I think I'm done

[melissag]

MS, why do you want to be friends with your H? As a route to reconciliation? Or just to be friends? Do you honestly think that you are detached enough right now to be friends with him? Do you think you can truly heal if you are friends with him? What does he add to your life that makes him someone you should be friends with?

[Georgiabelle]

^^^^^^^

MS, Melissa is spot on. What's the rush to be friends? Would you tell someone else to be friends with their spouse if their behaviors were the same?

Perhaps you can be friends in time. You may chose to be friendly now, but friends is a different thing. You don't need to make any grand proclamations.

[BFloat]

You seem to put a lot of value on this fb request. Do I think it's weird that he unfriended you while you were still married? Yes. Do I think you were unreasonable to want to be added? Not necessarily. But seriously.. It's fb. I think it creates so much strife and gets so many people in trouble these days. Just keep in mind that when and if he does add you.. It shouldn't be your determining factor that you guys have succeeded in being friends (don't forget he can block the amount of stuff you can see on his profile).

I think you need to let go and really focus on yourself before you even consider the friends thing because at this time, it will come off as insincere. Have your feelings about OW or his drinking been magically resolved? If he brought up OW today and wanted to share his feelings about her to you, his friend, would you be ok with it? Or will it set you off on yet another emotionally roller coaster?

Please remember that everything he says was wrong with your marriage (you not being supportive etc) isn't necessarily true. His complaints and memories of you will most likely change over time.

You don't need to decide the final outcome today.. Give it time.. And put the focus back on you.

[mustardseed]

I'll have to think about your thoughts on this. Why do I want to be his friend? Because I can't be his wife right now, and I still love him and want to be close to him that way. My feelings about "very good friend"--I am starting to think it was really nothing more than a friendship and that he is pissed that I asked her about it because he liked the fact that I was jealous but now another person got dragged in. Do I think there is someone else? Not really as far as a relationship, but I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't hooking up--meaningless flings maybe. The nights he goes out and doesn't come home don't make sense for the "very good friend" she lives far away, has 3 kids who need her home, and is dealing with her own stuff right now. And he has changed enough of his plans last minute to make that infuriating for any woman--especially someone type a like her.

The FB thing. The fact that he opened it in secret, then when I found out about it (while we were supposedly rebuilding our relationship) he couldn't send me a request--drives me crazy. It really does. I'm not sure if it is so much that I don't know what is on it. I think it is more that the people who are on it know that I am not one of his friends--I hate that feeling of not being at the top of his list of important people. I know I am not detached. I want him back, but I know that can't happen right now. But if I can be his friend, at least that much, then maybe I will at least get to know what is going on and be able to leave feeling like we have done everything possible but we just want different things in life. The way things are now feels make believe. I really just can't accept the fact that he doesn't love me anymore--and I don't believe it.

If he really wants out all he has to do is tell me there is someone else, or get the ball rolling on leaving. He isn't doing either. He is just trying to make me crazy--wondering what he is doing and thinking. Being sweet as pie when he wants information from me (which I always cave and give him) but then leaving me in the dark and making me feel like I am causing a scene or being clingy when I ask him anything.

I don't want to leave, but if I stay I need to be able to keep my sanity. I need to learn to detach and that will be easier to do if I feel like he is my friend who trusts me and who wants me to trust him. I want to part as friends. Or I want to fall in love again with him but as friends first. If it ends now I think it will be really bitter and nasty because I am not detached enough to handle it. I'm feeling love and hate every second of the day and I don't want to feel that way anymore. He's pushing me to make the choice for him, and I can't do that right now.

I do need to put the focus back on me. I am trying. Focusing on work which takes up almost all of my time (it is good to be back). Work is stressful, but a good kind of stress. A problem solving kind of stress and one where I feel support from everyone around me helping me to succeed in a very difficult situation. I feel optimistic about it because I feel comfortable with my choices, even when they end up not being the best ones, because from those mistakes come greater insight. I'm not really feeling that way in my relationship right now. Because I never even know when I am making a mistake. I'm getting no feedback from him at all. It's just hard. He has been cleaning up and I don't know if he is doing it because he knows I can't stand the clutter, or if he is trying to find or hide things a lawyer might need. I just thank him for doing it. I am faking a PMA around him.

