Infidelity/WAH, my story pt 9

[BluWave]

Oh Sara!!! (((Sara)))

I am so sorry to read this. So you went into a rapid Afib with RVR and became hypotensive? How terrifying! I am glad you are getting the ablation; it's fairly noninvasive and even if it doesn't work initially, you still have more options! I am glad that you have an interventional cardiologist! I would personally require that, high risk or not. So I work in ICU & CVICU (very sick population) and any cath lab pt not ready to go to tele comes to us. I personally have never seen a serious complication from an ablation. I am assuming your aunt went into the cath lab for other reasons and was most likely in cardiogenic shock? So please, please don't let that add to your fears! That's a very different circumstance.

In terms of your WH? Honestly, Sara, I could give two chits about that man right now! I care about you, your health, and how you can get to a place where you have less stress and you feel safe and loved. You deserve that. Your children deserve a mother who feels cherished and valued! He obviously has a lot of work to do on himself and Is being a selfish baby. I feel sorry for him in another way-- I hope he can get it together before you lose your last ounce of respect for him. This will be his loss! And I just know you will come out stronger some day soon.

I can appreciate skyhigh and how much you can relate to her and her sitch. I do! Just keep in mind that there are as many differences as there are similarities in our sitches. My H never was as you two described. I can't relate to any of that and I can't imagine it. That must be so hard to keep your motivation and patience when their focus is not in your and genuine recon. It's almost a Herculean effort to forgive and respect them when the selfishness continues. How can you ask yourself to do that?

Please just take care of your heart first. Always. You need that to live and so do your children. They need you strong and healthy.

XOXO
Blu

[ForGump]

S-

What Blu and others said: just get better first.

[PsySara]

Coly,
I'm trying to steer clear but it is a challenge when I need him to be my transportation to my cardiac ablation. But otherwise some kind of switch has been thrown and I find myself picturing a future without him. I will be fine. I am independently financially sound, I already bought a house and will be moving the kids there after they complete this school year, and I am already mentally splitting assets.

Skyhigh,
WH has been adamant that he would fight for 50/50 custody. Would he be as on top of things, the mundane parts of parenting? Most likely not but they would not be physically neglected or be abused. My main concern is in the future when they start to discern how undependable he is, then the fire will reign down and my children will likely face stone walling from him. I just wish I could run interference but I don't see how I can.

BluWave,
I always appreciate your comments and suggestions. The last few days I have just felt done. WH has been cordial and also distant and I think my give a fock meter just broke. I just feel there is nothing salvageable here. I did go over the last year and a half and am sooooo lucky that I managed to move the kids to my home state before deciding one way or the other. Now if we divorce he can't take them out of state. If he wants to move then he will simply screw himself out of his side of custody. Now when he is at work and I am home I feel relief and peace. I am starting to feel strong. I am sad that I will likely raise my kids in a less than ideal situation but I know I have exhausted every option.

ForGump,
I'm working on it.

So Friday I texted WH "I need to know if your supervisor will give you the 20th off, if not then I need to make my plan B." There was not response until about 4 hours later when he replied, "I got the 20-21 off." I simply thanked him. His cousin has been a lot of help with the kids. I had to have a chest CT done yesterday and she took over the evening from the nanny. Wh came home around 7:30 and basically left his cousin to do all the work with the kids. By the time I got home (after 8) the two older kids were in bed and the baby was ready to be put to bed. WH looked at me and said, "You took a long time getting home." I told him I had to wait for the results from the CT came before they would let me drive home. Later his cousin told me he was asking her repeatedly if I had texted her when I was coming home. This is so stupid, why can't he just text me and ask? It's just more of his stone walling bullsh*t. Today I took his cousin to the airport and said a tearful goodbye. She has been a huge support to me and also has helped a lot with the kids.

WH only addressed me this morning to tell me when he's coming home today. Part of me wished he wouldn't come home at all. How's that for a 180? I used to watch the clock and check his location on the Friendfinder app constantly, now I wish he'd just move out already.

[J5K]

Oh Sara,

I will continue to pray for you and your children. Everyone has a limit and only you can decide the path you will take. Although losing an S is painful, it may be the right path. We cannot control the bad behavior. Focus on your health and needs and the needs of your children. I wish somehow we could all help absorb the pain and have it magically go away. (((Sara)))

[PsySara]

Thank you J, I read up a little on your situation and am taking a leaf from your book. If you can single handedly take care of 5 small sons then I should be able to manage just three.

Today I took the kids over to my moms so they could hunt for eggs. My family doesn't celebrate Easter but they do some of the kid stuff. I dressed up very special (pretty sun dress and high heels) just to feel better. The ego takes quite the bruising when one's spouse constantly rejects them. I decided to treat myself to some new clothes and let my mom have the kids for about an hour. Meanwhile WH tests me asking when I plan on being home so he can see the kids. (He was at work until about 4) I texted back around 5. I came home around 5 and the boys had fallen asleep in their carseats so I decided to surf the net on my phone. WH pulled up shortly after and the boys woke. When I got the kids out of the van WH commented on my clothing and especially my heels. "You're dressed up nice. When did you get those shoes?" I had those shoes since before we married and told him so.

