Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums Midlife Crisis H just moved out, 13 months post-bomb

Wow, look at all the people posting to me! I am just thrilled!! VH, I don't think you have ever posted to me before, so I feel especially honored!

Thank you all very much for the birthday wishes (and the hugs and support and suggestions too)! I got a fair number from my RL friends and relatives too, so that was really nice! (H was a complete no-show on that, but I pretty much expected it.) Two people left me messages singing "Happy Birthday" so I even had that!

My MLC friend called me about 7:45 p.m., while I was on the phone with my brother, to see if I wanted to go out to dinner with her and her H, so I did that...I brought a coupon and they brought a credit card. It wasn't my first choice of restaurant, because none of us have much money, and by the time we got organized it was after 9 p.m., but I told her I would have almost been willing to go to one of the cheapo restaurants that I hate, just to get out of the house! I didn't have ice cream, but I did have a very yummy piece of cheesecake. Maybe I will make ice cream over the holiday weekend (although I do need to get some work done).

My friend didn't drive me _completely_ crazy talking about her OM during dinner, although I did get to the point of my blood pressure rising some. I didn't feel right about putting her on the spot about it since her H was there and I don't feel it's appropriate to lay down the law in front of other people, even though I imagine it hurts him more to hear her talk about OM than it hurts me. But then she managed to work her OM into the conversation she was having with our waitress (if that's not a politically incorrect term), and after a solid five minutes of her yammering about how wonderful he was (she takes private music lessons from him, and she was focusing on that, not telling the waitress she was in love with the guy), I got up and went to the restroom just so I wouldn't scream. I swear, the next time I'm talking to her alone, and she starts up with the obsessive talking about him, there is going to have to be a really good reason for me not to tell her I'm done listening to it. I can understand not being able to talk about anything else in the beginning--didn't we all go through that with our spouses in the beginning?--but this has been going on for over a year now with her, and it's to the point of being ridiculous. It's gotten so that I cringe inwardly anytime she mentions him--she doesn't even have to say his name to trigger the reaction. This is absolutely crazy!

Okay, to respond to a couple of specific questions/comments since my last post:

AAL, I do have a couple of ongoing opportunities for biking/walking with other people, so I just need to overcome the inertia (which is _considerable_) and follow through. I hope y'all will keep pushing me, keep me accountable.

I have thought about the lawyer thing, but so far I haven't felt that was the right thing for me to do. I have no intention of filing, and I know that if he does, he may not be at all nice about it, but I just don't feel right about consulting a L beforehand. I don't have a whole lot to lose anyway, I don't think, but even if I did, I think I would still be hearing that this isn't what I'm supposed to do right now.

Jeff, interesting that you should say I'm a survivor. Someone else said that to me the other day, and I said, "Well, I'd rather be a succeeder, but..." And with the 30 years of depression, I never felt like a survivor, much less a succeeder. More like I was just too chicken to finally end the farce that is my life.

I feel a little differently now, though. Not that I'm actually happy to be alive--I've only been that way for very brief and very rare moments--but now I kinda feel like it's not my decision whether I live or die. If God hasn't taken me out yet, then I am responsible for doing the best I can in whatever situation I find myself in. In all honesty, I will admit that I hope for a fatal accident or quickly lethal illness. I'm not seeking those things out--I take pretty good care of myself, actually, which as H pointed out once, is sort of ironic for a suicidal person, and I am afraid of pain--but I seriously don't want to be here at all, and I haven't for years and years, although the crisis periods with H have been the worst of it. I just feel like if I stop wearing the mask and express what I really feel (although I'm not very good at hiding it for long periods), people will hate me. (I wear the mask less here than I do with anyone in my RL, but this is anonymous, and none of you are forced to interact with me...and you only know me through what I type on a screen.) I've felt this "mask entrapment" for a long time, and I don't know if that belief created a self-fulfilling prophecy with H, because I was always afraid that if I let him see the real me, he wouldn't love me. Well, I did, and he doesn't...although it took a while to come out, and he still claims to love me, but really, with friends like these...! "Love" that lies and cheats and betrays the one "loved"...I can do without.

