I'm never really sure what people mean when they say Karma. Karma to me means fate. Yes, I have always believed in that concept but ,of late, I have been questioning everything I've believed in. It is quite easy to convince myself that this particular life lesson was intended but then I have to ask "why now?" Why not when I was younger and maybe a bit more resiliant when it could have helped shape more of my life. What is that old saying? "Ours is not to reason why..." I can conclude one thing for sure. This is the toughest life lesson I've ever had.

I'm glad I'm going through it, because I know in the end it will make me stronger. But it's difficult because it's a lonely journey. It takes more strength than I've ever had to endure.

Oh, I've questioned this, too . . . part of me wishes I'd learned this lesson sooner but I raised children in the midst of it completely blind to the toxicity - he worked away from hom much of the time and no doubt that contributed to it lasting as long as it did.

Do I think it is a cruel, merciless blow? No. I believe goodness and mercy are following all the days of my life. I believe goodness and mercy allowed it to come to an end. Without having gone through this, I would never have embraced I really do have abandonment issues. So, as devastating as it is, it will work for my good.

Was it all for nought? I wonder if all those years, he was being given a chance to choose change. To choose to get honest. To choose to quit serving himself. That I may never know. Did I make wrong choices along the way! OMG - too many! I gave away my power, my dignity. I wasn't always like that - only the last few years did I wave the flag of surrender and slip into the coma. But, even before that, I was allowing him to trample all over my boundaries. I was controlling him / managing him to hold our family together.

Huge, huge lessons. Yes, I wish they weren't lessons I needed to learn. One thing I come away with is compassion and understanding for other woman who are traveling a similar path. And, there are so, so many.

That is the part that I really don't get - how monstrous, the magnitude, staggering is the number of women dying from the inside out in their marriages. I don't know where we're headed as a human race.

And, yet, I do not feel hopeless. I believe I will meet a man that I will be in a healthy relatioship with.

I honestly believe this experience had to happen to me to make me hit rock bottom and understand just how low I had become.
It has made me realize that i have no choice but to heal my childhood issues or live the rest of my life as a doormat to be used and lied to by men.
If I do end up sticking through recovery, I will value this lesson...I know I will, but I will always say it was the MOST DIFFICULT and TRAUMATIZING experience i have EVER gone through (maybe even more than child abuse from my mom...cuz I never loved her the way I loved him).

I believe that it isn't even about him in the least. IT is about us. I believe that the universe, God, whatever you believe in wants our soul to grow and learn. I believe that even though we have so many gifts, we have some things that aren't wrong however they are "immature" for lack of a better word. I believe we are too innocent. I liked being innocent personally, until it cuased me to feel the worst pain in my life- him taking my innocence and trashing it like it was something to be destroyed. It is as if he could not let the innocence live, he had to kill it and yet the innocence is exactly what drew him to me. My willingness to trust and give and be so alive with spirit is what he was drawn to and I bet it was the same for all of the women on this board. And we are all devastated by the emotional rape we endured. We need to learn to be self responsible and believe in ourselves instead of the fairytale. It sucks, it sucks to have the innocense taken away, HOWEVER I have glimpses of Cinderella leaving the house of hell to go be on her own, and in her belief in her skills and attributes she becomes successful in whatever she chooses, enjoys all the things she loves to do, whatever they might be...going up in a hot air balloon, riding mountain bikes, painting, hiking, taking care of her dogs and garden, choosing a friend male or female (CHOOSING is important; beucase SHE decides if they are good enough for HER! not the other way around) and she ends up falling in love with herself and has strong boundaries to not allow another selfish user in her life again! AND SHE IS TRULY HAPPY NO MATTER WHO SHE IS WITH!

solo60: NOW becuase apparently we weren't ready before...when the studen is ready the teacher shows rears his ugly head! Oh, is that not the saying??? IT is NOW!

AshleyJane: You go girl! You have the right attitude...absolutely...it is the hardest thing I've EVER had to endure...of course my situation is different than others having been in my relationship 32 years! ANd let me tell you, I can totally relate to SOLO60, BUT I also know that I need to accept what is happening and go with it, instead of fighting it, that is how I will grow and learn...we all can support each other in this no matter how old, what the length of time we spent with the N...it's all pain that we need to learn from and why not together?