Afterward I continued with the regular evening, fed the kids, bathed them and got them to bed. WH played Mindcraft with the older kids until their bedtime. He and I are cordial to each other and I catch him looking at me for extended times. Can I be honest and say I don't really care? I continue to plan the separation this summer. I figure I can dovetail the move into my new house and WH can either stay in the rental or find an apartment. I don't think he realizes where I am at mentally. He probably thinks the dressing up and being all comfortable with him (we are able to spend considerable time in the same room without stressing) means I am giving it a go again. If so, he could not be more wrong. I have sacrificed too much waiting for WH to get his head out of his @ss.

[PsySara]

Wh and I continue to be cordial to each other but aloof. Tomorrow is my birthday and he asked me if I had plans, I responded no. He then asked if I wanted to do anything special and I told him I just wanted to rest. My heart has been causing me more and more fatigue, the racing makes me feel like I am constantly running on a treadmill even while sitting down.

I did come home and make a pot roast in the pressure cooker with potatoes and carrots. I ate at the table with m little ones and then did the regular bath/bedtimes routine. WH just sat with them and played some mindcraft, napped on the couch and lazed about. He did eventually eat some of the dinner I made. Here I sit on the love seat and there he sits on the couch, no talking or anything, just this weird silence. Unlike before I don't feel on edge or anxious. I have decided to let go of him and now seriously think I may not want him back. We've always had a lopsided distribution of household/child rearing, mix this with his remorseless infidelity and I don't see benefits of keeping him around. He has not read one book, gone willingly to on IC or done any true introspection about his cheating. He has no desire to be a better man and recover from his narcissism. Multiple people have approached him about the horrible actions he has taken and his response is to blame shift and turn on the person trying to help him. His closest relatives are mystified, the counselors say he is a lost cause and my closest friends are begging me to leave his toxic presence.

Tonight my DD6 refused to hold my hand while I took her to bed because I told her she could not play anymore mindcraft. I told her this hurt my feelings and WH said to her,"Be nice to mommy." My thought was she is starting to pick up hurtful behavior from WH and he still can't view himself.

[Anchor]

PsySara

First of all – a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

I’ve been watching from afar but not posting because have been unsure of what to say, but I want to let you know I’ve thought about you and your sitch every single day.

In a way, we are now both in the same sitch, but have taken different routes to it. My arrival at this place has not been out of choice per se – where you have fought on, I had come to a dead end because my WH absolutely refused to engage.

I want to say I understand the need to move, to act, to do SOMETHING – I too am an April baby and I think we have a few similarities personality wise. Because my WH froze me out so early, I necessarily reached this point where I’ve come to see inaction as a sort of course of action. It’s the LRT really.

I don’t think you should file for divorce, not at all. At the moment my DS is away with WH – we’ve had to split the Easter holidays. It’s horrible without him. I want to spend every night under the same roof with my DS.

I think you should just table the whole MR at the moment. Take it easy, especially with your health issues. Don’t do anything. If you don’t want to get divorced because of the implications it will have for your children, DON’T. There’s no law that says just because your marriage isn’t being actively worked on you have to actively dismantle it. Just coast. If your WH wants a divorce, let him handle it. That’s the tack I’ve taken with my WH.

I had a wobble a week ago because I realized that my window for filing for divorce based on adultery closes at the end of the month. I spoke to my father who had this sage advice to offer: don’t file for divorce if it’s not something you actively want, let WH do it, because when the children are older they will realize that you did absolutely nothing to destroy the marriage and their family and it was 100% all WH. Your hands and your conscience will be clean and you will have peace of mind for the rest of your life. I think it’s more probable that I would regret divorcing in pain and anger, rather than being divorced by a WH who is acting in a totally despicable way – the negative feelings associated with the latter situation are linked to ego and a desire to reject rather than be rejected, which has roots in vindictiveness.

My faith has developed and grown through this process and acts as a guide for how to conduct myself in these situations. Which is to forgive and release – detachment really. Interestingly, forgiveness does not equate to reconciliation – you can forgive but choose not to reconcile.

The guidance I’ve been receiving from Christian quarters is to let go and let God deal with WH. There’s a line from a book I’ve been reading by a Christian author, which does make the point that if WH were to re-engage in the M, it has to be out of his will, not because he was lured back into it. He should re-enter the marriage as he did the first time around – totally out of his own volition. You can’t make him to stay in the marriage anymore than you could have manipulated him to marry you in the first place. You still work on GAL, but now entirely and only for yourself – whether it results in WH being attracted back is incidental.

I recognize too well your previous description about how focused you were on WH’s movements, because I felt like that too – what has happened may have been necessary to jolt you into true detachment – it certainly sounds like you’ve reached it now.

A word of warning from someone who’s been there – it comes and goes. The first time I felt true detachment I was elated, thinking I had reached healing. But another interaction with WH destabilized me. Yesterday I had a terrible day with missing DS and WH and loving them so much I spent most of it crying on the floor. They don’t call it a roller coaster for nothing

[Anchor]

Out of curiousity, does Islam have similar guidance about approaching our kinds of sitches? I asked a Muslim friend who is quite observant but she said she wasn't aware of a similar 'standing' position.

[skyhigh]

Happy Birthday Dear Sara!
I am an April baby too....
Will come back to write later on, I have to run.

[bigybiz]

Sara:

Happy Belated Birthday to you. I wanted to wish you a speedy recovery and I hope that you find yourself physically recovered soon.

You are a wonderful person and I can't thank you enough for the support you have provided to myself and so many others.

Take care.

Bigybiz