A peaceful evening and morning so far. I've come a long way - I now enjoy my alone time, and spend it doing things that please me, instead of feeling abandoned and alone. Those feelings come and go sometimes - but they are much less frequent.
Went to bed early last night with an audiobook. I'm sleeping really well recently. Woke up early and did some meditating and then dealt with kids.
Dilly, you will be pleased to note that Eldest is now doing his own packed lunch without complaint. It's the tiny changes like that which make the morning a bit more peaceful and stop me feeling so much of a doormat to everyone's needs! As the weeks pass I can see more and more how I acted both as a wife and how I act still as a mother are driven by a fear of other people's anger. I hope to carry on working on that - small steps but progress is being made.
I spent most of this morning getting muddy in the park with the dog. Ran into a friend and had a brief chat, which was nice. I'm going to do my reading now (one of my goals) and this afternoon I will work and do some life admin. I hate doing life admin. Very boring. But needs must.
What a lovely update! Well done on the packed lunch thing, that's a hard habit to break!
As mothers we get GUILTED so much by society about so many different things, it's tough to get past that and acknowledge that you're doing your best with where you are. Once I had a school teacher ring me because she'd done an audit of lunch boxes and she was concerned that ds2 wasn't getting enough in his lunch. She said 'he's only got small roll with nothing on it and a packet of apple crisps in there, that's not enough calories' and I said 'it's a home-made wholemeal roll and he would have peanut butter on it but you don't let them, and he packed it himself so obviously he thinks it's enough, plus he had two large crumpets and peanut butter for breakfast, why don't you let him judge how hungry he is?' I think he was 11 at the time and had been doing his own lunch for YEARS! I was sooooo angry at this woman ringing me up to tell me I was an inadequate mother. I also noticed she wasn't ringing his dad...
Hooray for decent sleep and enjoying alone time! I'm mostly ok unless I feel unsteady, last week being somewhere really crowded and feeling sad and sleep deprived made me feel actually desperately lonely, far more than being at home. I got over it by chatting to new people and learning new things, but it was a real pang. Enjoy your reading and focus on how good having done the life admin will feel. Sometimes I set aside a whole day to do stuff like this, I think Gretchen Rubin calls it something like 'an ugly day' because you do ALL the horrible things at once and it makes it easier and you feel so accomplished
I think the less I see him or hear from him, the less wobbly I feel. I can't think about that too hard today - I want a break from cogitating about the state of my marriage - but looking over my journal and threads on this site it is very clear to me that a) the less I see him the better I feel and b) when I see him I am often (though not always - it is a mixed and inconsistent bag!) disappointed, upset or subject to behaviour that isn't acceptable to me anymore.
That's funny, that's not how I feel most of the time, I have the odd difficult time with dh but also times when I enjoy being with him. Is it because he is so stressed out with this work stuff? Or because you don't really see each other properly, just at home with lots of negative memory stuff and not out together as two people talking?
Sometimes it is because of how he treats me - when he is very distant and cold, which I find upsetting - it triggers an urge to ask for reassurance from him, which I have to work to wrestle with. Even when I'm successful at restraining myself, the effort is exhausting. And when I'm not, he gets irritated (understandably enough), and that's upsetting to me.
When he's a bit more present and active, I am on edge, not knowing how to respond and not really being able to enjoy his company because there's no security or dependability in it - I don't mean in the R, or him not living here - I mean his mood. He can be happy and enjoying himself with the kids, then the slightest little thing can trigger a rant about how awful I am and how terrible our marriage was, or sneering nasty sarcasm, or just utter coldness and withdrawal. This still happens fairly regularly. Me telling him Eldest was going to be helping out more with the morning chores triggered nastiness and sarcasm about him. Me asking him if he'd arranged for the kids to see his parents on Easter Sunday triggered a 20 minute tirade about how I was too ashamed of myself and my own terrible behaviour to be in contact with his parents, then two days of me being upset and him sulking about it... he reads a lot into fairly innocent things and reacts to that, and I have no way of predicting what innocent thing will set him off. So I find myself on guard against all of that, trying to manage my behaviour and his so as not to trigger it, or just withdrawing from him and doing something in another room entirely so as to get some relief from my anxiety.
I think the problem is my expectations and desires, and my fear of his moods. And while I can't really control those emotions right now - though I hope to get there - I do get a huge amount of relief from them when I am not around him.
I guess I find it hard not to say what is on my mind. He's said he wants to come home and work on things when he finishes this work (by my reckoning that would be at the end of this month). He says he wants us to try MC with the family therapist we saw with the kids. He said - the last time I saw him - that he wanted us to shop around and buy a new bed for when he comes home. I try not to ready too much into statements like this (it is very hard) and I don't say what I want to say - which is some version of: 'okay - but you know you're not coming home unless and until there are huge changes in how you treat me, don't you? So have you got past blaming me and having temper tantrums at me and are you ready to tell me what strategies you've got in place to manage your own moods and improve your side of things?' and 'you recall you walked out of the last session with the family therapist before it was over and slammed the door because she challenged you on the way you were speaking to Eldest and the way you were obstructing the process?' and 'how about you tell me you're sorry for how much you've hurt me, and you understand how little trust I have in you, and you're committed to working on that, rather than giving me a laundry list of things I have to change in order to make sure your moods don't erupt?' but I never say any of those things. And a lot of the time I want to.
