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kml #2730057 02/14/17 12:41 PM
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Hi HaWho,

Catching up on your fraternity MLCer. You're hanging in there.

- Separate cars... I recalled when I was a teenager and I had to travel with my mother on public transportation, I would never sit next to her. I was just too cool to be traveling right next to my mom. I had to sit in an adjacent seat somewhere. I wonder if he's trying to claim his independence and/or rebelling against his Mom this way. He resorts to texting to avoid confrontation or dialogue. If he's in a car with you, he can't escape from what you may have to say to him. Even if your boys are there, he still may fear you will resort to his passive aggressive tactic, which is that talking-through-the-kids crap (my W does the same thing). You tried to address this and he balked, no surprise. He wants to drive alone and play his depressing songs.

- Asking him in advance about eating dinner with the family... yes, I think you should do it. Sneaking in and out while you and your sons are acting normally is ridiculous. Just rehearse what you're going to say and be prepared to use a calm tone of voice. Standing in the doorway while asking him if he's going to bother sitting at the dinner table can come off as incredibly matriarchal.

- Talking to your sons while ignoring you... if H says something to one of the boys, and you hear your son say something worth replying to, then speak up. You'll be replying to your children, not your immature H. You can ignore his mind games while staying engaged with your children. They're noticing all his weird behavior, too.

- The ignoring... I feel ya, I really feel ya. It's hard to stomach when they're in the same damn house as us. My W made a point not to acknowledge my last birthday, even though 3 of her friends visited that evening and all wished me Happy Birthday. Then again, she unfriended me on Facebook a week before, so it wasn't like I was surprised. I wonder when a live-in MLCer goes NC, is it out of guilt or anger? Whenever I re-cap my own sitch for a friend, I usually just say my W is still "aggressively ignoring me". I think if they could call us on our cell and say nothing so they can give us the silent treatment over the phone, they'd do it.

You are very perceptive about him looking for a battle by fetching his dinner while you're in the kitchen preparing the current dinner. Good catch! You can put these behaviors into perspective - however insane.

They want us to fight, they want us to lose our cool. It's tough. As hard as things are, you are doing great for no other reason than your primary impulse is NOT to hide in that dorm room all the time.


M: 49, W: 45
T: 22 M: 15
S14, S11, S9
BD: Jan '16
W files: Oct '16
D final: June '18
Brubeck #2730329 02/15/17 10:55 PM
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Hi Lou! Nice to hear from you. I hear your concern about taking care of me and thank you for that piece of advice.

Roist - where is my head at nowadays? Great question. I think most of the time it's focused on me, my kids, our present lives and our futures. I don't allow myself too much time to think about my h. It's too depressing to do so. I feel sorry for him.

I do wonder if I am doing the right thing here. Maybe it would be healthier not to live with him. I know divorce is destructive. I can't say what is going on here is great, obviously. I am picking between two bad options. I thought about how I would justify my decision to my kids when they are older. My answer would be that it would break my heart to have them spend 50% of their time with a person who closes himself in a dorm room. This in turn means they get no break from the weirdness.

2 years 3 months post BD, I am finally sleeping through the nights. I was on high alert for so very long: is he going to empty the bank account and move to Fiji with a few women as he said he wanted to do? Is he going to to come home and tell me two of his girlfriends are pregnant with his children? Is he going to disappear one day and notify me via text?

Now, I spend most of my time thinking how do I protect myself financially, emotionally, spiritually?

KML - I think a year ago, yes, he really did believe I was trying to murder him. (Oh, I can't believe this is my life story. I am a normal person not a made for TV movie character.) But now? I think it's some PA control issue. Here's why...

Before I start dinner, I have been going to ask him if he's eating. The first night he was caught off guard and stuttered. He nervously asked what I was making. I answered and he said yes and he ate. The next night, I did the same. He asked what I was making and he said yes and he ate. Tonight I ordered in and he ate.

Brubeck - nice to hear from you. Yes, in general, my h is as embrassed by me as my s13 is. H has way more anger towards me though.

As for your w not acknowledging your birthday? Obviously, if people wished you a happy birthday in front of her, she went out of her way to hurt you. People who hurt others are hurt themselves.