It would be so much easier if we didn't live together anymore. But I don't want to move in with my parents until I have to. It will make me crazy there, too. I tried it out over the vacation and it felt so wrong. It all feels so wrong right now.

My aunt is having brian surgery for the 3rd time right now and has given up all of her possessions (including her home) so no one knows where she is going to end up when she gets out of the hospital. She isn't rational and wants no help from anyone but has set up a situation where she might end up homeless and possibly blind (which is a definite without the surgery and highly likely with it). H doesn't even know--and probably doesn't even care at this point. My new job is exciting and stressful and I would love to come home and talk to H about it, but he doesn't want to hear it. I just feel alone and scared and I want to feel loved and cared for by him again. Things seems so good and my future seemed so positive a few months ago--regardless of what my marital outcome might have been, and now I feel like it is teetering on the edge of a cliff and I'm trying to keep it steady all on my own. And I know I have to just let go. But it is too scary.

[mustardseed]

Maybe there is just too much going on at once. Maybe that is why I feel so shaken now. More so then I even was with BD. A new job, an extended family crisis, 40 staring me in the face, and the realization that the one person I turned to for everything has turned away from me.

I guess this is why we don't make one person everything. Anyway, good news. My aunt is out of surgery and she is able to see. Not sure if her vision is improved from where it was before the surgery, or if it means it just hasn't gotten worse. But I am glad the surgery was successful--and I really hope it means her vision will be improved. I know that was really getting her down. The future is a really scary place lately. Time to let go of the past, and stop worrying about the future and just live in the moment. I do feel better now knowing that she is ok.

[Maybell]

I'm glad your aunt is better!

Forty is GOOD. Don't fear it. It's a relief. Probably my best decade (even including almost three years of emotional chaos).

What's good in your life right now? What is the lighthouse revealing to you?

[mustardseed]

Thanks.
What is good in my life right now?
I am down to my high school weight and aside from a few more wrinkles on my face I am looking pretty good when I'm not pathetic lol.

I have my dream job. It is a bit of a bumpy start but I have a great support system and this week some schedule changes were made that makes my days so much more consistent and I feel like I can actually plan a decent program now.

I am making a real liveable salary now. I just have to get some of my spending under control. I went a little crazy over the vacation--making up for 14 years of never spending money on me.

My kids are amazing. They are so sweet, and I know they are struggling with the changes. I need to keep my focus on them and start reacting to situations in a way that they would be proud, rather than the pathetic way I have been handling things these past few months.

He's still here. I don't know if that is a good thing or not. It makes me crazy because it makes me hopeful. It makes me crazy because he knows how to play me. It makes me crazy because he is being super dad and I wish that he could have been that way with me in the picture--so we could have had those family moments I always wanted. It is also a turn on which makes going to bed alone so much harder.

What is the lighthouse revealing to me?

I am having a lot of trouble seeing it. I think there is too much fear right now, I'm afraid to look around and see. I keep reading your quote over and over again.

"All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well."
I'm just not really good at not knowing. I have to accept that I just can't know everything.

I'm hoping I can get to the city to see my aunt this weekend.

[Maybell]

That's a lot of things to be good in your life! I hope you're focusing on them.

Imagine the worst happens. Everything that is up in the air right now, that you fear. It all comes to pass.

Now imagine yourself waking up the morning after that awful calamity. Who do you want to be on that day? That is what the lighthouse is meant to show you.

Now, don't wait for the calamity. Be that person TODAY.

Wishing you peace in your conversation with your H.

Believe that all will be well. It is in your power to make it so.

[mustardseed]

Thank you Maybell. I will answer your question but first I have to once again humble myself by journalling another failed attempt to do it my way rather than DB way:

I tried having a conversation with him where I tried to validate what he has told me, and it got all twisted.

It is over. He is going to file. Marrying me was a big mistake. He doesn't like me. He thinks I am turning the kids against him. I am crazy (yes I have been emotional lately, of course that is the part he focuses on), he doesn't confided in "very good friend" anymore, he hasn't been with anyone else, he told me where he stays when he doesn't come home. He is prepared for things to get ugly. When I tried to set a boundary he said, "this must be all of that self-help [censored] you've been reading". When I asked why in September he was talking about trying to rebuild he denied it and said, "I said we could talk to someone", that's not how it happened. He was very clear about wanting to try and work things out, even though he didn't follow through. I think that last rope me in and throw me back out attempt is what got me to this really bad place. Before that I was really on the right track. I want to get back there.

