How do you let go? Calling it quits.

[hope2011]

For the past 2 days H has been acting like everything is wonderful. He's been nice, sweet. Dr. Jeckyll is back. For now.

Saturday we went to an auction together and out for dinner. Yesterday I went to church alone because he decided he wanted to work out instead. I was disappointed, upset. He needs to work on his insides more than his outsides! Plus, why the sudden work outs? Makes me nervous. I don't think he's up to anything but he's burned me in the past and that's hard to get over.

Tomorrow is my CT scan. H hasn't made any travel plans. Hasn't said if he's going with me tomorrow or not. It would be nice if I had his support but I'm preparing myself to go alone and not count on him so I'm not as upset or disappointed tomorrow. I hope and pray to someday have an H I can count on without worry if he'll be there or not.

[hope2011]

H got up and went with me this morning to the hospital for the test. He was very supportive and didn't once make me feel guilty or like I was taking him away from work. He even took me out for breakfast afterwards and stopped by the office supply store for me.

In the store I ran into an old female work colleague of his that I've now known within my networking for almost a year. She said she "heard the news" (small town) and was sorry. She saw him in the car waiting for me and said "he convinced you take him back?". I said "No, but he's trying to". Her response was "I wish you well, dear". She's not an important person in my life or H's. Not someone that is a friend or has a past history with either of us. So why is that conversation bothering me so much??? It's not so much what she said, but the tone of "what the heck are you thinking, girl?". I feel like the town idiot. I feel like everyone knows. Normally I am not someone who cares what other people think but now I wonder if everyone knew all along all the things I didn't know about H. Is it wrong to want to be proud of my husband instead of ashamed? Trying not to let this bother me too much. At the end of the day, this is my life and no one else's opinion really matters.

[any chance?]

At the end of the day, this is my life and no one else's opinion really matters.

You are exactly correct. You do what you think you need to do. While others opinions can help form decisions, the decisions are yours (ours) and yours (ours) alone.

Hang in there, and keep the faith.

[hope2011]

First joint marriage counseling session in a few minutes. I am nervous as heck. Please say a prayer.

[Broken74]

Good Luck Hope! Prayers going up :-)

[hope2011]

Thank you, Broken!

It went pretty well. The therapist was very good and so far very solution based. I learned a lot, I think H did too.

The therapist gave us a worksheet to see how well we knew and supported each other. It had questions like "what are the names of your spouses' 3 best friends" and "Name the 3 most important days of your spouses life". I could name all H's stuff in my sleep. H couldn't answer most of the questions about me. He owned it and admitted he hasn't been supportive or involved or a good H. And he admitted he has a quick temper. He says he wants to fix the M more than anything and wants to learn how to have a successful R. That he wants to be more supportive, involved in my life, control his temper and not be so reactive. Since my H never admits things and rarely takes responsibility for mistakes, this is HUGE. I am very proud of him.

Things got a little tense talking about the boys and our parenting skills but the therapist kept us in check. Gave us some books to read on parenting teens. Agrees I need to detach from the stepkids and not care so much since I am pretty much powerless in this situation and getting upset is not helping anything and adding more stress to the M. I'm working on it but I love the boys so this is very, very hard for me.

I walked out of there feeling like maybe he does love me and maybe he is committed to fixing this but also confused because I can clearly see that unless he does step up, I have nothing to gain from this relationship but lost years, lost dreams and lots of his life and his drama. Things have to change. Maybe he sees that now. I hope.

H came to my office and surprised me for lunch today. Was very sweet of him.

Test results came back from the CT Scan - found nothing. Since I'm in pain obviously something is wrong so now have to think about more tests.

[hope2011]

Meant to add that H has been supportive about the medical tests this week.

[hope2011]

Been a busy week with work, haven't had much time to log in here.

Half the week was fine, now, not so much. H started getting cranky on Monday, just snappy and a bit rude. I asked him 3 times what was wrong, he responded "nothing". I HATE that he thinks it's ok to be rude or snappy at me for any reason. If I did that to him, he'd tell me off. But I just ignore it to avoid an argument. Probably work related stuff anyway so there's nothing I can do about that.

