your own head and future. Head high, move your focus forward, and you will thank yourself sooner rather than later.

I agree with you. Have you discussed your point of view with them on this? If so, what was the response?

Maybe not 'over' reacting, but rather a delayed reaction? The first thing I'd ask myself is what would be the advantage for ME if I decide, NOW, that my ex was actually an assailant rather than just a jerk. I mean, he's already your ex, so I'd be thankful for that. Consider what you might hope to accomplish by defining the event as an assault, along with what form of action you'd want to take about it (if any). From there, you can decide whether it would benefit you going forward to view yourself through the lens of having been victimized, or would it help you to better navigate your future by viewing yourself as far more equipped to walk away from anyone who would mistreat you that way. Head high, the answers you choose are the right ones for you.

Do you resent your wife for not having sprung from the womb, fully formed, as an adult without a history? While most of us can look back on our youth and identify certain choices we wish we would have handled differently, what do you believe is triggering you, after 14 years, to start dwelling on this today?

My heart goes out to you, Ruede, and I'm so sorry for your loss. Considering how badly you feel about the grudge that shut you down to communicating with your family, I would take a step back from compounding that problem by stoking anger and lashing out. Anger is a natural part of grief, but it's not productive, it will set you up to behave in ways that you will further regret--and it won't bring your Dad back. Speaking only for my own beliefs, I found it helpful to consider my Dad as being liberated from his body and now able to be with me in spirit in my times of need. This helped to strengthen me in dealing with irrational members of my family, because I wanted to behave in ways that would make my Dad proud of me. I've considered myself a representative of my Dad ever since. I sometimes speak to him during private times. I've found my silver lining in my loss by making myself a better person rather than ruining the rest of my life with guilt and regret. I started by asking myself what Dad would want for me from this point forward. I began considering in every circumstance how he would want me to behave. Speak with your Dad as often as you wish, and relax into the love and forgiveness he would want you to feel in order to become generous with those who he also loved. You will thank yourself sooner rather than later. Big (((HUG))), honey. Write more if it helps.