I found this a very interesting comment from Lexy. It resonates with me. Making the appointment to see the therapist last night was done out of being sick and tired of being 'sick and tired'. Ian has been encouraging me to do this for months and I have procrastinated, made excuses (the financial ones have been genuine concerns) and 'forgotten'. I'm looking forward to getting better. But I am also very scared for some reason. I guess this hearkens back to Linda's comment about 'validation'. (Is this blog going to end up purely being quotes from other people?!)
It is daunting for me. I guess the first few therapy sessions will be dredging up the past and what has led me down this road. I know writing this blog has sometimes left me in floods of tears as old feelings of insecurity and worthlessness have been illuminated. And when one memory came in to my head, others would flood in alongside it, like a cobweb and the way it spreads out. I didn't realise just how much I have tried to block things out until writing things down. I've noticed that my nightmares have increased dramatically, too. Wednesday night was hell. All I seemed to do was yell, moan and jitter. After each section of disjointed sleep, my legs were on fire as I had been agitating so much in my sleep. Consequently, Ian looks like death warmed up half the time.
After I uploaded 12a last night, the girls returned from their father's. There had been trouble. I find it incredulous that a man who purports to love his daughters can be so cruel, heartless and selfish. He has put the pair of them into a very compromising position and also attempted to manipulate Rosemary into doing his dirty work for him. He knows Beth's feelings about 'the other woman' whom he still sees despite her living many miles away, and he has also been told by the counselling team who have worked with the girls, to stop forcing them to accept/see her. He has been telling me for three years that it is my duty to force the girls to accept 'the other woman' until I totally lost my temper in a 'family therapy' session recently and expostulated that it was not within my remit to condone adultery to the girls. The therapist backed me up 100%.
So, the girls' cousins (all budding actresses) whom they adore, are starring in a pantomime in November. The girls can't wait to see it. And their father has sneakily invited 'the other woman' and her son along. So Beth is caught between a rock and a hard place. We offered to drive them up there, keep out of the way, but at least give them moral support. Neither girl thought this would be a good idea - I guess they thought there would be some form of showdown, but there wouldn't. Not from us, anyway. Beth doesn't know what to do. She is disgusted by her father's underhandedness, full of anger and resentment and cried greatly last night at his betrayal of her. She feels as though he has put 'the son's' feelings before her. She has always felt (and it's hard not to believe her when I have witnessed certain things for myself) that he didn't want a second daughter; he wanted a son.
He has hidden behind Rosemary; said this was purely his sister's idea (who doesn't give a turquoise toss about anybody); says that 'the son' needs Beth's moral support; and asked her to persuade Beth to go.
And he has described me as 'manipulative'!
This is the type of man I married: a coward. A manipulator. A liar, and an adulterer to boot.
And I know that he has been a big part of my problem and lack of self-esteem.
So I guess this is as good a time as any to conclude my account of the final months in Oman. Get it over and done with. I have told the therapist about this blog, which she said was an excellent idea, and I am hoping she will read it and get the bigger picture.
After I lost the plot and told the ex the affair had to be finished forthwith, he refused at first. Told me he loved her, that he wouldn't give her up for me and that he was moving out. So I informed him, coldly and with immense anger that I would be clearing off back to the UK with the girls and that he'd be lucky to see any of us ever again.
He back-tracked immediately. Promised to speak to her that afternoon and end it all. When he returned from work, he confirmed that he had done this. But her husband told me otherwise. She had written Anal an email that afternoon and printed it out. She had accidentally left it in their office and AM had found it. He read it to me. Despite Anal's protestations that there had never been any sex, she stated that she could 'feel [him] within her' and that they would never be parted.
There was little I could do about this. Anal had promised to give this another go and I had promised to let it go. It was hard, I can tell you. I felt so betrayed - more so by 'her' than by the ex, believe it or not. I really did hold her in such high regard and had never enjoyed a friendship as great as with her and her husband.
Anal & I took the girls to South Africa on holiday a few weeks later. It was to be a 'fresh start' for us. There was no intimacy between us. He wouldn't go near me, and I wasn't particularly interested either. But it was a fun time with the girls and we met some nice people in the different hotels we stayed at with whom we socialised.
Upon our return to Oman, life just carried on as 'normal'. My ED was not too bad, but I was drugged up to high heaven: I'd lost my 'best friend' and I was cutting badly. However, I had made some positive steps. I was seeing a psychiatrist and a counsellor, could see some light at the end of the tunnel, and I was freelancing again - quite prolifically, actually - and it took me out of the house on a regular basis when the girls were in school.
But one day, I didn't have an assignment and was pottering around in the villa, alone.
There was a knock at our front door, which surprised me as it was only 8am. The girls started school at 7.30am, so the house had been quiet for a while.
To my utter shock, it was my parents. They had just flown in from the UK. Anal had called them, unbeknownst to me, and told them that I had to get back to the UK for urgent medical treatment. I was given 24 hours to pack my bags, say goodbye to all my friends and my resident's visa was ceremoniously cancelled at the Airport Customs by Anal who didn't want the prospect of his wife's return.
The girls were not allowed to accompany me. I had to leave them there. I begged my father not to go along with this but, at the time, they hero-worshipped Anal and believed everything he told them with every single glib word which slipped from his lying mouth.
There was no treatment available here in the UK. Nothing at all. At least I was getting somewhere in Oman.
So. When the girls came to the UK six weeks later, and then Anal returned to Oman, what do you think he was up to? Why do you think I was kicked out of the country?
If any of you need me to answer this, I will. He was continuing his affair. I received intimations of it from friends. They wouldn't come out with it totally, but there were certainly enough allusions. And that was not my paranoia - they have admitted it since...
So we continued this facade for 12 months. He stayed in Oman, I stayed in the UK and raised the girls alone.
Upon his return, in May 2004, within two days, I knew he was still with her and missing her. I asked for a divorce. He agreed readily and embarked upon the most God-awful campaign of hatred I have ever endured. His Court Statements still leave me speechless due to his dreadful lies. He claimed Rosemary called Ian 'Mr Safety'...when I asked her who 'Mr Safety' was, months later, she looked at me blankly and said, What the hell are you on about, Mum?
And as my solicitor said, it all sounded so plausible...
Thank God I am away from him. Thank God I have a man with such integrity as Ian. It took him some soul-searching, and he has put up with some demons himself in order to commit. But he's done it. Because he believes me. And believes IN me.
That's someone who loves you...And I love him for it...