Monday and Tuesday, he's in a better mood but I can tell he's getting into the "I'm trying hard here but what am I getting in return" mood... meaning if I'm not bending over backwards for him then why should he even be normal for me? Example - he works from home, maybe 5 hours a day. He naps, plays golf, goes to lunch whenever he wants. He spends a good part of his day surfing the internet. Then complains about his job and not making enough money. I don't dare say "well maybe if you worked harder!". In his defense, he does have hard working energy spurts once a week or so. I work outside the house, 8 to 10 hours a day at a very, very emotionally draining job (dealing with families of sick and dying babies) with a massive amount of responsibility. I come home exhausted. But I make less money so in his mind, I should be the one to do most of the cooking and cleaning. Nevermind by the time I get home he's been laying on the sofa at least 2 hours watching TV and playing on his iphone. Because if he puts a roof over my head and buys food (I do contribute to the bills!!!!) then I "owe" him and I need to make it more "equal" by being more domestic. Which means cooking and cleaning his way, in his house, with very little say so on anything. I do try to do more around the house but I greatly resent all his relaxation time and how little I am valued. Not doing a great job DB'ing here at all.

I did fairly ok brushing off his mood but then yesterday he decided that he as to go visit employees 2 states away. He'd talked about this last week but made his mind up just yesterday and tried to throw together appointments with them. Staying at his parents house there so at least I know where he is at night but really why so last minute? Of course he conveniently forgets our MC appointment that's tomorrow and schedules an appt there 4 hours from home. But if I complain or am disappointed then he's defensive about his job and work, etc. He can be completely slack about work EXCEPT when it's a convenient excuse to get out of something he doesn't want to do. This is only our 2nd joint session and he's ditching it. He could have made appts last week, scheduled around it like a responsible adult but no, this marriage isn't a priority. Again.

To make matters worse, yesterday his XW e-mailed that the boys want to live with her permanently, don't want to come back to our house (the house with rules and discipline) and she wants to go to family counseling with the 4 of them to discuss their "emotional turmoil" at having been punished for behaving horribly (they should've been sent to military school for the stuff they've pulled lately!!!!).

I will bet my life H won't miss one single therapy session with them and will schedule his life around those appointments. Because they matter to him. I don't.

[hope2011]

ps - I didn't get upset. I expressed by disappointment that he didn't schedule around our appointment but his response was a dismissive "oh well, work takes priority".

I am DB'ing with this but it's not easy as I'm really tired of tip-toeing to not upset someone who doesn't care enough to keep his word about making appointments and not being rude.

[hope2011]

H made it back in time for the MC appointment. He complained the whole time about my cooking, cleaning, (neither meet his standards) how he wants a millionaire lifestyle and I'm happy with any life (that's a bad thing???). We didn't fight, left in an ok mood. The MC called him out on his controlling stuff, in a nice way. She asked me (in front of him)... "when H says stuff like that does it make you feel like less a person?" My response was "No, I'm fine with myself. I give 150%. It makes me feel like HE'S less a person to be that rude". That shocked him. The MC was actually proud of me because I usually just give him and appease him to keep the peace and lose myself and rather hurt and sulk that fight with him. Yeah me. Didn't make me feel great, it only made me wonder "WTH am I with this man??????".

Tomorrow afternoon H is meeting with the boys for lunch... that he scheduled at the same time as church so he doesn't have to go to church with me. Ditched again.

First time he's seen them since Christmas as they've asked to live with their mom and he's somewhat given in. I am NOT invited to this lunch. H was clear on that. Apparently I'm not a member of the family. Without me there, he will agree to whatever they want so they still like him. Nevermind they have no parenting, supervision or rules there and their grades have plummeted or what's right for the boys. Not that I'd argue with him in front of them, but I would ask questions. So I give up. His kids. The MC told me I need to detach from his kids because my caring doesn't fix anything, it only gets me upset and hurt. So I'm done. Congrats H, you have a W who loves your kids and you just keep blowing up the family farther apart. Great job. Ugh.

Tomorrow evening his buddy's family is throwing a Superbowl party and he wants me to go. He never, ever, EVER wants to socialize with my friends. Ever. Any time we are with other couples, it's his friends... whose wives I don't like at all (rude, gossipy, etc). But I go to support him. As a 180 I said I'm not going, not interested. His friends. Don't care if it's a family event, he can go alone. Like I go to every single family event alone for my work and friends. I didn't say that last sentence but I thought it. I'm not being mean, just tired of always playing second fiddle.

Just FYI... I may be negative here. But I'm venting. I can't say this stuff IRL. I'm still DB'ing. Though most days I have no idea why.