First time here, part 3

[leahsue]

And you know what, ownit? It's a very good thing that I have back up plans, b/c I've not heard from him about his flight being put off until Monday..... but I DID text him this morning and ask if he has time, can he find some of my stuff and box it up and send, since I need some specific things for a trip next month??? (Like, my $1000 camera, which I would very much like to have with me now?) As usual, NO RESPONSE.
Anyway, TBC.....

[JujuB]

Leah,

What was his story in his first marriage? I know you mentioned that you were both in marriages with controlling people.

Just wondering if there's a pattern.

[OwnIt]

I just cannot believe this guy. Is it fear? I know that mine will make plans with the kids and then at the last minute text do you still want me to come. Once when he had not been here for quite a bit and was coming I told him I wouldn't be here. He said what if they don't let me in. I said call me and tell me and I will tell them to let you in.

Has there ever been a dicussion of you going there instead since his schedule seems so unpredictable?

Do you guys still talk and text regularly?

[cadence]

I am also wondering about his first marriage, and also his relationship with his mother.

And I'm wondering about these things, Leah, because I know our stories have similarities with the controlling clingy ex-wife. (No general shade thrown on first wives; Leah and I both have specific messed-up ex-wives that were trying to still be in the picture. I'm only speaking about these two individuals.) And there is a reason our H's originally chose unstable women. The dysfunction was comforting and familiar.

If your H has untreated issues with his mother, those issues may have resurfaced as part of a MLC/depression and he may not be able to see you as separate from them, because he is likely totally unaware where the discomfort is coming from and why he's feeling that way.

I don't know if the above is true but it's just a hunch that I have.

Leah, I'm sorry for you but I'm also really happy for you in that you're getting some relief. I don't think I could hold it together and have low expectations with the frequent contact you had with your H. So I'm happy for you that this break will allow you to re-center yourself and focus on you again.

When you need things that are in H's apartment, is there someone local to him that you could contact and send over to H's apartment to track down your belongings? A friend? I think it's best for you not to be relying on H for anything right now. A bonus would be that the friend could tell you how H is living and what his demeanor is. Knowing those things might help you, because something tells me he's not truly out constantly living it up in the city.

[leahsue]

Leah,

What was his story in his first marriage? I know you mentioned that you were both in marriages with controlling people.

Just wondering if there's a pattern.

In his first marriage, they dated in high school and married young. His sisters begged him not to marry her. Evidently she was always quite the control freak. They were married 15 years. They separated 3 or 4 times during those years, but he always went back b/c he couldn't stand living away from their children, who were very young, like 2 and 5 the first time they split up. She is a screamer, and didn't mind shaming him in public, mainly about little, trivial things. She's very hot- tempered and seems to have little self control when she flies off the handle. (My personal opinion, after hearing his sisters discuss it over the years, and just my own observations during my marriage to him, is that she seems to be a very unhappy person, no matter what her circumstances are, and she seems to feel better about her self when she can bring down the ones around her.)

I just cannot believe this guy. Is it fear? I know that mine will make plans with the kids and then at the last minute text do you still want me to come. Once when he had not been here for quite a bit and was coming I told him I wouldn't be here. He said what if they don't let me in. I said call me and tell me and I will tell them to let you in.

Has there ever been a dicussion of you going there instead since his schedule seems so unpredictable?

Do you guys still talk and text regularly?

At one point in May, I mentioned coming there, and he said I think out best chance at getting back to "us" is for me to come there, mainly just due to the changes I've made to the apartment (he had sent me some photos of some things he had switched around that kind of hurt my feelings, like he had no intention of me ever coming back, and had kind of turned it into a man cave, so he knew that might come up again, and he was probably right) and also there's a young man (our son's best friend) who is staying with him right now until he can afford his own place, so privacy would have been a factor.
And no, since he canceled the last time and I lost my $hit and told him how I felt, the talking/texting has stopped.

I am also wondering about his first marriage, and also his relationship with his mother.

Leah, I'm sorry for you but I'm also really happy for you in that you're getting some relief. I don't think I could hold it together and have low expectations with the frequent contact you had with your H. So I'm happy for you that this break will allow you to re-center yourself and focus on you again.

When you need things that are in H's apartment, is there someone local to him that you could contact and send over to H's apartment to track down your belongings? A friend? I think it's best for you not to be relying on H for anything right now. A bonus would be that the friend could tell you how H is living and what his demeanor is. Knowing those things might help you, because something tells me he's not truly out constantly living it up in the city.

Yes, I could ask the young man staying with him, and I also have a couple of girl friends there who would be glad to go over and find some things of mine, but it didn't seem right to ask them until I'd asked him first. Looks like I will need to do that now.

