I didn’t raise the R talk by the way, that was all him saying back off, don’t take me for granted, get on with your life because I want to be alone. Well if he really wants to be a sad and lonely man I can’t stop him.
I think I handled it ok all told, I said a lot of things in our marriage were my responsibility and I regretted them, but I wasn’t overly apologetic. I also said maybe we should just see each other one night a week and sometimes a walk at weekends when he sees the kids. I know we’ve both found it hard spending a lot of time together, even though most of it has been positive and pleasant. Also last night he said I snored and kept him awake so I went and slept on the sofa bed, that doesn’t help his thinking.
If it wasn’t for here I would have believed him and been cutting all ties. Now I can see what a cliche he is and how I can’t believe anything he says or half of what he does. This weekend away was HIS suggestion! I asked him if he wanted to go for a long walk thinking somewhere near our house for a few hours and it ended up being a weekend away over the bank holiday. Then he tells me he’d been dreading it! Dreads seeing me because it’s ‘awkward’ (because he feels guilty?) I’ve got much better recently at controlling my emotions and not asking for too much affection or even time. Maybe I should back away even further, not text him at all unless he texts first, be less available. I don’t know. Difficult.
He doesn't sound in his right mind - he is suggesting the time together, seems unable, much of the time, to muster civility, is hung-over most of the time, working when he isn't, and isn't engaging in any of the self reflection that would make an R possible or even desirable. I think it's a cheek for him to say he wants a divorce but doesn't want to hurt you - as if what he's putting on offer right now is worth putting yourself through this for.
Can you go dark? Just accept what he says at face value, stop all the admin and wife work and dates and pleasant availability and let him know what it really feels like to manage his own paperwork, relationships with the kids and his mother, and spent the rest of the time drunk or hung over in his flat?
I feel really quite angry for you, Dilly. Maybe you'll take my suggestions with a pinch of salt - I don't think any of us here are able to be truly objective. But you've put your heart and soul into being as gentle and kind to him as you can, and it hasn't got you anywhere at all. I think it might be time for a drastic change in your approach to this.
I would also say, Dilly, that all of his feelings of dread and anxiety are to do with him and not you. You're not perfect and you snore and you probably let things lapse and get irritating now and again because you're a normal human being. You're also extremely tolerant, gentle, putting your heart and soul into finding non threatening ways to show him love and affection, and he's so messed up and sad inside that he can't cope with it. It's the not-being-able-to-cope with it - normal interaction - that he dreads. Not you.
I think you're right Alison. And also right that he is no prize. Last night he had 3 glasses of wine and a pint of beer and was very grumpy indeed on the way back from the restaurant. This morning he complained about me 'banging around' (I was tidying up). His major complaint about our marriage apparently is that our house was messy (well we have 2 kids and we have NEVER had a particularly tidy house even before then). I am so tired of being blamed for random stuff which seems meaningless to me. By the way, my house has been immaculate since BD so hey, let's stick firmly in the past shall we? It's like he can't even be bothered to look for the positives in me or in our very long marriage. And newsflash, there was PLENTY of good stuff in there.
We actually had a lovely walk today despite the hideous R talk. Interestingly, the R talk was initiated by him shortly after I told him he should see a doctor about his numb feet following me mentioning it to my nurse friend. It might be alcohol related, it might not be. But I'm willing to bet he won't see a doctor about it, despite it being potentially very serious. Like amputation serious according to my friend. I should have kept my mouth shut on that one, I know he has huge health anxieties. And also huge denial.
Gah, he's a grownup. Apparently. Not that he acts like one. I have to let him go and make his own mistakes. Maybe I won't even want him back if I'm able to drop the rope eventually. But dropping the rope is soooo hard.
Part of me wonders whether he isn't having an affair after all and all this behaviour is an elaborate front and he's the world's best liar and the world's best hider of it. Or whether he wants to have an affair but first he needs to get rid of me by treating me so badly I couldn't possibly stick around. Though if that was the case why would he even bother seeing me?
I do know that he is broken, psychologically broken. Whether it's a MLC, burnout from his enormously stressful job, alcoholism symptoms, a combination of the above, it's possibly irrelevant. I can't help him and I can only make things worse. He did say at one stage that I'm the biggest part of his life in terms of friendship and he doesn't want to lose it but knows he can't keep it and get divorced. Well, friends are much easier to get than spouses, I can tell him that for nothing.
You know, where-ever the responsibility lies for the breakdown of your marriage, and however hard you have worked on your own shortcomings - marriage is hard. Even the best marriages are difficult and take work and attention and bravery and vulnerability and a willingness to change and sacrifice and hold on to yourself while you have hard conversations. And he just isn't up to it. He doesn't have the capacity. That might change, but it isn't likely to happen soon. Perhaps he is afraid of losing you, but going dark is the best thing you can do - because he doesn't have you and that's because he isn't capable of being close to someone because of the choices he is making to blame, to evade, to drown out his feelings with booze and work.
I cannot believe you went and slept in a spare room in your own home - when you're not permitted to enter his flat - because you were worried about the effect of your normal sleeping noise might have on his mood and ability to think. There is such a fine line between care and enabling, and I think you stepped into enabling there.
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He did say at one stage that I'm the biggest part of his life in terms of friendship and he doesn't want to lose it but knows he can't keep it and get divorced.
That there is him telling you that he is cake eating. He doesn't want to be a husband because he isn't up to it. But he wants a wife, but only in tiny doses, and only if she's on best behaviour and not asking for anything. And he calls that friendship.
Please start a new thread and link both threads together.
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
