Can you really be "just friends"?

Hi Sam- bravo!- brilliant post- says it all for me too- I''m in the same boat. Your post is exactly how I feel, especially point (1). Total lack of care for another human being- only now, 14 months on, am I realising just how badly she treated me......I was tortured beyond imagination. I wrote down how I felt about the ex and what she had done so that I could calmly explain my feelings, before she left the family home. Plus by having her read it, there was a greater chance of it sinking in. I explained that she had had 5 or 6 different ways of achieving what she wanted, (ie an end to the marriage and to be with her new man), all of which could have caused far less pain to me and in fact both of us. Some of the options could even have lead to a very basic friendship between us surviving at some level- we had been best mates for 14 years after all. But no, she chose the nuclear option- the one that caused the most damage to me and the family- thoughtless, selfish cow!She has kept the letter, and I saw her read it- hopefully it will come back to haunt her one day- guilt is a really chronic and corrosive emotion...... Sorry for the rant and for sounding so harsh.

Dr M

Whatever else Marshy, I doubt they have forgotten you.....but to what extent they have bought into the ''scripts'' they have had repeated to them, it is hard to say.

I doubt the BF has forgotten you either (but of course this is not your problem now) - but your ex is his problem now......you almost have to feel sorry for the man....but not quite.

That was a pretty powerful post Marshy and I know you will have helped a lot of people by sharing your story. I think it helps in two ways. Firstly, for people going through abuse now and for those who have left abusive relationships, it helps people feel they are not on their own. Secondly, what an inspirational recovery from a pretty terrible situation.

I know you would have made sense of what happened throughout your journey, but I wanted to add something that occured to me when reading the other posts. My stbx left our marriage for another woman. Followed the classic adulterous moves described time and time again here and he denied it. Seemed almost happy to rub my nose in it towards the end though when I found out about the lies.

But when he saw I had moved on, even just a tiny bit, I saw the panic. I was seeing his underlying fear of being alone.Its easy to get mixed up with thinking that there is a realisation of a mistake. It was a reaction to a security blanket that had been a constant (me) ripped out from underneath him. So, in a similar way, I got the same type of behaviour as the hair straighteners speech, different words, same intent.

So like yours stbx left the marriage because of his affair. However, he could not end our relationship. I had to do that. For he would have gone on using me, picking up and dropping me to suit for years ahead. Because there was no empathy.... no soul really. A sham of a human being simply out for what he could get from others.

Like yours mine had issues from childhood, different stuff, but still character disordered.

Anyway, my point is that endings are painful. I think my stbx tried his "do we have to divorce", "can we be friends" speech in attempt to avoid the painful work of ending a relationship. With these types pain must be avoided at any cost. Its just those around them who pay the price. Thats why I took the same route as Marshy. I cut my stbx out of my life as quickly as possible.

But people like my stbx expend a whole lot of energy on not being a good person but appearing to be good. They sweep their abusive actions under the rug of their own concience. I dont think I would want to live with that personally. Its not a recipe for long term happiness. At the end of the day, like Marshy, I feel blessed that I can close my door at the end of the day and feel total piece of mind. Its priceless that and so many wikis have said the same thing to me during my time here.

As for the kids Marshy, that must have been tough. Like SC, I doubt they will have forgotten you. One day, they will realise their own mother is a liar and brought them up to believe untruths. I know more than I can explain here when I tell you that those young adults at some point are likely to see the sham when they start to think for themselves. I guess that someday they may just knock on your door needing help.

I think you have come the terms with losing those kids and your heart has carefully been placed back together.So I know its safe to say they might come knocking and it wont break your heart or give you false hope. Because you have closed the chapter. But you are a person with incredible depth and emotional maturity which is the gift of surviving and overcoming complete and utter despair.

And for Marshy again, as for your last post about working in HR, I would not recommend it Thank you for your kind words, but words carry a message, it is the depth of soul that conveys empathy and real understanding. You do that better than anyone else here.

Yeah Shoegirl,

Marshy is the real thing and has found his inner peace through all "the troubles" and is generous enough to share his experiences with us here.
So thanks Marshy!

You write pretty inspiring posts yourself Shoegirl.
And others too. I especially like raybird for her quiet and unassuming but at times hilarious posts. She has a lot of inner strength to cope the way she does.
More than she knows herself IMO.

Me?
Well, you can go back and look at my first posts here.
Total mess.
Now?
Never want her back in my life again.

The trouble is, at the beginning, you want to hang onto your old life which was comfortable and secure and you''ll do anything to get it back again.
Like heaps of others here, I thought our marriage was pretty reasonable and happy.

So the bombshell was completely unexpected.

You toss and turn and cry at night playing the little video clips of happy times together and you just want to go to sleep and never wake up again.

As time moved on and I began to slowly readjust to my new circumstances, I realized it wasn''t half so bad as I thought.
Slowly, the happy video clips started to get replaced by the video nasties that I wasn''t prepared to face up to at the time cos I didn''t want to believe she was like that,cos she was my love and best friend.

