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.
Thinking a lot about fear today. Most of the time I am okay but when I start to think about the future, my stomach starts to knot up and the anxiety starts. It’s strange when you think about it. My future now is no less uncertain than it was before BD but it was only a future I had assumed would happen. I guess we’re all guilty of that. It’s only when our world gets turned upside down that we realize just how tenuous life is. Today has been tough. Not sure why. It isn’t that much different than other days have been. I am not a fan of weekends. My kids are independent enough that they keep themselves pretty occupied but not so independent that I can just take off. The daytime is okay but it is the nights when my mind starts to wander. And when I feel most alone. This, in itself, is maddening because I’ve been alone a lot in the last four years. I guess what is different is now I know my H is somewhere else by choice instead of due to circumstances beyond his control. That is a different kind of lonely.
I am still on the DB path but am struggling to detach in a healthy way. I want to do it with love and leave the door open for reconciliation but there is still a part of me that feels that in order to really detach, I need to dislike him for period of time. It wouldn’t be that tough to do. There is not a whole lot he has done in that past four years that has been remotely admirable. He’s been a wolf in sheep’s clothing...pretending to be a good husband and father who is being taken away from his family by a chronic illness when really he was just a coward who decided EVERY DAY to go off on his own and leave all of life’s other problems for his wife to deal with. It was masterful, really. He got to do whatever he wanted and whenever I got a bit unhappy about it, I would beat myself up for being so selfish cause at least I was home with my kids whereas he was in some hospital going through treatments. I am still having a hard time wrapping my brain around that. I could never lie like that - not to anyone. So why do I even want him in my life? I am pretty clear that I don’t want THAT guy but my assumption is that he is only that guy because of this crisis. What if he just IS that guy and I’m only just figuring it out?
So... just had a long conversation with his daughter since I wrote the other two paragraphs. She was feeling guilty about something and wanted to talk to me. Apparently she asked him a week ago if we were getting a divorce...a week after he told her we were “on a temporary break”... and he told her “yes” and that he just “doesn’t think he can do this anymore.” This? What this? Hide out and pretend to be someone you are not? And six weeks ago he wanted to come home. He has never said the D word to me...he won’t even call his living somewhere else a separation. Not gonna lie...that was tough to hear outloud but at the same time, I would have guessed that is where he is at. Hard to hear it from my stepdaughter before I hear it from him.
He’s going to be here tomorrow morning to get the kids. I think I am going to have to really try to put some distance between us. Things have been too friendly lately. I’ve been too friendly. I need to take a step back and get my head on straight.
Keep up the GAL to detach. If you start thinking about him find something, anything to do to get your mind off him.
Another note, with the WAS it sounds like the do a lot of cake eating, regards to LBS so they can keep them on plan B. Well it sounds like your H doesn't have OW, but he is cake eating. He gets to run off and be a bachelor then when he chooses he can come home and be a parent, H, etc. Sounds like he gets to use you to be his emotional punching bag.
H(37) W(35) D8, D5, S3 T20, M13 BD 8/31/18 EA Discovered 9/13/18 Mediation 10/3/18 W files for D 10/12/18 W moves out 11/10/18 EA confirmed 12/25/18 D Final 1/10/19
I am so sorry that you had the conversation with his daughter. When H and I had that conversation a few weeks ago, it hurt like hell. But he has not mentioned it since. I think they are both so confused and so racked with guilt that sometimes D seems the easy way out. Stay the course. If he sure he wanted to D, then you would have the paperwork.
Let me ask you this, since you found out about his secret, how many times have you just wanted to give up?. How many times have you said to someone you trust "things can't keep going on like this".
I know I said to someone recently that I wasn't sure if I wanted H back. Which isn't true. I was just trying to appear strong.
We should not mind read, but I know my H. His friends would know he has been dating. His friends like me. They would think that keeping me hanging is a [censored] move. So, I have no doubt that he has probably had conversations with people where he says "I think we will end up D'g". He does it so that people don't think he is a [censored]. He doesn't say it to me because he still doesn't know what he wants.
Plan B, definitely, but being Plan B doesn't mean sitting around on my [censored] waiting for him to pick me. It means giving him the space to work out what he wants and trying to get on with my life in the meantime.
Aww DejaVu, my heart goes out to you; I can understand how devastating that was to hear. This weekend my H has told his father that he lives elsewhere (father left a message on the ansaphone asking me to ring him) and it is a major step forwards for our S that he has done so. I'm not going to ring him because I know I will get all defensive as I doubt very much he has explained the full situation. I don't need to go looking for upset.
My opinion, for what it's worth, is that you are still struggling to detach because you are such a nice person. I think that you put the kids first, then his needs, then yours. As a mum you will always put the kids first but I still think you help him out too much in his situation.
Of course you cannot understand how he has done some of the things that he has done. None of us can understand it because we are not him. We don't need to understand it; he does. It is the reality though. It has happened and trying to understand it will keep you stuck in the past. You are comparing the past to the future and that leads us all to have fear. It'll be different, it may be harder for a while, but new things can be exciting and fulfilling.
I'd bet my bottom dollar that if you had an accident and lost a limb; you wouldn't wallow in self pity, you'd get on with your new reality and make it work. Because you are strong. It wouldn't change the fundamentals of who you are; you would be just as strong and successful but you would have to alter how you go about things.
