recovering from betrayal.is it possible?

Daisy, I am sure you are going to feel right at home here. Enjoy Christmas with your family. Couldn't be better!

What goes round, comes round Daisy. Just remember, he's in prison and now ill, you are liberated of him and have the freedom to be with your loving family. He didn't exactly come off best, did he?

Thank you everyone for your hugs. It's been a while since I read the forum posts and realise I have missed so many of your good wishes and kind thoughts. What an amazing offer to a stranger from Greatnan and a hug from Daisyanswerdo when she is battling her own personal grief. Yes Maniac I do dance, three sessions a week at the gym and it has kept me sane. Those hours when I am concentrating hard to pick up steps and choreography are
some of the few times when I am not plagued by obsessive thoughts and anger. In the only counselling session I have had I was given a chart with the grieving process on it. It appears I am somewhere at the bottom with another approx year to go, but at least if I am at the bottom, I can only go up now.

dancingfeet. I'm sure you are on the up and the dancing must be therapeutic. You are a brave gran and will get through it stronger than ever. We're always here as you know. Happy Christmas to you and yours - and best wishes for a much better year in 2012. x x x

Hey dancingfeet if someone has given you a grieving/bereavement chart that indicates to you how far you've got to go to recover from your loss, put it in the bin and ignore everything they've told you. It's unfair of them to categorise and time your feelings like that. The grieving process is not linear, some people go round and round those feelings of anger, loss, numbness etc and others find an outlet for their grief and find it surfaces occasionally when something triggers it. Some people do their grieving before the loss occurs because it has been a long time coming. Others take many years and never really get over their loss. We are all very different - thank goodness you only had one session. Many people don't need counselling at all - they don't get stuck and manage to move along with their lives, experiencing sadness and grief at times, and elation that they are alive and surviving at other times. You are well on the way to coping with your loss when you can express your feelings of grief, have a weep every now and then, and you have an outlet for your thoughts and anger. You're probably more qualified to counsel than the person who gave you the chart. Peace x

Dancingfeet I'm SO pleased to see that you've popped in again. Have thought of you often. Never mind the experts - you'll do it in your own way and in your own time but believe me (and all these other grans who have been through it too) you WILL get there. I wish you a peaceful Christmas time and a happier year in 2012 when I'm sure we'll all be here to read of your progress and the blossoming of your confidence and happiness. x

Hello again dancing, it's good to hear from you again. I'm sure that, as em has said, you've often been thought about by many of us. I do wish you a peaceful Christmas and a hopeful New Year.

Carol I echo your sentiments, wonderfully expressed and oh so true!

Hello everyone and thank you for your kind wishes for Christmas and new year which turned out to be not so bad and quite social. Now it is over I have had a few blips which as many of you predicted have crept up on me and bitten me on the bum when I have least expected.
I don't have as much time as I would like, to follow everything on Gransnet and was most upset that I had missed the thread started by Greatnan who had shown me such kindness in the midst of all her own troubles. I don't understand why messages have been withdrawn etc, but I hope Greatnan reads this so I can offer my empathy and support in dealing with addiction in a family member. I fought my own long, hard battle with co-dependency and know how hard it is to stand back, stop enabling and wait for the addict to reach their rock bottom. Easier said than done when it is one of your own children, however old they may be. In desperation I joined a 12 step family group and learned to take care of myself, live just in the day and hand my problems over to whatever you may believe in. When my world fell apart last February the first thing I turned to to keep myself from going under was my old literature from that group.
I hope Greatnan that you have access to this message and know that I am here to help whenever you feel the need and I am so sorry to hear of your troubles and that I missed the beginning of the thread.

dancingfeet , good to hear that your Christmas and New Year were enjoyable. Sorry about the blips, but you seem to be rising above them. You have so much insight and deserve to be happy again.

dancingfeet I also have thought of you over the last few months and am so happy that you have got through Christmas, a difficult time anyway. The blips will come and go, but you are a survivor and have come a long way already. Keep dancing, Happy New Year.

Hello, Dancingfeet - I am so glad you are setting out on the road to recovery, however long it takes. I will send you a pm about my own sadness, but I am also determined now to get on with my life and enjoy all the good things that happen.

I've just caught up - my computer has been off sick for a week, but is ok now. The posts on this forum are inspirational and I feel privileged to belong. I've been doing a lot of thinking and reflecting on what has happened to me, mostly so I can move on as best I can. A situation that arose over new year's set me trying to pinpoint why I so quickly feel vulnerable, and it's clear that events in my childhood (father walking out when I was 10, to live in the same village with another family - for example) have left scars that I thought I could rationalise away and exorcise by facing and acknowledging them. Now I am certain that my recent emotional and financial disaster was largely the result of my constant search for what was lacking in my childhood - unconditional love and the feelings of self-worth that result. Such damage to a child's psyche is permanent, in spite of education and circumstances that might be seen to compensate.

This has all left me with an overwhelming sense of the importance of self-esteem. The importance simply cannot be over emphasised. If we as grandmothers can help to give our grandchildren the assurance that they are loved for what they are, each a unique human being, we cannot do more for their future lives.

I'm still working through this for my own sake, but that's not my point for writing now. Self-esteem, self-confidence and the assurance of self-worth for our grandchildren is what's important - concern for others, kindness and compassion can be built on this essential foundation.

And a sense of humour, vital to me but sadly lacking in this post!

Hello [smaile] dancingfeet nice to see you have popped back in

Hi Daisyanswerdo, I'm glad you are back on line. You have analysed your situation with great insight. I know that writing about these things can be cathartic, easier too than talking about them. Even our nearest and dearest can be difficult to confide in. That's one of the virtues of this forum: you can, with complete anonymity, confide in us and meet with understanding and empathy. Please keep your posts coming. You are right about our grandchildren needing us to give them the feeling of self-worth that will lead to their leading fulfilled adult lives.