DBPALM: Wow again, my story is written by someone else...I guess having children brings out the wonderful qualities in us that prevent us from being selfish and instead we become selfless and so we end up as we did. It is so nice to hear I am not alone, but I would not wish this one anyone, unless they are a N! LOL. I know I said before in one of my posts that it seems there is very few healthy men and they seem to be very narcissistic out there, but Susy corrected me saying that only 14% or something like that are Ns. But I just can't believe it, becuase maybe that is all that has been recorded becuase most of them would never go to a counselor! I gave mine plenty of chances...over and over and over and you know what? I am glad he is gone. I am happier alone than with hiim, however hard this is and do not feel "happy" yet, I know that I have had glimpses and one day I will be happy again and maybe even with someone that i CHOOSE to let in my life.

Goingup:
Your comment whether on the same train of thought or not, I agree this is the most difficult thing and partly becuase I even wonder if my liscensed social worker counselor is helping...but I am impatient and I want more information sooner and more progress sooner...however the one MOST Important thing I have learned in all this is to FOLLOW MY INSTINCTS...period. Whats the worst that can happen? Follow my instincts and they tell me to keep trying to grow, keep having boundaries, keep very aware of my instincts and follow them! I hope you do too!

I have wondered as well why me. I figured I had been through enough in my life that maybe something good could finally happen and stay. Maybe thats why now I am so bad because sometimes it just seems like awful things happen so much more then wonderful things to me. Like how many lessons am I suppose to learn or how much pain am I suppose to feel in one lifetime? Ultimately he never picked me...I picked him. I chose my pain in this one and continued on with it..so if there is a lesson for me to learn from this one its not to pick what I know is bad for me and not to stay when I see that there is bad there.

My therapist has told me this about 1,000 times. One day you will thank him for being your greatest teacher.

I will be so happy the day that you stop equating this pain with the person you call 'john' (i.e. xn). He has nothing to do with this. This is not a new pain, it is a very old pain. Your soul has been asking to heal from this pain for a long time and it took someone this nasty to wake you up.

And he did wake me up and make me face some incredibly painful issues. And his appearance in my life caused me to go into therapy because I was in such a state of pain that I knew I needed professional help. And like my thearpist likes to tell me: Pain is the most imporant catalyst for change that we have.

Susy, for some reason seeing it in your words in black and white and the way you explained it, for the first time I think I may believe that it IS old pain and that my soul has been asking to heal from this for a long time and he was the perfect person to make me so sick with pain and sorrow that I would need to get help, so that one day I may be able to be all that I was meant to be. Thanks!

I value all your feedback and Susy i do beleive that he will have been my greatest teacher because when i think of my past relationships i havent until the damage this XN did to me ever stop to look into my own issues of why i have chosen these relationships and accepted their behaviour. Its almost like ive felt i never ever deserved better and i think that someone else mentioned in a post recently that we do whatever we can to make them love us .I can see thats what i did i was so worried about his needs and pleasing him and getting him to love me that i lost sight of anything else. But Blueshoes2 i do beleive you are right in saying that this pain will make me a much stronger and better person and is the catalyst for change as this last relationship and the aftermarth was the most devastating in my life.

Harmony,

RE: Its almost like ive felt i never ever deserved better and i think that someone else mentioned in a post recently that we do whatever we can to make them love us .I can see thats what i did i was so worried about his needs and pleasing him and getting him to love me that i lost sight of anything else.

I just posted this on going up's post and I will post it here as well:

Love liberates, it does not take hostages. You dont earn your right to be loved and you dont placate someones demands so they will give you love. They give it or they dont; they can or they cant; they will or they wont. This was a huge revelation for me to finally grasp: that I did not have to EARN someones love, or barter with them, or please them, or sacrifice my best goat in order to be in their good graces. That is not love. That is bondage!~ CZ

When we dont value self and constantly look outward for validation and rely on the perception of others & validation from others, then they can keep lowering the bar on us. It is like playing a deadly game of limbo and the N holds the bar. ~ letting Go

Susy i agree that is bondage .I hate to admit it but am i so messed up that i dont value myself i think so. I need valdation from my XN that i know i will never receive. Sometimes i feel so strong in my journey of healing yet at other times so weak.Sometimes i still hurt and miss him so much its unbearable.After all that he did to me i cant for the life of me know why i feel this way. Sometimes i feel like a complete fool. He probablly hates me at the moment because i challenged him and told him a few home truths about his character but why does this bother me so much still. Im sure he really doesnt care if im even breathing.The thing that bothers me still the most is i feel out of all my relationships he treated me the best when i was with him. He gave me compliments,protected me,loved me, confided in me but oh so easily discarded me. Susy i feel sometimes im back to square one but i know that you said that this would happen that it will take many months to even begin getting over the aftermath.