His mother...... they are a close knit family, but there were some really hard times when he was growing up. His mother and father divorced, and I get the feeling his mother sort of abandoned the 5 kids when she fell in love with her current husband. My H went to live with his father and step mother and I know there was some abuse, but he won't talk about any details. What I know, I've learned mostly from his sisters. He had an incredible work ethic from a very young age, worked in the school cafeteria in high school, etc. and basically raised himself. Which is one reason he married so young, just to get out of a bad home life. Now, he and his mother seem fine, and he was seemingly devoted to both her, and to his siblings, but according to one sister that I am very close to, he's cut most communication with all of them too, since January. The sister that he was closest to in age, passed away in November of 2015 after a 10 year battle with cancer. He had only been in the new job up north for a few months, but he took a month off and came south, and stayed pretty much at her bedside that last month, feeding her, etc, and rarely left her side. I think there may be some unresolved issues or maybe un-dealt with grief from that also.
And yes Cadence, I think you may be right about my keeping up with all that push and pull. It was very hard to know at any given moment which way the wind was blowing. At least now, I'm back to kind of knowing that things aren't going well.

If I don't hear back from him about my things over the weekend, I think I'm going to text him and say something like- Would you be OK with my asking (friend) to come over to apartment and find some of my things and maybe box them up to ship to me? (I'd love some feedback about how to handle/word this.)

I don't want to make things worse, and he may be still planning to visit at some point and thinks he'll just bring them then (which has been the plan in the past). That doesn't excuse his just not responding at all. How hard would it be for him to just take 15 seconds and text that back to me? But I realize he's not the man I used to be married to. That man would have walked the 1000 miles to bring me anything I needed. So sad (and weird) how people just disappear inside themselves almost overnight.
Like his sister said to me yesterday, I just don't have any words for this. None of it makes any sense.

[leahsue]

A little update.....
I texted H and said, "Do you want me to see if C (son's friend) will help me get some stuff together?"
He just texted back- "I'm in a meeting now but of course I will help you with that. I will call later."
He's like Jekyll and Hyde.
The good-
He texted back.
He will help me get the things I need.
The bad-
If he's going to ship me some things, that probably means he's not coming here.
But maybe that's a good, with me kind of in a not so good frame of mind about us right now.

I think I'm going to a movie- Rough Night- that came out today. The previews are funny. I hope the movie is too. I love to laugh hard!

[leahsue]

I need advice.
The only update is that after he texted and said he'd help, he did call Friday afternoon on his way home from work. We talked a little about family things (extended family of both) just catching up on everyone's latest news. Very friendly conversation. He said, If you don't mind my asking, where are you going on your trip in July? I told him to WA to help D get settled in their new home/job. He was all excited for D and wanted to know all the news about new job, etc. He asked when is my trip, I told him July 17. He said, well I'm SURE I will be able to visit you before then, but I don't mind going ahead and shipping the things you need for your trip. I said, yes please, just go ahead and ship. (B/C in my head I am thinking, I will not ever depend on your visits to be reliable, since you've now postponed 4 times.) I did not ask when he has rescheduled visit for. (More on that in a sec.)

He asked for a list of things I need him to ship, and I suggested that when he is at the apt. and has a bit of free time, that he call me and we can kind of "go through my closet" while on the phone and I can tell him. (It's hard to even remember what summer clothes I have there, since I haven't been there since December, and they were all packed up at the time.....) He said that sounds great, that he would call Saturday morning and we could do that.

Saturday morning I got last minute invite to attend a day long music festival downtown, so I texted him and told him that, and gave him about 10 items that he could pack up and send, or if he'd rather wait until we could do it on the phone, that was fine. I wished him a happy FD, and said, You are a great daddy, and I hope you have the best FD ever.

While I was at the festival, my phone battery died, so when I got in about 10 pm and plugged it, I saw he had called about 6. Since it was 11 his time, I just texted and said I saw you called, sorry I missed it, hope you're having a good w'end with the kids. (He was staying overnight at SS and wife's for FD and grilling out.)

I did not hear from him yesterday, nor did I try to call or text him. I don't know if he got my things to ship, or is going to wait until we can go over it on the phone. Last night I got a copied email in my email showing his change in itinerary from flight moved from today, to July 10-17. Remember, he doesn't know I get these copied emails.

So here's where I need advice.
My birthday is a week from today, June 26. Then the next week begins 4th of July holiday, where he will get several days off. So he's skipped over both of those things, to book his trip for July 10, which is on a Monday, knowing I leave for WA the following Monday, the same day he's booked his return flight to NY. (All this without mentioning any of these plans to me.)
I texted him this morning and said, Are you planning to come for my birthday? Or maybe 4th of July?

First of all, he may not respond. Which would be the norm. But if he does, and says no, he is not coming until July 10, my heart tells me to end this back and forth joke about a visit. I am SO TIRED of planning, waiting, then he postpones, doing it all again, since EASTER WEEKEND!! I've spent the last 2 months doing that, and now another 3 weeks, and there's a high probability he will postpone again on July 10. Right now, my WA trip is set for July 17-25. He turns 50 on July 25. A big birthday.

I feel like I will lose my mind if this back and forth keeps up. In my heart, I know that if he wanted to see me, he would make it happen. No meetings, deadlines, any other work thing should be preventing us from seeing each other. I know he prefers to come here. But if he wanted to see me, he could say, since I can't get away from work right now, why don't you come here for the weekend? He's told his sister, I miss L. I love L. I'm just afraid I've paid too high a sacrifice for this job.