Ah. Today is a peaceful day. I had a good night's sleep last night. He sent his goodnight message as I was drifting off but I didn't want to wake up so didn't respond until this morning. Youngest wanted to speak to him on the phone this morning so I arranged that but didn't participate in the conversation myself. I didn't do my life admin yesterday (my bad) so today is going to be an UGLY DAY where I get it done. This isn't a 180 - I've always been the one to do all the house paperwork, so I'm just dragging my heels because it is boring and I am in a lazy mood.
There's an awful lot of blame and resentment in there Alison. You can't make him change, all you can do is work on your side of things and either he will respond to those changes or not.
How is he supposed to forgive you for your past behaviour if you can't forgive him? Someone has to start first, and you're in the better position right now to start. Forgiveness is hard, and it's ongoing, and it takes time, but it's for you as much as for him or your relationship. The past is the past, you can't change it, you can only learn from it and then let it go.
Oh yes - lots of blame and resentment on my side. Absolutely. Some of it from things that are in the past, yes - but a guardedness because some of that behaviour still continues when I see him now. So it's all mixed in together. We can't piece until I can forgive and let go of resentments - and that's on me. And I find it extraordinarily hard to forgive behaviour I am still needing strategies to deal with in the present - it is still going on. It's chicken and egg for me, and probably for him too. However I cogitate this, and whatever mood I am in when I cogitate, I still come to the conclusion that time separate to work on myself and protect myself from the way he continues to be right now is better for me and perhaps for him too.
Journalling. Mood taken a bit of a dip today. Two things, I think. First - a friend last night encouraging me to start dating. It's been about five months since H moved out, we had a terrible marriage for a couple of years prior to that, I see no signs of things being repaired any time soon and the temptation to pull the plug and go and have some fun is there. I don't want to do that to my children and whatever my H has done, we are married and I want to act married until I am not married. But for some reason it got me feeling lonely in a way that I haven't felt for a long time - for that kind of romantic attention and validation, I suppose. I am seeing a lot of my friends (women) but there is something different about being wanted - desired, I guess - that I have been missing for a long time. I try not to think about it too much. But it was in my heart last night and that got me thinking about his EA, and I had a sleepless night. But it will pass and I have plans for today so no moping.
H got in touch last night - he's been texting most evenings after work. He said he felt depressed and low and just wanted this work project to be over. I usually text back but because it was unusual for him to disclose himself like that I called him back last night and he sounded awful. When he's low he is totally withdrawn and remote (or in attack mode) and it does frighten me. I just listened and tried to validate and encourage. He wasn't being critical or mean - he often does when he's feeling exhausted or low - but actually just talking about his own day and feelings, which is new, so I listened and was as kind as I could be. It was a short call. I offered to vary the childcare arrangements for today so he picks up Youngest a bit later so he can sleep more and perhaps get some exercise, so we agreed to that. I can see from the texts he's sent me this week he has tried hard to be present and ask questions about me and the children and show care and affection despite going through a terrible time himself. I wish he didn't just withdraw or attack when he feels low, but I only wish that because it makes me feel bad so perhaps that's selfish of me. Withdrawing is tolerable, attacking isn't - and he didn't attack.
Anyway, I will see him for handover tonight. Will explain to Youngest today that Daddy isn't feeling well and needs a bit of time extra to sleep but will see him later.
Gosh, that sounds like a very vulnerable thing for him to have done, Alison. And I think you handled it well. Please don't get your hopes up too much, my dh made a huge effort during his busy time and I had hopes that would continue and things would improve after he had recovered, but actually in some ways he has withdrawn more since then. I don't think people recover that quickly after a prolonged period of stress.
I know exactly how it feels to want that feeling of being desired. And actually last year before BD I did feel that from dh, so very confusing but it was lovely to feel wanted and now I miss it even more than when my marriage wasn't going well and I didn't have it. Every so often I think maybe I will just move on and find someone, and then I check myself and think patience dilly, patience. 5 months is not that long, I'm coming up for 9 and just now realising that if we R it will still be a long way away. Sigh. The milestones are possibly the most difficult, if it gets to September and things haven't progressed a lot with my sitch then I can't see how I could keep standing. Then again, if it gets to our 25th anniversary in July without improvement I can't see that either.
Stay strong, keep your expectations low, be assertive but kind. Wow, that is all so hard isn't it?
I think I'm just in a selfish and self-pitying mood. He is certainly not flawless - not at all - but he's also suffering and I feel for him, but I also hate it when he's like this because he means he isn't available for me. I don't like being selfish like that, but there you go. I can add it to my list of things to work on. I feel self pitying because I want someone to be there for me, for someone to want me, and that isn't happening right now. Me and probably most others on this site. I think I just need a long walk and a coffee and then to get busy doing other things.