Me 41, H 47, M 15 yrs, S11, S13
BD 1: 11/4/14 we work on it; really I pretzel myself
BD 2: 3/31/15 H goes down to "dorm room"
8/15: H back to MBR
10/15: H back in dorm room
1/18: H files, now divorced
HaWho #2730338 02/16/17 02:54 AM
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HaWho, my heart goes out to you as I read your most recent post. Hi rock, meet hard place. It's not an enviable position to be in. I'm so sad that you are living with this level of stress. Be very mindful of your health my dear. The boys need you and stress takes it's toll. Sending much love and hugs. xoxoxoxo


M 20+ T25+
S ~15.5 (BD)
BD 4/6/15
D 12/23/16

"Someone I loved once gave me
A box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand,
That this too, was a gift."
~ Mary Oliver
Brubeck #2730392 02/16/17 08:12 AM
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Originally Posted By: Brubeck
I think if they could call us on our cell and say nothing so they can give us the silent treatment over the phone, they'd do it.


LOL


Gordie 40s W 40s M20+ kids
2016 BD W fantasy affair w OM1 I do everything wrong
2017 I start to DB W says TLTL files for D PA w OM2
2018 I do LRT W drops filing and OM2 situation slowly improving
Gordie #2730693 02/18/17 04:36 PM
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Well, even though h lives 50 feet from me, lately, I barely see him. Monday - Friday I would estimate I see him 1 hour total--few minutes at dinner is all. I notice when I am in a room he just doesn't enter. I remember doing the same sort of thing in my depression. On the weekends, he is holed up in the MLC bunker. Or he leaves the house. We barely speak. And when we are in the same room h does the no eye contact/no looking at me thing.

He's been sleeping at irregular times. Often I will come home and the kids will shush me and say he is napping.

There are times he texts me. Sometimes he sends a cute picture of the dog. Sometimes, very very rarely, he just writes me something quick but funny. But sometimes he works a way in to tell me the marriage has been bad for 20 years. (We've been married 16.) He still builds the "this marriage was always bad" case. He's the Marcia Clark of the MLC world.

Most of the time he has zero sense of humor. A few days ago he wore his Patriots sweatshirt. By half time sons and h gave up on the Pats! H left to get a haircut, S11 went upstairs to watch a different show and S13 went to his own dorm room. I told them they were fair weather friends. I insisted they would win and they all scoffed at me. Hah!

But my dog watched with me the whole time. I think he knew they were going to win, too!

So back to the kitchen and h's lack of humor. I said to him: "heeeey, wait a second! Are you wearing your Pats sweatshirt out today so you can brag?" Old h would have given a witty answer and I would have rubbed him for losing faith in them and yet still "owning" their victory. He started to give me this really boring answer and I tuned out as I think tax codes are more exciting.

Sometimes he is an adult: telling the kids to pitch in by doing x,y,z. But 99% of the time he's hiding in the dorm room. There is rarely music playing. But a few days ago while in the dorm room, he played one of his most depressing songs about how life has no purpose; there's just the time you have here and that's all.

Awesome.

As for me? It has hit me that is so far beyond "he just needs to wake up." The last few weeks, all around me, I see the damage he's done. It is hard for me to see how it is possible for "us" to recover from it.

The attributes that are opposite of who he was are one thing. I can dismiss those as MLC. But those glimpses of problematic things I saw when I first met him, that have now ballooned, are what worry me. His genuine discomfort with aging, for example. There are others, too. The superficiality that has surfaced is another biggie. In the dreaded letter he even told me that: that he was superficial and these things were important to him and he was tired of pretending they weren't.

It's hard to quiet my mind on these issues.


Me 41, H 47, M 15 yrs, S11, S13
BD 1: 11/4/14 we work on it; really I pretzel myself
BD 2: 3/31/15 H goes down to "dorm room"
8/15: H back to MBR
10/15: H back in dorm room
1/18: H files, now divorced
HaWho #2730717 02/19/17 04:08 AM
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I'm glad you have the dog on your team


R 25 years
M 14 years
S11 & S13
Working on it alone since Oct 2014
M in trouble a lot earlier (~2 years)
Feb 2016. 1st R chat in a yr.
Next R chat Aug'17
Still together
roist #2730720 02/19/17 06:07 AM
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HaWho,

I really don't you how you are able to persist with your situation. It is inspiring. Your patience is amazing. I wish I could offer you advice but I can only offer you moral support.