I'm sorry, as much as I want to believe what he tells her, this is not what LOVING AND MISSING LEAH look like. His actions do not match his words. And his words aren't even said to me, but to his sister, who he very much wants to please, and not have her yell and scream, b/c he knows she wants us together.

I believe the best thing to help me further detach, is for me not to be counting on a visit. I've said both to myself, and to my concerned loved ones, I'm not giving up on us until I at least see him face to face. I think I will know so much more when that happens.

But I don't know if I can keep waiting on that to happen. It's hard to move on and completely detach for me, when I feel like there could still be a chance for us.

Please tell me if I'm being blind, or too impatient. This forum, my IC, and his one sister, are the only ones left who seem to think I need to keep giving him more time to get his courage up to visit, if that's even what he's waiting on. For all I know, he could have a complete OW going full strong, because there is no way for me or his family here to know, even whether he is still wearing his wedding ring. I could hire a PI, but to what end?

Please weigh in. I am in a distraught frame of mind today. I know patience is required. I don't want to mind read. I don't want to give up too soon. But seriously, how am I to detach, when he keeps stringing me along with these planned visits? What I want to do, if he does not change his plans to be here before July 10, is to say, I don't want us to visit, for now. Maybe in the fall, let's see where we are then. (I did say that to him at postponement #2, and he ignored it, and kept his plans to come.) So I can say that all day long, and he may ignore it and hope I'll change my mind by the time his next visit date rolls around, which is exactly what I did. If I say that again, I have to mean it. And just go out of town while he's in AL. Which might put the nail in the coffin. But at this point, at least it's a PLAN. And I can see myself moving more toward detachment, without this constant tug of war on my heart.
I don't mean to sound so negative. I know most of the people on this forum would kill to have WAS planning a visit, even if it just kept getting postponed..... but it's not as easy as it looks to be standing here waiting. It's feeling more and more like he just can't end this marriage, but doesn't want to work on it either.

I feel like I'm losing it.

[OwnIt]

Leah, this is a very frustrating situation, but it doesn't seem to me like you are ready to give up on the MR. I think you need to stop saying things aimed to push him away (like putting it off until the fall). I think he is fearful and tentative and these statements have a greater impact on him than they would on most. You said yourself you need to look in his face. I think you need to detach from the idea that he will come at any particular time, lose any expectation that he will follow through, and just accept that you will never know when until he is standing in front of your face.

You were really GALing in the beginning before he started his talk about when he was coming. How can you get back to it? How would you feel if instead of saying I'm coming in two weeks, he was saying I will file in two weeks. That is what lots of us get. Although this is frustrating, it still suggests that he is trying to find his way back to you.

[leahsue]

How would you feel if instead of saying I'm coming in two weeks, he was saying I will file in two weeks. That is what lots of us get.

Thanks, Ownit. This really hit home. I know I should just be thankful he even claims to want to see me. I don't know if it's true or not. His actions don't say so. But at least I have that.

[BluWave]

Hi Leah,

I am going to weigh in here, but only because you are asking. Please take what I say with a giant grain of salt because I don't know you and I don't know your H. You also may not like it. I say this simply based on what I have read (your words), what I have seen in other posters sitches, and mostly (the least credible to you) which are my instincts.

All that being said, I don't think you have to be thankful. Even though your H may appear to be putting in more efforts than what the other LBSs share, does not mean you have any less pain. Your H is keeping you in limbo and gaslighting you and I think it's awful. And cowardly! It is cruel to give a person mixed messages and string them along, and it appears to me he is selfishly keeping you on the backburner as plan B. That is no way to treat someone you are married too.

Just because he says he is planning a visit and gives you occasional bread crumbs of hope, his actions show otherwise. He has not planned a visit and followed through. Period. He is also not getting back to you, showing you any real commitment, and he has no respect for your schedule (or feelings). I think you are correct when you say that if he wanted to see you, he would. I am sorry if I sound harsh, but I agree with those thoughts.

You have also said more than once that while you have no evidence of any A, you suspect there could be someone else. Perhaps he uses work as his excuse for his poor communication? What do your instincts tell you? I tend to think if a woman even suspects there is an A, then there is an A. That's it.

The fact is he has had many opportunities to visit, even if for a short while. He often doesn't return your messages and you feel he is blowing you off. Your instincts tell you he could hurt you further and he may not follow through on a visit. You also have wondered if there is OW. This does not sound like you are in a place any better than the other posters. It sounds like he is far enough away to keep things hidden and/or string you along.

I am sorry for the 2*4. I am not suggesting you change your plan of action. It would be easy for me to tell you to have no expectations, but that is really hard. It is especially hard when he keeps throwing you crumbs!

My advise to you would be to take some control in this sitch and get your power back. Take a giant step back and do not initiate contact. You think about what your summer looks like and if you even want him to visit at all. You keep holding your head up and taking care of you. You are going to be fine. You do not have to wait for him or be his back up plan. You got this girl! I know you do--you are positive, fun, and spunky. He needs to work hard to get you back, as far as I see it from over here, not the other away around!!!

Blu