Mishka, I do have homeowner's insurance, but I don't think by any stretch they would cover the pool liner. I suppose I could ask, but I don't have much hope; I think it's a maintenance issue, like having to replace a roof that's 25 years old, or painting every 15 years. I have to contact them about my phone number change anyway, so I guess I'll ask.

I don't pretend to be the be-all and end-all of Biblical interpretation, and I am aware that part of my thinking about the D-after-infidelity issue may be driven by fear, but I feel that God is telling me it's not right, at least for me--what other people do is between them and God. I believe it's wrong, but who am I to say that if I believe something, it must be true? I'm not that arrogant. I do definitely think there is right and wrong in God's eyes, and some things seem pretty clearly on one side or the other, but others are a little harder to be sure about. And who knows, we may all be wrong. I think we all have some of the truth...but none of us who are still living human lives have _all_ of it. And that's my attempt to not offend anyone even if we disagree.

Yes, I have to agree about my MLC friend being a hypocrite, and everything else you said about her. I don't have a lot of patience or respect for her these days, which is sad, considering the kind of morals she had when I met her. Yes, she believes her OM's homosexual behavior is wrong, and she isn't at all happy about it, but I think he could be a convicted mass murderer and she would still walk out on her decent-but-boring H and marry OM, in jail if necessary, if he convinced her that he wanted to have a future with her. She is so completely and utterly gaga delusional about him, it's like she has gone around the bend and over the cliff about him. I am so sad about this, because it's a milder version of what's happened with my H--she's around, and she actually likes me (unlike my H), but there are topics where you might as well be talking to a brick wall, for all the logic that penetrates. Oh, by the way, my H knows all about her EA, although a lot of people in her life don't...she says I am her closest female friend, and my H is her closest male friend (so I know our M issues are a trial to her), and she pretty much tells us everything about her life.

I don't know exactly why I haven't looked for an outside job, but it has a lot to do with fear, at multiple levels. That's the short answer (for once)! I will say that I hated, hated, HATED working in an office...although to be honest, most of the time when I was, it was when I was doing temp secretarial work, immediately post-college, and I had a big chip on my shoulder about it because I felt that with a degree in math and decent grades and other attributes, I should be able to find something better (I still feel that way, but I am more realistic now). It didn't help that this was 20 years ago, before smoking was banned indoors almost everywhere around here, and I would come home from work sick sometimes because I am allergic to cigarette smoke.

Lisa, haven't seen you posting as much lately, even though I do follow your thread, so thank you for stopping in and posting to me! I don't know if it's more that I am self-sufficient, or just that I am a total introvert! I finally understood, at the age of 35 or so, when I took the Myers-Briggs personality tests, why I get tired at parties after just a couple of hours, and then feel all energetic when I get home! It's because, as a bona fide tested introvert, being with people drains my energy, and being alone renews it! That was a real revelation. No wonder I was so tired after a day at the switchboard when I was working temp!

Anyway...yes, if I got a job, it would most likely come with insurance...but it would probably have to be a full-time job, because most part-time ones don't have insurance, and I'm afraid (there's the fear again) that if I took a full-time job, I wouldn't have time for the attention my calligraphy business needs, and that would be a big shame, because...well, what H has said (even as recently as a month ago, and even as little respect as he has for me otherwise) is that I am better at calligraphy than anyone he has ever met, including him, is at _anything_ whatsoever. I once estimated that there were maybe 300 people alive who could do what I can do with calligraphy, as well as or better than I can do it, and now I think it might be more like 200, which is more rare than 1 in a million...by my calculation, that makes me about 1 in 35 million. Pretty good...if you can figure out how to turn that level of skill into a decent living, which I haven't yet. I'm working on it, but obviously not hard enough.