So a conversation that I was hoping would get us back to a civil place where we could move forward one way or the other has once again backfired. What are those things called again that I should be doing? 180s? Yeah I forgot all about those things. I forgot all about all of the rules. I tried it my way and I feel worse than ever.

I don't want to save this anymore. I just want to try to save some of my dignity--if there is any left to be saved at this point. He always wins those "discussions" because I always think they are actually conversations but for him they are battles. Last week I paid almost $400 for DB counseling that I haven't used. I wonder if I could get a refund. This is not someone I want to be married to anymore. He is unstable and cruel. And I'll admit I am not at my best right now, but at least I come from a place of kindness. I'm just not detached enough to make rational choices and I keep getting sucked into his games.
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Day after the calamity. I want to be happy and proud. I want to be surrounded by people who love me and are honest with me. People I can trust. He is left to self destruct and I am rising above all of the pain and confusion. For the first time in a long time I have clarity, and I take care of me for the first time. I am in control of my emotions and my well-being, and my children admire me for my strength and composure as I manage my way through this. That woman who was crying is gone, and she is replaced by a happy, strong, confident provider who doesn't need another person to make her happy. Because she is enough.

Starting right now. No more conversations. No more trying to turn the tables back. I'll just let him do what he has to do, and I will make sure my family (minus 1) will have a solid, strong rock in me to weather this storm.

[mustardseed]

So, I have been better. Less emotional. And there has been peace in the home. He told me he wants 50/50 custody. I am afraid to have any of those conversations with him because I don't trust him and I don't understand the process at all. I still feel like it is all so unfair.

He wants the D, yet he expects me to give up my home (we rent through his employer), my marriage, and 50% of my time with my kids (and he probably has plans for the dog as well). Why do I have to agree to this? If he wants out of the marriage then fine, he should leave. But why does he think that just because he says he's done, I should be the one to do all of the sacrificing?

I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I'm stressed out about work and feel like I barely have time to do anything other than dealing with work and trying to be as available as possible with my kids. I don't want to move, yet. I will have a really long commute and with the winter I don't feel comfortable with that. I'll be staying at my parents in a tiny bedroom that I will share with my daughter--sleeping in a bunk bed. So I will be leaving all of my stuff behind as well, because there is no room. Why is this fair? Why does he get to decide this marriage is over and I am the one who has to give up everything?

Until there is a legal document telling me otherwise, then I plan on living wherever my children are living. Am I supposed to file first? If I wait for him to file will I get screwed? Do I have to have these conversations with him at all? i already retained my lawyer and once I get the information she needs she can write up a separation agreement, but every time I sit down to fill out the paper work I panic. Why do I have to do this thing that I don't want to do? I know that sticking around is just making him hate me more. But why do I have to be the one to leave?

He has been telling mutual friends about what is going on. And it just hit me that any friends that we made in the past 12 years are all tied to his job. And they are people who are involved with our children, either by being parents of their friends or teachers or both--most of them are both--not to mention neighbors. So I can't just separate myself from that life so easily. Who knows what he is telling them--while I am acting as if everything is fine.

The whole situation is so unhealthy, and leaving really does seem to make the most sense, except that I am the one that is giving up almost everything that my life has been for the past 12 years. Maybe that isn't such a bad thing--but it makes me so angry. He doesn't have my best interest at heart anymore, and cut me off, yet my life is still being guided by his choices.

This is why I am so mixed. I want to believe our love was real and this is just a bump in the road. I want to believe that I wasn't completely mislead by him and that I wasn't wrong in trusting him. But I also want to get to a point where my life is my own and not an accessory to his. I am starting to feel that way because I am not doing what he wants me to. I am still home, but I am doing my own thing. But at the same time I think separating will be the healthiest thing for me--except that it is once again me doing what he wants me to do to make his life easier. I really don't know what is best anymore. Do I stay or do I go? Do I file or do I wait for him? One thing I know is that I will not go until we have a legal agreement.