Gordie 40s W 40s M20+ kids
2016 BD W fantasy affair w OM1 I do everything wrong
2017 I start to DB W says TLTL files for D PA w OM2
2018 I do LRT W drops filing and OM2 situation slowly improving
HaWho #2730721 02/19/17 06:11 AM
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We won because I shut off the tv and monitored via computer. Every time I would switch back to the game, something terrible would happen. Finally I just followed along on the Pats website and it worked!

now to a less pleasant topic:
HaWho in the years leading up to BD, I found myself asking myself questions about my husband and marriage that I never dreamed I would ask. I only shared them with my therapist, as I didn't know this place existed, and rarely my brother from another mother. I'd have to say about the last 18 months we were together I was wondering what lessons I was teaching my son about women, and their roles in family. This weighed on my mind heavily and still does, tbh.

So here we are. Son has watched his father and his father's friend say the most horrendous things and he's absorbed them like a sponge. I still kick myself that I didn't kick that friend out of my home for some of his spew.I do recall saying on more than one occasion that I would prefer him to censor his speech around our boy. I would also tell exh repeatedly that he needed to censor some of his speech around our son.

I ask myself if my staying during those years was the best thing. Should I have been the one to leave? Was it better to be together and yes, very loving a lot of the time, while there was this growing subtext? I don't have the answers. Some of the troubles our son has had this year I can trace direcly to exh and his friend. From what I can tell, exh sees the damage now, and is frantically trying to fix it, but you know, in some ways, it's too late. Our boy watched for a good 4-5 years while his father disrespected me and our family consistently, first in small, unobtrusive ways, and then in larger, more obvious ones. I've had to do some "re-training" over the past two years, with a 6'3" 200 pound angry teenager who can get downright nasty on occasion as only his father or another teenager can. It's laughable when exH says, "He shouldn't speak to you that way." No Kidding. Where did he learn it was ok and how am I supposed to "make" him do anything? Luckily, as I said, exh is doing his best to undo some of that damage, and I appreciate it. I just wonder if there's something I could have done differently when son was a pre-teen.

I guess what I'm saying here HaWho is that at some point, I think we all have to take a step back and look at the much bigger picture of what are the life lessons we hope our children are learning from this horrific experience known as MLC. What are we hoping they will look back on or take into their own marriages. I know as Catholics there's that aspect as well. It's a lot to hold. No one can make these decisions except the person in the situation.

I worry about you and the pressures you are under, living with this day in and day out. Do you think it might help to talk to a DB Counselor or IC about this? Just so you can have extra support as you sort thru it all? You've done such an amazing job of holding it all together. Who is holding it for you? I hope I haven't overstepped any boundaries. Sending you prayers and love xoxoxo


M 20+ T25+
S ~15.5 (BD)
BD 4/6/15
D 12/23/16

"Someone I loved once gave me
A box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand,
That this too, was a gift."
~ Mary Oliver
bttrfly #2730776 02/20/17 12:35 AM
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HaWho -

I wonder if your H's touch-and-go texts are his way of temperature checking. It seems to be his only positive point of contact. Maybe these texts offer hope to you, or maybe it feels kind of empty when weighed against the massive amount of NC he maintains.

Feedback and research on MLC indicates that most of them have no sense of humor with their spouses. No surprise. I've tried a few mild jokes with my W and she seems irritated that I bother.

"The marriage was always bad" - I guess they refine this story for themselves by exaggerating it as time goes on.

Just curious - why did you avoid him during your depression?


M: 49, W: 45
T: 22 M: 15
S14, S11, S9
BD: Jan '16
W files: Oct '16
D final: June '18
Brubeck #2730788 02/20/17 05:55 AM
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Brubeck,

Many people suffering from depression withdraw from others, as well as things that they use to enjoy. They want to be alone to deal w/their periods of sadness and they can't find joy in anything or anyone. It takes a lot of effort to even get up in the morning, let alone interact with others.

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