I posted this in my last thread, but I just noticed the 100 post rule, so this needs a new thread.
You guys crack me up...
For those who know me IRL, you know I'm doing well. For those who don't (or don't bother to text me back *coughTrue&Missercough*), how about a brief update?
It's been a long time since I've posted. I'll start by updating the sitch with DH...
Not much has changed in DH's world. He was officially diagnosed as Bipolar... the only person surprised by that was him. Honestly, when I saw those first Charlie Sheen interviews last month, it made me cringe--that is pretty much what the last three years of my marriage looked like. I just didn't realize it until I'd taken a huge step back & looked at it from another angle. He is seeing a doctor & taking medication, but has started using his diagnosis as a crutch. An excuse for everything wrong in his life.
He sees his kids for 48 hours every other weekend, no phone calls or contact in between those times. At the beginning of Autumn he told me was going to relinquish his parental rights. Just sign off on them. He changed his mind a few days later. Over Christmas he opted not to take them for their Christmas break--something we had agreed upon & the kids were looking forward to. He flat out said no to his 9 year old son as DS9 stood there, begging him to spend more time with them. (those were nearly his exact words).
He dropped out of school, again, and told those close to him that it was because I a)applied for my own financial aid for school, thereby taking away his financial aid and b)was pushing for a D so I could force him to pay child support. Wrong on both counts, but more on that later.
He continues to be unemployed, lives with his parents & is busy helping them. (I love my inlaws... but there is this whole culture of co-dependency down there that I just can't even begin to explain. I honestly love them, but now it's best to just nod & smile.) According to my SIL, he has stopped speaking to she & her H (Dh's brother) because they flat out tell him to man up & get a job. He is weeding out those who call him on his actions.
He does have a pseudo-GF, a woman out of state who seems, from what I've heard, very nice. An LPN, works hard, grown son, thinks DH is just misunderstood & needs a kind & gentle woman to help him. I feel for her. lol I thought the same things once, myself. I don't know the extent of their R, but as long as she is good to my kids, I don't care.
I want nothing but DH's happiness... whatever that looks like & however he makes that happen. What he does no longer affects me, but it does impact my kids, so I pray he finds the help he needs to get healthy. If not, then all I can do is be here for the boys to help them through whatever it is he's doing.
Now... my life... get a soda, this is going to take a while. ;o)
Oh wow, where to start. I could read back to the first few posts I made when I got here, but I don't need to relive that pain to see how much I have changed.
We moved to a new home in December... with my parent's help. They put money down on a beautiful home close to where I grew up--an advance on my inheritance they called it. lol Their best friends in high school live right next door, that man came over after every snowstorm with his snowblower to clear my driveway!! The kids have a huge, fenced in back yard to play in, kids in all directions to play with, and enough room that they aren't constantly on top of each other anymore. They are so happy here. We have a cat, and are getting a puppy this weekend. Puppy... ha. At four months she weighs 40 pounds. But what a good babysitter she'll be when they are all playing outside & I can't supervise!! lol
I have just started my Bachelor's work in Adult Education. Wish me luck... lol... We were talking at work one day about my needing to get a second job since DH isn't paying support. I said, "I wish I could hide behind going to school as my job!" Then immediately thought... "Wait--why can't I??" I thought about it long & hard, researched what I wanted to do, and came up with this. By getting my degree in Adult Ed, I'll be able to teach at a college in a field I already love--the one I'm currently in. I figured I could either bust my a$$ for another year *hoping* that DH got his crap together & finished his degree & found a job... or.... I could bust my a$$ for another year, get my own degree & never have to worry about whether or not he was going to help me again. If you know me at all, you know which path I chose.
H recently brought up filing for D. He has no money to do so. "That's okay, I do--but you can't keep fighting me. We need to sit down & talk about everything and agree on everything." I told him. To which he asked, "Are you sure that's what you want?"
Oh, how I nearly blurt out, "are you kidding me???". But I didn't. I told him I felt it would be best for me if I could move on. He then started telling me how hard his life is, how he can't afford his meds, how nothing is going right for him... it's a tune I've heard before--I just don't dance to it anymore. He wanted to talk about him, so we talked about him. I told him those were his choices in life, that I was not to blame for anything since the day he left the house. I told him that there was an amazing life waiting for him if he wanted it, he just had to work at it. I told him that as far as his meds & doctors... perhaps he needed to start checking to see what he qualified for as an unemployed, divorced man because right now it looked like he still had an employed wife was could support him & that hadn't happened in a year.
It was gentle, but to the point.
