Fallen-apart marriage now into rerun season

[Poison Ivy]

I've been divorced for about 3 1/2 years.  The obvious (to me) relationship problems started about halfway through our 30-year marriage.  The problems got worse when my husband was fired, floundered for a few years, and then decided to take a "temporary, part-time" job as his parents' caregivers.  I think his dad had an NPD. 

Seven weeks ago, ex's dad died.  This resulted in me replaying a lot of memories from our marriage (the years when it was falling apart). Yesterday, ex's mom died. More reruns.  Ugh.

Last night, when my ex called me, he said, "what am I going to do now?" (My silent response:  "not ask me to solve your problems for you?".) He also said, "we could get married again." I'm not surprised he said either of these things, but the latter one is really bugging me anyway.  I think the hoovering, to the extent it's occurring, is subconscious, but I'm angry nonetheless.

Any tips for getting back to an emotional space of acceptance? Do I just need to dwell in these feelings until they go away on their own?

[Rose1]

To be honest who knows what goes on in their head? Maybe its only "what's in it for me". Exbpdh, 3 years after separation and doing everything he could think of to make my life difficult, come back with the lets get back together idea. His reason? With what you earn and my dabbling we could do ok.

What a stunning offer. I was shocked to be honest because he really had been difficult with lots of parental alienation etc, no child support, hardly any time with the kids (so I didn't get any time out) etc. But I laughed about it later.

The best way I found to deal with it all was nc which we managed to achieve once oldest went nc at 24. Sadly that took far too long because he used her to get back at me. I should have figured out a way to nc sooner. The peace and relief were fantastic.

[GettingOOTF]

My ex did a version of this after his mother died. He then blamed me for his not getting a job he wanted. We’d been divorced 2 years at that point and I hadn’t seen him for a year.

I’ve spoken here before about how my therapist says I will never be totally free of him as he wants the life he had with me back. Given our ages and how enmeshed/Codependent I was with him it’s highly unlikely he will ever find someone who took care of him and put up with his abuse like I did. He wants that easy life back. I think this is the driver behind most of them wanting to come back.

I often said that my ex didn’t love me for who I was, that he would have loved anyone in the wife role exactly the same way. In fact he hated all the things about me that make me me, things that I’ve since discovered other people love about me.

During that encounter I was able to see the truth about him finally. I always supported him and felt bad that for some reason he could never catch a break professionally. It was so unfair as he worked so hard and was so talented. During that encounter I saw for the first time how he throws away amazing opportunities. Things get handed to him and he won’t hold out his hand to take them.

This really helped with my healing as it showed me that I was never the issue. It was him all along. It also spurred me to go back to therapy and work on why I thought it was ok to be married to a man like that. I was also angry that I wasted so many years and so much money supporting someone who was never ever going to make anything of himself.

I think that when we have contact with them after we leave and have started to heal it’s like a slap in the face of how bad it was and how little we thought of ourselves to stay in that situation and that drags up all kinds of emotions. I think you get back on track by sitting with the anger and acknowledging just how bad the situation was.

Other than bumping in to him when he was hanging out on my street I have had no contact with him since that time. I’m working on forgiving myself for the choices I made that lead me to marry and stay with him.

I once asked someone when do you know that you are healed and she said it’s when a situation no longer brings up any emotion, when you can talk about it like you’d talk about the weather.  My ex brings up less and less emotion but I’m still pretty far from healed. I think your anger is normal. We feel anger for a reason. For women that anger usually comes from a sense of helplessness, a sense that we have no control over what is happening to us. I read that feeling anger is essential to healing. I want to say it was Pete Walker but I can’t remember exactly where.

[Poison Ivy]

Thank you both very much.  I feel better just knowing that at least a few other people understand the situation and my feelings.