But as Marshy says...her love bank account in my heart has been overdrawn for quite a while now since she left and is now deeply in the red.

So, do I love her?
No.
Do I even like her?
No.
Do I trust her?
No.
Do I respect her?
No.
Would I ever want to have intimacy with her ever again?
No.

Can''t see a basis for any kind a of "friendship" there myself!

She can go to hell in a handcart for all I care now.
And that''s not just bravado.
That''s just the truth slowly coming to light out of all of this mess.

Have I adjusted completely?
Of course not.
My world has been shattered.

But I''m getting there.
Getting to quite like it actually!

LW

On what marshy said we know parental alienation is pretty common my ex work this on the kids in backfired but I one point I thought she would pull it off. I think kids unlike adults do not dislike person based on negative things they are told about that person, they take thing on face value, they my be forced to tow the party line, if they have a bond with someone they cannot turn in off. In future Marshy if/when your ex''s relationship breaks down and he''s the bad guy - things might change

As LW said you want to hang onto your old life or what you thought was you old life, and this makes you vulnerable and "friendship" thing is a tool to pacify and manipulate you. As the stories here show many of use have already been pacified and manipulated for a long time (if not ALL of the time) before the final breakdown.

Bottom line is friendship just happens, do you ask people to be your friend, do you tell someone you are my best friend, if a acquaintance said the wanted to be friend you would think that strange they would creep you out, right?

It''s 100% false

A leaver who has an affair behaves is a very bizarre way the left person just feels broken but their emotions are all over the place it like they have done a bank job they are over the moon they have the money but worried about getting busted and the impact that has on this life. Not guilt as like a thief they only regret getting found out.

My ex told me I could continue to live in the house after the divorce, we could have a extension and I could live in this for 7 years! I just laughed - her bloke moved in within few weeks of me leaving which I knew was on the cards.

In the end its the lies, crazy stories, emotional cruelty, mucking you around and abuse that hits you more than the affair/being left. My ex lied about a person dying - a lie she did not need to tell - unlike the affair I think I will always struggle to forget this, but it is confirmation to me of the person she is.

Thank you for all yr kind words. There are way to many to thank individually. But you all helped me. Its funny. Me asking for help. But this is a 2 way process and no one person comes out of this without some damage. And I guess that my damage is the kids.

Just wanted to say a few more things. Some of which I am not proud off.

When I 1st separated, on that Saturday 2nd December 2006, I had loaded my new life into the van and popped in and said goodbuy. Now you would have thought that since I was there dad for 12 years, they would have at least said goodbuy right? But they blanked me instead.

It took me many years to get past this. And at the time, I can remember hating them at that moment. And for a long time afterwards. I just didnt understand. But now I do.

They were kids for christs sake. 14 and 15 years old. And poisoned by the mother and the BF against me. I am not surprised they blanked me.

But the problem for them. Even if they wanted to get in touch with me they couldn''t. They would be immediately kicked out as they are what, 21 and 22 now. Still at home living with mum and there new dad. The oldest has a young child now. And I doubt that she could make it on her own. Life is tough out there for a single mum. I am sure a lot of you know this.

But I am not bitter (I was once). And now I am glad of the time that I was a parent. And I can look back now at the fun times. The pain has faded. But it took a lot out of me I must admit.

I know a lot of you think that they will get in contact and you also think they remember me. I dont think they will or can ever get in contact. And I think they have been brought up by mum so they have her nasty ways. But lets see. I am not ruling anything out of my life. But I am not holding out any hope of ever speaking to them ever again. That way, I can let them go and I can get over them. Thats how I eventually dealt with this.

With total certainty I know what I would say if my ex ever contacted me. But the step kids? I have no idea. Part of me would perhaps say something like, "how do you sleep at night?", the other perhaps.... I just dont know. I think with things like this, I have no experience off. But maybe in time I will find out what I will say. But perhaps I never will. Time will tell. C.

Dazed wrote:

Oh goodness - I agree with everyone about this & as Pixy says, the "let''s be friends" ruse is definitely stage 3 in the adulterers manual!!

I think he felt I was a bag of pic''n''mix from which he could just choose the bits he wanted.

In my case, I knew it was about a) him wanting to keep a door open incase things didn''t work out with ow, b) having a connection with me so he would know what I was up to & c) if we were friends then surely what he did wasn''t all that bad was it? Surely I wanted him to be happy?

^^ This!

Bsng on the button, nothing more need be said, read this over and over.

I have no children, therefore I have no need to contact my very STBX, but she still finds ways or more like excuses to contact me...."Thanks for my mail"......"No matter what you think of me I will always love you"....."Are their any files on the PC that are mine"......

I reply to the business stuff to be polite but when she asks where im off to on holiday, how I am, I end the conversation. It is now, and should have been from day 1 strictly business.

I have had to make my twitter private as I can only assume she was reading mine as she knew I was in London on business recently.