And later on I cried. His asking me if I was sure I wanted a divorce hurt. Not because I wasn't sure, and not because I still secretly wanted my M. It hurt because of why H was asking me that. I had to talk it out with a friend, but I came to realize what bothered me most about that conversation... H had never once said he missed his kids, or his family, or his W. He has never made a move towards proving to anyone that he would do anything to be back with his family. Nope... I was simply a life preserver. The lesser of the evils he saw he had to choose from. He didn't want to stay married because he loved me, he wanted things to go back to the way they were because he was afraid. And that hurt. He didn't see me as a wonderful woman, or a loving wife or dedicated mother--and I am all of those things and I deserve someone who sees that in me. I want someone who appreciates the person I am treats me accordingly.
I am not here to save anyone, including H. And it hurt realizing that that is exactly the way H thought of me... and probably had for a long time. I cried because I had thought that was okay for a very long time.
I want more than that.
I did start dating again... and I met someone who has made a difference in my life. Strangely enough, he separated from his wife a week before DH left, our sitches are very similar. He has custody of his 3 kids, XW sees them for 24 hours once a week. We are both *fixers* by nature & recognize how that played a part not only in the demise of our marriages, but in the rest of our lives as well. This was his second marriage, the first when he was very young, she decided she was a lesbian a few years into the marriage. The second one was to someone much younger than he was. He describes himself as having had "The White Knight Syndrome" & both marriages as "rescue missions" on his part. Yep, I so understand that one!
He is an alcoholic, sober for 25 years. He is very active in AA and Alanon, continues to sponsor people & still talks to his sponsor every day (his sponsor also has 25 years clean, so they really sponsor each other, it's a great friendship & I admire that). Since he has done *the work* that we talk about here so much, he inherently understood what I was talking about when I talked about doing things on my own, not wanting to rip H apart or trying to hurt him for hurting me. He gets it. He also understood why I hadn't filed for D yet--because H is still on my insurance & was finally getting help. It doesn't cost me a dime extra to keep him on, taking him off the plan would be done only for spite. It felt so nice for someone to understand that I was doing what was right for *me*, not for H.
Two *fixers* getting together could spell disaster. Two fixers who understand their need to fix & the damage it can do to another person can actually have a really good R. lol One evening he (I'll call him DF for Dear Friend... I'm not ready for a BF just yet) handed me money to pay for a birthday cake I'd made for his DD,an arrangement we had agreed upon earlier(cake decorating classes--a GAL exercise that I did last year. lol) . He handed it to me, I looked at it a moment, said "Thank you" and put it in my purse. A year ago I would have refused, insisting that he not pay for it even though he wanted to & felt good about myself for doing something nice, regardless of how it made the other person feel. I know that I feel better about myself when I can pay someone for something they did, when I have compensated someone for a service--especially when it comes to my kids, I feel more like an adult. Not paying for something makes me feel like I am a charity case to be pitied. Crazy? Maybe. But that's me. We had an agreement, and I've read that refusing to let a man pay for something can be demasculating to some degree. So I said thank you and took the money.
And laughed about how something so trivial, like being paid for a birthday cake, could cause so many issues. I laughed & told him, "You know, a year ago I would have refused to take that money & not cared how it made you feel." He laughed and said, "Well a year ago I would have slipped it into your purse when you weren't looking and not cared that you'd said no."
Ahhh.... progress. lol
He is really good to my kids. We'd both said we weren't going to get the kids involved, but they met him one time (only as mommy's friend), and instantly liked him. It broke my heart the day DS9 asked if he was coming over & if he did, would he teach him how to fly his model plane?
We talked and realized that no matter how much we tried, we could never give our kids the things that the missing parent could. He doesn't know how to braid his DDs hair, or crochet scarves, or decorate cakes. I don't know how to teach my boys to be men. Outside of my father, they didn't have any good male role models.
Some may frown upon it, but I don't care... we meet a need for each other's children. We made a commitment to each other's kids without making a commitment to each other. We aren't talking about blending families into one big house & living happily ever after. It's like we are hanging out with my BFF & her kids, except in this case the BFF is a man. There is no PDA in front of them, except for the occasional hug, there is no talk about our R in front of them. We know that our not dating has to look just like it did when we are dating in front of the kids.
We both went into this knowing that if things didn't work out between us, that we were going to make it work to keep our friendship intact. Our friendship is more important than anything, and that is what we work the most on, not the romantic part. Although I do enjoy the romantic part, I'll admit. lol It's not our focus.
DF did another thing for me that my MC tried to do for months & I absolutely refused.
Three weeks into dating & listening to me talk about the issues with H, DF asked me to come to one of his meetings... just to see what this important part of his life was about he said. We both knew differently, but it was less threatening when he put it like that.