If D did result from this then you would have a 'business' only arrangement with him. The only 'business' you have with him at the moment is the kids. He appears to be stepping up to the mark regards the kids, so let them get on with it. I think at the moment he sees and has access to the whole package when he wants it - wife and kids. He has not yet experienced what it feels like to be a divorced Dad.
Show him. Stop being a wife and become a polite 'business partner' If you see him every day, that's fine because you would see a business partner most days. Don't help him out by sending him nice texts about the kids, photos etc, he will have to create his own.
Is there something you could do to occupy yourself when you are on your own? I separate GAL (external) with self improvement (internal) in my head because sometimes GAL activities are tiring when you work full time and expensive. Is there something that you've put off doing because you are busy with the kids? An online course, reading, tapestry, cross stitch,knitting, a box set on TV that you've been meaning to watch. Something to make you concentrate and keep your mind occupied. Something that you will appreciate that you now have time to yourself.
A very good friend of mine gave me a stern talking to last week when I was upset and worrying for him and his future. He really has to stew in his own juices and realise the consequences of what he has done. I have no influence over whether that even happens BUT I shouldn't see this as the end of something but as the beginning. If he comes back, and we remain married then it's the start of a new marriage, if he doesn't then it's the start of a new me regardless.
I have to stop thinking that he's going to come to his senses and I tell myself daily that he isn't and force myself to do things as if he isn't eg packed his clothes into bin bags yesterday. Some days I have to fake it, but it is getting easier.
I have this little voice in my head that says that my detachment means that I have made it easier for him. But then, if my actions made his mind up for him, then he obviously wasn't prepared to fight for the marriage and doesn't want to be here.
Stay strong DV6 and find your selfish side a bit. Try to think 'I' thoughts not 'him' or 'we'.
I am sorry Djv, the thought of D is so painful, but maybe sometimes we have to go there and think that thought. It might happen, or it might not, but we have to be prepared for the worst. My H ha mentioned D a couple of times, because he could not really find women, who were willing to date a married man. What nerve to tell me that. And although he made it perfectly clear I am still clinging to the hope that he will miss me, once he has moved out and will change his mind, and I would still take him back. but if I am truly honest to myself, I don’t think he will. I too am more worried about the future now. Things like health insurance or retirement money were never on my mind until our separation. But we will get there step by step. Our lives did not just revolve around our husbands, there are other things in our life, that are important to us, our kids, our families, our jobs, our friends. We still have all of these. So we have to focus on the good things that are still there and enjoy them.
DejaVu - Sorry you had to hear from someone else that your H is throwing around the D word. In MC, prior to H moving out, I asked him if he was really considering D and whether he has met with a Lawyer, because if that's the way he really felt, he needs the guts to admit it to me. He said No, but my biggest fear is he will live his life separately for a while, cake-eat with the holidays, line up someone else, and just announce it one day he has had papers drawn up without even discussing it with me. That would be the height of cowardness, I think.
BUT - I have NO control over any of this!
All I can do is GAL, enjoy my kids, and keep Dbing. This is the only thing that will continue to move me on a path to inner happiness. The Serenity Prayer has so much wisdom, and I pray it often. I think it keeps me on the path going forward.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.
Thank you, thank you everyone from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to write such amazing responses to my post. That was so what I needed to hear right now and I know I will be reading them over and over in the coming days. I am feeling much better after a good night’s sleep alhough I forgot about the time change last night so set my alarm an hour earlier than I needed. Probably could have used that extra hour. I went to bed last night telling myself that, realistically, nothing has changed. Knowing my H said the D word to his daughter was difficult but I also know there is no way he would say it to our younger kids. I agree with you FS about telling people this so he doesn’t look like a a$$. I also think he was trying the idea on for size and saying it outloud to someone probably feels like it puts him one step closer. I actually don’t think he really knows what he wants which is why he hasn’t said it to me despite having many, many opportunities to do so.
My H and his D don’t have the typical father-daughter relationship. He came into her life when she was seven and it is only in the last few years that she has gotten closer to him. Of course, this situation has probably set them back a bit since now she thinks he is an idiot and she also knows that he lies. She’s had some struggles in her life with lying and feels like maybe it is a gene that he has passed on to her. Anyway...this may have been his misguided attempt at bonding with her as she was calling him about a recent break-up. He obviously didn’t think what it would be like for her to hear that from him especially since that is not what she would hear from me. But my H doesn’t think of these things. He also doesn’t realize that as much as their relationship has improved, she has always felt closer to me. She calls me her rock. I am the one person in her life that she feels like she can come to with anything and I will support her and help her figure things out. She thinks of her dad as a “typical guy” and not someone she can necessarily rely on even though she wants to. She talked to me about this last night because she didn’t want me to have my hopes up but also, I think, she is worried what divorce would mean for her relationship with me. I told her, no matter what, she is always a part of my family and will always have me in her life and a place in my home. My home. This was supposed to be OUR forever home but I need to stop calling it that. He is not here and it looks like he won’t be for a very long time - if ever. Time to get used to the idea and get my head out of the sand.
I’ve been thinking of ways to detach. Thanks Yorkie for your suggestions on stay-at-home GAL activities. I am definitely going to be looking into some of those options. I am also going to take advantage of some of the Over 40 Women’t s meetup group events. So far, a lot of them take place during the day when I am working or on days I play pool but there are some that might work out. The week after next I am playing in a five-day tournament so H will be parenting for five days straight. Hopefully my MIL won’t help him out too much.
