Sorry Acceptance - just got back from a trip. Lord how your story mirrors mine. I know where you are and what he is doing even down to the new posh life you believe he has planned. Had the same thoughts and experiences so many times.

Two ways to play this one as you know ... Stay with what he has offered - ultra mean as it is .. and I suppose very true to his normal personality of how he treated you behind closed doors???... no value or respect for what you have given him over the years!!!! or you could fight on for what you feel you deserve.

Now I have been at this very stage with my ex and could not fight any longer with him. I wanted OUT so very very badly. I too suffer from incureable but treatable illness - which of course was made out to be 'faked' by him even though I cannot work anymore because of it and had hospital reports to prove my condition to the courts.

I can only tell you that I only occasionally regret not pushing harder and getting what I was entitled to. If I could go back to that time with the strength I now have I would have fought him that little bit longer and got more of what was rightly mine. But I know he wanted me to have absolutely nothing, be down and out and even homeless - so everything I got that he did not want me to have keeps me going now. Not what I didn't get if that makes sense. I am not homeless or down and out and in fact, despite my illness, I have an excellent life without him. I count my blessing and make lists of what is better now. I don't know if this helps but this is perhaps how you will feel eventually. I also want to tell you that the other side of the coin is that you will also feel much better in yourself and your illness will improve with time as you already know. Then you will start to think about this so called 'posh' life that you envisage the two of them will have. Being rid of him and his narcisstic put downs is priceless Acceptance. You will be shut of a man who did not and will not ever value what a woman gives him (even his own children)- and that includes his new wife to be - who he is already using and tricking and being his normal narcisstic self to. She does not see it because she believes his lies. We have been her Acceptance - Pity her and her blindness for she has a huge price to pay for being his partner. We know what he is and all you need to do is have faith that eventually all will be revealed.

I have that now - when I am told of how badly the OM is being treated, how hysterical she is, unhappy and being portrayed as a crazy woman then I know this 'posh' life is yet another of his falsehoods to the outside world.

So hold your head high, keep the anger at bay in front of him (don't forget he loves to see you upset - feeds his narcissism).

ACT AS IF YOU ARE HAPPY TO BE RID OF HIM - AT ANY COST!!!

IN FACT YOU WOULD EVEN THINK OF GIVING CASH TO THE WOMAN FOR TAKING THE SCRAP OFF YOUR HANDS.

Incidentally, I am not one bit surprised he has persued the ex wife again. He knows she is softy who does believe his charm and lies and no doubt dislikes you anyway. See what he is doing again??? Is he pressing your buttons??? Bullying and manipulating with all his might I expect. Laugh Acceptance - you can see through him now!!!

Stay strong dear lady - you are almost at the end of the last chapter and your new life is just around the corner.

Much love to you across the miles - wish I could be there with you. You will soon be FREE.

XXXXX CC

Hi Acceptance

Don't know what you have decided to do about everything but I am thinking of you today 9th June. Traumatic day I know if you have decided to go with what is on offer. It boils you up to look at them lying and manipulating everyone around them - I do recall wanting to slap my ex but I managed to control myself and walk away holding on to my dignity and integrity. I will always be proud of myself for my graceful conduct on that dreadful day. Hold on tight for it will soon be over girl.

After today things will slowly start to get better and better. Not so for him because he will always be who he is. N/CL. That's why he believes he deserves the posh life and you and your daughter deserve or mean nothing. Sad - but that's the way he thinks and we all know they stop at absolutely nothing to get what they want. I can hear him now with his 'woe is me, I am the victim in this' statements. Heard it all myself. Makes me smile now. He's just so pathetic.

Non of this rubbish OF HIS will be helping your health. I hope you try to think positive today whatever the outcome. No matter what you get in court or don't NOTHING can buy peace of mind, freedom and well being. You will manage very well without him or his financial support Acceptance of that I am certain - see you are smart. You always have been despite what he has had to say.

Hold your head high dear lady. You are almost at the finishing post.

Much love xxxxx CC

CC Mama and friends,

Today is the first day where I am no longer bound to the N/CL by law. He ended up wanting to settle and I took it, ended up giving up around 50K of what he orginally promised but isn't freedom priceless? I think for me the better parts of the deal that I fought for were for there to be as little room for open ended items as possible....he wanted a bunch of things that were contingent and reopenable...not me...code word for he wants to keep his thumb on me as much as possible. So I let him have what was important to him, his money and I got what I fought for which was a totally non-modifiable agreement for two years-including child support...so for two years everything is set..everything is clearly stated and if he fails to follow stipulations regarding our daughter then I do not have to cooperate with visitiation and can turn him in if he drops the financial ball.