So I went. To my first Alanon meeting. And learned something from one of the women who had already been through what I was going through. She talked about letting her kids see that she was struggling, letting them see how she dealt with emotions, and people doing things that she didn't like. She wanted them to learn how to deal with something that was out of their control and to focus on the things they could control. As fate would have it, a few hours after that meeting I went to pick up my kids from their weekend with their dad & he sprung the "I'm not taking them over Christmas" on us. Right in front of them. Broke their hearts. I couldn't hide it or cover for him because he did it right in front of them!! So I turned my back on H halfway through a sentence of his, got into the car shaking, and nearly broke down when I turned to see DS9 & DS7 in tears over what he had done. I took a deep breath and said...
"I am very angry with your father over this. I am really, really mad at him, and that's okay because I will deal with it. You guys can be angry, too. You can feel angry, or sad, or hurt... or you can not feel any of those things & just go on loving your father. However you feel about this is okay, and if you want to talk to me about it, then I will talk to you. In the meantime... we are not going to let this ruin our Christmas. Nope, we are going to have the best Christmas we have ever had, okay? Okay. Sounds good... hey DS7, what do you think Santa is going to bring you?"...
Of course I said it through tears & with a shaky voice, but I said it. And I meant it. And we did have the best Christmas ever. Simply because we wanted to.
I've gone back to the meetings... the last one I went to I met a woman whose bipolar drug addict XH had just OD'd. She sought me out after the meeting because she had heard me talk about trying to deal with H. It was nice to have someone understand when I say I would not be at all surprised if H is dead by his own hand in the near future. Either by accident (he wrecked his motorcycle last year & the trailer he was living in burned to the ground), by OD, or intentionally--I just have this feeling that he won't be around to see his kids grow up. That part is very sad to me.
I know I've talked about my R with DF quite a bit, and that's okay. I'm really just so happy to discover what it feels like to be in a healthy R. Last summer Eric challenged me to let people get to know the *real* me, all of me. No hiding. I've been doing that & I'm surprised at how good it feels. Not only am I surprised that other people like the real me, but *I* like the real me.
And DF only helps in that regard. It's like having one of you guys IRL... let's me vent, asks me the hard questions, pushes me to find the real answers on my own, challenges me to dig deeper. To figure out who I am & then just be that person. He has listened to me vent & cry & never once offered to jump in and help. He has shared his own experiences with me, but never pushed me to follow his lead. It is, so far, the most honest and real R I've been in. Ever.
I'm not writing this to brag (Oh, God, no.) or to convince you of how great my life is. Nope. I just wanted to show that there are people out there who appreciate and understand *the work* that everyone talks about here. People who not only get it, but apply it in their own lives and encourage you to find your own way. I didn't go away from the boards & promptly forget everything I learned here when the first man paid me the least little bit of attention.
I took what I learned, made those changes, went out into the real world and found another person who lives the same way. I'm not here very much anymore, but you guys & everything you taught me (and I do mean EVERYTHING!!) are never far from my thoughts.
You've never left my heart.
I told DF about this place, about how much it meant to me, about how much I learned from you. I told him once... being on DB was like being a patient in the ICU. Being part of the HLF group was like being on the general floors of the hospital, and being with him was the rehab part of recovery. lol And he wasn't offended. We don't know where we are going to end up, together, not together, we do know that we will always be friends. I don't know whether I'm going to walk down the aisle with him, or simply dance with him when he marries an incredibly lucky woman. I don't care... today, at this very moment, I am right where I am supposed to be.
I have always been right where I was supposed to be, I just didn't realize it most of the time. I'm so grateful that part of my journey brought me through here.
I am not a *success story* in regards to reconciling my M. I cannot and will not subject myself or my kids to the kind of life H has chosen to live. I have seen what life CAN be, and that is what I want. That is what I am going to have because *I* am making it happen.
And for that, I am a success.
formerly known as "shelbel" Me 40, stbxh 40 DSs 9, 7 & 3 M9, T10 Stbxh is a diagnosed bipolar & an addict. The end.
Bipolar, WOW! My mother and daughter are bipolar and it is a trip. Divorce is fairly typical in bilpolar relationships.
It is a whole culture of learning about that disease.
Different from MLC, bipolar never goes away, it can be dealt with if the right meds work and the person takes resposibilty for their illness. Although part of the illness is to never admit that there is anything wrong. So it is tough, my heart goes out to you and your children. Oh and one other thing, it is genetic, so watch for your children. You may be rid of husband, but children or grandchildren will always carry along.
Well sorry for all the good news, I am happy that you are successful and that is good.
Just caught up with your sitch. Wow! You are a strong woman, and it's good that you know it. Your boys must feel so lucky to have a mom like you.
I am still trying to discover who 'I' am. I think I have an inkling, but I need to be independent before I can say. So, a work in progress.
Take care.
Me:57 H:52 M:28 Got another lawyer last year and filed. D35,S/D twins28,D22 EA4/04 End? Who knows? "Life is like a mirror. Smile at it and it smiles back at you." — Peace Pilgrim