I don't mind being reminded of what I should already know. Sometimes I start second-guessing myself, and sometimes I get lost in the forest. I am starting to wonder if I am supposed to contact him about something or other, even though we have been mutually dark for two months. I really don't want to talk to him as long as he is like this, but maybe that is just more fear talking. But what good will it do? I think he assumes that everything I say is a ploy or me trying to manipulate him, so I try to say as little as possible, even when he was asking to talk with me. I just felt that anything I said would be twisted to suit his purposes, so there was nothing good that would come out of anything more than just saying the bare minimum and being polite. Of course, not talking probably makes him say, "See, it's not my fault, she won't talk to me," but what am I supposed to do? There doesn't seem to be a win-win option here. If I expressed any opinion at all that wasn't 100% behind whatever he wanted, it seemed like he just used it as a jumping-off point to tell me how wrong I was, and he is definitely a better debater than I am.

I got some news in a birthday call that disturbed me. My "second mom," whose daughter was my best friend all through our childhood (we were only a month apart in age, and were next-door neighbors from age 6 to 14), lives halfway across the country and always calls me on my birthday. Last year when she called, I was out for dinner with H and my MLC friend and her H, and I wasn't ready to talk to her about the sitch with H, and I knew if I talked to her she would dig it out of me, so I didn't call her back...so until she called Wednesday, the last time I talked to her was two years ago, which was right before all this began. She was shocked and appalled, of course, and then she told me that her daughter (my childhood friend, who I talk to rarely but think of often, and I believe it is the same for her), found out 6 months ago that her H had been cheating on her (with a friend of hers, no less) for a year and a half...so about the same time my H got involved with his OW, but I found out about it a lot earlier than she did hers.

She ended up filing for D. They have two school-age kids, and my friend has been ill for nearly a decade (something wrong with her digestive system; she has been on IV feedings and hasn't had solid food in all that time). She was the breadwinner before and part of the time after she got sick, but now she is too ill to work, and she has no income (trying to get disability). Her H (who I didn't know very well, but liked) is refusing to send the court-ordered child support, living with OW and spending plenty of money, and apparently he was threatening the kids to make them lie to my friend about OW before she found out. My friend and her kids lost their house to her H and they are living with her mom, and mom says that if my friend didn't have a family with enough money to help her, she and the kids would be living on the street for all her H cares. As I understand it, her H just got worn out dealing with my friend's chronic illness. I am horrified that this is happening to her. At least I am physically healthy and don't have kids to protect from the nastiness. And she is only 6 months into this nightmare, so she's probably not developed even the amount of equilibrium that I have. I just feel so sad for all of us, all the broken homes, kids or no kids, all the shattered lives, the dreams destroyed...and all for something that isn't real. I'm just...sad. I am planning to try to reach my friend, maybe this weekend.

Okay, this post is plenty long, and I think I am starting to repeat myself, so it's time to quit. I am waiting for my pool liner to completely disintegrate--last I looked, there was about 10 feet of ripping that the patches had failed on already and it was only being held together by one inch of vinyl in the middle. I have visions of it springing loose like the cables on the Titanic's smokestacks when it was breaking apart during the sinking. I've about given up on having a functioning pool for the summer unless I can figure out some miraculous way to finance a liner replacement. Maybe I will get lucky and the insurance will cover it.

Thanks to everyone for not giving up on me! I appreciate you all!

Peace,
Dawn

Well, I was just reading Ali's thread, and she gently pointed out to me that maybe it would be better to post summaries that people could read more quickly and advise me on. I knew that, of course, but now I'm thinking about this novella I just posted, and it's mildly embarrassing how long it is. I know that what I tend to do is turn the bag over and shake it all out, and then go back later and prune it down, but sometimes the shaking takes so much time and energy that I don't have much left for the pruning!

So...I just wanted to say that I am going to make an effort to be more succinct in the future. If you have an opinion on that, feel free to say so (please be gentle, my ego is not made of steel!). Thank you for your patience with me!

Peace,
Dawn