Listen to yourself

If I've come away with one strong piece of advice from all this, as much for myself as for others, it's to listen to yourself. When someone is hurting you, don't rush to blame yourself, don't find ways to rationalize their utterly insane excuses, and for the love of all that is holy listen to that voice in the back of your head telling you "you know this is complete bullshit right ?". My wife cheated in the most convoluted mystery thriller worthy way, called me clinically insane when I figured it out like I'm some paranoid schizophrenic, then when it became undeniable and I said "look all is forgiven, I just need you to own up to it" she accused me of trying to humiliate her by asking her to just finally fully confess and cut the half truths all the while still insisting I was crazy for "hounding her about it so much". And even *then* I didn't fucking leave her until about a year layer when I realized she doesn't even pretend to respect me anymore, and would bail on offering even the most modest emotional support when I needed it despite me being on her beck and call at the slightest need. And why would she ? I forgave her for things she never even really apologized for and didn't even try to get her to apologize for trying to convince I'm losing my mind even though everything I thought was right.

Part of it was that before all this things were great. Not perfect, no couple is. But this level of lying and deceit and manipulation was just unthinkable between us. Hell she would even constantly say she'd be devastated if I ever started lying to her like her exes did. So I was just left reeling by the sheer amount of lies constantly coming out of her mouth. But by far the bigger issue I had, and the one I have control over moving forward, was this profound inability to just draw a hard line when people hurt me. To just listen to myself even though a very audible part of me was saying "this person is clearly doing you harm and is not going to stop".

Coming out of it, it almost feels like a superpower to finally stop taking shit and giving everyone excuses they don't deserve. A rough patch like this will show you who your real friends are, and you better make sure to get rid of the fake ones. I am extremely lucky to be very financially well off in all of this, letting us find a solution where we can both see the kids anytime we want and they can both see us whenever they want. And while the details aren't fully ironed out yet, we're agreed on the broad lines of a future financial separation.

I don't think she became a horrible person overnight. I think she made a mistake and ironically enough begrudged my efforts to forgive her because she wasn't ready to forgive herself. She became completely attached to this version of events where I'm some deluded psycho and she's the victim in all of this because she couldn't bear to accept she'd just fucked up in all the ways she always begged me not to fuck up.

What took the longest was getting her voice out of my head. Endless manipulation from someone who knows you intimately well will fuck with your head. But I've been getting her thread of lies out of my thoughts bit by bit and now that voice is barely a whisper. I'm finally free, and I'm never getting trapped like that again. Now when someone hurts me I don't blow it off. You'll never have the right people in your life if you're not honest to yourself about which ones are doing you right and which ones aren't.

Good luck to all.