Hello Daisyanswerdo, it's good to hear from you again. Like Annobel I agree with your comments about your own childhood experiences, and about what we as grandparents can do for the emotional wellbeing of our grandchildren.

It puzzles me that these things need re-stating, when anyone can see how a child blossoms when you express love and the sheer enjoyment of having them in your life. There has been a lot of harm done to children whose fathers have disappeared off the scene and no attempts made for their children to be able to see them, or those situations where fathers have been squeezed out to the extent that they have given up and not continued to fight to be with their children.

I would like to know more about the thousands (millions?) of children who have been reunited with their fathers at a later age, and have been shown the evidence of their father's efforts to see them over the years. Does that make a difference to how the child feels about what happened, or is the damage done, never to be repaired?

Our friend N was divorced by his first wife because she had found someone else. They had a little three year old boy, A.

N had weekend custody, while she moved in with her lover, but when she took him to to court to finalise the separation, she dropped a bombshell that the child was her lover's and she wanted to stop N's weekend custody. He was so devastated, and her lawyer was so clever, that N just gave up.

Fast forward 20 years and A is getting married. He sees his birth certificate showing N as his father and looks him up in the phone book. N gets this call "I think you're my Dad"

They are now reunited, and clearly N is the true father because they look alike. A and his family live only 150 kilometers away from N, there are now three grandchildren, and there is lots of family interaction. A and his mother are not in contact - she rejected his wife, who is a lovely woman, so I guess the MIL is the loser. To add to the schadenfreude, when they first separated, first wife called N a loser and said her new bloke was a successful businessman. Well, his grocery business went bust and they are on the breadline.

A now knows that his Dad wanted custody at the time, but was just given outright lies. His childhood was OK though, because the stepfather was good to him - it was his mother who was the rotten so and so.

Joan what a dreadful thing to do a to a child and his dad! Even knowing, after all those years, that things came good in the end, doesn't reduce the harm that woman has done to them.

My ex-DIL has tried every trick in the book to alienate son from father and some of it has stuck because our family has made a commitment not to argue the toss about who is right, or to undermine ex-DIL as a mother, in front of my grandson. When he is an adult, if he hasn't worked things out for himself, he will see all the evidence of the fight we have gone through to keep contact with him. We already see him asserting that he wants to be with his dad. Before my son finally left the family home, after 12 years of abuse from her, she drunkenly said one night '....you can stay with me or live with your dad.' My grandson replied 'my daddy.' My son regrets he didn't act on that at the time, given what has happened since, but he thought he should not deprive his wife of being with her child - pity she didn't extend the same courtesy to him.

Dancingfeet - I am going through the same thing right now, only my family and friends know. I feel lost and betrayed (as I have taken him back twice before) and have to now start over again on my own. I cannot go back for him to keep humiliating me. It's hard but I have to do it for my self respect. Because I have now stood my ground and will walk away he has now turned nasty and vindictive. Do what you feel is right for you, but the one piece of advice I can give you is, talk to your family or a close friend. They will help you. I thought I was the only person this was happening to. You are not alone. Do what is right for you. Sending you hugs and will be thinking of you.

Gran7 - I am sure many gransnetters have been betrayed by someone they loved - not necessarily a partner - so you will receive plenty of support and sympathy here. Read through the replies to Dancingfeet's original post and you will find lots of good advice and encouragement.
You have been very brave to make a stand against this man and you should be proud of yourself. I hope you don't get bullied into going back into any kind of relationship with him - I doubt very much if he is going to change his ways.
You don't say if you have children, and if so, what is their attitude to their father - they could be a great source of comfort and help.
Keep talking to us and we will keep listening and understanding.

Gran7 - there's a simple thing to remember that helped me to leave - leaving is so hard, but staying is even harder! Keep coming back to talk - you'll get lots of understanding and support, emotional and practical, on here. Good luck!

Thank you Greatnan and Carol. No I won't go back, but have to live in same house together till sold. No we don't have kids together, thank goodness. He is a very selfish man who thinks I will buckle and take him back. Sorry not this time. He was surprised that I was seeing a solicitor and that what he was doing was ok. He may love me to bits (his words) but without respect I don't want to be with him. Good news though, I have sent all the forms solicitor asked for to start the divorce process. Oh he is going to be shocked cause he thinks I won't go through with it. Must go as babysitting duties are now over and I must go see other son for his birthday.
Thanks again for your support and will keep you posted on any new developments.

Gran7 ((((hugs)))). Betrayal and rejection are among the worst of human experiences, short of bereavement. It is important to be able to talk about it especially to those of us who have been there and come out the other end. When it happened to me it was fortunate that I was taking a counselling course and was able to speak to people who were empathic but not involved.
At the last minute, before we went to court, my ex asked if we could try again but I could see that this would only involve more heartbreak later on. 26 years later, I'm glad I was firm. You are strong. He sounds like a basically weak personality.

As I have said on several similar threads, do not enter into any 'gentleman's agreement' with your husband when you divorce. You may trust him, but in reality that may be foolish, especially if another woman should come on the scene. I thought my ex was a man of honour but he decided he did not want to honour our totally fair pension - splitting arrangement when he met his new partner. I had to drag him through the Courts resulting in the same arrangement being enforced!

A verbal agreement isn't worth the paper it is written on. He may intend to honour it when it is made, but he could change his mind at any time (or have it changed for him). Get it in writing.

In writing plus signed, sealed and rubber-stamped!