I loved what you said the other day about paying the OTW to take him and at times during the difficult negotiations in a tiny conference room, I clung to that and I even ended up smiling at times. Alot to forgive now that we are finally divorced, it's a package now that I can encapsulate and deal with. For part of the day, I felt in shock, felt like a tornado had ripped through my life and I didn't want to clean up the mess it left behind. I felt like closing the door to my house and walking away, getting in the car and driving away and never looking back. I am moving in a month to a new town, bought a new car, going to sell most of my furniture and start over. I am thankful for all that carried me and comforted me but it's all reminders now of how much pain and heartache I went through. I want a new bed to lay my head down in, not the bed that for the last almost two years I've had good and bad and cried myself to sleep in alot of nights. The stars are always there and with that you ladies as well...never will I regret my times I stared at those stars praying for all of us and yearning for our freedom. Never will I regret the time spent here, time that I grew and loved and was loved in return. Never will I regret the life I shared here because in this horrible reflection of the pain, I became myself...full of wisdom, life and hope for the future. I became a voice for myself and others. Thank you for sharing the journey, your lives, your wisdom and your love. I could not have made it with out you.

I broke the cycle and my new life includes one incredible man, not that incredible man that only shows up in public but an incredible man that can let me be a little crazy at times and look at me and say I love you, the things of the past piling up on you babe? Then hold me and let me cry. A best friend who lets me talk and figure me out and then celebrates and cheers me on, believes in me and says I sell myself short. A man who adores me and I can feel it, it's not a show...his eyes are true (I know you know what I mean when I say that). He has given my daughter a chance to see what a real man can be like..which gives me hope for her future as well. So it does end and life does better than go on the other side. Life can be warm, safe and loving...something I didn't believe for a long time.

It is my hope that each one of you reading this finds the other side of the rainbow and we all can be loved back to the beautiful women we always were.

I love you! The stars will always remind me.

with gratitude,

acceptance

Im having a similar issue. There is no baby on my part involved that i am aware of...however I've been with my boyfriend for almost 2 years and since the beginning hes lied over and over. The only way for him to tell the truth was for me to drag it out of him...show him physical evidence that i knew what he was doing...emails, papers, text messages etc. The whole time he has just blamed other people for things, saying that they are crazy and obsessed with him. The sad thing is, i know its not going to work out but i cant seem to get away. I would love nothing more than to trust him again so we could be a couple again...but he doesnt seem to care. I suppose i have co-dependancy issues which is why i can't leave this relationship. Even still he tells me he loves me, while at the same time, tells another girl he loves her. Its hard to trust him, and most of all...its hard to get over him. Hes lied to me so much over the past 2 years, he doesnt know how bad it hurts to try and trust him. I've become paranoid and crazy myself. I have panic attacks when i know he is doing something, more than that, he is lying. I'm constantly depressed and sad and im not sure how to handle the whole situation. If you have had any progress...please let me know what you did...and how it worked.

I just wanted to post to say thank you to the people who have shared their stories. I am a 27 year old man and thanks to some brave friends I just found out I was a complusive liar. I knew I was a liar, but I never understood the depth of it, nor did I understand how to stop it or that it was an illness. It is like being in a nightmare you can't wake up from. Anyone who has this problem is not happy no matter what they say, I am sure of that. My friend said to me that he thinks it may have been a survival mechanism of my childhood, because I suffered years of serious abuse at the hands of my father, and it stayed with me. Anyway, I do want to change and seeing how this has affected people on the other side of it is surely motivation. I have never cheated on a partner but I have lied about just about everything else I can imagine to everyone else. I see myself doing it and it is almost automatic. I tell myself to stop and it just comes out anyway. It is truly an illness. I have yet to see any success stories (maybe I just didn't look hard enough) but at this point I am grasping for some home that I can change this. Please let me know if you have seen any.

Waking up,

Truly I believe that inside each of us is the ability, the longing, the calling the for what we were meant to be inspite of our life story. Our life story can be much like an obstacle course that as you said we learned to cope in and then as adults we learn to undo that childish thinking. Our life story gives us this instinctual desire to be what we were meant to be and I believe it can be a gift in disguise that propels or drives us or wants us to fight for a better life.

For me, it's a matter of degrees. Will I ever stop being totally scarred and reactive to certain situations, I doubt it, but that doesn't mean I didn't make it and I'm not well or better than I was before. I try each day to do my best, isn't that all we can do? I try to keep my eyes on the horizon not on my missed attempts and to live and embrace each moment, not hold out for the finish line of the day I feel I met this idealized self that I hope to be someday. You show great potential for allowing someone else to speak into your life, you show potential for taking the risk to say it out loud, I wish you well. I believe you already are a success because you want to change. All I can do is try and when I fail, own it and then pick myself and try to do better next time. No excuses, no blame, just love. Learning to love ourselves is no easy task...grace is a huge gift we can give to ourselves and share with others as well. Humility is also a gift that draws good things to us as well. It sounds like you found a loving, gracious friend already. Cherish that gift and let it bring you the love you crave.